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INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

CARL BUCHER

Pnftsior of Political Economy, Unitersify of Leipeig

TRAmtATED FROM THE THIRD GERMAN EDITION

S. MORLEY WICKETT, Ph.D.
Uciunr on Political Economy and Statistics. University of Toronto

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
190 r

'J- •'

< 1

57539

BY
HENRY HOLT & CO.

Published Jult 1901.

flOaCRT DrtuMMONb, pf^lNT£-', NLW fORfv.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The writings of Professor Bucher, in their German
dress, require no introduction to economists. His ad-
mirable work The Population of Frankfurt in the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Centuries, published in 1886, gave him
immediate celebrity with economic historians, and
left him without a rival in the field of historical statis-
tics. In his treatment of economic theory he stands
midway between the "younger historical school" of
economists and the psychological Austrians.» A full list
of his writings need not be given.2 But I may recall
his amplified German edition of Laveleye's Primitive
Property, his little volume The Insurrections of the Slave
Labourers, 143-129 b.c, his original and suggestive
Labour and Rhythm, discussing the relation between the

• A few facts and dates regarding Professor BUcher's career may not
be uninteresting. Professor BUcher was born in Prussian Rhineland in
.tl: . . ""Pleted his undergraduate studies at Bonn and G6ttingen
(1866-69). His rapid rise in the German scholastic world is evident
frotn his academic appointments : special lecturer at GSttingen (i86<>-
72 . lecturer at Dortmund (1872-73), at Frankfurt Technical School (187,-

S^r /p r""?J""^' ''"■"^'""^ °' ^'''''^''" ^' Dorpat. Russia
(I3S2). of Political Economy and Finance at Basel (1883-90). at Karls-
ruhe (1890-93). and at Leipsic (1893 to present). From 1878 to the close
of 1880 he was Industrial and Social Editor of the Frankfurter Ztitung
This may be found in the HandwSrterbuch d. Staatswiss

PREFATORY NOTE.

physiology and the psychology of labour, his investiga-
tions into trusts, and his co-editorship of Wagner's Hand-
book of Political Economy (the section Industry being in
his charge) as indicating the general direction and scope
of his researches. The present stimulating volume, which
in the original bears the title Die Entstchiing der Volkswift-
scliaft (The Rise of National Economy), gives the author's
conclusions on general industrial development. Some-
what similar ground has been worked over, among recent
economic ])ul)licatioiis. alone by Professor Schmoller's
comprehensive Crnndrisz dcr allgcmcincn Volksti'irtschafts-
Ichrc, Pt. I. But the method of treatment and the results
of the present work allow ii to maintain its unique position.
Chapters I. and II. outline the prominent features of
primitive economic life in the tropical zone. These real-
istic accounts of the " pre-economic stage of industrial evo-
lution," preceding the dawn of civilization, ably em-
phasize the kinship of economics and ethnology. In chap-
ter III. he presents brilliantly and concisely the suggestive
series of economic developmental stages of household,
town and national economy, based on the industrial rela-
tion of producer to consumer; and Chapter IV. offers a
masterly survey of industrial systems — domestic work,
wage-work, handicraft, commission work (house indus-
try), and the factory. With these chapters may be classed
Chapter V. The Decline of the Handicrafts. The re-
maining chapters analyze more specifically, from the
viewpoints of the individual and society, some of the great
processes of industrial evolution: union and division of
labour; the intellectual integration of society as effected
by the press; the formation of social classes; and the fur-
ther adjustment of labour through internal migrations of
population. At the same time they enrich economic
terminology with many telling expressions.

PREFATORY NOTE. v

" The worst use of theory is to make men insensible to
fact," Lord Acton remarked in the opening number of the
English Historical Review. Our author, with his store
of minute facts, his keen analysis and his broad and re-
freshing generalizations, has known how to avoid the
snare. His historical attitude is indicated by his advice
that " our young political economists " be sent on jour-
neys of investigation to the Russians, the Roumanians and
the southern Slavs rather than to England and America.
In the following pages, which in their present form I
trust do not entirely obliterate the pleasing style of the
original, his attention is, of course, devoted primarily to
economic rather than to social and other considerations.
The volume has had in Germany an unusually influ-
ential circulation, and has recently been translated into
French, Russian and Bohemian. As the preface notes,
it has done extensive service as a general introduction to
" economic thinking." Its use for this purpose, through
the medium of special transcriptions, has already been re-
marked at some American universities. The hope may be
indulged that its merits will now receive wider recognition,
and in some measure impart to the reader the stimulus
felt by the writer during a two years' attendance on the
author's lectures in 1895-97. Editorial annotations, it may
be added, have been confined to the narrowest limits.

In translating it I have had the valuable assistance of
my colleague. Dr. G. H. Needier, Lecturer on German,
University College, to whom I wish to express my deep
obligations. My thanks are also due Professor Biicher for
his patient answers to the many queries sent over the water
to him, to Professor Mavor for varied aid during the work
of revision, and to Mr. H. H. Langton and Mr. D.
R. Keys for help in correcting proofs.

PREFATORY NOTE.

For the convenience of the general reader a short sup-
plementary bibliography of recent works in English is
appended.

University of Toronto,
April 9, 1901.

S. M. W.

Haddon, Evolution of Art (,895) ; Lloyd Morgmn. Animal Life andlntel-
I'gfnce (1891). Habit and Instinct (1896) ; Kcane, Atan Past and Present
(1899); Spencer and Gillen, The Native Triies 0/ Central Australia (ii<)t)) ■
Mackenzie, An Jntroducttm to Social Philosophy (2d ed.. 1895) ; Giddings,'
I>imip!cs of Sociology' (1896); Gumplowicz, Outlines of Sociology ^trans!
1899); \.<^x\&. Economic Foundations of Society (ix2Ln^. i^^f))- Ashley Eco-
nomic History (2 pts.. 1888-92). Surveys Historic and Economic (1900)-
Gomme, The Village Community (1890) ; Cunningham, Growth of English
Industry and Commerce (2 vols.. 1890-92), IVesterr. Civilization (1898) •
^ocx\,. Life and Labours of the People (9 vols.. 1889-97); Mayo-Smith'
Emigration and Immigration (1890); Weber, The Growth of Cities (1899);
Hobson, The Evolution of Modem Capitalism (1894).

FROM THE PREFACES TO THE FIRST AND
SECOND GERMAN EDITIONS.

(April 1893 and November 1897.)

The lectures in this volume were originally delivered
before audiences that were not composed of specialists
exclusively. . . . Each lecture is complete in itself; the
same trains of thought are indeed occasionally repeated,
but in a different setting.

Yet it will readily be perceived that the different parts
have an inner connection, and supplement each other both
in subject and method. The fundamental idea running
through them all is expressed in the third. As need
scarcely be remarked, the lecture is not printed in the sum-
mary form in which it was delivered. I trust that the gain
in accuracy and fulness of statement has not been at the
expense of clearness.

The lectures are dominated by a uniform conception of
the orderly nature of economic development, and by a sim-
ilarity in the method of treating material. In both respects
this accords with the practice which I have consistently
followed ever since the inception of my academic activity
and which during continued scientific work has become
more and more clearly and firmly established. With the
present publication I accede to the wish expressed by many
of my former auditors in the only form at present possible.
a form of whose insufficiency I myself am fully conscious.

In preparing a second edition one thing was clear: the

vii

VIII

PREFACE.

book must be expanded in the direction in which it had
been most effective. At its first appearance I had hoped
that the little volume might exert some influence upon the
method of treating scientific problems; and indeed there
has appeared in recent years quite a series of writings by
younger authors (some of whom were seemingly wholly
unacquainted with my book), in which the resuUs of the in-
vestigations here published are taken into account. Tliis is
outwardly evidenced by the use of the concepts and the
technical expressions that I introduced into the litera-
ture of the subject, as if they were old. familiar, scientific
furniture. It is perhaps justifiable to infer from this that
the book has exercised some influence upon academic
teaching.

But it seems to have found its chief circulation in the
wider circles of the educated public, particularly among
college students, who have used it as a sort of introduc-
tion to economics, and as a preparation for economic
thinking. That naturally decided me to keep their wants
very particularly in view in revising the book. In order
to avoid misconceptions, however. I wish to state ex-
pressly that the employment of the book for this purpose
requires the concurrent use of a good systematic treatise
on the principles of jwlitical economy.

The better to meet the nee.I of the larger class just men-
tionerl, I have given some of the lectures of the first edition
a simpler form, expanding them where necessary and
eliminating needless detail. Extensive alteration, 'how-
ever, has been confmcd to the lecture on the Organization
of W ork and the l-..rmation of Social Classes. Here uni-
formity of treatment seemed to recommen.l a division into
two chapters (YUl and IX). .md such extensive ad.litions
as would serve to round off each in-lepen.lently of the
other. 1 he lecture on the Social Organization of the Pop-

PREFACE.

ulation of Frankfurt in the Middle Ages has been omitted
because it disturbed the greater uniformity aimed at for
the complete work, and because, as a purely historical ac-
count, it is better suited to a collection of sketches in social
and economic history, for which opportunity may perhaps
be found later.

On the other hand three unpublished lectures have been
added (Chaps. I, V, and VII). The fust of these deals
with the pre-economic period, and is intended to furnish
the substructure for the system of economic stages which
is developed in the third chapter. Its main features were
sketched as early as 1885, in a lecture I delivered at the
University of Basel on the beginnings of social history.
. . . The second agrees in the major part of its matter,
and also to a large extent in its form, with the report upon
handicrafts that I presented at the last general meeting
of the Social Science Club in Cologne. It seems advisable
to give it a place in order to afford the reader at one point
at least an insight into the great changes that are in prog-
ress in the held of modern industrial life. The third [en-
titled " Union of Labour and Labour in Common "] is an
attempt to lay before a wider circle of readers, in the form
in which I finally presented it to my university classes, a
chapter from the theory of labour to which I have given
considerable attention.

All the lectures in this volume, both old and new. were
originally sections of university lectures. Every lecturer
knows what a wonderful contpilation his note-book is. how
from semester to semester certain portions must be re-
moved and reconstructed, how some parts are never
approached without an inward struggle, and how tinally
the remaining ditViculties are surmounted and the whole
given a form satisfactory alike to teacher and students.
To the lecture-room first of all belono- the fruits of

* PREFACE.

the scientific labours of the German university professor;
but he also naturally wishes to submit what he has labori-
ously accomplished to the critical judgment of specialists;
and for my part I feel in such cases the further need of test-
ing the maturity of my conceptions by seeing whether they
can be made intelligibly acceptable to a wider range of
readers. So th^t all the lectures that have been taken over
from the first edition were actually delivered before a more
popular audience, while Chapters I and VII are essays in
the same style. In the extent of their subject-matter, how-
ever, they all reach far beyond what can be offered directly
to students in a university lecture.

In conclusion I may allude to two attacks that have
been delivered by historians against some parts of the third
and fourth lectures. The blame surely does not rest with
nie if these gentlemen have failed to perceive that this
work treats of economic theor>-. not of economic history.
I le who, in the outline of a period of de\'elopment extend-
ing over thousands of years, expects a minute and ex-
haustive presentation of the actual condition of any par-
ticular people and centun-. need blame only himself if he
is disappointed. In the first edition I expressed myself
clearly enough. I think, regarding the logical character of
the economic stages. In the present edition I have taken
(H-casion. however, to give the passages in question such a
form that in future they cannot with good intentions be
misuii.lerstood. . . . Though fdr the central idea of my
theory of development it is altogether immaterial whether
I have in every particular characterized the economy of
the (Ireeks and Romans correctly or not. or whether the
guild handicraft of the Midille .\ges was chiefly wage-wx>rk
or chiefly independent hand-work {,' price-work *').

PREFACE TO THE THIRD GERMAN EDITION.

In the present edition, bearing in mini the way in which
this book came into existence and has since expanded, I
felt strongly impelled to mark my appreciation of the
recognition it has gained, as indicated by several editions
and by translations into French, English. Russian, and
Bohemian, by preparing additional chapters to remove a
number of gaps still noticeable in the last issue. If I have
not yielded to the temptation, it is chiefly for the reason
that a larger bulk would necessarily prejudice the wider
circulation of the volume.

The most disturbing want has been met by the insertion
of a new chapter on the economic life of primitive peoples
(Chapter II). The chapter differs from the more detailed
one in volume 3 uf the Yearbook of the Gehe Stiftung
in its more summar>- form and in the addition of some not
unimportant facts.

All the other chapters have been carefully revised and
many slight improvements made. More extensive alter-
ations are confmed to Chapters I. III. Vll, and VIII.

May the book in its present form satisfy its old friends
and add new ones to the number!

C.\RL Pii'CHER.
Lkipzk,. Oct. 15, 190a

CONTENTS

rAcs

Prefatory Note iii

From the Prefaces to First and Second Ge^.man Editions... vii

Preface to Third German Edition xi

Chapter I. — Primitive Economic Conditions i

II. — The Economic Life ok Primitive Peoples 41

N^ III.— The Rise of National Economy 83

IV. — A Historical Survey of Industrial Systems... 150

V. — The Decline of the Handicrafts 185

VI. — The Genesis of Journalism 215

VII.— Union of Labour and Labour in Common 244

jt- VIII.— Division of Labour 282

IX.— Organization of Work and the Formaiion of

Social Classes 315

X.— Internal Migrations of Population *ni) the

Growth of Towns Considered Historically 345

Index 387

CHAPTER I.

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

All scientific investigation of industry starts with the
assumption that man has a peculiar " economic nature "
belonging to no other living creature. From this eco-
nomic nature a principle is supposed to spring, which con-
trols all his actions that are directed to the satisfaction of
his wants. This is the economic principle, the fundamen-
tal principle of economic activity. This principle reveals
itself in man's endeavour always and everywhere to attain
the highest possible satisfaction with the least possible sac-
rifice (labour)— the " principle of least sacrifice."

According to this view all man's economic actions are
actions directed toward an end and guided by considera-
tions of profit. Whether or not the final impulse to eco-
nomic labour is to be sought in the instincts of man (the
instinct of self-preservation and of self-interest), the satis-
faction of these instincts is always the result of a series of
successive mental operations. Man estimates the extent
of the discomfort that -ould arise from the non-satisfac-
tion of a want felt by him; he measures the discomfort that
the labour necessary to meet the want can cause him; he
compares tlie discomforts witli each <ithcr. and resolves to
undertake the labour only when the accompanying sacrifice

a PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

is less than the sacrifice of remaining unsatisfied. More-
over, upon undertakmg the labour he again chooses the
least burdensome among the various possible methods of
procedure, and thus has a further series of considerations,
estimations. comi)arisons, and judgments to enter upon.

In fact the whole science of political economy proceeds
on the assumption that economic actions have behind them
a rational motive and call into play the higher mental facul-
ties; and it ha-^ evolved a kind of psyciiology of labour, by
means of whic.i it seeks to explain those actions in their
typical progress. Economic activity is, therefore, some-
thing especially human; indeed the question whether the
lower animals display similar activity, seems never to have
been broached. The economic nature of man is something
absolute, inseparable from the very character of man.'

Yet even among civilized mankind, from whose manifold
activity the principle of economy has lieen deduced, indi-
cations are not wanting to sl.ow that the economic nature
must be characteristic of different individuals in different
degree. Between the industrious and the indolent, the
provident and the improvident, the sparing and the spend-
thrift, there are innumerable gradations; and if we only
observe the conduct of the child towards his possessions,
we are easily convinced that the " economic nature " must
be acquired anew by each human being, and that it is a
result of education and custom, in which individuals dififer
no less than in their whole physical and mental develop-
ment.

Having once reached this point, we shall scarcely be

•"The elements of economic character are firmly rooted in the
physical and intellectual (irKanization of man, and change just as little
n-^ his (.utward character does, at least in the periods which come within
the scope of the history of mankind." -Wagner, Grmdlegung d. polit.
OekoHomk (,v Aufl.), I, p. 82. [As for animal sociology, it can hardly
be said to have advanced as yet hcyond animal psychology.— Eu.]

PRIMITII^E ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

able to postpone the question, whether indeed that " eco-
nomic nature " does not, for mankind in general, signify
something acquired rather than something given by na-
ture; and whether we must not assume at the beginning
of human evolution a period of purely instinctive satisfac-
tion of wants reaching over many thousands of years, such
as we are accustomed to take for granted in the case of the
lower animal.

The answer to this question can be gained only by pro-
ceeding inductively. The picture of primitive man that we
make for ourselves must be not an imaginary one — no
Robinson Crusoe story such as is so often encountered in
the deductions of the " classical " economists. Its lines
must all be drawn from reality; they must show us the
actuality of the assumed conditions under which uncivil-
ized man lives and the impulses under which he is con-
ceived to act and later also think. Civilized man has al-
ways had a great inclination to read his conceptions and
feelings into the mind of primitive man; but he has only
a limited capacity for understanding the latter's undevel-
oped mental life and for interpreting, as it were, his nature.

To be sure, aboriginal man in actual existence can no-
where now be found. Great as is the number of primitive
peoples that have gradually come within our ken. none of
them stands any longer at the lowest stage of savagery;
all show traces of the first step in civilization, for all know
the use of fire.

Many writers, it is true, have imagined, under the stim-
ulus of evolutionist theories, that they hail succeeded,
now here, now there, in discovering populations pre-
serving the original animal state down to the present.
As late a writer as Sir John Lubbock is inclined to
deny to several tribes of the South Sea Islands a
knowledge of fire, O. Peschel has been at pains to

PRmiTlVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

prove that the instances adduced by Lubbock are in-
correct; 2 and with him we may regard as vaHd the asser-
tion that upon the whole earth the tribe that has not made
use of fire is yet to be found. Even the prehistoric cave
discoveries, which show us men of the Ice Age along with
the bear, the aurochs, and the reindeer, show traces of the
use of fire. Fire indeed is a powerful influence in the direc-
tion of civilization. It enlarges man's sphere of suste-
nance, teaches him to harden the points of the wooden
arrows and spears, to hollow out the tree, and to frighten
away the wild beasts.

Other investi<:;fators have imagined they have discovered
human beings who lived together in small groups in trees,
had fruits for food, and used only stones and cudgels as
weapons and instruments, after the fashion of the higher
apes. Frederick Engels^ is of the opinion that by this as-
sumption alone can we explain the continued existence of
man alongside the great beasts of prey. Lippert,who inves-
tigates the case more carefully,^ finds, it is true, that in the
myth of the Egyptians the tree plays a certain role as an
abode of spirits; inn he is prudent enough not to conclude
from this that the ancestors of the Egyptians dwelt in
trees, — more prudent than the philoloi^ist Lazarus Geiger,
who discovered a relic of tree-dwelling in the hammock
used by the South American Indians. It is true that in
Sumatra, Luzon, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and

'Races of Man (New York. 1888), pp. 137 ff. I know, indeed, that
the Anicricin writer Teale (quoted i)y Lippcrt. Kultwgcschichte der
Mcnschhcit. I. p. 5_>) has cdntradicted him in one instance. Mundt-
LaufT lias also, according to Pesclul in " Natiir " for the year 1879, p.
4-8, denied the ii^e of cooked food hy the Xei;ritos in tlte IMiilippines,
but his assertions again liave been refuted by .\. Schadenberg in the
Ztschr. f. Ethnologie, XII (1880), pp, 14,^4. [Xo ethnologist would
now claim fireless tribes as known in actual existence. — En.]

* Der Ursprung dcr Familic, des Privatcigciituws u. dcs Staats. p. 7.

* As above, pp. 67 ff.

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. 5

among the Gaberi negroes in Central Africa, huts have
been found built in between the branches of large trees; »
and the same is reported of individual forest tribes of South
America.® But so far as these products of primitive archi-
tecture are not mere temporary protective structures that
are supplemented by permanent dwelling-places upon the
ground, they are by no means the most unfinished of hab-
itations, and the peoples using them prove by many kinds
of implements, utensils, and domestic animals, and some
of them even by the agriculture they carry on, that they no
longer stand at the first dawn of civilization.

After what has been said there can be no object in
searching out uncivilized peoples and beginning with a
description of them, after the example of Klemm who
opens his General History of Civilization with the Fo'-est
Indians of Brazil, although it is not to be denied that e
stand at a very low cultural stajje indeed. In the & ne
connection other investigators cite tribes standing at no
higher stage: the Bushmen in South Africa, the Batuas
in the Congo basin, the Veddahs in Ceylon, the ^lincopies
in the Andaman Islands, the Negritos in the Philippines,
the Australians of the continent, the now extinct Tas-
manians, the Kubus in Sumatra, and the Tierra-del-Fue-
gians. To whom to adjudge the palm for savagerv might
be difficult to decide. O. Peschel ' finds individual ele-
ments of civilization among them all, even among the
Botokudos, whom he himself considers still nearest the
primitive state.
The assumption of such a primitive condition, in which.

' Nachtigal, Sahara u. Sudan, II, pp. 628 flf. Finsch. Samoafahrten.
pp. 271 f. Ratzel. \-6lkerkunde. I. pp. loi, 105, 245, 386; li, p. 83.
[Its different arrangement precludes citation from the admirable Eng-
lish edition: The History of Mankind. 2 vol?., London, 1896-97.— Ed.]
Waitz, Anthropologic d. Naturvolker. Ill, p. 393.

' Races of A/oi;, pp. 149 ff.

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

armed witli no other resources than are at the command of
the lower animal, man has to join in tlie struggle for exist-
ence, is one of the necessary expedients of all sciences that
aim at a history of man's development; and this is true of
sociology' and especially of political economy. We must,
however, abandon the attempt to exemplify the primitive
condition by any definite people. On the other hand, there
is more prospect of scientific results in an endeavour to
collect the common characteristics of the human beings
standing lowest in the scale, in order, by starting with
them, to arrive at a i)":ture of the beginnings of economic
life and the formation of society. But in this it is by no
means necessary to confine ourselves to the above-men-
tioned representatives of the lowest manner of life; for
every delimitation of that kind would challenge objections
and contract the field of vision. Moreover the various ele-
ments of mental culture and material civilization are by
no means so mutually dependent that all must necessarily
develop at an equal pace, and thus we find among almost
all primitive peoples characteristics that can have sprung
only from the most ancient mode of life. The collection
of these characteristics, and their combination into a
typical picture, must, however, be our first task.

Hitherto the process has usually been made too simple
by deriving the characteristics of primitive man from civil-
ized economic man. The many wants of man in a state of
nature, so it has been argued, demanded for their satisfac-
tion exertions beyond the capacity of the individual; pro-
tection from wild bea:;ts or from the unchained elements
could likewise be attained only by the labour of many.
Accordingly writers have spoken of a collective carrying-
on of the struggle for existence, and thus have had " prim-
itive society " and a sort of communistic economy com-
plete.

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIJSS.

But man has undoubtedly existed through immeasur-
able periods of time without labouring. If so disposed,
one can find plenty of districts upon the earth where
the sago-palm, the plantain-tree, the breadfruit-tree, the
cocoa- and date-palm, still allow him to live with a mini-
mum of exertion. It is in such districts that tradition is
fondest of placing paradise, the original home of mankind;
and even modern research cannot dispense with the as-
sumption that mankind was at first bound to such regions
of natural existence and only by further development be-
came capable of bringing the whole earth into subjection.
Of unions into organized society we find, moreover,
hardly a trace amon- the lowest races accessible to our
observation. In little roups * like herds of animals they
roam about in search of food, find a resting-place for the
night in caves, beneath a tree, behind a screen of brush-
wood erected in a few minutes to shelter them from the
wind, or often in a mere hollow scooped in the ground,
and nourish themselves chiefly with fruits and roots,
though all kinds of animal food, even down to snails, mag-
gots, irrasshoppers, and ants are eaten also. The men as
a rule . t armed simply with bow and arrow or with a
throwing-stick; the chief implement of the women is the
digging-stick, a pointed piece of wood, which they use in
searching for roots. Shy when they come in contact with
members of a higher race, often malicious and cruel, they
lead a restless life, in which the body, it is true, attains the
maximum of agility and dexterity, but in which technical
skill advances only with extreme sluggishness and one-
sidedness. The majority of peoples of this type know
nothing whatever of potter>- and the working of metals.
Even of wood. bast, stone, and bone they make but limited
'Comp. en this point E. Grosse. DU Format dcr Familie und die

ii: iicr ;; irtscn^r:. p.

» PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

use, and this use leads in no way to a stock of utensils and
tools, which indeed it would I)e impossible to carry about,
I)ecause of their nomadic life, bearing as it does the char-
acter of one continuous search for food."

•In order to puppleniunt this general account by a few details I will
here introduce ;i portion oi the description of the NcRritos in the
Philippines published in the work by A. Scliadenberg. cited above.
I Mive for the most par' his own words:— The women among the
Etas bear easily and (piickiy. Until able to walk, the child is carried
by the mother, generally on the left thiRh. in which case it assumes
a sort of riding posture; or upon the back, as soon as it is able to
hold Itself on. The mother nur^e^ it for about two years. .\t about
the tenth year puberty comes; the Negrito youth is then tattooed,
and from the moment when this decoration of his body is finished he
IS iiiuependent. He accordingly hjoks about him for a male, who has
in tile majority of cases been selected for h 'ii beforehand and who.
if possible, belonRS to the same " family." The members of a " family,"
which generally numbers twenty to thirty persons, are under the con-
trol of an elective chieftain, who decides upon the camping-places
and the time for breaking up. The family life is patriarchal in char-
acter The father has imlimitid power over the members of his
family; he can chasiisi them and even barter away his children; the
woman occupies a subordinate position and is treated as a chattel.
The Negritos carry on barterni',,' wiih the Tagalas; in this way they
get supplies, chiefly of iron, in exchange for honey and wa.\. By
means of the iron thus ac(|uircd they i>reparc part of their weapons,
whi-'h consist of hunting-knives, .irrows. bows, and -pears The
Negritos ,ire also very clever at throwing stones, in which they arc
greatly a--i-ted by their keenness of vision. .\ ston.- in the hand of
an otherwise unarmed Negrito is thus an otTensive and defensive
wenpon not to be despised. Their clothing is very scant, hardly more
th.iii a lireich-clou; l)omestn- utensils f.ir periiMiieiU use are
scarcely fotiiid at ill ;niio!ii.' the I'.i.is; soiiu'iimes ,i clay vessel got
by barter witlt the M,il:i>>. ,in<l as a rule .' piei e of bimboo from
tliree lii fiiiir fmtns in |. iigtii lor li.il.luig drinkiu'.; w;i<er. Their
toes ,,rr pnlien-ile. :i"d iir-- of me it a-sis|:iiice to tlii'iii in cliiii!>:;i^;
111 t!ie iralicr (.f imul tlir> .ire not i.isiidioii^ ; it is both amm;il ,ind
M'.M'iab'e 111 chai.utrr — roots. Iiuiiey, lr..g,, il.er, wild bo.ar. etc. .A
Sp.ini-li e;iie-.i:i-iir dcM-rilfes tin ni ,i^ follow,: "Tin pure .\itos or
Negrito, l.acl a s,c!u(lr.| life; th.y li.ive ii.. fised dwelling-place and
d.. not l.irM ti;'?- Tli,- i.hIkt. tli.' iiiotlnr. and the children ;ire all
pr.fvided wi'h arrows, each lining Ins tiwti. .md tiny -et out together

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. 9

These peoples liave been designated "lower nomads";
but it can scarcely be proven that actual hunting forms
their chief means of sustenance. They all make use of
vegetable food as far as it is at all obtainable, and with
those who live in a warmer climate this food seems to pre-
dominate. Stores of such fruits and roots they do not
gather, though a region of plentiful supplies attracts a
greater number of members of the tribe, as a rich feeding-
ground draws together many lower animals; when it is
exhausted they scatter again. And similarly as to the
mollusks and insects which they consume; each individ-
ual at once swallows what he finds; joint household life
is as little known as is a house. It is only when a large
animal has been killed or found dead (the fondness for
meat in a state of decay is widespread) that the whole
group assemlile,"^* and each devours is much as he can;

upon the hunt. When they kill ,1 dicr or a hoar, they halt at the
spot where the animal has fallen, scoop a hole in the ground, place
the animal in it and then build a fire. I'ach one takes the piece of
the animal that suits his taste hest and roasts it at the fire. And so
they go on eating until they have tilled their bellies, and when thus
satiated they sleep on the earth which they have hollowed out, as
pigs do when they have gorged themselves. W'heTi they awake
they go through the same operation, and so on until ;ill the meat is
dev.mrod: then they set out upon the hunt at;ain." They observe no
fixed times for sleeping and eatmg, but follow necessity in both cases.
They age early; at forty or fifty the mountain Xe^ritos are decrepit,
white-haireil. bent old iiifii. — Compare further the de^rriptii>n> of
the I?otokiidos by l^hrenreich, Zl^chr f. I-.;hnol , \1\. pii 1 tT; of
the Hororo^ by K \. d Steinen. (itUr d Wititnolh. Ci-ntiiil-Hrjsii ,
PP- .iSS <T. : of the Riishmen by I•'rit^ch, a^ abo\e, pp 4iStT ; of the
Veddahs by V. and I" Sarasin. /'iV U'cdJils foil ( rvA'/l; of the .\us-
trdians by Hreniaiio. Ztschr, f. Sozial- ti. Win^rliaftsneschichte, I,

PP- i.(.l-4

'" I'rom the custom prevalent among some of the lower tribc^ of
procliiiniii),; the tindin.ir of food by means of lnuci call-. Lippert, as
abo\e, I. p J4(), coiiclu'lc- tli.it "the coti^iile'i'ion dne to the fami'y "
is cxprPNScd m ibn n iv It! ibi.. inmn-.-lMti il is in ti,. i li>rrv I'd ili.at

rRlMlTiyE ECCSOMIC CONDITIONS.

but tlic method nf hunting these animals strongly resem-
bles the proce»lure of the wild beast stealing upon its prey.

With their imperfect weapons these peoples are hardly
ever in a position to kill an animal instantly; the chief
task of the hunter consists in pursuing the wounded game
until it sinks down exhau.-.ted."

Regarding the constitution of the family among peo-
ples of this class, there has been much discussion. Of late
the opinion seems to be gaining ground that there exists
among them a fellowship between man and wife that ex-

onds beyond a mere -exual relationship and is of life-long
duration; while upon the other hand it cannot be denied
that in case of a scarcity of food those loose groups easily
split up. or at least individual members detach themselves
from them. Only between mother and child is the rela-
tionship particularly close. The mother must always take
her little one along with her on the march; and for that
purpose she usually fastens it in some way on her back, a
custom that is very general among all primitive peoples,
even where they have gone over to agriculture. For sev-
eral years the child must be nurtured at the breast or from
the mother's mouth, but it soon acquires skill in procuring
its food independently, and often separates itself from the
community in its eighth or tenth year.

All the tribes involved in our survey belong to the
smaller races of mankind, and in bodily condition give the

many animals (for ixaniple, our domestic fowl) have the :ame cus-
tom. True, he lays stress upon the fact that no one thinks of collect-
ing' stores of provision*. 'Inercfore, we are, lurther. not justified in
agreeinff to the proposal that has recently been made from several
sides t" designate these peoples is gatherers of stores {Samnilcr).

" Ciinip. li. Fritsch. DU- lliitgeboretun Stid-.lfrikas, pp. Jti4. 4^5;
Pofivre, Im Krichf d. Muatn Jiinin'o. pp. .128-0; W'issniann. /m Innem
.-Jfri'i,?. (!•>. ::'(). -,41; Martins, Zur Lthiwgral'Ue Aiicrikas, cufflal
Brasilu'is. pp. <'('5 ff.

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC COSDITIOSS.

1 1

impression of backward:, stunted gro-.vth. We are not on
that account, howe'.er, ju^f.ne'i :n re.i'ar iing them as ce-
generate race fragrr.en-s. The evylence rather goes to
sho'.v that the more a'i anccl races o.ve their higher
physical development merely to the reg"u',ar and more
plentiful supply of food -Ahich agriculture and cattle-
raising for centuries ;'.'a-t have placed within their reach,
while the peoples here in question have always remained
at the same stage. Subject to all the vicissitudes of the
weather and the fortune of the chase, thev revel at times
in abundance and devour incredible mas-es of food: :tiil
oftener. however, they sufrer bitter wan:, and their only
article of clothing, the breech-clout, is for them, really the
■"hunger-strap" ' " Schmachtnemien "i A Germ.an story,
which they tighten -d^^ in order to alleviate the pangs of
gnawing hunger.' -

How from this stage of primitive existence the pa.h
leads upward is manifest in countless typical e.\ample5
furnished by ethnology. In addition to the collection of
wild fruits and roots, the womian takes over the cultiva-
tion o: food-plants. This she carries on at nrst witli the
customary digging-stick, later with a short-handled hoe.
The man continues hi; hunting ani' ti-hing. which, in rich
hunting-grounds and ui'h more ['Crfect v. eap'^n-. he can
make so pr luctive that \'rt/ f-.irni-h the greater ---art of
his food. .\t times he supplements these by cattle-raiding.
In the procuring of :oo<i each sex has it- sharply denned
-phete of duties ti> vvhioh with advancing technical skill
there are added in each ca«e •- .iriou^ industrial arts, which
a- .'i rule retain their connecti'.n witii the "riginal produc-
tion and occupation .Among advanced primitive peoples

"-c- the Bu^hr-.er. ccT.p Fr.!^;h. at i'--.': ;. 405. -jn the .Xus-
•ra'i-i-- Pesch*!, PiCff f M:n p \u: r. the Botokud^j. Ehrenreich

PRlM/r/yE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

all economic activity may be traced back to combinations
of these elements; but in its details such labour is entirely
dependent ui^on local natural conditions. We should
therefore not be justified in any attempt to construct sta-es
of development intended to hold equally good for negroes
Papuans, Polynesians, and Indians.

But wherever we can observe it, the method in which
primitive peoples satisfy their wants reminds us continu-
ally in many of its features of the instinctive doings of the
lower animals. Everywhere their existence is still far from
settled, and even the unsubstantial huts they erect are for
the majority only temporary structures which, however
much they vary from place to place and from tribe to tribe,
always remain true to a type, and remind us of the nests of
birds, which are deserted as soon as the brood is fledged.
When Lippert finds the fundamental and controlling
impulse to cultural development in material foresight, he
undoubtedly makes an advance upon earlier investigators;
but the phrase itself is not happily chosen. It is utterly
impossible to speak of foresight, in the sense of providing
for the future, in connection with primitive peoples.
Primitive man does not think of the future; he does not
think at all; he only wills, that is, he wills to preserve his
existence. Tlie instinct of self-preservation and self-grati-
fication is the prime agent of development, compared with
which even the sexual instinct takes quite a secondary
place.

Wherever it has been possiI)Ie for Europeans to observe
men in primitive conditions for any k-ngth of time they
tell us of the incomparable dulncss and mental inertness
which strike the neholder; of their indifference tr. the sub-
limcst phenomena of nature, their complete lack of interest
in evcr\thing that lies outside the individual self. The
savage is willing to cat. sleep, and. wh .tc ncccssarv. to pro

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

tect himself against the greatest inclemencies of the
weather: this is his whole aim in life.

It is therefore entirely false and contrary to numer-
ous well-accredited observations when Peschel straightway
ascribes to savages a peculiar wealth of fanciful imag-
inings of a religious nature, and thinks that the closer the
approach to the condition of nature the greater the range
of belief. He evidently assumes that the course of the sun
and the other phenomena of the heavens must be infinitely
more impressive and stimulative of active thought to the
primitive than to the civilized man. But that is by no
means the case. Both among the Indians of Brazil and
among the negroes, when travellers have asked about
these things, the response has been that people never
thought about them; and Herbert Spencer '•' has collected
an abundance of examples which show that the lover races
do not manifest any interest even in the most novel phe-
nomena. The Patagonians, for example, displayed utter
indifference when they were made to look into a mirror;
and Dampier reports that the .\ustralians whom he had
taken on board of his ship paid attention to nothing but
what they got to eat. Burton'* calls the East .\fricans
" Men who can think, but who, absorbed in providing for
their bodily wants, hate the trouble of thinking. His [the
East African's] mind, limited to the object seen, heard,
and felt, will not, and apparently can not, cscaj^e from the
circle of sense, nor will it occupy itself with aught but the
present. Thus he is cut off from the pleasures of memory,
and the world of fancy is altogether unknown to him." "■'
The same force, then, that impels the lower animal, the

" Prmciplcs of Sociology, vol. I. 8§ 45-6.

I* The Lake Regions of Central Africa ( New York, iWx)), p 480.

"Oiinp. tlie siniil.ir opinion of the mission.iry Cr.in?. Ifistorie von
Cronlatid (Frankfurt. 1780). p. i6.i, at.d Lubbock. Oriem -f Civili:atioH
(4th ed.). pp. 51^ 7,

.^i0

PRIMITiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

instinct for preserving its existence, is also the dominant
instinctive impulse of primitive man. This instinct is lim-
ited in scope to the single individual; in respect of time,
to the moment at which the want is felt. In other words:
the savage thinks only of himself, and thinks only of the
present. What lies beyond that is as gootl as closed to his
mental \ ision. When, therefore, many observers reproach
him with a boundless egoism, hardness of heart towards his
fellows, greed, thievishness, inertness, carelessness with re-
gard to the future, and forgetfulness. it means that sym-
pathy, memory, and reasoning power are still entirely un-
developed. Nevertheless it will be wise for us to make
these ver}' characteristics our starting-point, in order to
comprehend the relation of primitive man to the external
world.

In the first place, as concerns the egoism of the savage
and his harducs. of heart towards his nearest relations, this
is a natural consequence of the restless nomadic life in
which each individual cares only for himself. It shows
itself most prominently in the extraordinarily widespread
custom of infanticide, which extremely few primitive peo-
ples are entirely free from.'* The children impede 'he
horde on the march and in the search for food. Therein
lies the chief reason for their removal. Once become a
custom, infanticide lives on in later stages of civilization;
indisputable traces of it have been found not merely among
the primitive peoples of Asia, Africa, America, Australia,
and Polynesia, but even among the Arabs, the Romans,
and the Greeks.

To infanticide is universally ascribed the exceptionally
slow increase of the uncivilized races. But this is also de-
pendent upon their short lives, and long lactation pe-

"' Comp. Lippert, II, pp. 201 flf. ; R.itzcl, lolkcrkunde, I, pp. 108, J54,
252, 277, 306, 338, 425.

PRlMITiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. 15

riods, during which, as is well known, conception rarely
occurs, and this it is which forms the chief cause of their
protracted tarrying at the same stage of civilization. That
the natural bond between parents and children is nowhere
very firm is seen also in the extremely common custom of
adoption.'^ It is even said, for example, that in the " fam-
ilies " of the Mincopies the children of other parents are in
the majority. It is significant that between thtir own and
their adopted chililren they make, as a rule, not the slight-
est difference. Adoption may have arisen from the substi-
tution of child-exposure for infanticide. If the natural
mother was not in a position to take the new-born child
along with her. perhaps another woman who was childless
could, and thus the life of the child was saved.

Recent ethnographers have been at great pains to prove
that the strength of maternal love is a feature common
to all stages of civilization. It is, indeed, a matter of
regret to us that we find wanting in our own si>ecie5 a
feeling that exhibits itself in such a pleasing way among
many families of lower animals. Rut there have l>een too
many observations s!''owing that among the lower races
the mere care for one's own existence outweighs all other
mental emotions, in fact that be>i'!e it nothing e'^e is of the
least importance. .Ml observers are amazed and even in-
dignant at the ir.ditlerence with which children, when (;nce
they can shift for themselves, separate from their blo^jd-
relations.''* Vet we have here onlv the reverse side of that

" Comp. Luhhook, Origin of Ci7i!i:atirii, pp. o;-6,

"Co;iip. the strikintj example -n R.itzel. l',4kerkuttde, I, p. 677. of a
tiny of Tierr.i iJel Fucro who, when taken on board a European ship,
did nut show the slighte'-t grief over the separation, while his paretits
were delighted to get a few necklace* and some bi-cuits in return fijr
him. The seHing "f children and women into slaver>- doe.s not occur
in .Vfrica alone. Martius. as above, p uj Cump. Pjit, Afr. Juris-
frudeti:, I, p. 94.

PRIMlTiyE FCONOMIC CONDITIONS.

hardness of lieart which " enables husbands to refuse food
to tlieir wives, and fathers, to deny it to their hungering
children, wlien they tliemselves would but feast upon it."

This same trait of unbounded selfishness is manifest in
the regardlessness with which many primitive peoples
leave behind them on the march, or exjKise in solitary
places, the sick and the aged who might be an impediment
to the vigorous.'" This trait has often been interpreted
as a sign of superstition, as due to the fear of evil powers
to whom the illnesses are ascribed. And in fact in the case
of tribes that have become settled and whose means of sub-
sistence would admit of the care of the sick, appearances
favour such an explanation. But at the same time it is
forgotten that customs, once firmly rooted, perpetuate
themselves with great persistence, even when the causes
that gave rise to them have long since passed away.

I'rom exposure to intentional killing is only a short step.
Indeed we find even among peoples on a higher plane of
civilization that old age is deplored as a state of extreme
joylessness. Barbarism had no affection between relatives
to alleviate this condition, but it had it in its power to
shorten it; and so. along with exposure, we find the bury-
ing, or the killing, or even the devouring of the aged and
sick, as numberless examples from Herodotus down to
modern times attest. Indeed primitive man was able to
look upon the solenm performance of this horrible act as
a behest of piety.-"

When we see how this unbroken nomadic life forced
man to devote his whole activity to the securing of food,

'"Lippert. as above, pp, J20ff., has treated the subject so exhaus-
tively thai I may nfrain ironi citiriK examples. Cotnp. also Fritsch,
PP- ll6, ,^.i4, ,?5i; Wait/, :i> al)uve, II, p. 401.

■■■"Comp the examples cited by Lippert, p. ijj, and Martins, as
above, p. I2(). Also l-:hrenreich, lieitrdge s. V'olkcrkundi' Brasil, pp.
(y-i-yo.- W'.-iit;'. .Ts :ibi!Vf, I. ;i i.«4) .'r-'r.;.; '.-. )■,.'.':!•/-.,' {\t-\----~ \. '■. 161.

PRJMlTiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

and forbade the concurrent development of those feelings
which we regard as the most natural, and how it even .suc-
ceeded in giving the appearance of religious duty to what
we consider the most abominable crime, we begin to con-
ceive how loose must have been the personal bond that
held together those little roving groups of human beings.
Sexual intercourse could not grow to be such a bond; for
what we call love was entirely wanting in it.^' Domestic
life, the conception of property and labour in common
were as good as non-existent. These could originate only
when the circle of wants advanced beyond .he mere food
requirement. But this took a much longer time than the
majority are wi:!ing to admit. The needs of primitive peo-
ples with regard to clothing and house-she'ter are most
markedly of an altogether >eci.'ndary na:i;re.

Turning now to the no less common characteristic of
improzidcnce. we must cenainly at fir^t glance be struck
with astonishment. One wr.iiid think that hunger, which
often brings such great torture to the savage. wuuM of
itself have been sufficient to induce him to store up tur
future use the food that at time- he ix)~-e-se- in super-
abundance. But the observation- tliat ha.c lieen made
all indicate that he never thinks of that. " They are not
accustomed." says Heckewelder -- of the North American
Indians. " to laying in -tire- of provision- exce[)t -unie
Indian corn, dry beans, and a few other articles. Hence
they are -nmetimes reduced to great -trai:-. and are not
seldom in absolute want of the necessaries of life, e-peciallv

^ The many wnttr- whu write Ti'^Aadays about the family pay

j wn-cn prr,:n;ncrice lias

altogether too httie attention to th;« p'.int. t'

juniy been jfiven by Lubboek. a? ab..',e. pp. ;.; tT. In the -ame way
they overlooked the connection between the tarnily and ;i;e econ..my
of the honti 'Comp p. lo above. — F'^r>,'

"Heckewelder. Induui XaiLf.s. t;c, .\ew edition (Phi;. i88n. pp.
io8. 212 (Memoirs rA Hi-r .Soc >_ ' Penn . vn] 121.

PRlMlTiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

in the time of war." And of the South American tribes
another observer reports:^' " It is contrary to their na-
ture to be in possession of food-suppHes for longer than
one day at most." With many negro tribes it is looked
upon as improper to store up food for future need, which
belief, it is true, they base upon the superstition that the
fragments left over may attract spirits.^*

Where these peoples, through the short-sighted greed
of gain of Europeans, are placed in possession of modern
weapons, they usually work incredible havoc with the game
in their hunting-grounds. The extermination of tiie
boundless buffalo herds of North America is well known.
*' The greatest quantities of meat were left lying unused
in the thickets," only for the natives in winter-time, when
deep snow prevented hunting, to fall a prey to awful
hunger, in which even the bark of trees and the roots of
grass were not despised. And to-day the natives of Africa,
in districts where they carry on a profitable trade with
Europeans, are ruthlessly destroying ihe sources of their
incomes, the elephant and the caoutchouc-tree.

Even among the more advanced tribes and individuals
this characteristic tloes not fail. " When the carriers re-
ceived fresh rations." relates P. Pogge.-*"' " I am certain
that they lived l>etter for the first few days than I did. The
best goats and fowl were devoured. If I gave them rations
for a fortnight, the rule was to consume them in riotous
living (luring the first three or four days, only afterwards
either to steal from the supply-trains, to beg from me, or
to go hungry." In Wadai everything that remains over
from the snhan's tabic is burie<l,^^ and at the sacrificial

" Appun, I'nter den Tropen, p. ,365.

'' I.ippert. ns nhdvc, I, pp. .VJ-40.

"As above, p. 14; conip. p. 6. Also Wissniann, Wolf. etc. Im
Itrncrn Afrikas. p. 29.

" Nachtiira!. Sahara u. Sudan. III. p. 2,?o.

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. 19

feasts of the Indians the guests were obliged to eat up their
meat and bread clean. " Overloading of the stomach and
vomiting are not unusual on such occasions." -*•

Closely connected with this waste of supplies is the use
that primitive man makes of his time. It is entirely errone-
ous, though customary, to imagine that primitive people
are particularly expert in measuring time uy the position
of the sun. They do not measure time at all. and accord-
ingly do not make divisions in it. No primitive people
observe fixed meal-times, according to which civilized
man regulates his time for work.^* Even such- a relatively
advanced tribe as the Bedouins has no conception of time.
They eat when they are hungry. Livingstone in one place
calls Africa " the blissful region where time is absolutely
of no account and where men may sit down and rest them-
selves when they are tired." •''« " Even the most trivial work,
though it is urgently necessary, is postponed by the negro
to as late a date as possible. The native dreams away
the day in laziness and idleness, although he knows quite
well that for the night he needs his draught of water
and his log of wood; nevertheless until sundown he will
certainly not disturb himself, and onlv then, or perhaps
not before darkness, will he hnally procure himself the
necessaries." 3'

In these words we have touched upon the reproach of
mertia to which primitive man is universally subject."

='Hcckewelder. as above, p. 213. [Dr. Biicher. quoting from the
German translafon, has evidently mistaken the meaning of the pas-
sage c.ted. The vomiting and fasting referred to by Heckewelder are
profKiratory to the ceremonies, the vomiting being seh-induced.-ED ]

^Comp. VV. VVun.lt, /:^/„V.-. I (London. i8g;), pp. j;,.,

^^ hxtedit. to the Zambesi (N'ew York, 1866), p. 104.

"^\\. Junker's Travels in Africa; comp. Eng, trans., II, p 168
^or details see my work Arbeit u. Rhytlmus (2d ed.. Leipzig

^Ri*

PRIMlTiyp. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

What has here appeared to observers as laziness is again
lack of forethought, Hving for the moment. Why should
the savage exert himself when once his wants are satisfied,
particularly when he is no longer hungr)? This does not
imply that he is inactive. With his wretched facilities the
individual often performs on the whole as much work as
the individual civilized man; but he does no' perform it
regularly, nor in ordered succession, but by i. and starts,
when necessity forces him to it, or a feeling of exaltation
takes possession of him, and even then not as a serious
duty of life, but rather in a playful fashion.

In general, primitive man follows only the prompting of
the moment; his conduct is purely impulsive, mere reflex
action, so to speak. The nearer his wants and their satis-
faction lie together, the better he feels. Primitive man is
a child; he thinks not of the future, nor of the past; he
forgets easily, each new pression blots out its predeces-
sor. All the sufferings of life, \*hich he has to experience
so often, can scarcely cloud for a moment his naturally
cheerful temperament. "Of the New Caleu i 'ans. Fijians,
Tahitians, and New Zealanders we read that they are al-
ways laughing and joking. Throughout Africa the negro
has the same trait, and of other races, in other lands, the
descriptions of various travellers are: 'full of fun and merri-
ment,' full of life and spirits." ' merry and talkative,' ' sky-
larking in all ways,' ' boisterous gaiety,' ' laughing immod-
erately at trifles." "" ^^

It is significant, as has often been remarked, that natives
of Africa lose their cheerfulness when they have been for
some time in the service of Europeans, and become sullen
and morose. The explanation of Fritsch ^* is that servants

" Spencer, as above. § 34. Considerable material also in his Descrip-
tive Sociology in the chapter on '" Moral Sentiments."
** As above, p. 56.

PRIMITiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

of this kind gradually acquire from their masters the habit
of troubling themselves about things to come, and that
their temperament cannot endure engrossment in such

cares

Such a hand-to-mouth existence cannot be burdened
with conceptions of valw, which always presupposes an act
of judgment, an estimation of the future. It is well known
how in America and Africa the natives often sold their land
to foreign colonists for a gaudy trifle, a few glass beads of
no value according to our economic standards; and even
to-day the negro, though he stands no longer at the lowest
stage, is in many instances ready to give away any piece
of his property, no matter how important it may be for his
existence, if he is offered some glittering bauble that hap-
pens to catch his eye.^" On the other hand his covetous-
ness knows no bounds, and it is a constant complaint of
travellers that amid all the hospitality shown them they
are simply plundered, because ever>' village chieftain de-
sires to be presented with everything he sees.'' Here,
again, is that naive egoism in its complete regardlessness
of self and others, that unbounded covetousness which has
nothing in common with the love of gain of economic
man. The impression of the moment is ever the sole con-
trolling force: what is further removed is not thought of.
Primitive man is incapable, it would seem, of entertaining

" Reference may also be made to the not infrequent examples of
savages who had been brought up under civilized conditions volun-
tarily returning to their tribes and to the complete savagery of their
people. Comp. Peschel. as above, pp. 152-3: Fritsch, as above, p.
+2.3; K. E. Jung in Petermanns Mitth.. XXIV (1878), p. 67.

"Comp. Fritsch. as above, pp. ,?05-C.

"Says Burton, as above, p. 490: "In trading with [the African]
... all display of wealth must be avoided. A man who would pur-
chase the smallest article avoids showing anything beyond its equiva-
lent."

PRIMITII^E ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

two thoughts at the same time and of weighing the one
against the other; he is always possessed by one alone and
follows it with startling consistency.

The collection of exi)eriences, the transmission of knowl-
edge, is therefore exceedingly difficult, and therein lies the
chief reason why such peoples can remain at the same
stage for thousands of years without showing any appre-
ciable advance. The acquisition of the first elements of
civilization is often conceived as an easy matter; it is im-
agined that every invention, every advance in house-con-
struction, in the art of clothing, in the use of tools, that an
individual makes, must pass over as an imperishable treas-
ure into the conunon possession of the tribe and there
continue to. fructify. Tlie invention of pottery, the taming
of domestic animals, the smelting of iron ore have even
been made the beginnings of entirely new epochs of civil-
ization.

Yet how imperfectly does such a conception appreciate
the conditions under which primitive man lives! We may
indeed assume tliat he possesses a peculiar fondness for the
stone T\t uliicli with endless exertion he has formed in the
course perhaps of a whole year, and that it seems to him
like ri fK.rt of his own being;""* but it is a mistake to think
that the preoinis jK)ssession will now pass to chiMreti
nnd children's children, and thus constitute the basis for
f'jrther advance. However certain it is that in connection
with such thinL;s the iirst notions of "mine and thine" are
develoi.ed, yet many are the observations itidicating that
these conceptions do not go beyc»n<l the individual, and tliat
they perisli with him. Tlw f't'sscssiDu f^usscs into the f^ravc
Ti'/V// the f'osscssor, whose personal equipment it fonned in
lii'e. That is a custom which is met with in all parts of the

'Comp. Arbeit u. Rhythmus (jj rd ), p. 'rt.

PRlMITjyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

earth, and of which many peoples* have preserved traces
even down into civ'lized times. ■'*'*

In the first p;'.:c :: i^ piovaient among all American peo-
ples to such at extent that t!.e survivors are often left in
extreme need. ' 'ic a!>ori{j:;nes of California, who are
among the lo«\.it ;>et-j,le o^ iH'.ir rafe, place along with
the dead all the weapons and utensils \vhich he had made
use of in life. " It is a curious paraphernalia," says an ob-
server, "that follows the Wintum into the grave: knives,
forks, vinegar-jars, empty whiskey-bottles, preserve-jars,
bows, arrows, etc.; and if the dead has been an industrious
housewife, a few baskets of acorns arc scattered over
as well." " At the grave of the Tehuelche " (Patagonia),
runs another account, " ail his horses, dogs, and other ani-
mals are killed. ..id his poncho, his ornaments, his bolas
and implements of every kind arc brought together into a
heap and burned." And of a third and still lower tribe,
the I'.ororo in Brazil, a recent very reliable observer says: ^'^
" -^ great loss befalls a fanuly when one of its menibe s
dies. For everything that the dead man used is burned,
thrown into the river, or packed in with the corpse in order
that the departed spirit may have no occasion whatever to
return. The cabin is dien completely gutted. I'.nt the
surviving members of the family receive fresh i)rcsents;
bows and arrows are made for them, and when a jaguar
is killed, the skin is given to the brother of the last deceased
woman or to the uncle of the last deceased man."

Among the Ragobos in southern Mindanao (one of the

"Comp. in general, .Andrcc, lithnogr. I\j,aiklcn u. I'crgkiche (Siutt-
Kart, i8;«), pp. A)-:\ Scluirl/, Urundru: rtih-r linlstch. Gcsch. d.
iicldcs (Weimar, i8<)S). pp. sfi IT ; i'aii.knw. Ztsclir. d. Gts. f. Erdkunde
7U Ucrlin. XXXI. jni. i-.'-<

" K. vdii ilcn .'^tciiitti. i iiirr din Witunolkcni Knisilints ( .'d id.),
r- .^>^). Ci'inp. .-ilio i:hrenrui!'.. /'.^.'njcf :ur i .HkcrLun.U' Hrjsilinif,
\'V ,U), (•(,; lltckcwtldtr. a- above, pp. .711-1, .',-4-5.

PRIMITIVE ECOS'OMIC CONDiTlONS.

Philippines) the dead man is buried in iiis best clothes, and
with a slave, who h killed for the purpose. " The cooking-
utensiLs that the deceased used during his lifetime are filled
with rice and placed, along with his betel-sacks, upon the
grave; his other things are left in the house untouched.
On penalty of death no one may henceforth enter either
the house or the burial-place; and it is equally forbidden
to cut from the trees surrounding the house. The house
itself is allowed to go to ruin." **

In Australia and .\frica the custom is very common for
all the stores of the deceased to be eaten up by the assem-
bly of the mourners; in other parts the utensils are de-
stroyed, while the food is thrown away. Many negro
tribes bury the dead in the hut in which he lived, and leave
the dwelling, now deserted by the survivors, to decay;
others destroy the hut.^'- If a chieftain dies, the whole vil-
lage migrates: and this is true even of the principal towns
of the more inip<jrtant kingdoms, such as those of the
Muata-Yamwo and the Kasembe. In the Lunda kingdom
the old royal Kipanga is biirned down, and a new pro-
visional one at once erected, for which the newly chosen
ruler has to kindle a fresh fire by rubl)ing together pieces
of wood, as it is not permissible to use the old fire any
longer. The principal or residence town changes its loca-
tion with each new ruler." .\mong the ancient Peruvians,

*' SclLidenlxTt; in tlie Ztsclir. f. Rthnol., XVII (188.S). )>p 12-1.1. Tlie
same thiriK is found in Ilalam.ihora, p. 8.i; and anmng tlie lull tribes
of India. JellinKhaus in llic same review, III, pp. 372, 374.

" Fxaniples may be found in M. Buchrver, Kainerun, p 28; Frilseh,
as above, p. 5.^5; Bastian, I.oangokiiste, I. j) 1(14; I-iviiiKstoiu', as
above, p. 158 From /\ustraiia: Parkinson, Im lUsmarck-Archif>el, pp.
102-.1: Ztscbr. f. I'"tlinol.. XXI, p, 23; Kiibary. filhiwgr. Hcitrdnc sur
Kfntltnij d KiirJiii. Inseigruppc u. Nachbarschaft ( Reriiii, 1885). pp.
70-71, iiiiti,'.

'* I'liUKe. ,■!■. above, jip. 2-'8, 2,54, LivinKstone in I'etermanns Mittli.,
XXT (187s), p 104.

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

as well, the conception prevailed that with each new Inca
the world, so to speak, began anew. The palaces of the
dead Inca, with all tlieir stores of wealth, were closed for
ever; the ruler for the time l)eing never made use of the
treasures that his ancestors had amassed.

Though we see from this that the origin and preserva-
tion of the first elements of civilization among primitive
peoples were attended with the greatest difficulties, and
that the possibility of rising to better conditions of exist-
ence and higher modes of life could not even be conceived
by them, yet it must not be forgotten that the observations
that have been sifted and presented here have been taken
from peoples of very varied character and different cultural
stages. To raise himself of his own strengtli to the plane
of the Tongan or Tahitian. the Australian of the continent
would probably have required many thousands of years;
and a similar gulf separates the Bushman from the Congo
nesrro and Wanvamweza. But this verv fact, it seem . .-^
me. speaks for the persistence of the presumptive psycn.v:
conditions under which the satisfaction of the wants of un-
civilized man is accomplished: and we are undoubf^dly
justified in tracing back the whole circle of this cla.s of
conceptions to a condition that must have prevailed
among mankind ior a-oiis before tribes and peoples could
have originated.

From all that we know of it. this condition means ex-
actly the opposite of " economy." For economy implies
always a community of men rendered possil)le by the pos-
session of property; it i^ a taking counsel, a caring not
only for the moment but also for the future, a careful divi-
sion and suitable bestowal of time; economy means work,
valuation of things, regulation of their use. accumulation
of wealth, transmission of the achievements of civilization
from generation to generation. And even among the

i I:

PRIMITiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

higher primitive peoples we have found all this widely
wanting; among the lower races we have hardly met
■with its faint beginnings. Let us strike out of the
life of the Bushman or of the Veddah the use of fire,
and bow and arrow, and nothing remains but a life
made up of the individual search for food. Each indi-
vidual has to rely entirely upon himself for his sustenance.
Naked and unarmed he roams with his fellows, like cer-
tain species of wild animals, through a limited stretch of
territory-, and uses his feet for holding and climbing as
dexterously as he uses his hands.'*^ All, male and female,
devour raw what they catch with their hands or dig out of
the ground with their nails: smaller animals, roots, and
fruits. Mow they unite in little bands or larger herds;
now they separate again, according to the richness of the
pasturage or hunting-ground. But these unions do not
develop into communities, nor do they lighten the exist-
ence of the individual.

This picture may not have many charms for him who
shares the civilization of the present; hut we are simply
forced by the material empirically gathered together so to
construct it. Nor are any of its lines imaginative. We
have eliminated from the life of the lowest tribes only what
admittedly belongs to civilization — the use of weapons and
of fire. Though we were obliged to admit that even
among the higher primitive peoples there is exceeding
much that is non-economic, that at all events the con-
scious application of the economic principle forms with
them rather the exception than the rule, we .shall not be
able in the case of the so-called " lower nomads " and their
predecessors just sketched to make use of the notion of
economy at all. With them we have to fix a pre-econoniic

•* R. Andrte, Iter Fuss als Greiforgan, in his lithnugr. Parallclftt u.
Vcrgl. (New Series), pp. 228 flf.

PRIMlTiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

Stage of development, that is not yet economy. As every
child must have his name, we will call this the stage of in-
dividual search for food.

How economic activity was evolved from the individual
search for food can to-day hardly be imagined. The
thought may suggest itself that the tUiTiing-point must
be where production with a more distant end in view takes
the place of the mere seizing of the gifts of nature for im-
mediate enjoyment, and where work, as the intelligent
application of physical power, replaces the instinctive
activity of the bodily organs. Ver\- little would be gained,
however, by this purely theoretical distinction. Labour
among primitive peoples is something very ill-defined.
The further we follow it back, the more closely it ap-
proaches in form and substance to play.

In all probability there are instincts similar to those that
are found among the more intelligent of the lower animals,
that impel man to extend his activities beyond the mere
search for food, especially the instinct for imitating and
for experimenting.^" The taming of domestic animals, for
example, begins not with the useful animals, but with such
species as man keeps merely for amusement or the worship
of gods. Industrial activity seems cvc-ywhere to start
with the painting of the body, tattooing, piercing or other-
wise disfiguring sei)arate parts of the body, and grad-
ually to advance to the production of ornaments, masks,
drawing on bark, petrograms, and similar play-products.
In these things there is everywhere displayed a peculiar
tendency to imitate the animals whicli the savage iiu-ets with
in his immediate surroundings, and which he looks upon
as his equals. The partly prehistoric rock dmwings and
carvings of the Bushmen, the Indians, and the Australians

Ton-.p K. Groof., Die Spide d. Ticre (Jena. 1896").

PRlMITiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

represent chiefly animals and men;*® pottery, wood-carv-
ing, and even wicker-work begin with the production of
animal fornis.^" Even when the advance is made to the
construction of objects of daily use (pots, stools, etc.), the
animal figure is retained with remarkable regularity;''*
and lastly, in the dances of primitive peoples, the imita-
tion of the motions and the cries of animals plays the prin-
cipal part.''" All regularly sustained activity finally takes
on a rhythmir form and becomes fused with music and
song in an indivisible whole.^'^

It is accordingly in play that technical skill is developed,
and it turns to the useful only very gradually.^* The or-
der of progression hitherto accepted must therefore be
just reversed; play is older than work, art older than pro-

"Andree. Elhnogr. Parallelen u. I'ergleiche, pp. 258-299. Ehrenreich,
as above, pp. 46-7.

" Comp. the interesting accounts by K. v. d. Steinen, as above,
pp. 2JI ff., and particularly pp. 241 ff.

" Abundant examples are afforded by every ethnographic pictur«*-
collection. The incredulous are invited to take a glance at the fol-
lowing works: J. Boas, The Central Eskimo (Washington, 1888);
Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary
of the Smithsonian Institution, 1884-5; Ethnogr. Beschrijving fan de
West- •! Xonrdkust ran Ncderlandsch Xiew Guinea, by F. S. A. de Clercq
and J. D. E. ScIinieltT: (Leiden, iSg^l; Joest, Ethnogr. atis Guyana
(Suppl. to vol. 5 of the Intern, .\rchiv fiir Ethnogr.); and again Von
den Steinen, as above, pp. 26r ff. Conip. also 7ritsch, as above, p. 7,3;
Schweinfurth. The Heart of .Urica (.vl ed., London. 1878). I, pp. 129-
130; and Grosi^o, Pie Anfange d. Kunst. Chaps. \'I and VII.

" Grosse. as abovi-, pp. 2o8-(),

" Reference must here agniti be niaiio to my work on Arbeit u.
Rhythmus.

'* " On exaniinatioti of the primitive tools [of ihe Papuans] . . .
we see that there is not a single one which does not hear testimony by
S(inu' little design or ornament to the good taste of its maker, not an
article which does not show some trifling accessories surpassing mere
utility and present in it solely for beauty's sake." — Semon, In the
Austral. Bush. p. 400.

PRlMlTll^E ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

duction for use.'^'' Even when among the higher primi-
tive peoples the two elements begin to separate from each
other, the dance still precedes or follows every more im-
portant work (war-, hunting-, harvest-dance), and song ic-
companies work.

Just as economy, the further we have traced it back-
wards in the development of peoples, has during our in-
quiry assumed more and more the form of non-economy, so
work also has finally resolved itself into its opposite (Nicht-
arbeit). And we should probably have the same experi-
ence with all the more important phenomena of economy,
if we were to continue our inquiries regarding <^hem. One
thing alone appears permanent — consumption. Wants
man always had, and wants must be satisfied. But even
our wants, considered from an economic point of view,
exist only in very small part naturally; it is only in the
matter of bodily nourishment that our consumption is a
necessity of nature; all else is the product of civilization,
the result of the free creative activity of the human mind.
Without this activity man would always have remained a
root-digging, fiuit-eating animal.

Under these circumstances we must forego the attempt
to fix upon some definite point at which simple search for
food ceases and economy begins, in the history of human
civilization there are no turning-points; here everything
grows and decays as with the plant; the fixed or station-
ary is only an abstraction which we need in order to make
visible to our dim eye the wonders of nature and humanity.
Indeed economy itself, like all else, is subject to constant
changes. When it first presents itself in history, it appears
as a form of communal life based upon material posses-

" [The general ctlmograpliic aspect nf art is. of course, another and
wider problem than the one involved in this conclusion with regard
;0 "first things. " — Ed.]

! *

30 PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

sions. guided by definite rules of conduct, and closely con-
nected with the personal and moral community of life of
the family.'*^ It was under this form that it was seen by
the people who first fixed its characteristics in language.
Landlord is still in Middle High German synonymous
with husband (Wirt, Ehemann), landlady is wife (Wirtin,
Ehefrau), and the word economy, derived from the Greek,
is formed in a similar way.

We may therefore assume the existence of economy as
certain where we find co-dwelling communities that pro-
cure and utilize things adapted to their needs according to
the dictates of the economic principle. Such a condition
is certainly fulfilled by the higher primitive peoples, even
though their carrying out of the economic principle always
remains incomplete. But there is nevertheless much that
still recalls the pre-economic period of individual search
for food; economy has still, so to speak, gaps in- various

places.

Among all peoples of a lower cultural stage the dis-
tribution of labour between the two sexes is firmly fixed
bv custom, although difiference of natural aptitude seems
by no means to have been the sole determining factor.
At least it cannot be maintained that in all cases the lighter
share of the work fell to the weaker sex. While in the
normal domestic economy of civilized nations we have a
cross-section, so to speak, which assigns to the man the
productive work and to the woman the superintendence
of consumption, the economy of these peoples seems to be
divided in longitudinal section. Both sexes take part in

" K. Grosse has in his recent book entitled Die Formal d. Familie
u. die Fflrmen d. Wirtschafi (Leipzig, i8g6) investigated the connection
of family with economic forms. In doing so he has, for the economic
side of the \vori<. adhered to the altogetlicr external classification into
nomadic, pastor.il, and agricultural, but has scarcely devoted due at-
tention to the inner cc^nnnii:- life, particularly to that "f the household.

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

production, and frequently each has a particular depart-
ment of the consumption for itself. It is particularly signif-
icant in this connection that upon the woman de solves, as a
rule, the jirocuring and preparing of the vegetable foods
and for the most part also the building of the hut, while
hunting and the working up of the products of the chase
fall to the man. If cattle are kept, the tending of the ani-
mals, the erection of inclosures for them, the milking, etc.,
are the business of the men. This division is often so
sharply defined that we might almost speak of a cleavage
of the family economy into a purely male and a purely
female economy.

In an interesting account of the useful plants of the
Brazilian Shingu tribes, K. von den Stcincn ''* describes
the outcome of the earlier development of these tribes in
the following words:

"Man followed the chase, and in the mean time woman invented
agriculture. Here, as throughout Brazil, the women have exclusive
charge not otily of the preparation of manioc in the house but also
of its cultivation. Thty clear the ground of weeds with pointed sticks,
place in position the stakes with which the manioc is planted, and
fetch each day what they need, carrying it home in heavily laden
wicker baskets. . . . The man is more courageous and skilful; to
him belong the chase and the use of weapons. Where, then, hunt-
ing and fishing ^. play an important part, the woman must attend,
as far as a division of labour takes place at all, to the procuring, trans-
porting, and preparing of the food. This division has a result that is
not sufticiently appreciated, namely, that the woman in her field of
labour ac(iuires special knowledge just as the man does in his. This
must necessarily hold true for each lower or higher stage. The
counterpart of the Indian woman cultivating her manioc with skill
and intelligence is already found in the purely nomadic state. The
wife of the Bororo vent into the forest armed with a pointed stick to
search for roots and tubers: during wanderings through the camp-
ing-ground, or whenever a cot.ipany of Indians changed its locality,
sucli hunting fell to the wor .n, while the man tracked the game: she
clinib''d the tree for cocoanuis. and carried heavy loads of them

'^Unier d. Naturi'olk. Central-Brasil., pp. 206 ff.

h i

32 PRIMlTiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

laboriously home. And though the Indian woman was the slave of
her husband, this relation was certainly not to her advantage in re-
gard to the division of the fish and meat; she still had to depend
upon the supply of vegetables that she could gather for herself. On
the Shingu the men made ready the roast and broiled fish and meat;
the women baked the beijus (manioc cakes), prepared the warm
drinks, cooked the fruits, and roasted tht cocoanuts. What other
meaning could this division into animal cooking for the men and
vegetable cooking for the women have than that each of the sexes had
still kept to its original sphere?"

If we add that the men also made the weapons for the
chase, and that hunting and fishing were the source whence
they drew all their iinplements for cutting, scraping, polish-
ing, piercing, tracing, and carving, while the women pro-
duced the pottery for cooking,-'*'' we have for each sex a
naturally defined sphere of production upon which all their
activity is independently expended. But this is not all. The
consumption h also in one chief particular distinct: there
are no common meals in the family. Each individual eats
apart from the rest, and it is looked upon as improper to
partake of food in the presence of others.***

Similar characteristics of an individual economy are also
found among the North American Indians, who had al-
ready arrived at a fully developed domestic economy.
While they know nothing whatever of a special ownership

" As above, pp. I97 ff-. 217 ff- 3i8.

"Von den Steinen, as above, p. 69, and Ehrcnreich, Bcitriige s. V'61-
kerkunde Brasil., p. 17: "Etiquette among the Karaya demands that
each one shall eat by himself apart from the others." l.ating alone
is almost suggestive of the animal. The savage acts like the dog,
which grows cross when his meal is disturbed. Among the natives of
Borneo " the men usually feed alone, attended on by the women, and
always wash their mouths out when they have finished eating. They
are very particular about being called away from their meals, and it
takes . great deal to make a man set about doing anything before he
has concluded his repast: to such an extent is this practice observed,
that it is considered wrong to attack even an enemy whilst he is eat-
ing, but the moment he has finished it is legitimate and proper to fall
upon him." Hose, in Juurii. oi Amhiop^l. Inst., p. i6o.

PRlMITiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

of the soil, " there is nothing in an Indian's house or family
without its particular owner. Every individual knows
what belongs to him, from the horse or cow down to the
dog, cat, kitten, and little chicken. Parents make presents
to their children, and they in return to their parents. A
fatl r will sometimes ask his wife or one of his children
for the loan of a horse to go a-hunting. For a litter of
kittens or brood of chickens there are often as many dif-
ferent owners as there are individual animals. In purchas-
ing a hen with her brood one frequently has to deal for it
with several children." ^^

" In cases where the Indians permitted polygamy, it was
customar)' for a special hut to be erected for each wife;
among tribes dwelling in common-houses each wife had at
least her special fire."*®

'' The same characteristics are presented by the economy
of the Polynesians and Micronesians, except that here fish-
ing and the raising of smaller live stock take the place of
hunting. In New Pomerania the various duties are strictly
divided between the men and boys on the one hand, and
the women and girls on the other.^^ To the male portion
of the population falls the labour of making and keep-
ing in repair the weapons and the fishing-gear, especially
the fishing-nets and the ropes necessary for them, of cast-
ing the nets in the sea and caring for them daily, of build-
ing canoes, erecting huts, and. in the wooded districts, of
felling trees and clearing away the roots for the laying out
of new plantations, as well as of protecting them by en-
closures against wild boars." *"

" Heckewelder, as above, p. 158.
"VVaitz, Anthropologic, III, p. 109.
"Parkinson, as above, pp. 113, 122.

"These labours preparatory to the cultivation of the land are still
often performed by the women. Parkinson, p. 118.

PRlMmVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

\ I

Besides haviriig to care for their little children it de-
volves upon the women to prepare the food, to dig and
cultivate the ground, to raise and garner the produce of the
field, and to carry the heavily laden baskets to market-
places miles away.

" In certain kinds of work both men and women take
part. To these belong the twisting of the strong basten
cordage of which the fishing-nets are woven, the plaiting
of baskets with finely cut strips of rattan and padanus-
leaves, the weaving of a very rough and coarse stuff called
mal, made from the bark of the broussonetia-tree, in which
the women wrap their infants to protect them from the
cold."

This latter is very significant: we have here to do with
arrangements for the transformation of materials, such as
could not have existed in the period of individual search
for food.

Separate preparation of food for men and women, and
separate meals are also met with in the South Sea regions.
In Fiji the men prepare such kinds of food as can be
cooked out of doors by means of heated stones. " This is
confined to-day to the roasting of swine's flesh; formerly
the preparation of human flesh was also reserved for the
men." ^- In the Palau Islands the cooking of the taro and
the preparing of the sweetened foods fell to the lot of the
women, the preparation of the meats to the men.*'^ In
most parts of Oceania " it is neither permissible for women
and men to eat in common, nor for the men to eat what
the women have prepared. Eating with another from the
same dish seems to be avoided with almost equal scrupu-
lousness." "■*

*• Biissler, Siidsce-Bildcr, pp. 226-7.

" Kubary, as above, p. 17J.

" Ratzel, V'olkerkundc, I. p. 240.

"Separate; meals for men and women; Conip. Stanley, Ho-i; t ioitnd

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

The economy of many negro tribes shows a Hke arrange-
ment ; a sharp division of the production and of many parts
of the consumption according to sex, indeed even the ex-
it nsion of this distinction to the sphere of barter. As P.
Pogge,®' one of our most reliable observers, says concisely
of the Congo negroes: " The woman has her own circle
of duties independent of that of her husband." And in the
description of the Bashilangas he observes:^" '" No mem-
ber of the family troubles himself about another at meal-
times: while some eat the others come and go just as it
suits them; but the women and the smaller children gen-
erally eat together." And finally he reports further re-
garding the Lundas: " Under ordinary conditions, when
a caravan has pitched its camp in a village, the wome:' of
the place are accustomed to bring vegetables and fowl into
the camp for sale, while goats, pigs, and sheep are usually
sold only by the men."' It is similarly related by L. Wolf*
that in the market at Tbaushi all the agricultural products
.■;Tid 1 laterials. mats, and pottery are sold by the women,
and only iL^oats and wine by the men. F.ach sex is thus
possessor of its special proiluct of labour, and disposes of
i: indejKjndentlN. ''■'•*

The di\ ision of the labour of production between the two
^exe> in Africa varies in detail from tribe to tribe; as a rule,

[f7Tt::fa>u (N w York, 1887). p. 550; Naclitigal, Sahara u. Sudan, I,

" tm i's-iche :. Mnata Jamuo. p. 40.

' ^\»>«r:ar ' ntcr dcutsch. Flaggc qui-r durch Afrika, \t. ,^87. Im-
Isnemt ^ Ifmua amzcu. pp. I"8, 2t,i.

'' tm Hsjcnc J Muatd Jamu'O. p. 29.

""AST— sjair; etc.. Im Inticrn Afrikas. p. J4Q Conip. Livingstone,
l.vrrn^ - -*f . jmhesi. pp. 122, 577; Paulitschkf, Ethnographie Nordost-

**■ »•' — r family md the domestic establishment of the Wanyamwezis,
w+r ji-sureti y ni longer stand upon a low plane, Burton gives the
■olkfmras picture: "Children are suckled till the end of the second
Arter the fourth summer the boy begins to learn archery.

;

PRIMlTjyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

however, agriculture ami the preparation of all the vegeta-
ble foods are also assigned here to the woman, and hunting,
cattle-raising, tanning, and weaving to the man.'^" This
arrangement is often supporteil by superstitious usages.
In Uganda the milking of the cows falls exclusively to the
men; a woman is never permitted to touch the udder of
a cow.'' In the Lunda territory, again, no man is allowed
to take part in the extraction of oil from the ground-nut,
as his presence is thought to frustrate the success of the
operation."- As a rule the carriers whom Europeans en-

... As poon .IS [lu-l can walk he tends the flocks; after the age of
ten he drives the cattle to pasture, and. considering himself independ-
ent of his father, he plants a tobacco-plot and aspires to build a hut
for himself. Unmarried (jirls live in the f.ithcr's house until puberty;
after that period the spinsters of the village, who usually number from
seven to a do/en. assemble toKether and build for themselves at a
distance from their homes a hut where they can receive their friends
withriut parental interference. . . . Marriage takes place when the
youth can afford to pay the price for a wife. [The price] varies, ac-
cording t'> circumstances, from one to ten cows. The wife is so far
the property of the husband that he can claim damages from the adul-
terer, but may not sell her except when in dilticulties. . . . Polygamy
is the rule with the wealthy. There is little community of interest?,
and apparently a lack of family affection in these tribes. The hus-
band, when returning from the coast laden with cloth, will refuse a
single sluikkah to his wife; .md the wife, sticceeding to an inheritance,
will abandon her husband to starvation. The man takes charge of the
cattle, goats, sluep. atul poultrj : the woman has power over the
grain and the \egetatple'-; and each must grow tob.icco, liaving little
hope of borrowing from the other. . . . The sexes do not eat to-
gether: e\eii the boys would disdain to be seen sitting at meat with
their motliirv The men feed either in their cottages or. more gen-
erally, in the iw.m/a fpublic house, one being set apart for each sex]."
(As above, pp. -•'»5>^: ii>mp pp, 41M-4 >

'"Comp, e-pecially hVitseh. as above, pp. ;'» '^f ■ 'K?. •2-'0- ,U'.S; Living-
ston*, as above, pp. 77, iif. .Iii-i-'. .\n cMended treatment now in
H. Schurt/. Dat nfr. Ccwnh' (l.eip/ig, Kirxil. pp. 7 tT.

" I'.min lUy. in IVienii.iniis Mitth, X N \' (1X70), p. .V)2.

" Wi-SMiiann, V.O i, etc., hn Iniurii Afrikas. p. (>.\.

PRIMlTiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. 37

gage refuse to do women's work; Livingstone" even
reports a case of famine among the men in a certain dis-
trict because no women were there to grind the corn they
had on hand. The separation of the two sexes in the prep-
aration and consumption of food is often made still more
rigid by regulations ''* of a semi-religious character, for-
bidding the women the use of certain kinds of meat, which
are thus reserved for the men alone. ''■'''

Everywhere among primitive peoples the children become
independent very early in youth and desert the society of
their parents. They often live then for some years in special
common-houses, of which there are others for married
men. These common-hou.ses for the men-folk grouped ac-
cording to age. and frequently also for the unmarried
women grouped in the same way, are found very wiilely
distributed in Africa and America, and especially in
Oceania. They serve as common places of meeting, work,
and amusement, and as sleeping-places for the younger
people, and are used also for lodging strangers. They
naturally form a further obstacle to the development of a
common household economy based upon the family, for
each family is generally subdivided into different parts

"As above, pp. !88. 565. .Siniil.-irly amotiK the Tiuli.ins; comp.
Wait/, as ahovp. III, p. 100.

"More frequent still in Tolynesia. Comp. Andnc. nthiogr. Parol-
Uk» u. I'crglciche. \^\^. ii4ff.

"For a peculiar further development of this economy comp.
Schweinfurth, Sahara u. Sudan. III. pp. i6j, .'44, 2^^). In some places
the separation of the spheres of activity f)f the two sexes extends cv 1
to their intellectual life. AmonK' several Cariljic tribes the women
and tlie men h;;'- ditTcrent names fur many things, wlience it was
inferred that there existid distinct hmnuaKes for men and for women.
More recently this phenomenon is suppoM'd to have its foundation in
the didercnce in social portion of the sexes and in the sharp division
between their two spheres of tniph'vmcnt Comp. Sapper, Intirn.

f. Htl

tinoKr.

PI'

si> !.

38 PRlMlTiyE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

vv-ith separate dwellings. In Yap. one of the Caroline
Islands, for instance, we find besides the fcbays, or sleep-
ing-houses of the unmarried, a principal house for each
family which the father of the family uses, and also a dwell-
ing-house for each wife; finally, " the preparation of food
in the dwelling-house is forbidden and is transferred to a
separate hut for each member of the family, which serves as
a fire-cabin or cooking-house." ^« A similar arrangement
prevails in Malekula in the New Hebrides." Further than
this, economic individualism can hardly be carried.

It may be asserted as a general rule for primitive peo-
ples practising polvgamy that each wife has her own hut."
Among the Zulus thev go so far as to build a separate
hut for almost ever)- adult member of the household,—
one for the husband, one for his mother, one for each of
his wives and other adult members of his family. These
huts all stand in a semicircle about the enclosed cattle-
kraal in such a way that the man's dwelling is m the centre.
Of course it is to be remembered that a hut of this kmd
can be constructed in a few hours.

Thus we see that everywhere, even among the more
developed primitive peoples, there is still wanting much of
that unified exclusiveness of domestic life with which the
civilized peoples of Europe, from all we know of them,
first appeared in history. Everywhere wide clefts still
gape, and the individual preserver an economic independ-
ence that strikes us with its strangeness. However much

'• Kubary E.'hnogr. Btitriige z. Kennt. d. Karnl.-Archif. (Leiden), p. 39-
"Journal o( the Anthropol. Inst, of Gr. Br.. X.XIII (i8«m). P- J8t-
"This is tlic ca.se. to mention only a few instancts, in the Antilles:
St.ircko' Tht Primilive Family (New York. 1SH9). p. 40: in Min-
danao; Sch.-,dcnbcrK, Ztschr. f. Ethnol.. XVII. p. u; among the
Bakuba: Wissmann, Im Innern Afrikas, p. J0.>: among the Monbuttoos:
.Schweinfiirth, Ztschr. f. Ethnol.. V. p. 12; Tht Heart of Africa. II. pp.
17-18: Ca»a!i». La BMiuiot, p. ii2.

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

it behooves us, in our consideration of this minute eco-
nomic separation, to guard against overlooking the unify-
ing forces of working and caring for each other, and
carefully as we must refrain from exaggerating the cen-
trifugal forces here at work, it Is nevertheless not to be
denied that they are all traceable to one common origin — to
titc individual search for food practised through thousands of
years by all these pcof^lcs.

In this lies the justification of the method followed in
this investigation, in which we have taken together peo-
ples of very different stock and cultural stages, and con-
sidered the economic phenomena separately.

This procedure is, in political economy as in all social
sciences, entirely justified; provided that, from the prodig-
ious mass of disconnected facts that fill ethnolog}- like a
great lumber-room, we succeed in bringing a considerable
number under a common denominator and rescuing them
from the mystic interpretations of curiosity-hunters and
r.'.ythologizing visionaries. For political economy in par-
ticular this method offers the further and not inconsider-
able advantage, that the toy mannikin in the form of a
savage freely invented by the imagination of civilized man
vanishes from the scene, and gives place to forms that are
taken from life, although the observations from which they
are drawn mav leave much to be desired in point of ac-
curacy.

Our travellers have hitherto devoted little special atten-
tion to the economy oi primitive peoples. In the midst of
their attention to dress, forms of worship, morals, religious
beliefs, marriage customs, art. and technical skill, they
have often overlooked what lay closest at hand, and in the
gossipy records of ethnographic compilations the word
" economy " has no mf>re fotmd a place than has the word
" household " in the chronicles of the numerous investi-

PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS.

f >:
» .'

gators into the constitution of the family. But just be-
cause the observations we have utiHzed have been made
for the most part only incidentally and not by trained
economists, they possess a high measure of credibility.
For they have on that account generally escaped the fate
of being forced into some scheme categorically arranged
in accordance with the conditions of our own civilization,
and for that verj' reason unable to do justice to the differ-
ently conditioned life of primitive peoples.

CHAPTER II.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

The designation natural people seems a particularly-
apt characterization of the lower races of men on their eco-
nomic side. They stand in more immediate touch with
nature than do we; they are more dependent upon her,
are more directly susceptible to her powers, and succumb
to tiiem more easily. Civilized man lays by stores for the
future; for the preservation and embellishment of his ex-
istence he possesses a wealth of implements; in the event
of failure of his crops the harvests of half a world stand at
his disposal through our highly perfected means of trans-
portation; he subdues the powers of nature and impresses
them into his service. Our commerce places the labour
of a thousand men at the command of every individual
amongst us, and in every household watchful eyes guard the
careful and economical consumption of the goods destined
for our bodily subsistence. Primitive man, as a rule, gath-
ers no stores; a bad harvest or other failure of the natural
sources of his sustenance strikes him with its full weight;
he knows no labour-saving implements, no system in dis-
posing of his time, no ordered consumption; limited to
his meagre natural powers, threatened on all sides by hos-
tile forces, each day he has to struggle anew for his exist-
ence, and often knows not whether the morrow will vouch-
safe him the means to still his hunger. Vet he does not
regard the future with anxiety, he is a child of the moment;
no cares torment him; his mind is fillcl with a boundless
naive egoism. With thoughts extending 'o further, he

(I l

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITiyE PEOPLE.

instinctively follows his impulses, and in this regard also
stands closer to nature than ourselves.^

The former ♦■ 'le was to classify primitive peoples accord-
ing to the manner in which they procured their sustenance
into hunters, fishers, pastorals, and agriculturalists. In
this it was believed that each people must traverse these
four stages of economic development in its progress
towards civilization. The starting-point was the tacit as-
sumption that primitive man began with animal food and
only gradually passed over, under the stress of necessity,
to a vegetable diet. The procuring of vegetable food
moreover was considered the more difficult inasmuch as
the picture of our European system of agriculture was ever
in mind with its draught-animals and artificial apparatus
of implements and tools.

But this conception is erroneous, just as is the assump-
tion from which it proceeds. Certainly all economic activ-
ity begins with the procuring of food, which is wholly de-
pendent upon the local distribution of the gifts of nature.
From the beginning man was primarily dependent upon
vegetable nourishment, and wherever tree-fruits, berries,
and roots were to be gained, he first made use of these. In
case of need he turned to petty animals which could be
consumed raw: shell-fish, worms, beetles, grasshoppers,
ants, etc. Like the lower animal in continuous quest of
food, he devoured at the moment what he found without
providing for the future.

If from this stage we seek the transition to the next, a
little reflection tells us that it could not have been difficult
' Comp, in general R. Vierkandt, Nalurvolker u. KuUunvlker (Leip-
zig. \M>). pp 2(0 ff. On the conception of natural peoples see further
Panckow. Ztschr. d. Gcs. f. Erdkunde zu Berlin, XXXI (i8<)6>. pp.
158, ISO. Anyone inclined to find fault with the indefinitencss of the
definition should not overlook the fact that no single case has pre-
sented itscii fair-itiK tlie point whether a certain people was to be re-
garded as primitive or not.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIi^F PEOPLE.

to gain the practical knowledge that a buried bulb or nut
furnishes a new plant, — certainly not more difficult than
taming animals or inventing fish-hooks and bow and ar-
row, which transition to the hunting stage required.- As
regards technical skill many hunting and nomadic peoples
stand far above so-called agricultural peoples. Of late
men have come to believe that nomads should rather be
considered savage agriculturalists; and as a matter of fact
it is highly improbable that a tribe of hunters should first
have hit upon the taming of animals before they could pro-
cure milk, eggs, and meat. Moreover, except in the ex-
treme north, there is probably no fishing, hunting, or pas-
toral people that does not draw a more or less consider-
able portion of its sustenance from the vegetable kingdom.
For this supply many of them have long been dependent
upon trade with more highly developed neighboring peo-
ples. They thus lack that economic independence which
our study requires if it is to arrive at conclusions univer-
sally applicable.

Now since the instances of hunting, fishing, and no-
madic tribes, which are accepted as typical, are only to be
found under special geographical and climatic conditions
that hardly permit of a different manner of obtaining
sustenance (hunters and fishers in the farthest north,
nomads in the steppes and desert places of the Old World),
it may be advisable in our further consideration to leave
them wholly aside and limit the field of our investigation
to the intertropical districts of America, Africa, Australia,
the Malay Archipelago, Melanesia, and Polynesia. This
is still an enormous circuit, within which the diversity
of natural conditions surrounding primitive man pro-

• Comp. in general E. Hahn, Die Hausthiere u. ihrc Besiehungen s.
Wirthschaft d. Menschen (Leipzig, 1896); P. R. Bos, Jagd, Vicksucht u.
Ackerbau ah Kulturstufen in Intern. Archiv f. Ethnographic, X (1897),
pp. iHTfi.

ill

i
s .

j .

i..

3- a.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

duces many j>eculiarities in his material existence. The
differences between the individual tribes in this regard are,
however, not so great as, for instance, between the Esqui-
maux and the Polynesian. At any rate, notwithstanding
the great differences of the races in conditions of life and
•ways of living, they have still sufficient in common to oc-
cupy our attention. In addition to this we have here
the oldest ree:ions inhabited by man, which, however, in
spite, or periiaps on account, of the bounties of tropical
nature, also appear to be those in which their development
has been most slow.

At all stages of his development the primitive man of
these regions manifestly finds in vegetable diet the l)asis
of his sustenance. This is evident from the simple
fact that he has always found animal food much more dif-
ficult to obtain. This is not contradicted by the circum-
stance that at times we notice an eagerness for flesh break
forth among many savage races which appalls us, since it
does not shrink even from its own kind. The explanation
in all probability is that the definite quantity of salt requi-
site for the normal maintenance of the human body can-
not be conveyed to it through purely vegetable diet, while
it is quite possible with occasional raw-flesh food to live
without salt. The same desire for salt is manifested even
by the purely herbivorous among our domestic animals.

The need of nourishment [we have seen] is the most
urgent, and originally the sole, force impelling man to activ-
ity, and causing him to wander about incessantly until it is
satisfied. The species of Jirision of labour between the
two sexes, which this primitive search for food gives rise
to, reaches its highest form when the wife procures the
vegetable, the man the animal, portion of the food. And
since, as a rule, the food gained is immediately devoured,
and no one takes thought for the other as long as he him-

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

self is hungry, a difference in the nourishment of the two
sexes arises that has perhaps contributed in an important
degree to the differentiation of their bodily development.

The division of labour of these primitive roaming hordes
is continued at higher stages of development, and receives
there such sharp expression that the rigidly limited spheres
of activity of the man and the woman form almost a spe-
cies of secondary sex-characteristics whose understanding
gives us the key to the economic life of primitive peoples.
In particular almost all their production of goods is dom-
inated by it.

Turning now to the latter, we should note by way of
preface that by far the greater part of our primitive peo-
ples, when they came under the view of Europeans, were
acquainted with, and practised, agriculture. This is true,
for instance, of all the negro races of Africa with but few
exceptions, of the Malays, the Polynesians, and Mela-
nesians, and of the primitive races of America, save those
living at the extreme north and south of that hemisphere.
It is a widely prevalent error, for which our youthful read-
ing is responsible, that makes pure hunting races out of
the North American Indians. All the tribes east of the
Mississippi and south of the St. Lawrence were familiar
with the cultivation of food-plants before the coming of
Europeans; and, in the regions lying beyond, they at least
gathered the grain of the water-rice (cicania aquatica) and
ground meal from the berries of the manzanita shrub.''

The agriculture of primitive peoples is, however, pecu-
liar.'* In the first p'ace it knows nothing of an implement
that we think indispensable, namely, the plough. Wheel
and wagon and draught-animals are likewise unknown.
Furthermore, cattle-raising forms no integral part of their

' Waitz, .Utthrofvlogu' d. Xatunvlkcr. III.
*Conip. E. Hahn. as above, pp. j88 ft.

pp.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRlMlTiyE PEOPLE.

- I

I i '

I :

t I

agriculture. Fertilizing of the soil occurs at times, but it
is extremely rare. More frequent are irrigation arrange-
ments, especially for rice and taro plantations. As a rule,
however, the cultivated land must be changed when its
nutritive elements are exhausted; and the change is facili-
tated by the absence of individual property in the soil,
which belongs to the tribe or the village community as a
vvhole. Lastly, [we may recall,] the preparing of the soil
is almost exclusively woman's work. Only in the first
clearing of a piece of lar.d do the men assist.

Of late years this system of culture has been designated
the hack or hoc system, a short-handled hoe being its chief
implement. With .some tribes the primitive digging-stick
still retains its place. At the basis of its plant production
lie the tropical tuberous growths: manioc, yam, taro, sweet
potato, pignut, and in addition bananas, various species of
gourds (cucurbitacccc) , beans, and of the grains, rice,
durra, and maize. Rice has its oldest home in South China
probably, the durra in Africa, and maize, as is well known,
in America. There belong, finally, to this system of agri-
culture the tropical fruit-trees— sago , date-, and cocoa-
palms, the breadfruit-tree, and the like.

On account cf the imperfect nature and limited pro-
ductivity of the implements, only small stretches of land
can ever be taken into cultivation under the hack system.
It is closely related externally, and also in the manner in
which it is carried on. to our garden culture. The fields
are generally divided into beds, which are often hilled in
an exemplary fashion and kept perfectly free of weeds.
The whole is surrounded with a hedge to keep out wild
animals; against the grain-eating birds, which are particu-
larly dangerous to the har\'ests of the tropics, the Malays
set up ver\' ingeniously constructed scarecrows; in most
places in Africa special waich-towcrs arc erected in the

'Si

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRJMITiyE PEOPLE.

fields from which the young girls make noises to frighten
away the animals. As a rule a definite crop rotation is ob-
served. In the Congo basin, for instance, when the land
is newly broken up it is first planted with beans, and when
these are harvested, millet is sown; interspersed with the
latter the sprouts of the manioc are often set out. The
manioc does not yield full returns for from one and a half
to two years, and occupies the land until the roots com-
mence to become ligneous, and virgin soil must be taken
tip. In New Pomerania the rotation is yam roots first,
then taro. and finally bananas, sugar-cane, and the like.®

Travellers have often described the deep impression
made upon them when, on coming out of the dreary
primeval forest, they happened suddenly upon the well-
tended fields of the natives. In the more thickly popu-
latea parts of Africa these fields often stretch for many a
mile, and the assiduous care of tlie negro women shines
in all the brighter light when we consider the insecurity of
life, the constant feuds and pillagings, in which no one
knows whether he will in the end be able to harvest what
he has sown. Livingstone gives somewhere a graphic
description of the devastations wrought by the slave-hunts;
the people were lying about slain, the dwellings were de-
molished; in the fields, however, the grain was ripening,
and there v.as none to harvest it. But as yet the life of
these people is by no means firmly attached to the soil;
seldom do their settlements remain for several generations
on the same spot;^ their houses are fugitive structures of

'Descriptions of hack agriculture in Angola, Congo district: Pogge.
pp. 8. 9; Wissmann, Unter deutsch. Flagge, pp. 34i ff-: among the Mon-
buttos: Schweinfurth, In the Heart of Africa, II, pp. 37-39; in
Mindanao: Ztschr f. Ethnol., XVII, pp. 19 ff-; in New Guinea: Finsch,
Samoafahrten, pp. 56 ff.; in New Pomerania: Parkinson, Im Bismarck-
Archipel, pp. 118 ff.; in South America: Martiub, Zur Ethnogr. Atner-
ikas, pp. 84. 85. 489. 490.

' Ratzel, I, p. 85 ; Panckow, pp. 167 ff.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

I I

IP
111
\\\

SB i J.

li**

poles and grass; their other possessions may easily be
carried away on their backs or quickly replaced, and on
another spot a new village in a few days can be erected
in which nothing from the old is lacking save the vermin.

Hack agriculture is exactly suited to just such a life.
It requires no fixed capital beyond the small hoe and,
where corn is cultivated, perhaps a knife to cut the ears.
The keeping of supplies is scarcely necessary, since in
many quarters the climate permits several harvests in the
year. Where grain is grown, however, it is customary to
store ' in small granaries built on posts, or in pits in the
earth, or in great earthen vessels. But even where thus
stored it must soon be used if it is not to be destroy».d
through dampness, weevils, and termites. Livingstone
thinks this explains why the negroes in case of abundant
harvest brew so much beer.^

Hack agriculture is still one of the most widely prevalent
systems of husbandry. It is to be found throughout all
Ceni-al Africa (i8° N. lat. to 22° S. lat.). in South and
Central America, in the whole of the Australian islands,
in great sections of Further India and the East Indian
Archipelago, Everywhere, [as already noted], it appears
to have been originally woman's work; and as such it is
a great factor in advancing civilization. Obviously through
hunting for roots, which she had practised from the earliest
times, woman was led on to agriculture. Farinaceous bulbs
and root-crops form accordingly the chief part of her plan-
tations. In this manner she gained technical experiences
which the man did not enjoy. Her labour soon yielded
the most important part of the requirements of life; and
therewith was laid the foundation of a permanent family
organization, in which the man undertook the offices of
protection and the procuring of animal food. Only where

* Expedit. to Zambesi, p. 253.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PfUMUlvE PEOPLE.

there are no large quantities of game toes the man take
part in the cultivation of th? soil, as, foi instance, among
the Malays.

Let us now turn to the second source of sustenance,
hunting and fishing. Through the imperfect nature oi
their weapons hunting has ever had among primiti'-'j peo-
ples a strong resemblance to the method of the beast of
prey stealing upon its victim. A larger animal can only be
wounded by an arrow-shot or spear-thrust, not killed; and
then it is the hunter's task to pursue the Vast until it sinks
down exhausted. As this species of hunt may, however,
under certain circumstances, become very dangerous, the
most varied ways of trapping have been invented — pits,
barricades, and falling trees; or in attacking the animal
directly the hunt is carried on by whole tribes or village
communities.^ Under such circumstances communal own-
ership of the hunting-grounds and the establishment of
very detailed rules for the distribution of the booty among
the participants and the owners of the ground have been
early developed; but on such matters we cannot enter
here.**^ The essential thing for us to note is that the part of
the duties pertaining to the providing of footl necessitates
a certain organization of work conformable to the princi-
ple of labour in common — a circumstance that has cer-
tainly been of the greatest importance for the birth of
primitive political communities.

The same is to be said of fisliing,^^ especially where the
industry is followed along the seashore with boats and
large nets, which can be produced and handled only with
the help of many. The Ne' / Zealanders, for instance, wove

'On the hunting methods of the Kaffirs cunip. Fritsch, pp. 81 ff. ; of
the South Americans, Martins, pp. 8j, 101.

'"Some particulars in Post, Afr. Juiistr.. II, pp. i6z. 163; Lubbock,
Origin of Civilisation, p. 435.

■•' As to fishing comp. in general Katzel, 1, pp. ij4, 396, 506, 531.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

! ill

i I ^i

< r «

I i

nets one thousand yards in length and it took hundreds of
hands to use them. Innumerable are the modes of catch-
ing fish which primitive peoples have invented; besides
hook and net, arrows, spears, bow-nets, and methods of
stunning the fish are resorted to. All our information on
this subject indicates that fishing acquired a much more
regular character among primitive peoples than hunting.
On many islands of the South Sea, indeed, definite days of
the week have once for all been set apart for the communal
fishing; and the leatlers of the fishing expeditions are also
the leaders in war. Stream-fishing has been especially de-
veloped by the primitive inhabitants of South America,
among whom there are tribes that have been called fish-
ing nomads because they wander from stream to stream.
The same also occurs here and there in Africa. The actual
labour of fishing seems always to fall to the men; it is only
in some districts of Polynesia that the women take a lim-
ited part in it.

Because of the very perishable nature of meat, hunt-
ing and fishing in tropical regions can, in the majority cf
cases, supplement the vegetable diet only occasionally.
True, the drying and even the smoking of the fish and
meat cut into strips was early learned and practised. This
i.s the usage with the Polynesians as well as among the
Malays and Americans, and even among the negroes and
Australians. Yet the pan ci the food requirement which
can be regularly met in this manner is so small that it is
a rule among many tribes that only the more prominent
persons may enjoy certain kinds of game. It is ([uite com-
mon also for the use of certain kinds of meat to be for-
bidden to the v.'omen. It is only small forest and coast
tribes, who are able with their dried meat to carry on trade
with agricultural neighbours, that find their support in
hunting and fishing.

THE ECONOM.'C LIFE OF PRIMlTIf^E PEOPLE.

It would accordingly be quite natural to assume that
primitive peoples must early have hit upon the taming and
raising of animals as a source of a regular food-supply.
But we can speak of cattle-raising as a practice among the
peoples of the tropical regions only in a very restricted
sense. The hen alone, of our domestic animals, is to be
found everywhere; besides it there is in Africa the goat,
among the Malays and Polynesians the pig, and among
the Americans the turkey, the musk-duck and the guinea-
pig. Cattle are found only among one section of the
Malays and in one strip, more or less broad, of East
Africa, which runs through almost the whole continent,
from the Dukas and Baris on the Upper Nile to the
Hottentots ?nd Namaquas in the south. But most of
these people o not use them as draught-animals; many
of them do not even use their milk; many East African
cattle-raisers never slaughter a beast except when they
have captured it from another tribe.*' Here and
there in Equatorial Africa the ox serves as a riding and
pack animal; but, generally speaking, the possession of
cattle is for the negro peoples merely " a representation of
wealth and the object of an almost extravagant venera-
tion," — merely a matter of fancy.

Ami this in general is the character of cattle-keeping
among primitive peoples. An Indian village in the inte-
rior of Brazil, [as we have remarked in our last chapter],
resembles a great menagerie; even the art of dyeing the
plumage of birds is known; but none of the many animals
are raised because of the meat or for other economic pur-
pose; the very eggs of the hens, which are kept in large
numbers, are not eiten.'-^ To the Indian the lower animals

" Schweinfurth, I, pp. 59, 60; LivinRstonr, p. ssj; Pogge, p. 23;
Wissmann, Im Inntrn Afrikas, pp. 25, 127.

"Ehrenreich, pp. i.i, 14, 54; Martius, pp. 6;j ff.; K. v. d. Steinen,
PP •Jio, 379. bimilariy amung the Oceanians: Ratzei, I, p. 2j6.

1 1?

52 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

are beings closely related to man, and in which he delights;
but, as is evident, this keeping of animals is much more
closely allied to the hunt than to agriculture. Here we
have to do with tamed, not with domestic, animals. With
such a state of affairs the place of the pig in the domestic
economy of the Oceanians has many cognate features; it is
petted by the whole family; its young are not infrequently
suckled by the women; and its flesh is eaten only on feast
days and then by the more prominent people alone. The
sole animal, [other than the hen], which is found among
all primitive peoples is the dog; but it also is a pure luxury
and is almost nowhere employed in the hunt; only a few
tribes eat its flesh, and it has been claimed from ob-
servation that these are always such as are devoted to

cannibalism.

On the whole, then, no importance can attach to cattle-
raising in the production of the food-supplies of primitive
peoples; in their husbandry it forms little more than an
element of consumption.

But the needs of these peoples are not confined to sus-
tenance. Even the lowest among them paint, or in other
ways decorate, their bodies, and make bow^ and arrows;
the more advanced erect more or less substantial houses,
plait and weave all kinds of stufTs. carve implements, make
burnt earthen vessels; all prepare their food with fire, and
with few exceptions know how to concoct intoxicatmg
beverages. For all this labour of ditTcrcnt kinds is neces-
sary which we can cluiracterize in a simple manner as the
transformation or tt-or/, m/^' »/' of material, and which in the
main embraces what we <lcsi-nate industry. Now what
system did ami does such work exhibit among primitive

peoples'

If we arc to answer this (juestion we must distmguish
sharplv the tcciinical and the economic sides of industry.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

Technique in connection with the transformation of ma-
terial is primarily dependent on natural conditions, and ac-
cordingly develops among most primitive peoples only
along special lines.'' Their implements are at first simple,
natural objects, such as stones, animal bones, shells, sharp-
ened pieces of wood, destined almost solely to increase the
working power of the human members Of implements
consisting of more than one part, we may mention the
hand-mill and crushing-mortar. The first is merely a sta-
tionary and a movable stone with which the grains of corn
are ground in the same manner as our artisans grind paint
in a mortar. The crushing-mortar is a hollowed tree-trunk
with a wooden pestle. The simplest labour-saving me-
chanical helps, such as wedge, lever, tongs, and screw, are
unknown to them. Their boats are tree-trunks hollowed
out with fire, or pieces of bark sewn together; the rudders
are sf>oonlike pieces of wood with short handles represent-
ing little more than a broadening out of the hand. The
ai I of joining together pieces of wood or other hard mate-
rial by pegs, nails, dovetailing, or glue they are ignorant
of; for this purpose they use tough fibres or cords or even
mere tendrils of climbing plants. Metal-working was un-
known to the Australians, Melanesians, Polynesians, and
the native inhabitants of .America before the coming of the
Europeans. On the other hand the negro peoples are uni-
versally familiar with the procuring and working up of
iron, and here and there of copper as well. A more ad-
vanced techni(|ue as regards metals is found only among
the Malays. But even in the iron-forging of the negroes
all the technical awkwardness of these peoples can be per-
ceived. Their smiths did not even hit upon the idea of
making their own tools out of iron. Hammers and anvils
are stones, and very often the tnngs are only the rib of a
palm-leaf.

"On what foli'iw* romp. Arbeit u Nhythnius. pp. lo ff

■ jpWJiuiWPfWHW"

3> 1

1 "' .

54 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

In Spite of this technical backwardness many primitive
peoples with their wretched tools produce wares of such
quality and art^.stic taste as to arouse our highest admira-
tion. This is possible only when the particular technical
processes are applied in le simplest, and at the same time
most comprehensive, manner. Preeminent are weavmg,
pottery, and wcod-carving. What indeed do the tropical
peoples not make out of the bast and fibrous material of
their forests, of the tough grasses and rushes— from mats
and clothing-stuflEs of bark to water-tight baskets, dishes,
and bottles? What is not made by the East Indians and
Eastern Asiatics fror.^ bamboo— from the timbers of the
house to water-vesseis, blowing-tubes, and musical instru-
ments? How highly developed is woodwork among the
Papuans; ami what patience and perseverance it demands!
To weave a pijce of stuff of raffia fibre in Madagascar often
takes several months; and in South America the same time
is required to finish a hammock. The polishing and pierc-
ing of the milk-white pieces of quartz that the Uaupes
of Brazil wear about their necks is frequently the work of
two generations.

This leads us directly to the industrial organisation in the
working tit of material For such labour there are, with
few exceptions, no distinctly professional craftsmen. Each
household has to meet all economic requirements of its
members with its o'-m labour; and this is accomplished
by means of that peculiar division of dulies l)etween the
two sexes, which we have come to know [in the preceding
chapter]. Not only is it that a definite part of the provid-
ing of food is assigned to either sex, but each looks
after the preparing of such as is gained along with all at-
tendant tasks. To the woman falls all that is connected
with the procuring and preparing of the vegetable foods:
to the man the makinp of wca])<.ii-,. .ui.l of implements for
hunting, fishing, and cattle-raising, the working-up of ani-

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRlMlTiyE PEOPLE.

mal bones and skins, and the building of canoes. As a rule
the man also looks after the roasting of the meats and the
drying of fish, while the woman must attend to the labor-
ious grinding of the com, which she has grown, the brew-
ing of beer, the shaping and burning of earthen pots for
cooking, and in many instances the building of the huts as
well. Besides these there are many species of the trans-
forming of material, which are allotted now to one sex,
now to the other. We may mention spinning, weaving,
plaiting, the preparing of palm-wine and of bark stuffs.
But, on the whole, this division of duties between the male
and the female members of families is sharply drawn. In-
deed it is continued even in consumption, for men and
women never eat together; and, where polygamy exists, a
separate hut must be provided for each wife.'*

We cannot enter upon a more detailed discussion
of this peculiarly evolved dualism in liouselwld economy
among primitive peoples. It devolves upon us, however,
to establish that the labour of the members of the house-
hold, which is of such an individualistic character, cannot
suffice for all tasks of their economic life. For under-
takings that surpass the strength of the single household,
assistance must therefore be obtained: either the help of the
neighbours is solicited or all such labours are performed
at one time by the whole village community. The latter
is the rule in Africa, for instance, with the breaking of
stretches of forest land for cultivation, the laying of barri-
cades and pits for trapping wild animals, and elephant-
hunting; in F'olynesia. with the weaving of large fishing-
nets, the building of large houses, the baking of bread-
fruit in a common oven, and the like. Where clanship or
slavery or polygamy exists, there is offered a means for
multiplying the domestic working strcncrth, and thus for

' Com p.

•ve. rr

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

fe I

) r ,i'

accomplishing services of a higher order for which the
individual's strength does not suffice.

Within the separate tribes, accordingly, the working
and refining of the raw products does not lead to the de-
velopment of distinct trades, in that such work is carried
on with uniform independence in each separate household
From the reports of travellers, who judged from appear-
ances, the existence of artisans among various primitive
peoples has indeed been asserted. Thus on certain islands
of the South Sea there are said to be professional carpen-
ters, shoemakers, net-knitters, stone-borers, and wood-
car\'ers. On closer examination of the particular cases
these observations are open to doubt; to me the case of
the native metal-worker seems alone to be proved. Among
the negroes of Africa, as far as I can judge, only among
the semi-civilized peoples of the Soudan are there the be-
ginnings of a special industrial class. Beyond this any
traces of a specialized industry supposed to have been dis-
covered among primitive peoples are to be thus ex-
plained: either individuals manifesting special aptitude
for some manufacture came under the observation of
travellers, or entire tribes excelled in a particular kind of
household occupation, as we shall see directly. Trades
formed only under European influence must naturally be
disregarded here.

But from tribe to tribe we find great differences in this
industrial working-up of materials. It may even be safely
claimed that almost every tribe displays some favourite
form of industrial activity, in which its members surpass
the other tribes. This is due to the varied distribution of
natural products. If good potter's clay is to be found in
the district or village of a particular tribe, the women of
this tribe or village readily acquire special skill in pottery;
where native iron ore is discovered, smiths will appear;

r \ t

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

while along well-wooded seacoasts boat-building will flour-
ish. Other tribes or localities excel in the preparation of
salt from vegetable ashes, in the making of palm-wine or
leather or skin garments; others again in the making of
calabashes, baskets, mats, and woven materials. All these
forms of skill, however, are aptitudes such as every man or
every woman of the particular tribe or locality knows and
also practises on occasion. When these individuals are
designated by travellers as smiths, salt-makers, basket-
makers, weavers, etc., that is to be taken in the same sense
as when we speak of ploughmen, reapers, mowers, thresh-
ers among our peasants, according to the work in which
they are for the time engaged. We have here to do not
with special trades claiming the individual's whole activity,
but with arrangements forming essential parts of the econ-
omy of each separate family. This naturally does not
preclude single individuals from surpassing in skilfulness
the other members of the tribe, just as there are among
our peasant women particularly adept spinners, and among
the farmers horse-breeders and bee-keepers who win in
prize competitions.

Travellers have often observed this tribal or local de-
vclopmait of industrial technique. " The native villages,"
relates a Belgian observer of the Lower Congo, " are often
situated in groups. Their activities are based upon recip-
rocality, and they are to a certain extent the complements
of one another. Each group has its more or less strongly
defined specialty. One carries on fishing, another pro-
duces palm-wine; a third devotes itself to trade and is
broker for the others, supplying the community with all
products from outside; another has reserved to itself work
in iron and copper, making weapons for war and hunting,
various utensils, etc. None may, however, pass beyond
the sphere of its own specialty without exposing itself to

■r
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1 - , ^ .

ill

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f ft--

THE ECONOMIC UFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

the risk of being universally proscribed." From the
Loango coast Bastian tells of a great number of similar
centres for special products of domestic industry. Loango
excels in mats and fishing-baskets, while the carving of
elephants' tusks is specially followed in Chilungo. The so-
called " Mafooka " hats with raised patterns are drawn
chiefly from the bordering country of Kakongo and May-
yumbe. In Bakunya are made potter's wares which are in
great demand, in Basanza excellent swords, in Basundi
especially beautiful ornamented copper rings, on the
Zaire clever wood and tablet carvings, in Loango orna-
mented cloths and intricately designed mats, in Mayumbe
clothing of finely woven mat-work, in Kakongo embroid-
ered hats and also burnt-clay pitchers, and among the Ba-
yakas and Mantetjes stuffs of woven grass.

Other similar accounts might be cited, not merely
from Africa," but also from the South Sea Islands and
even from Central and South America." We shall thus
hardly err in assuming that in these tribal industries the
controlling principle in the industrial development of prim-
itive peoples has been discovered; that by them was
furnished the means whereby the satisfaction of the needs
of the individual and of whole groups was extended beyond
their own immediate powers of production. For it may
be taken for granted that an industrial product found only
among those manufacturing it, especially if it attained to
some importance in the simple life oi these uncivilized peo-
ples, would soon be coveted by the surrounding tribes.

'* H. Schurtz has made a collection of them in his Afr. Gewerbc, pp.
29-65. He has pursued further, though unfortunately not far enough,
the subject of tribal industry. He has found such industry so exten-
sively in evidence i.nat we may assume the conditions of industrial
production here portrayed to exist wherever travellers do not ex-
pressly report to the contrary.

" Comp. K. Sapper. Das Hordl. Mittel-Amerika (1897'). pp. 200 flF.. and
the further examples given by us.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

But the way from the coveting of an article to its enjoy-
ment is a longer one in an economical organization, based
upon acquisition directly by the individual himself, than
we are inclined to assume in our own social life, which rests
upon trade.

In fact decidedly unclear conceptions are widely preva-
lent as to the system of exchange of primit've peoples. We
know that throughout Central Africa, from the Portuguese
possessions in the west to the German in the east, there is a
market-place every few miles at which the neighbouring
tribes meet every fourth to sixth day to make mutual ex-
changes. Of the Malays in Borneo we are told that each
larger village possesses its weekly market. The first dis-
coverers of the South Sea Islands give us reports of distant
" trading trips " which the natives undertake from island
to island in order to make mutual exchanges of their wares.
In America certain products, the raw material for which is
to be found only in a single locality — for example, arrow-
points and stone hatchets made of certain kinds of stone
— have been met with scattered throughout a great part of
the continent." Even among the aborigines of Australia
there are instances of certain natural products, such as
pitcher-plant leaves and ochre colour, which are found
in but one place, and yet circulate through a g^eat part
of the country. In such phenomena we have a new and
interesting proof of the civilizing power of trade; and
in the primeval history of Europe itself this power has
everywhere been assumed as operative when industrial
products have been brought to light through excavations
or otherwise far from their original place of production.
Our prehistoric studies have woven together a whole
spider's web of suppositions and have even brought us to

" Waitz. Ill, p 75; on markets in South America. Ill, p. 380: on
others in Mexico, IV, pp. 99 ff.

m''i

ii-

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THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMHWE PEOPLE.

speak of prehistoric '* industrial districts." Our ethno-
graphic literature speaks similarly of industrial localities
for the manufacture of arms and the plaiting of mats in
Borneo, for pottery at several points in New Guinea, for
boat-building in several coast districts of the Duke of York
Archipelago, for iron-working in negro countries, etc.

In opposition to this it must be asserted positively that
trade in the sense in which it is regarded by national econ-
omy — that is, in the sense of the systematic purchase of
wares with the object of a profitable re-sale as an organized
vocation— can nowhere be discovered among primitive
peoples. Where we meet native traders in Africa, it is a
question either of intermediary activity prompted by Eu-
ropean and Arabian merchants, or of occurrences peculiar
to the semi-civilization of the Soudan. Otherwise the only
exchange known to the natives everywhere is exchange
from tribe to tribe. This is due to the unequal dis-
tribution of the gifts of nature and to the varying develop-
ment of industrial technique among the different tribes.
As between the members of the same tribe, however, no
regular exchange from one household establishment to
another takes place. Nor can it arise, since that voca-
tional division of the population is lacking which alone
could give rise to an enduring interdependence of house-
holds.

One fancies the gemns of exchange to have been very
easy because civilized man is accusiomed to find all that
he needs ready made at the market or store and to be able
to obtain it for money. With primitive man, however,
before he became acquainted with more highly devel-
oped peoples, value and price were by no means current
conceptions. The first discoverers of Australia found in-
variably, both on the continent and on the neighbouring
islands that th« aborigines had no conception of ex-

i f

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITiyE PEOPLE.

change." The ornaments offered them had no power
whatever to arouse their interest; gifts pressed upon
them were found later on strewn about in the woods
where they had been cast in neglect. Ehrenreich ^^ and
K. V. der Steinen 2" had as late as 1887 the same experi-
ence among the Indian tribes of Brazil, Yet there
was from tribe to tribe a brisk trade in pots, stone hatchets,
hammocks, cotton threads, necklaces of mussel-shells, and
many other products. How was this possible in the ab-
sence of barter and trade?

The solution oi this riddle is simple enough, and has
now been confirmed by direct observation on the spot,
while previously it could only be assumed. The transfer
ensues by way of presevts, and also, according to circum-
stances, by way of robbery, spoils of war, tribute, line, com-
pensation, and winnings in gaming. As to sustenance, al-
most a community of goods prevails between members ot
the same tribes. It is looked upon as theft if a herd of cat-
tle is slaughtered and not shared with one's neighbour, or
if one is eating and neglects to invite a passer-by. Anyone
can enter a hut at will and demand food; and he is never
refused. Whole communities, if u poor harvest befall, visit
their neighbours and look to them for temporary support.
For articles of use and implements there exists the uni-
versal custom of loaning which really assumes the character
of a duty; and there is no private ownership of the soil.
Thus within the tribe where all households produce similar
commodities and, in case of need, assist each other, and
•where surplus stores can only be utilized for consumption,
there is no occasion for direct barter from establishment
to establishment. Exceptions occur when purchasing a

"Documentary proof in Ztschr. f. Sozial- u. Wirtschaftsgesch.. IV,
pp. S flF. (Sartorius v. Waltershausen).
" Beitrdge :. I'olkerkunde Rrasihens, p. 53,
" Unler d. Natun>olkern Central- Brasiliens (2d ed.), pp. 287 ff.

■11

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:■.;!

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

wife and making presents to tne medicine-man, the singer,
the dancer, and the minstrel, who are the only persons
carrying on a species of separate occupations.

From tribe to tribe there prevail rules of hospitality,^^
which recur with tolerable imilarity among all primitive
peoples. The stranger on arriving receives a present,
which after a certain interval he reciprocates; and at his
departure still another present is handed him.^' On both
sides wishes may be expressed with regard to these gifts.
In this way it is possible to obtain things required or de-
sired; and success is the more assured inasmuch as neither
party is absolved from the obligations of hospitality until
the other declares himself satisfied with the presents.

That this custom of reciprocal gifts of hospitality per-
mits rare products of a land or artistic creations of a tribe
to circulate from people to people, and to cover just as
long distances from their place of origin as to-day does
trade, will perhaps become more apparent to us when we
consider how legends and myths have in the same way
been enabled to spread over half the A^orld. It is almost
inconceivable that this could have been so long overlooked
when even in Homer the custom of gifts of hospitality is
attested by so many examples. Telemachos brings home
from Sparta as present from Menelaos a bowl of silver
which the latter had himself received in Sidon as a gift of
hospitality from King Phaidimos, and his father Odys-
seus receives from the Phaiakes garments and linen and
articles of gold as well as a whole collection of tripods and
basins. All this he conceals on his arrival, as is well
known, in the sacred grove of the nymphs in his native
rocky island of Ithaca. Think of the poet's narration as

" On this oo-.it cotnp. K. Haberland, Die Gastfrcundschaft auf nied.
KuUurstufen: Ausland (1878), pp. 282 flF.

"Gift-making without recompense Lciutigs un'iy fo a higher stage of
civilization: A. M. Meyer, Ztschr. f. deutsch, Kuhurgesch., V, pp. 18 fT.

.■*!

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

a''.;d toi 3U1 ()urt i.

■'"nr.i.ei; ir

liOl.

. uy

•■an.

s have

ion from

7.;ntral Aus-

kes for a

gift an object

V. or of per-

aaei

an historical occurrence, and imagine what would have
happened had Odysseus been recognised by the wooers at
the right moment and slain; the presents of the Phaiakes
would have rested well concealed in the gfrotio of the
nymphs down to our own times, and would have been
brought to light again by a moden; .archaeologist. Would
he not have explained the wholf treasu -e as the storehouse
of a travelling merchant of ' .e I- nif 15;^' ^.l 'Tellas, es-
pecially as he could have app a' .;d tor 3ui purt w • le actual
barter which occurs quite c
Among many primitive ^,
been preserved which cU r,^ ..!■ .1; ^'•:
presents to exchange, ^ii.ory^ 'u 1 .
tralia, for instance, a man < : > ■ "i
present the task of procuring ?s recinrocii
that another desires, or of buiu. ' loi Iii
formi..^ some other service. The one thus bound is called
yutschin, and until the fulfilment of the obligation wears a
cord about his neck. As a rule the desired object is to be
procured from a distance.^'" In New Zealand the natives
on the Wanganui river make use of parrots, which they
catch in great numbers, roast, and preserve in fat, in order
to obtain dried fish from their fe!lo"'-countrymen in other
parts of the island."^ Among the Indian tribes of Cen-
tral Brazil trade is still an mterchange of gifts of hospi-
tality; and the Bakairis translate the Portuguese cotr'>rcr,
to btiy, by a word signifying ' to sit down,' becaub ■ the
guest must be seated before he receives his present. In
the countries of the Soudan the co.";stant giving of pres-
ents frequently becomes burdensoine to the traveller
" since it is often only a concealed begging." " The gifts
of hospitality that are received in the camp," remarks

"A \V. TTowitt in Journal of Anthrop. Inst, XX (1891), pp. 76 ff.

** Shortland, Tfaditions and Sttl'erst-.tijtt.i of Ike Nctv Zealanders (Lon-
don, 1856), pp. 214, 215.

: - i
1 ■ ' -*

> 1

THE ECONOMIC UFE OF PRIMITiyE PEOPLE.

Staudinger,^'' " are in accord with good custom and are
often very welcome. But with every stop in a larger town
things are frequently obtained from high and low which are
ostensibly given as a mark of respect to the white man;
in reality they arrive only because the donors expect a
three- or four-fold response from the liberality of the Euro-
pean. Indeed I am convinced that many a poor woman
has herself first purchased the hen or duck that is to be
presented in order to do a profitable piece of gift business
with it."

The Indians of British Guiana appear to stand at the in-
termediate stage between gift-making and trading. Im
Thurm reports of them: "

•• There exists among the tribes of this, as oi probably every other
similar district, a rough system of distribution of labour; and this
serves not only its immediate purpose of supplying all the tribes with
better-made articles than each could make for itself, but also brings
the different tribes together and spreads among them ideas and news
of general interest. . . . Each tribe has some manufacture peculiar
to itself; and its members constantly visit the other tribes, often
hostile, for the purpose of exchanging the products of their own
labour for such as arc produced only by the other tribes. These
trading Indians are allowed to pass unmolested through the enemy's
country. . . Of the tribes on the coast, the Warraus make far the
best canoes, and supply these to the neighbouring tribes. They also
make hammocks of a peculiar kind, which are not, however, much
in rctjuest e.xcept among tlicnisclvcs. In the same way, far in the
interior, the Wapiaiias build boats for all the tribos in that district.
The Macusis have two special products which are in great demand
amongst all the tribes. One is the ourali. used for poisoning arrows
and the darts of blowpipes, the other is an abundance of cotton ham-
mocks; for, though these are now often made by the Wapianas .md
True Caribs, the Macusis are the chief makers. The Arecunas grow,
spin, and distribute most of the cotton which is used by the Macusis
.ind others for hamnocks and other articles. The Arecunas also sup-
ply all blowpipes; f(,r these are made of the stems of a palm which,

"/m Hcrstn d. Ilaussaliindcr (2d cd). pp. 216. 217 Comp. Sachau,
Retsen in Syricn u. Mesofotamien, p. loi; v. Hiigel, Kaschmir, pp. 406,
40;.

" /trnong the Indians of Guiana (London, 188.O, pp. 270-273-

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITiyE PEOPLE.

growing only in and beyond the Venezuelan boundary of their terri-
tory, are procured by the Arecunas, doubtless by exchange, from the
Indians of the native district of that palm. The Tarumas and the
Woyowais have a complete monopoly of the manufacture of the
graters on which Indians of all the tribes grate their cassava. These
two remote tribes are also the great breeders and trainers of hunting-
dogs. . . . The True Caribs, again, are the most skilful potters; and
though the Arawaks frequently, and the other Indians occasionally,
make vessels for their own use, yet these are by no means as good as
those which, whenever possible, they obtain from the Caribs. The
Arawaks make fibre hammocks of a kind peculiar to them. . . . The
Ackawoi alone, so far as I know, have no special product interchange-
able for those of their neighbours. These Indians are especially
dreaded and disliked by all the others; and it is possible that the want
of intercourse thus occasioned between this tribe and the others forced
the Ackawoi to produce for themselves all that they required. It is
further possible that to this enforced self-dependence is due the miser-
able condition of most of the Ackawoi.

" To interchange their manufactures the Indians make long jour-
neys. The Wapianas visit the countries of the Tarumas and the
Woyowais, carrying with them canoes, cotton hamnn-cks, and now
very frequently knives, beads, and other European goods; and, leav-
ing their canoes and other merchandise, they walk back, carrying with
them a supply of cassava-graters, and leading hunting-t'ogs, all which
things they have received in i hange for the things which they took.
The Macusis visit the Wapiana settlements to obtain graters i. \
dogs, for which they give ourali-poison and cotton hammocks; and
they again carry such of these graters and dogs as they do not them-
selves require, together with more of their own ouralt and of their
cotton hammocks, to other Indians — to the Arecunas. wlio j;ivc in
return balls of cotton or blowpipes; or to the True Caribs. who pay
in pottery."

Once originated exchange lonj? retains the marks of its

descent in the rules that are attached to it and which are

taken directly from the customs connected with gifts. This

is manifested, in the fir.st place, in the custom of payment

in advance which dominates trade nmonjT primitive pej-

pies." The medicine-man does not stir his hand to .lelp

" Even Europc.in merchants trading in .^fri^M must accommodate
themselves to this custom 'by advancing to the black interniediarics
whose services they call into re<|uisition the price of the commodities
that arc .0 be supplied. Conip. Pogge. pp. 11, 140, 141; M. Buchner,

THE ECONOMIC UFE OF PRIMITIl^E PEOPLE.

\ H

■ f

the sick until he has received from the sick man's relatives
his fee, which in this case closely resembles the present,
and has openly announced his satisfaction. No purchase
is complete until buyer and seller have before witnesses
declared themselves satisfied with the objects received.
Among many peoples a gift precedes or follows a deal; *•
the " good measures " of our village storekeepers, and
"treating" are survivals of this custom. To decline
without grounds an exchange that has been offered passes
among the negroes as an insult, just as the refusal of a
gift among ourselves. The idea that services interchanged
must be of equal value can hardly be made intelligible to
primitive man. The boy who performs a bit of work ex-
pects the same pay as the man, and the one who has
assisted for one hour just as much as the one who has
laboured a whole day; and as the greed on both sides
knows no bounds, every trading transaction is preceded
by long negotiations. Sii; lar negotiations, however, are
also the rule in the discharge of gifts of hospitality if the
recipient does not find the donation in keeping with his
dignity.

As time passes exchange creates from tribe to tribe its
own contrivances for facilitating matters. The most im-
portant of these are markets and money.

Markets are uniformly held among negroes. East Indi-
ans, and Polynesians in open places, often in the midst of
the primeval forests, on the tribal borders. They form neu-
tral districts within which all tribal hostilities must cease;
whoever violates the market-peace exposes himself to the
severest punishments. Each tribe brings to the market
KamfTHH. pp. 98, 99. Even the sacrifice to the deity seems to the peo-
ples of '.hi-s staKc only payment in advance for an expected service:
Heckewtlder. Indian Xations. pp. 2ti fT. ; and comp. pp. j^i. j.^fi

" Schurt/. F.ntslfh Gesch. d Geldes. pp. 67, 6a Landor, In the For-
bidden Land (Tibe<), I, p. ,115: II. p. 7&

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRlMITiyE PEOPLE. 67

whatever is peculiar to it: one honey, another palm-wine,
a third dried meat, still another earthenware or mats or
woven stuffs." The object of the interchange is to ob-
tain products that cannot be procured in one's own tribe
at all, or at least -cannot be produced so well and so artis-
tically as in neighbouring tribes. This must- agam lead
each tribe to produce in greater quantities than it requires
those products which are valued among the tribes, not pro-
ducing them, because in exchange for these it is easiest to
obtam that which one does not possess one's self, but
which others manufacture in surplus quantities. In each
tribe, however, every household produces the current
market commodity of exchange that enjoys this prefer-
ence. Hence it follows, when it is a question of a product
of house industry, such as earthenware or wares made of
bark, that whole villages and tribal areas appear to travel-
lers to be great industrial districts, although there are no
specialized artisans, and although each household pro-
duces everything that it requires with tlie exception of the
few articles made only among other tribes which they have
grown accustomed to and which exchange procures for
them merely as supplements to houshold production.

Such is the simple mechmism of the market among
primitive peoples. Now with regard to monfy. How
much has been written and imagined about the many
species of money among primitive peoples."" and yet how

"AlthnuKh many primitive iH-.^.k-s ran l.c to.m.l roadv to jjive
every tli.n^ for ICiiropcan wares that tlu-y have co,„e t,. kruw and
value, yet their rev;„lar exchange remains alto^iether u„e -ulcd and
cnnfmed to •, iVw artu-le.. Man> ohj^ct. of .l.nlv „-,. are nm t„ be
had from them at any price, especially ol.ieets of a.lorn.nent Comp
I'.nseh, Samoafahrtcn. pp. ,08. ,10, .«)(,, .-S,, f,, ,,,^: Martmx ctcd
above, pp, K.). 5()(,; Zt-.lir f FlhnoKr.. WIl. pp _> , (,j.

'-"!< .■\tMlrre, t-.thn,^^r. r,:n,llcl,„ ./. / VrcA ;,/).•, pp ...., (T O I.en/.
I chcr i.dd hi-i d. \\UufVi.',k,-rn ( HamhnrK. 1S-J5). R Ilwof. Tausch-
kiindd u Celdsurrogatc m alter u. neucr /.at (Gra/, 1882). II. Schurz,

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE,

' I

simple the explanation of their origin ! The money of each
tribe is that trading commodity ivhich it does not itself
produce, but which it regularly acquires from other tribes
by way of exchange. For such article naturally becomes
for it the universal medium of exchange for which it sur-
renders its wares. It is its measure of value according to
which it values its property, which could in no other way
be made exchangeable. It is its wealth, for it cannot in-
crease it at will. F°llow tribesmen soon come to employ
it also in transferring values, for because of its scarcity it
is equally welcome to all. Thus is explained what our trav-
ellers have frequently observed, that in each tribe, often
indeed from village to village, a different money is current,
and that a species of mussel-shells or pearls or cotton stuf?
for which everything can be purchased to-day, is in the
locality of the following evening's camp no longer ac-
cepted by anyone. The consetinence is that they must first
purchase the current commodities of exchange before they
can supply their own needs in the market. In this way,
also, is to be explained the further fact, which has come
under observation, that exchangeable commodities nat-
urally scarce, such as salt, cauri shells, and bars of cop-
per, or products of rare skill, such as brass wire, iron
spades, and earthen cups, are taken as money by many
tribes not possessing them; and above all is to be men-
tioned the well-known circumstance of objects of foreign
trade, such as European calicoes, guns, ponder, knives,
becoming general mediums of exchange.

Certain varieties of money thus secure a more extensive
area of circulation. They can even make their way into
the internal trade of the tribal members through employ-
ment as mediums of payment \u the juirchase of a bride, for

Balntge r. r.ntsli'huv-Rcsch d. („ldi\i: Deutsche Ucogr. Dldltcr (Bre-
men). .\X (iSfj;), ip. 1-'/'. Itiicrn. Archiv f, Ethtiogr., VI, p. 57.

,: ft

:•*

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITiyE PEOPLE.

compensations, taxes, and the like; certain kinds of con-
tracts are concluded in them. But there is no instance
of a primitive people, in the absence of European influence,
attaining to a currency or legal medium of payment for
obligations of every kind and extent. It is rather the rule
that various species of money remain in concurrent circu-
lation; and very often certain obligations can be paid only
in certain kinds. Changes in the variety of money are
not infrequent; but on the other hand we sometimes find
that a species will long survive the trade of the tribes from
which it has gone forth, and will continue to serve in the
inner transactions of a tribe, playing a singular, almost
demoniacal, role, although, as regards their means of sus-
tenance, the members of the tribe have nothing to buy and
sell to one another. From an old interrupted tribal trade
of this nature is to be explained the employment as money
of old Chinese porcelain vessels among the Bagobos in
Mindanao and the Dyaks in Borneo, the shells (dewarra)
of the Melanesians. and the peculiar kinds of money of
the Caroline Archipelago, for which special laws and ad-
ministrative contrivances are necessary in order to keep
this dead possession in circulation at all.^* Otherwise the
State does not interfere as a rule in these matters; and in
the large territorial formations of Africa, such as the king-
dom of Muata Yamwo. for instance, there are therefore
different currencies from tribe to tribe. But even where
one kind of money gains a greater area of circulation, its
value fluctuates widely at the various market-places:
generally, however, it advances in proportion to the dis-
tance from its source.^*'

" WV cannot rntir luri- more in dct.iil info these matters, and would
refer to the interesting descriptions of Kubary, Etknog. Beitrdge s.
Kcnntms d C:irfltmfn-Archi(<cls. pp. i fT.. and Parkinson, pp. 79, loi flf.

'"Thus Ccrohi reports, funf Jahrc m Ostafrika. p. 2-\: " .Xccordinff
to the higher or lower value of the salt bar in the markets of this

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

Markets and money are intimately related so far as
money in its character as a medium of exchange comes un-
der consideration. But not every individual species of
money that is met with among a primitive people has
necessarily arisen from market trade. In its full develop-
ment money is such an involved social phenomenon that
it is natural to suppose that various influences associated
with its past have been united in it. Thus, for instance,
the origin of cattle-money seems to be bound up with the
fact that, among the peoples referred to, the domestic ani-
mals represented the wealth and the means of gathering
wealth. That for the purchase of a bride and for similar
ends many tribes do not receive the current money, but
f such purposes prescribe certain other objects of worth,
a :)ears to point to the admissibility of the assumption that
the complete development of money, along with the

un current, various subsidiary streams may have played

art

7rom the standpoint of the total cultural progress of

'f Ea • Africa one could roughly estimate the distance from the

whe this money comes, and also judge of the more or less

icabl' ature of the routes over which the caravans transport it.

- in • reality of its origin, for one thaler one receives among

the T.- cording to the statements of several travellers, several

hii - bars. In Uorallu, the northern market of Schao, lying a

<li--ta! 'f some two hundred miles from the country of the Taltal,

;'.> va hictuatcs between fifteen and twenty for the thaler. In .^n-

coIkt. ciahty miles from Uorailu, the value sinks back to nine and

nine ;ind a half, and in Gera, two hundred and thirty miles beyond

Ancobcr, one receives, according to circumstances, only six. five.

four, or three salt bars per thaler."

"Perhaps Karl Marx rishtly expresses it when he tersely remarks:
" The money-form attaches itself either to the most important articles
of exchange from outside, and these in fact arc primuivc and natural
forms in which the exchange-value of h<ime product" find-, expression;
or else it attaches itself to the object of utility that f.)rnis, like cattle,
the chief portion of indigenous alienable wealth." — Capital (London,
1891), p 6i.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

mankind the most important result of this survey, how-
ever, remains, that money as the favourite exchange com-
modity furnished a medium that bound together men from
tribe to tribe in regular peaceful trade, and prepared the
way for a differentiation of tribes in the matter of produc-
tion. In the circumstance that all members of the same
tribe or village preferably carried on, along with the earn-
ing of their sustenance, other work of a definite type, lay
the possibility of an advance in technical knowledge and
dexterity. It was an international, or interlocal, division of
labour in miniature, which only much later was succeeded
by division of labour from individual to individual within
the nation, or the locality. Moreover the direct importance
of the market for personal intercourse at this stage must
not be undervalued, especially in lands where trading out-
side the market is so unusual that even travellers wishing
to buy something direct are regularly refused with the
words " come to market." In this one is involuntarily re-
minded of the prominent position that the market occu-
pied in the social and political life of the peoples of classical
antiquity.

But it is always a very onesided development, permitting
only to individual tribes the organization of production
and trade just descriljed. In this way is to be explained
that most extraordinary phenomenon that in the interior
of continents where no difficulties in communication op-
pose the passage of certain attainments in technical skill
from tribe to tribe, it has been possible for jieoplcs of
very primitive economic stamp to remain unchanged by
the side of others of higher development throughout
thousands of voars. One of the most remarkable exam-
ples of this nature is ofTere<l in Central Africa by the pigmy
race of the Batuas or Akkas. still standing at the stage of
the lower nomads, which keeps strictiv within the zone of

72 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

the primitive forest, but on definite days appears at the
market-places of the surrounding negro tribes to exchange
its chief economic product, dried meat of animals killed in
the hunt, for bananas, ground-nuts, maize, and the like. In
fact in some parts even a more primitive form of trading
has been maintained between these pigmy people and their
neighbours, in that at the period when thd fruit is ripe
the Batuas break into the fields of the negroes, steal bana-
nas, tubers, and corn, and leave behind an equivalent in
meat.3* The fact that the Batuas are clever hunters ap-
pears here to have caused the neighbouring tribes to neg-
lect the production of meat through hunting and cattle-
raising. On the other hand it is said that the pigmies do
not even make their own weapons, but procure them in
trade from the Momsus and other tribes.

Of this one-sided development another and much more
wide-spread example is offered by the smiths, who not
merely among many tribes of Africa but sporadically in
Asia and in southeastern Europe form a hereditarily dis-
tinct caste, whose members, whether regarded with bash-
ful awe or contempt, can neither enter into a marital nor

"Casati, Zehn Jahre in Aequatoria, I, p. 151. Schweinfurth, The
Heart of Africa, II. pp. 83 ff. Dr. W. Junker's Travels in Africa, III,
pp. 8s, 86. Wissmann, Wolf, etc., /m Intiern Afrikas, pp. 256, 258 ff. A.
similar report is given by W. Geiger (Ceylon), Tagebuchbldttcr u.
Reiseerittnerungen (Wiesbaden, 1897), of the Veddahs: "The method
by which the Veddah is able to procure his arrow-points— which he
does not make himself— is interesting. He betakes himself under
cover of ni^ht to the dwelling of a Singhalese smith, and places in
front of it a leaf t<) which the desired shape is given. To this he adds
a present o^ some kind, wild honey, the skin of an animal, or some-
thing similar. During one of the following nights he returns and
expects to find the object ordered finished. If he is satisfied, he will
deposit another special gift. The smiths never refuse to execute the
orders at once. If they do. tluy may be certain at the next oppor-
tunity to bo made the target f..^ :in arrow. Moreover their labour is
abundantly rewarded by what t Veddah gives in return."

THE ECONOMIC UFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

Other social alliance with the rest of the people." This
strange phenomenon has hitherto been explained as a
matter of remnants of subject tribes preserving to their
conquerors the art of metal-working, which had other-
wise perished, because the victorious race was ignorant of
it. It is, however, also conceivable that a voluntary dis-
persal of such tribes took place and that ti.e very differ-
ence of nationality, coupled with the carrying on of an
esoteric art, placed them wherever they settled outside the
community of the people.

In individual instances the carrying on of such a tribal
industry in this exclusive manner leads to the rise of what
travellers usually designate now as industrial peoples, be-
cause they do work for all their neighbours; now as trading
peoples, because one meets them in all the markets of a
more extensive district, and because they monopolize the
trade in certain wares. We have an instance of the former,
when the consumers resort to the district where a special
tribal industry flourishes, in order to get the desired wares
at the seat of manufacture; of the latter, when the pro-
ducers bring to the tribes lacking them such wares as they
produce beyond their own requirements.

As an example of the first form of this evolution, the
little tribe of the Osakas may be cited, which has its home
in the valley of the Ogowe to the east of the Lolo River.
Lenz^* reports concerning it: " The Osakas are divided
into five or six villages, each of which contains sixty to a
hundred huts; compared with their numerically so im-
portant neighbours, such as the Fans and the Oshebo-
Adumas, they are thus destined to play an altogether
passive role in the history of those countries. In spite of
this, however, the Osakas appear to be not altogether in-

" R. Andree. pp. 15,1 ff

" Mittheil. d. gfogr Gesell. in Wien (i8r8), p. 476-

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMmVE PEOPLE.

i m

li «

significant; for among them I found many individuals be-
longing to the most widely different tribes, frequently
from regions quite far distant. The Osakas are recognised
as the best smiths, and all the surrounding tribes, — the
Oshebo-Adumas, the Akelles, the Awanshis and even the
Fans, — buy of them a great part of their implements for
hunting and war, although the last-named tribe itself ex-
cels at this handicraft. By the Oshebo-Adumas the iron
wares of the Osakas are then brought down to the Okan-
des and to the Apinshis and Okotas dwelhng between the
rapids of the Ogowe, these last tribes on their part being
but little skilled in iron-work and devoting themselves ex-
clusively to the slave-trade. From there, through the me-
dium of the Iningas and Galloas, weapons of this kind find
their way as far as the sea-coast."

" The Oshebo-Adumas generally pay for these weap-
ons with palm-oil and ground-nuts, while the Fans, who
are the most expert huntsmen of all these various tribes,
give in exchange for the spears and swordlike knives dried
and smoked meat, chiefly of the antelope, the* wild boar,
the porcupine, the field rat and the monkey. In all the
Osaka villages I saw a bustling life. As must always be
the case where such widely diflferent tribes meet together,
quarrelings were extremely frequent there and often as-
sumed great proportions."

A typical example of the second form is offered by the
Kiocos and the Kanjocas in the southern part of the
Congo basin. Of the latter Wissmann reports: ^^ "The
Kanjoka country is particularly rich in iron, and there are
some excellent smiths there. Salt also is produced, so that
the Kanjokas, with the products of their countr>' and their
iron manufacture, undertake commercial expeditions to
the south as far as the Lunda country." The Kiocos dwell

"My Second Journey through Equal. Africa (London, 1891), p. 105.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMlTiyE PEOPLE.

in the kingdom of Lund itself, dispersed among the Ka-
lundas, but have their own chiefs who are tributary to the
Muata Yamwo. The Kiocos are partial to placing their
villages in the woodland, for they are preeminently excel-
lent hunters, gather gum from their forests, and to obtain
wax carry on a species of wild-bee keeping. They are also
clever smiths, and not only make good hatchets, but can
also repair old flmtlocks and even fit them with new mounts
and stocks. They clothe themselves in animal skins; the
art of making vegetable cloths is little known to them.
Their women plant chiefly manioc, maize, millet, ground-
nuts, and beans. The products that the Kiocos obtain
from the exploitation of their forests they exchange on the
west coast for wares, chiefly powder, with which they then
betake themselves into the far interior in order to buy
ivory and slaves. The ivory obtained through trade they
dispose of, while the slaves they procure they incorporate
with their household. The Kiocos esteem slaves above all
as property. They treat the slave women as they do their
wives, and the men as members of the household, and part
from them so very unwillingly that in the Kioco country
it is quite exceptional for travellers to be offered slaves for
sale. On their hunting voyages they have penetrated
farthest towards the east; and there, before entering upon
their journey homewards, they usually barter a part of
their weapons for slaves. Then for the time being they
arm themselves again with bow and arrow. They rightly
enjoy the reputation of being as good hunters as they are
crafty and unscrupulous traders; and in a masterful man-
ner they understand how to overreach and dispossess the
better-natured and more indolent Kalundas.^®

This picture is often repeated in the negro countries.

" Pogge, pp. 45, 46, 47, and Wissmann, Im Innern Afrikas, pp. 59, 62.
Comp. also Schurtz, Afr. Cew., p. 50.

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THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

One readily sees that it does not adapt itself to any of the
usual categories of economic history. The Kiocos are no
hunting people, no nomads, no agriculturalists, no indus-
trial and trading nation; they are all these at once. They
act as intermediaries for a part of the trade with the Euro-
pean factories on the coast. At the same time they carry
on some mediary traffic of their own in which they dis-
play the peculiar aptitude of the negro for barter, but
nevertheless gain most of their living directly from hunt-
ing and agriculture.

Both forms of development are met with in the two pot-
tery islands of New Guinea, Bilibi and Chas. The manu-
facture is in both places in the hands of the women. The
natives of the islands round about, and even of the more
distant ones, come to Chas to barter their products for the
earthenware; in Bilibi the men take whole boatloads to sell
along the coast. Every woman makes a special mark on
the pottery she produces; but whether with one European
observer we are to regard this as a trade-mark seems very
doubtful^*"

In order to leave untouched no important part of the
economic life of primitive peoples, let us take a rapid
glance at their commercial contrivances and public adminis-
tration. Both are intimately connected. For commerce is
essentially a public matter; there are no private commer-
cial arrangements whatever amoi..; these peoples. Indeed
one can claim frankly that at this stage trade scarcely dis-
plays an economic character at all.

In the first place as concerns commercial routes, there
are overland trade routes only when they have been
tramped by the foot of man; the only artificial structures
to facilitate land trade are primitive bridges, often consist-

•*Comp Finsch, pp. 8i, 8.?, 281, 28-!: Scmon, In the Austral. Bush. pp.
317 fF. Similar pottery districts in Africa proven by Schurtz, p. S4

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITH^E PEOPLE.

ing merely of a single tree-trunk, or ferries at river fords,
for the use of which the traveller has to pay a tax to the
village chief. These dues as a rule open the door to heavy
extortions.^^ On the other hand the natural waterways
are everywhere diligently used, and there is hardly a prim-
itive people that has not been led through its situation
by the sea or on a river to the use of some peculiar kind
of craft. The enumeration and description of these means
of transportation would fill a volume; from the dugout
and skin canoe of the Indians to the artistically carved
rowboats and sailboats of the South Sea Islanders, all
types are represented. On the whole, however, the tech-
nique of boat-building and navigation has remained unde-
veloped among these peoples; none of their vessels de-
serv'e the name of ship in the proper sense. Thus their
importance is everywhere restricted to personal transporta-
tion and fishing, while nowhere has the development
reached a freight transportation of any extent.

Curiously among primitive peoples that branch of com-
mercial communication has enjoyed the fullest develop-
ment which we would naturally associate only with the
highest culture, namelv. the communication of news. It
forms indeed the sole kind of trade for which primitive
peoples have created permanent organizations. We refer
to the courier service and the contrivances for sending
verbal messages.

The despatching of couriers and embassies to neighbour-
ing tribes in war and peace leads, even at a very low stage
of culture, to the development of a complete system of
symbolic signs and means of conveying intelligence.'"
Thus among the rude tribes in the interior of Australia

"Comp. Pogge. pp. 64. 70, 78, 95, 97, IIS, 169; Wissmann. Untcr
dfutsck. Flaggc. pp. .^43, 361. 364, 394; and Second Journey, p. 71.

"Comp. generally R. Andree, " Merkzeichen u. Knotenschrift " in
his Ethnogr Parallel, pp. 184 ff.: Waitz. IV. p. 80.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

Ill

various kinds of body-painting, of head-dress and other
conventional signs serve to apprise a neighbouring tribe of
the occurrence of a death, of the holding of a feast, and of
a threatening danger, or to summon the tribesmen tci-
gether for any purpose.^* Among the aborigines of South
America ingeniously knotted cords or leather strips
(quippits), and among the North Americans the well-
known wampum perform s'milar offices;*" in Africa cou-
rier-staflFs with or without engraved signs are customary,
and the same are found among the Malays and Poly-
nesians. If need be, the couriers have to learn their mes-
sage by heart and communicate it verbally.** In the negro
kingdoms, where the administrative power of the ruler
reaches only as far as he is able personally to intervene,*''
the couriers of the chiefs hold a very important position;
for through them the sovereign chief is as if omnipresent,
and new occurrences come to his knowledge with surpris-
ing rapidity. But even for the communication of intelli-
gence among members of the same tribe — for instance, in
hunting and in war — a system of symbols exists which is
often very ingeniously conceived, and which, as a rule, is
hidden from the uninitiated.

Not less remarkable are the telephonic contrivances rest-
ing upon the ingenious employment of the drum, the

"Details in Journ. of Anthropol. In^t.. XX, pp. "i ff.

" Martius, pp. 98, 99, 694; Waitz, III, pp. 138 ff. On knot writing in
West Africa: Bastian, Die Exp. «. d. Loango-Kustc, I, p. 181.

*' Livingstone, p. 285. Comp. also the apt description by Casalis,
Let Bassoulos, pp. 2.^, .235: " Ces niessagcrs sont gen ralement doues
dune memoire prodigieuse, ct Ton peut s'attendre a ce qu'ils trans-
mcttcnt tcxtucllcmcnt les depeches orales, dont ils se chargent."

"This applies also to the political conditions of semi-civilization.
G. Rohlfs, Land u. Volk in Afrika, p. 163: "The Abyssinian is accui-
tomed to obey only when his master is near. Once out of reach of his
voice little does he trouble himself about orders. This is the case in
all half-civilized countries. To this Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, and
Bornoo bear witness."

THE ECONOMIC UFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

musical instrument in widest use among primitive peoples.
In one sense they take the form of a developed signal-
system, as among the East Indians** and the Melane-
sians,*^ in another there is a real speaking of words by
which detailed conversations can be carried on at great
distances. The latter is very common in Africa.** As a
rule only the chiefs and their relations are acquainted with
this drum language; and the possession of the instrument
used for this purpose is a mark of rank, like the crown and
sceptre in civilized countries. Less extended is the em-
ployment of fire-signs for summoning the tribe or com-
municating news.*°

There is no public economy, in our sense of the word.
True, where their power is to some extent established, ♦he
chiefs receive all kinds of dues in the form of shares, tra-
ditionally fixed, in the products of the chase and of hus-
bandry, fees for the use of bridges, ferries, market-place. In
more extensive kingdoms the subordinate chieftains are
bound to send tribute.*® But all this is more or less mani-
festly clothed in the form of gift, for which the chief has to
bestow a return present even if this consist only in the
entertainment that he bestows upon the bearer. Even
with the market-fees, which are payable by the sellers to
the owner of the market-place, in the Congo district a

"Martius, p. 65. For a remarkable telephonic contrivance of the
Catuquinaru Indians, see .^rchiv f. Post u. Telegraphie (1899), pp.
87. 88.

"Parkinson, p. 127, comp. pp. ~2. 121; Finsch, p. 68. Likewise in
Africa: Schweinfurth, I, pp. 64, ago, 291.

" Described in ^r^'ater detail by M. Buchner, Kaincrun. pp. 37, 38;
Wissmann, Im Inncrn Afrikas, pp. 4, 228, 232; Betz in Mitthcil. aus d.
dcutsch Schutcgcbkti-it. XI (1898), pp. 1-86; Wissmann. I'ntcr dculsch.
rioRge, P- 215; Stanley, Through the Dark Continent. II, pp. 264, 279;
Livingstone, p. 93. For a .signal-whistlinj? languaRC in Timor, sec
Jacobsen, Reise in d. Inschcelt d. Buitda-Meers. p. 262.

"Comp., for example. Petermanns Mittheil.. XXI (1875). p. 381.

"Details in Post, Afr. Jurisprudens, I, pp. 261 flE.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITiyE PEOPLE.

return service is rendered in that the chief performs a
dance in front, and to the deHght, of those using the mar-
ket. Of special interest to us are the presents that trav-
ellers en route have to pay to the village chiefs whose
territories they traverse, since from such payments our
customs duty has sprung. Not less important is it to notice
that in the larger kingdoms the tribute of the subject
tribes consists of those products which are peculiar to
each tribe, and which are usually marketed by it. In the
Lunda country, for instance, some districts bring ivory or
skins, others salt or copper; from the northern parts come
plaited goods of straw, and from the subordinate chiefs
nearer the coast at times even powder and European cot-
ton stuffs.*^ Not infrequently has this led such sovereign
chiefs to carry on a trade in these products, which accumu-
late in large quantities in their hands, or to claim a monop-
oly in them. The saying that makes the kings the greatest
merchants thus gains a deeper significance.

In general the financial prerogatives of the chiefs are
limited only by their natural strength; and the wealth of
the subject is without the protection that the civilized
State assures to it by law. The expeditions sent out by
the negro kings to collect the tribute and taxes degen-
erate only too often into robber raids. The claim of the
kings to fines frequently reduces the administration of
justice to an institution for extortion, and the system of
gifts, which prevails in all relationships of a public char-
acter, too rapidly passes into a veritable system of bribery.

This must naturally react injuriously upon private in-
dustry. In the condition of constant feud in which the
smaller tribes live with their neighbours under the arbi-

" Pogge, pp. 226, 227. Comp. Wissmann, Im Inncrn Afrikas, pp.
171, 172, 202, 249, 267, 286, 289, .^08; Vnter deutsch. Flagge, pp. 95. 332, 339.
The same is true of the Marutse country north of the Zambesi: E.
Holub. Sieben Jakrc in Siidafrika. II. u-p. 173. 187. 253. 254, 257. 268. 271.

II >

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

trary rule which in the interior usually accompanies the
formation of larger states, most primitive peoples stand in
peril of life and property. Through long habit this danger
becomes endurable, yet economic advancement must as-
suredly be retarded by it. The obligation to make pres-
ents ever and everywhere, the custom of regarding food
almost as free goods, leave but insufficient room for self-
interest. An English writer makes the remark — from the
standpoint of European life certainly not inaccurate — that
this sharing-up, rendered necessary by custom, encourages
the people in gluttony, since only that is safe which they
have succeeded in stuffing into their bellies; it also pre-
vents rational provision for the future, because it is diffi-
cult to keep on hand supplies of any kind.^^ Assuredly
with some reason have the begging proclivities and the
" tendency to steal," which is said to animate many prim-
itive peoples in dealing with Europeans, been associated
with the custom of gifts and the insufficient distinction of
" mine and thine." *® The immoderate use of alcoholic
drinks is likewise a consequence of their slight forethought
for their own welfare. If, however, the attempt is made to
appreciate all these things apart from the conditions of cul-
ture in which they arise, one readily recognises that they
lie " beyond the bounds of good and evil," and that what
appears from the standpoint of the modern Englishman
as vice has concealed within it the beautiful virtues of dis-
interestedness, benevolence, and generosity.

For many who to-day pose as the bearers of civilization
to their black and brown fellow men primitive man is the
quintessence of all economic vices: lazy, disorderly, care-
less, prodigal, untrustworthy, avaricious, thievish, heart-

"Tindall, in Fritsch, p. 351; comp. p. 362. Waitz, II, p. 402; III,
p. 80.
"Comp. Waitz, III, pp. 163 flf.

THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

J'
'f

I .'"'4
1

■ ;']•

I — :

less, and self-indulgent. It is true that primitive man lives
only for the present, that he shuns all regular work, that
he has not the conception of duty, nor of a vocation as a
moral function in life. But it is not less true that with his
wretched implements he accomplishes an amount of work
that must excite our admiration, whether we contemplate
with our own eyes the neat fruit-fields of the women or
view in our museums the weapons and implements of the
men, the products of infinite toil. Above all, his manner
of working assures to primitive man a measure of enjoy-
ment in life and a perpetual cheerfulness which the Euro-
pean, worried with work and oppressed with care, must
envy him.

If since their acquaintance with European civilization
so many primitive peoples have retrograded and some
even become extinct, the cause lies, according to the
view of those best acquainted with the matter, chiefly in
the disturbing influence which our industrial methods and
technique have exerted upon them. We carried into their
childlike existence the nervous unrest of our commercial
life, the hurried hunt for gain, our destructive pleasures,
our religious wrangles and animosities. Our perfected im-
plements relieved them suddenly of an immense burden of
labour. What they had accomplished with their stone
hatchets in months they performed with the iron one in a
few hours; and a few muskets replaced in effectiveness
hundreds of bows and arrows. Therewith fell away the
beneficent tension in which the old method of work had
continuously kept the body and mind of primitive man,
particularly as the character of his needs remained at the
same low level. Under these conditions has he gone to
ruin, just as the plant that thrives in iu-. shade withers
away when exposed to the glare of the noon-day sun.

CHAPTER III.

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

Everyone knows that the modern man's way of satisfy-
ing his numerous wants is subject to continual change.
Many arrangements and contrivances that we find neces-
sary were unknown to our grandparents; and our g^rand-
children will find inadequate much that perhaps only a
short time ago aroused our admiration.

All those arrangements, contrivances, and processes
called forth to satisfy a people's wants constitute national
economy. National economy falls again into numerous
individual economies united together by trade and depend-
ent upon one another in many ways; for each undertakes
certain duties for all the others, and leaves certain duties
to each of them.

As the outcome of auch a development, national econ-
omy is a product of all past civilization; it is just as subject
to change as every separate economy, whether private or
public, and whether directly ministering to the wants of a
larger or a smaller number of people. Furthermore, every
phenomenon of national economy is aj)henomenon in the
gygJ^Jj^lP" of. civilization. In scientifically defining it and
in explaining the laws of its development we must always
bear in mind that its essential features and its dynamic
laws are not absolute in character; or, in other words, that
they do not hold good for all periods and states of civ-
ilization.

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

The first task, then, which national economy presents
to science is to determine and explain the facts. But it
must not be content with a merely dynamic treatment of
economic processes; it must also seek to deduce their
origin. A full understanding of any given group of facts
in the history of a civilized people requires that we know
how the facts arose. We shall, therefore, not escape the
task of investigating the phases of development through
which the economic activity of civilized peoples passed be-
fore it assumed the form of the national economy of to-
day, and the modifications undergone by each separate
economic phenomenon during the process. The material
for this second part of the task can be drawn only from the
economic history of the civilized peoples of Europe; for
these alone present a line of development which historical
investigation has adequately disclosed, and which has not
been deflected in its course by violent disturbances from
without ; though, to be sure, this upward development has
not always been without interruption or recoil.

The first question for the political economist who seeks
to understand the economic life of a people at a time long
since past is this: Is this economy national economy; and
are its phenomena substantially similar to those of our
modern commercial world, or are the two essentially dif-
ferent? An answer to this question can be had only if we
do not disdain investigating the economic phenomena of
the past by the same methods of analysis and deduction
from intellectually isolated cases which have given such
splendid results to the masters of the old " abstract " po-
litical economy when applied to the economic life of tne
present.

The Modern " historical " school can hardly escape the
reproach that, instead of penetrating into the life of earlier
economic periods by investigations of this character, they

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

have almost unwittingly applied to past times the current
classifications of modern national economy; or that they
have kneaded away so long at conceptions of commercial
life that these perforce appear applicable to all economic
periods. In so doing they have without doubt greatly ob-
structed the path to a scientific mastery of those historical
phenomena. The material for economic history, which
has been brought to light in such gteat quantities, has for
this reason largely remamed an unprofitable treasure still
awaiting scientific utilization.

Nowhere is this more plainly evident than in the manner
in which they characterize the differences between the
present economic methods of civilized nations and the eco-
nomic life of past epochs, or of peoples low in the scale of
civilization. This they do by setting up so-called stages^
of development, with generic designations made to embrace
the whole course of economic evolution.

The institution of such " economic stages " is from the
point of method indispensable. It is indeed only in this
way that economic theory can turn to account the
results of the investigations of economic history. But
these stages of development are not to be confoimded
with the time-periods of the historian. The stfrin-
must not forget to relate in any period everytlv
that occurred in it. while for his stages the theon i
need notice only the normal, simply ignoring the
cidental. In treating of the gradual transformation, f
quently extending over centuries, which all economic }
nomena and institutions undergo, his only object can
to comprehend the whole development in its chief pliase^.
while the so-called transition-periods, in which all phenom-
ena are in a state of flux, must, for the time, be dis-
regarded. By this means alone is it possible to discover

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

the fundamental features, or, let us say it boldly, the laws
of development.

All early attempts of this class suffer from the defect of
not reaching the essentials, and touching only the surface.
The best known series of stages is that originated by
Frederick List, based upon the chief direction taken by
production. It distinguishes five successive periods which
the peoples of the temperate zone are supposed to have
passed through before they attained their present economic
condition, namely: (i) the period of nomadic life; (2) the
period of pastoral life; (3) the period of agriculture; (4)
the period of combined agriculture and manufacture; and
(S) the period of agriculture, manufacture, and commerce.
Another series evolved by Bntno Hi'Jcbrand, which
makes the condition of exchange the distinguishing char-
acteristic, comes somewhat closer to the root of the mat-
ter. It assumes three stages of development: period of
barter; period of monev; and period of credit.

Both, however, take lor granted that as far back as his-
tory reaches, with the sole exception of the '" primitive
state," there has existed a national economy based upon
exchange of goods, though at different periods the forms
of production and exchange have varied. They have no
doubt whatever that the fundamental features of economic
life have always been essentially similar. Theit sole aim
is to show that the various public regulations of trade in
former times found their justitication in the changing char-
acter of production or exchange, and thai likewise in the
present different conditions demand different regulations.
The most recent coherent presentations of economic
theory that have proceeded from the members of the his-
torical school remain content with this conception, al-
though in reality it stands upon a scarcely higher plane

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

than the favourite historical creations of abstract English
economics.' This we will endeavour briefly to prove.

The condition of society uf>on which Adam Smith and
Ricardo founded the earlier theory is that of a commercial
Organization Jbased upon division of labour; or let us
TatTier say simply, of national economy in the real sense of
the term. It is that condition in which each individual
does not produce the goods that he needs, but those which
in his opinion others need, in order to obtain by way of
trade the manifold things that he himself requires; or, in
a word, the condition in which the cooperation of many
or of all is necessary in order to provide for the individual.
English political economy is thus in its essence a theory of
exchange. The phenomena and laws of the division of
labour, of capital, of price, of wages, of rent, and of profits
on capital, form its chief field of investigation. The whole
theory of production and especially of consumption re-
ceives verj- inadequate treatment. All attention is centred
upon the circulation of goods, in which term their distri-
bution is included.

That there may one* have existed a condition of society
in which exchange was unknown does not occur to them;
where their system makes such a view necessary they have
recourse to the Robinson Crusoe fiction so much ridiculed
by later WTiters. Usually, however, they deduce the most
involved processes of exchange directly from the primitive
state.^ Adam Smith supposes that man is born with a

' [Regarding the omission from special mention of Schmoller's ter-
ritorial series: village, town, territory, and State, we may refer to
Professor Schmoller's review of the first German edition and Profes-
sor Bticher's reply in Jhb. f. Gesetzpeb.. etc.. XVII and XVIII (1893-
94). See also Schmoller, Grundris: d. I'Ms'iVirtscluiftslehrc, I (Leipzig,
igoo"). — Ed.]

'The same is true also of the Physiocrats. Comp. Turgot. Reflexions,
J§2ff.

THE RISE OF NATlON/tL ECONOMY.

natural instinct for trade, and considers the division of
labour itself as but a result of it.^ Ricardo in several places
treats the hunter and the fisher of primitive times as if they
were two capitalistic entrepreneurs. He represents them
as paying wages and making profits; he discusses the rise
and fall of the cost, and the price, of their products. Tliii-
nen, to mention also a prominent German of this school, in
constructing his isolated State starts with the assumption
of a commercial organization. Even the most distant
region, which has not yet reached the agricultural stage,
prosecutes its labours with the single end of selling its
products in the metropolir, city.

How widely such theoretical constructions vary from
the actual economic conditions of primitive peoples must
long ago have been patent in historical and ethnographical
investigators had not the\ themselves been in the grasp
of modern commercial ideas which they transferred to the
past. A thorough-going study, which will sufficiently em-
brace the conditions of life in the past, and not measure its
phenomena by the standards of the present, must lead to
this conclusion: National economy is the product of a dei'cl-
opmcnt extending over thousands of years, and is not older
thai! the modern State; for long epochs before it emerged man
lived and laboured icithout any system of trade or under forms
of exchange of products and services that cannot be designated
national economy.

If we are to gain a survey of this whole development, it
can only be from a standpoint that afYords a direct view
of the essential phenomena of national e-onomy, and at
the same time discloses the organizing c'ement of the
earlier economic i)erifx!s. This standpoint is none other
than the relation which exists between the production and

•Book I. Chap. 3.

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

the consumption of goods; or, to be more exact, the length
of the route which the goods traverse in passing from pro-
ducer to consumer. From this point of view we are able
to divide the whole course of economic development, at
least for the peoples of central and western Europe, where
it may be historically traced with sufficient accuracy, into
three stages:

(i; The stage of independent domestic economy (produc-
tion solely for one's own needs, absence of exchange), at
which the goods are consumed where they are produced.

(2) The stage of totvn economy (custom production, the
stage of direct exchange), at which the goods pass directly
from the producer to the consumer.

(3) The stage of national economy (wholesale production,
the stage of the circulation of goods), at which the goods
must ordinarily pass through many hands before they
reach the consumer.

We will endeavour to define these three economic stages
more precisely by seeking a true conception of the typical
features of each without allowing ourselves to be misled
by the casual appearance of transitional forms or particu-
lar phenomena which, as relics of earlier or precursors of
later conditions, project into any period, and whose exist-
ence may perhaps be historically proved. In this way
alone shall wc be able to understaiul clearly the funda-
mental distinctions between the throe periods and the phe-
nomena peculiar to each.

The stage of independent domestic economy, as has already
been pointed out, is characterized by restriction of the
whole course of economic activity from production to con-
sumption to the exclusive circle of the household (the
family, the clan). The character and extent of the produc-
tion of every household arc prescribed by the wants of its
members as consumers. Every product passes through

9°

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

the whole process of its manufacture, from the procur-
ing of the raw material to its final elaboration in the same
domestic establishment, and reaches the consumer with-
out any intermediary. Production and consumption are
here inseparably interdependent: they form a single
uninterrupted and indistinguishable process; and it is as
impossible to differentiate them as to separate acquisitive
and domestic activity from each other. The earnings of
each communal group are one with the product of their
labour, and this, again, one with the goods going to sat-
isfy their wants, that is, with their consumption.

Exchange was originally entirely unknown. Primitive
man, far from possessing a natural instinct for trading,
shows on the contrar)- an aversion to it. Exchange
(tauschcn) and deceive (taiisclien) are in the older tongue
one and the same word.* Thero is no universally recog-
nised measure of value. Hence everyone must fear being
duped in the bartering. Moreover, the product of labour
is. as it were, a part of the person producing it. The man
who transfers it to another alienates a part of his being
and subjects himself to the evil powers. Far down into
the Middle Ages exchange is protected by publicity, com-
pletion before witnesses, and the use of symbolic forms.

An autonomous economy of this kind is in the first place
dependent upon the land under it^ control. Whether the
chief as hunter or fisher appropriates the gifts voluntarilv
offered by nature, whether he wanders as a nomad with his
herds, whether he cultivates the soil as well, or even sup-
ports himself by agriculture alone, his daily labour and
care will be shaped in every case by the bit of land that he
has brought under cultivation. The greater his advance

* tCotnp also the e.irly signification of our words barter, truck, etc.
New Oxford Diet.— Ed.]

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

in intelligence and technical skill, and the more method-
ical and varied the satisfaction of his wants, so much the
greater does this dependence become, until finally the soil
brings into subjection the man who is bom to rule over it.
This has been designated villenagc* We may here confine
ourselves to proving that a' this stage the man who has
direct possession of the soil can alone maintain economic
independence. He who is not in this position can eke out
his existence only by becoming the servant of the land-
owner, and, as such, bound to the soil.

In the independent domestic economy the members of
the household have not merely to gather from the soil its
products, but they must also by iheir labour produce all the
necessary tools and implements, and, finally, work up and
transform the new products and make them fit for use. All
this leads to a diversity of employments, and, because of
the primitive nature of the tools, demands a varied dex-
terity and intelligence of which modern civilized man can
scarcely form a proper conception.' The extent of the tasks

* Verdinglichung.

'We must turn to descriptions of early peasant life in remote parts
of Europe in order to gain a conception of such conditions. Comp.
one example in H. F. Tiebe, Lief- u. Esthlands Ehrenrettung (Halle,
1804), p. icx>. Similar instances are met with still among the Coreans.
Thus we read in M. A. Pogio, Korea (Vienna and Leipzig, 1895), p.
222: "Throughout Corea the real necessaries of life have been pro-
duced within the household from time immemorial. Tlie wife and
daughters spin not only hemp but silk. For the latter a silk-bee is
usual in many houses. The head of the family must be ready for all
tasks, and on occasion play the painter, stone-mason, or joiner. The
production of spirits, vegetable fats, and colours, and the manufacture
ot straw mats, hats, baskets, wooden shoes, and field iniplcmonts be-
longs to domestic work. In a word, every one labours for himself and
his own reiiuircments. Tli<inks to these conditions the Corean is .1
Jack of all trades who rndcrtakcs work only for the things that are In-
dispens.-ible. and accordingly never becomes skilled in any special de-
partment.

THE RISE OF N/1TIONj4L ECONOMY.

falling to the various members of this autonomous house-
hold community can be lessened only by division of labour
and cooperation among themselves according to age and
sex, or accori t. • to the strength and natural aptitudes of
the individual, it is to this circumstance that we must
ascribe that sharp division of domestic production accord-
ing to sex, which we find universal among primitive peo-
ples. On the other hand, owing to the unproductiveness
of early methods of work the simultaneous cooperation of
many individuals was in numerous instances necessary to
the accomplishment of certain economic ends. Labour in
common still plays, therefore, at this stage, a more im-
portant role than division of labour.

To neither, however, would the family have been able
to give much scope had it been organized like our modern
family, that is. limited to father and mother with children
and possibly servant?. It wouKl also have had very little
stability or capacity tor development if each individual in
the family had been free to lead the independent existence
of the present day.

Signifioaiu is it then that when the present civilized na-
tions of Europe appear on the horizon of history, the
tribal constitution prevails among them.* The tribes
(families, genres, clans, hous'.^ communities) arc moder-
ately large groups consisiins;: of several generations of
blood-relations, which, at t'lrst organized according to ma-
ternal and later according to paternal succession, have
common ownership of the soil, maintain a oommdu house-
hold, and constitute a union for nnuual protection. Evtrv
tribe is thus compnse<l of several smaller groups of rela-

Conip, on tin- p.vint Fu-tel dc CouI.Tniio?. / i

i l\\rx<.

L.-v<

/.I Prcfrii-ti- (4tli edition. rar:>. i8<)0:

lS<'>4l: Hniilc ^h

K. Grox-e. PiV ■■ r„-,-K ,i /,;ii;:7;i- u. d. [\'rmt-n d H'lrths.h^ift ( Leip.'is.

iS'JO). e^T.cia'.v C\\?.n V!!I.

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

tives, each of which is formed of a man and wife with their
children. Anyone living outside this tribe is an out-
law; he has no legal or economic existence, no help in time
of need, no avenger if he is slain, no funeral escort when
he passes to his last rest.^

All the peoples in question, when they took up fixed
abodes, were acquainted with the use of the plough. Their
settlement came about usually by the establishment of
large common dwelling-houses, farms, and villages by the
n-.embers of a tribe. Once in secure possession of the land
the sense of community soon weakened. Smaller patri-
archal households with a limited number of members, such
as are represented at the present day by the zadrngas of
the south Slavs, and by the great family of the Russians,
Caucasians, and Hindoos, separated from the larger unit.
But for centuries the village house-communities continued
to own the soil in common, and jointly tilled it probably
for some time longer, while each household enjoyed the
products apart.

In large family groups of this kind, community and divi-
sion of bbour may be carried out to a considerable extent.
Men and women, mothers and children, fathers and grand-
fathers — to each group is allotted its particular part in pro-
duction and domestic work, and wherever special individ-
ual skill displays itself, it finds scope and also a limit, in

•C(imp. M. Buclinor. Kamerun. p. i88: "It i? a fund.imental point
in the lejjal ontici'ptions of the noiirdes. that not tlic man him>ch' but
the community, '.ho f.imily. the whole body of relative* is tlie int' id-
tnl before the law. Within the community riKht? and duties are
tran-fer:;Me to an a!mo~t '.m'iniiied extent. .\ debtor, a criminal, can
be pimi-hed in tlie member- of liis community, and the liabihty of
the corTuinitv f -■" 'be crime of one born a member of it does not
lapse even with emigration or -epar.itim from it. Even the death-
penalty can W executed upon • .ne other than the guilty." The same
thing is found am.^ng t!ie South Sea Islanders. Sec Fat.i'nson. Im
Bisniarik-.-itihipii. p^i. 50-i.

f 1

THE RISE OF NATlONy4L ECONOMY.

working for its own tribe. The feelings of brotherhood,
of filial obedience, of respect for zgt, of loyalty and defer-
ence reach their most beautiful development in such a
community. Just as the tribe pays a debt or weregild for
the individual or avenges a wrong done him, so on the
other hand does the individual devote his whole life to the
tribe and on its behalf subdue every impulse to independ-
ent action.

And even when the strength of these feelings declines,
the modern separate family with its independent organiza-
tion does not immediately spring into existence. For its
appearance would inevitably have resulted in a diminished
capacity for work, an abandonment of the autonomous life
of the household, and perhaps a relapse into barbarism.
Two ways there were of avoiding this.

One was as follows: for such tasks as surpassed the pow-
ers of the now diminished family, the original large tribal
unions were continued as local organizations. These
formed partial communities on the basis of common prop-
erty and common usufruct of the same; but. when occa-
sion demanded, they could also undertake duties which, if
left to the care of each individual household, would have
demanded an unpi ..".table expenditure of energy, as, for
example, guarding the fields and tending cattle. There
were also tasks which, though not of equal concern to
each separate household of the local group, were never-
theless too difficult for the individual. A house or a ship
was to be built, a forest clearing made, a stream diverted,
hunting or fishing engaged in at a distance; or perhaps
the season of the year made some unusual work neces-
sar>' for this or that house. In all such cases hidden-
labour assisted; *» that is, among neighbours there sprang

• Comp. Arbeit u. Rkylhmus (2d ed). pp. 198 ff. [and Ch. VII. be-
low. — Ed.]

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

Up, on invitation of the head of the family, temporary labour
communities which disappeared again on the completion of
their work. Many institutions of this kind underwent subse-
quent transformation, others perpetuated themselves. We
would recall the labour communities of the Slavic tribes,
the artel of the Russians, the tschcta or driisina of the Bul-
garians, the moba of the Serbs, the voluntary assistance
rendered by our peasants to each other in house-raising,
sheep-shearing, flax-pulling, etc.

Whatever the extent of such contrivances, the part they
can play in the supplying of needs is comparatively un-
important, and just as little prejudices the economic auton-
omy of the individual household as the home production
subsisting among our agrarian landlords to-day affects the
supremacy of commerce. These temporary labour com-
munities, moreover, are not business enterprises, but only
expedients for satisfying immediate want^. Assistance is
rendered now to one. now to another of the participants;
or the product of the joint labour is distributed to the sep-
arate families for their consumption. A definite case of
bargain and sale will be sought for in vain, even where, as
in the village community of India, we have a number of
professional labourers performing communal functions
similar to those of our village shepherds. They work for
all and are in return maintained by all.

The second method of avoiding the disadvantages aris-
ing from the dissolution of the tribal communities con-
sisted in the artificial extension, or numerical maintenance
of the family circle. This was done by the adoption and
incorporation of foreign (non-consangi inous) elements.
Tims arose slavery and serfdom.

We may leave undecided the question whether the en-
slavemciu and setting to work of a captured enemy were
more the cause or the result of the dissolution of the early

11 j

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

tribal community. It is certain that a means was thereby
found of maintaining intact the independent household
economy with its accustomed division of labour, and at the
same time of making progress towards an increase in the
number and variety of wants. For now the more numer-
ous the slaves or villeins belonging to the household, the
more completely could its labour be united or divided. In
agriculture larger areas could be cultivated. Particular
technical employments, such as grinding com, baking,
spinning, weaving, making implements, or tending csttle,
could be assigned to particular slaves for their whole life;
they could be specially trained for this service. The
more prominent the family, the more wealthy the lord, or
the more extensive his husbandry, all the more possible
was it to develop in variety and extent the technical skill
employed in the procuring and working up of materials.
The economic life of the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and
the Romans was of this character.'' Rodbcrtus, who noticed

' For students of political economy it need scarcely be observed
that in what follows the object is not to furnish a compendium of the
economic history of ancient times, but, as the context shows, merely
an outline of the most highly developed domestic economy as it
presents itself in the system of slave labour among the ancients. In
my work on the insurrections of the unfree labourers between 143 and
129 B.C. (Die Aufstdnde d. unfreien Arbeiter, 143-129 v. Chr„ Fr.-a.-M.,
1874). I have shown that before the rise of slave-work on a large
scale the economic life of antiquity furnished considerable scope for
free labour, the formation of separate trades, and the exchange of
goods. What progress had been made in the development of an in-
dependent industry, I have set forth in the article " Industry "
iGnverbe) in the Handwi'.rterbuch der Staatsw., Ill, pp. 926-7, 929-
931; and in my articles on the Edict of Diocletian on tax prices
(Ztschr. f. d. gcs. Staatsw.. 1894, pp. 200-1) I have endeavoured to fix
the position filled by trade in the system of independent domestic
ecoromy at the time of the empire in Rome. Reference may also be
mace, for an outline picture of the times, to the interesting address
of M. Weber on Die sosialen Griinde d. Unter gangs d. antiken Cultur, Die
Wahrhcit, VI, No. 3.

!.r.

THE RISE OF N/tTlONylL ECONOMY.

this a generation ago, designates it oikos husbandry, be-
cause the oiWos, the house, represents the unit of the ero-
nomic system. The oiKoi is not merely the dwelHng-place,
but also the body of people carrying on their husbandry in
common. Those belonging to them are the oiteirat, a
word which, in its historic usage, it is significant to note,
is confined to the household slaves upon whom the whole
burden of the work of the house at that time rested. A
similar meaning is attached to the Roman familia, the
whole body of famuli, house-slaves, servants. The pater-
familias is the slave-master into whose hands flows the
whole revenue of the estate; in the patria potcstas the two
conceptions of the power of the lord as husband and father
and as slave-owner have been blended. A member of the
household labours not for himself, but only for the pater-
familias, who wields the same power of life and death
over all.

In the supreme power of the Roman paterfamilias, ex-
tending as it did equally over all members of the house-
hold, whether blood-relatives or not, the independent do-
mestic economy was much more closely integrated and
rendered capable of much greater productivity than the
matriarchal or even the earlier patriarchal tribe, which
consisted solely of blood-relatives. The individual as a
separate entity has entirely disappeared; the State and the
law recognise only family communities, groups of per-
sons, and thus regulate the relations of family to family,
not of individual to individual. As to what happens within
the household they do not trouble themselves.

In the economic autonomy of the slave-owning family
lies the explanation of all the social and a great part of the
political history of Rome. There are no separate classes
of producers, as such, no farmers, no artisans. There
are only large and small proprietors, rich and poor. If the

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

rich man wrests from the poor possession of the soil, he
makes him a proletarian. The landless freeman is
practically incapable of making a living. For there is no
business capital to provide wages for the purchase of
labour; there is no industry outside the exclusive circle
of the household. The artificers of the early records are
not freemen engaged in industry, but artisan slaves who
receive from the hands of the agricultural and pastoral
slaves the corn, wool, or wood which are to be transformed
into bread, clothing, or implements. " Do not imagine
that he buys anything," we read in Petronius of the rich
novus homo, " everything is produced at his own house." ■
Hence that colossal development of latifundia, and, con-
centrated in the hands of individual proprietors, those end-
less companies of slaves amongst whom the subdivision of
labour was so multiplex that their productions and ser-
vices were capable of satisfying the most pampered taste.
The Dutchman, T. Popma, who in the seventeenth cen-
tury wrote an able book on the occupations of the Roman
slaves, enumerates one hundred and forty-six different
designations for the functions of these slave labourers of

*Sat. 38: "Nee est quod putes ilium quicquam emere; omnia domi
nascuntur." E. Meyer translates that, " everything is grown on his
own land"! Now the satirist specifies wool, way (?), pepper, sheep,
honey, mushrooms, mules, and cushions with covers of purple or scar-
let. Do all of these things grow from the soil? Compare also Petro-
nius, ch. 48, 52, and 53: "nam et comcedos emeram," etc. That this
is all greatly exaggerated it is unnecessary to remind anyone who has
really read Petronius. Ch. 50 speaks of the purchase of Corinthian
jars, ch. 70 of knives made of Noric iron bought in Rome; ch. 76
of the shops of Trimalchio, who himself gives as his motto the words
bene emo, bene vendo. But for a satirtist to venture such .in exaggera-
tion as Petronius in ch. 38 would have been impossible if Roman eco-
nomic life had been similar to that of to-d;iy. A modern satirist in
a similar case would have made his boaster give the values of his
hor^e^. v.ins'-s, cipar=, his stocks, etc.

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

the wealthy Roman households.' This number might to-
day be considerably increased from inscriptions. One
must go minutely into the details of this refined subdivi-
sion of labour in order to understand the extent and pro-
ductive power of those gigantic household establishments
that placed at the free disposal of the owner goods and
services such as to-day can be supplied only by the numer-
ous business establishments of a metropolitan city in con-
junction with the institutions of municipality and State.
At the same time this extensive property in human beings
afforded a means for the amassing of fortunes equalled
only by the gigantic possessions of modern millionaires.

The whole body of slaves in the house of a wealthy
Roman was divided into two main groups, the familia
rustica and the 'Mnilia urbana. The familia rustica en-
gages in the Wo 'f production. On every large country
estate there are a nanager and an assistant m-'nager with
a staff of overseers and taskmasters who in tu. e un-

der them a considerable company of field-labouiv and
vine-dressers, shepherds and teni'ers of cattle, kitchen and
house servants, women spinners, male and female weavers,
fullers, tailors, carpenters, joiners, smiths, workers in metal
and in the occupations connected with agriculture. On
the larger estates each group of labourers is again divided
into bands of ten each (decuricr) in charge of a leider or
driver (dccurio. moniior)}°

The familia urbatia is divided into the admi. ..strative
staff, and the staff for the service of master and mistress
within and without the house. First comes the superin-
tendent of the revenue with his treasurer, bookkeepers,

•Titi Popmse Phrysii de operis servorum liber. Editio novisstma.
Atnstelodami 1672.

'"Comp. the graphic account of work on a Roman estate during
the empire, by M, Weber, Die Wahrheit, VI, pp. 65, 66.

lOO

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

supervisors of rents, buyers, etc. If the proprietor takes
over public leases or engages in the shipping trade, he
keeps for that purpose a special staff of slave officials and
labourers. Attached to the internal service of the house
are house-administrator, porters, attendants in rooms and
halls, guardians of the furniture, the plate, and the robes;
the commissariat is in charge of the steward, the cellar-
master, and the superintendent of supplies; the kitchen
swarms with a great company of cooks, stokers, bakers of
bread, cakes, and pastry; special table-setters, carvers,
tasters, and butlers serve at the table, while a company of
beautiful boys, dancing-girls, dwarfs and jesters amuse the
guests. To the personal service of the proprietor are as-
signed a master of ceremonies for introducing visitors,
various valets, bath attendants, anointers, rubbers, sur-
geons, physicians for almost every part of the body,
barbers, readers, private secretaries, etc. For service in
the household a savant or philosopher is kept, also archi-
tects, painters, sculptors, and musicians; in the library are
copyists, parchment-polishers, and bookbinders, who un-
der the direction of the librarian n:ake books in 'le private
manufactory of the house. Even slave letter-wti.^rs and
stenographers must not be wanting in a wealthy house.^"
When the master appears in public he is preceded by a
large body of slaves (antcambiiloiics), while others follow
him (fcdiscqiii); the nomcnclcitor tells him the name of those
whom he meets and who are to be greeted; special dis-
tribntorcs and tcsscrarii scatter bribes among the people
and " istruct them Iiow to vote. These are the camclots of
ancient Rome: and, what gives them special value, they
are the property of the distinguislied asjiirant employing
them. This system for exerting political influence is sup-

"■ Comi'. ch. 6.

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

loi

plemented by the institution of plays, chariot-races, fights
with wild beasts, and gladiatorial games, for which troops
of slaves are specially trained. If the lord goes to a prov-
ince as governor or sojourns on one of his country estates,
slave couriers and letter-carriers maintain daily communi-
cation with the capital. And how shall we begin to tell of
the slave retinue of the mistress, on which Bottiger has
written a whole book (Sabina), and of the endlessly spe-
ciaHzed service for the care and education of the children!
It was an incredible squandering of human energy that
here took place. Lastly, by means of this many-armed
organism of independent domestic economy, maintained
as it was by a colossal system of breeding and training, the
personal power of the slave-owner was increased a thou-
sandfold, and this circumstance did much to render it pos-
sible for a handful of aristocrats to gain control over half
the world."

The work of the State itself is not carried on otherwise.
Both in Athens and Rome all subordinate officials and ser-
vants are slaves. Slaves build the roads and aqueducts
whose construction fell to the State, work in quarries and
mines, and clean the sewers; slaves are the policemen,
executioners and gaolers, the criers in public assemblies,
the distributors of the public doles of corn, the attendants

" Naturally this highly developed slavp system is only to be found
among the most wealthy class; but with similar conditions it recurs
everywhere. Ellis, for example, says in his History of Madagascar,
I, p. 194: "When a family has numerous slaves, some attend to cat-
tle, others are employed in cultivating esculent roots, others collect
fuel; and of the females, some are cmnloycd in spinning, weaving
and making nets, washing and other ( mesti: occupations." Even
in the country of the Muata Yamwo, here, with the exception of
smiths, there appear to have been no special craftsmen, the ruler had
in his household his own musicians, fetich-doctors, smiths, hair-
dressers, and female cooks. Pogge, Im Rciche d. Muata Jamwo, i p.
331, 187.

I02

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

of the colleges of priests in the temples and at sacrifices,
the State treasurers, secretaries, the messengers of the
magistrates; a retinue of public slaves accompanies every
provincial officer or general to the scene of his duties.
The means for their support came chiefly from the public
domains, the tributes of the provinces (in Athens, of the
allies), of which Cicero says that they are quasi prcedia
populi Romani; and finally, from contributions resembling
fees.

Similar fundamental features are presented by the eco-
nomic life of the Latin and Germanic peoples in the early
Middle Ages. Here, too, necessary economic progress
leads to a further development of the autonomous house-
hold economy, which found expression in those large hus-
bandries worked with serfs and villeins upon the exteujive
landed possessions of the kings, the nobility, and the
Church. In its details this manorial system has many points
in common with the agricultural system of the later
Roman Empire as developed by colonization. It has, also,
considerable similarity with the centralized plantation sys-
tem described above from the closing years of the Roman
Republic. Tins rise of husbandry on a large scale with its
subdivision of labour differs, however, in one important
particular from the Roman. In Rome large estates engulf
the small, and replace the arm of the peasant by that of
the slave, who is later on transformed into the colonist.
The economic advance involved in the extensive o/WoS
husbandry had to be purchased by the proletarizing of the
free peasant. In the manorial system of the Middle Ages
the free owner of a small estate becomes, it is true, a vassal.
But he is not ejected from possession; he preserves a cer-
tain personal and economic independence, and, at the same
time, shares in the fuller supply of goods which husbandry

'•■iSiyiH. "»«-^»*"OF'WW

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

103

on a large scale provides under the system of independent
domestic economy.

How did this come about?

In ancient Italy the small cultivator was ruined through
his inability to support certain public burdens, especially
military service, and because the pressure of war and
famine drove him into the lamentable servitude of the
debtor. In the Germanic and Latin countries of the Mid-
dle Ages he placed his homestead for like reasons under
the control of the large landed proprietor from whom he
received protection and assistance in time of need.

We can best understand the mediaeval manor by pic-
turing to ourselves the economic life of a whole vil-
lage as a unit with the manor-house its central point.**

"Though there were numerous villages whose inhabitants owed
service to various proprietors, and many manors that included peas-
ant holdings from various villages, yet the case here supposed must
be regarded as the normal one. At the same time we must not for-
get that most of the original evidence relating to these matters that
we possess refers to the scattered possessions of the monasteries for
which the manors formed the focal points, while for the estates of the
great, and still more so for those of the smaller temporal proprietors
in ancient times, we have scarcely any matt rial at all. For these,
however, our supposed case is to be regarded as normal in so far as
the villages arose through a colony grouping itself about a single es-
tate. For the purposes of our sketch we may also leave out of view
the many distinctions in the legal position of those owing rent and
service dues, especially the distinction between those belonging to the
manor and those belonging to the ni.irk. The latter, by virtue of
the lord's supreme proprietorship over the common land, were also
included in the economic system of the ntanor. Finally, I do not fail
to appreciate the difference between the constitution of the villas of
Charles the Great and the later administrative organization of the
large landowners, though I am of the opinion that the latter has only
superficinl points of contact with the economic life of the individual
farm. For ;ill further details I must refer the reader to Maurer,
Ccsch. il. I roiihofc: Inaiua-Sternegg, Die AusbiUiung d. grosscn Grund-
hrrrnbaftcH i» Drutsihland; and Lamprecht, Dcutschfs IVtrtschaflskben
im Af A s'-prr-nlly !, pp. 719 ff-

I04

THE RISE OF NMTION/tL ECONOMY.

Under this systerrf the small landowner supervises in
person, the large landowner through an overseer. The
demesne land lying immediately about the manor-house
is cultivated by serfs permanently attached to it, who there
find food and lodging, and arc employed in agricultural
and industrial production, household duties, and the per-
sonal service of the lord, under a many-sided division of
labour. The demesne land is intermixed with the holdings
of a larger or smaller number of unfree peasants, each of
whom tills his hide of land independently while all share
with the lord the use of pasture, wooc' and water. At
the same time, however, every peasant-holding binds its
occupant to perform certain services and to furnish cer-
tain dues in natural products to the estate. These services
consist of labour reckoned at first according to require-
ment, later according to time, whether given in the fields
at seed-time or harvest, on the pasture-land, in the vine-
yard, garden or forest, or in the manorial workshops or
the women's building where the daughters of the serfs are
spinning, weaving, sewing, baking, brewing beer, etc. On
the days devoted to manorial service the unfree labourers
receive their meals at the manor-house just as do the
manor-folk themselves. They are further bound to keep
in repair the enclosures about the manor-house and its
fields, to keep watch over the house, and to undertake slie
carrying of messages ami the transport of goods. The
dues in kind to be paid to the estate are partly agricultural
products, such as grain of all kinds, wool, fla.x. honey, wax,
wine, cattle, hogs, fowl, or eggs; partly wood cut in the
forests of the mark and made rea<ly for use. such as fire-
wood, timber, vine-stakes, torch-wood, shingles, staves
and hoops; partly the products of industry, such as wool-
len and linen cloth, stocking^., shoes, bread, beer, casks,
plates, dishes, goblets, iron, pots rind knives. This pre-

THE RISE OF N/ITION/IL ECONOMY.

los

supposes alike among the serfs and those bound by feudal
service a certain specialization of industry, that would oi
necessny hereditarily attacii to the hides of land in ques-
tion and prove advantageous not merely to the lord's e:-
tate, but also to the occupants of the hides in supplying
commodities. Intermediate between service and rent are
duties of various kinds, such as hauling manure from the
peasant's farm to the fields of the lord, keeping cattle over
•winter, providing entertainment for the guests of the
manor. Oa the other har the lord renders economic as-
sistance to the peasant i^y keeping breeding-stock, by
esta'olishing ferries, mills, and ovens for general use, by
securing protection from violence and injustice to all, and
by giving succour from his stores, in accordance with his
pledge, when crops failed or other need arose.

We hav. here a small economic organism quite suffi-
cient uni .self, which avoids the rigid concentration of
the Roman slave estates and employs slaves only to the
extent necessary for the private husbandry of the landlord
conceived in its strictest sense.' ^ For this reason it is able
to secure to the general body of manorial labourers sep-
arate agricultural establishments for their owr domestic
needs, and therewith a certain personal independence.
This is an instance of small partial private estates within
the economy of the independent household similar to that
which occurs, though of course on a much smaller scale,
within the aadruga of the South Slavs when conjugal
couples establish separate households.''^ When the man-

» According to La.nprecht, I. p. 78^. the field lahuur-scrvices of
the serfs were applied to the cultivation of tla- individual strclches of
manorial land aUundax) or b-aU^ [unplou«hed ^'.npsl >n the com-
mon land, while the manorial serfs were employed only for the cul-
tivation of the demesne,

" Comp. Laveleye, as above, p. -ifi^-

i: 1,

kk :»■

!? ; ••!

1 06

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

orial group coincides in membership with the people of a
mark, the members are in a certain sense, owing to the
regulations forbidding the alienation of land or mark
servitudes to non-residents, economically shut off from
their neighbours. Internal unity is realized by means of
separate weights and measures, which, however, serve not
for safeguarding trade, but for measuring the dues in kind
coming to the lord.

For we must always bear in mind that the economic
relation of the lord to those attached to his land, however
much it may be regarded from the general point of view
of mutual service, is entirely removed from the class of
economic relations that arise -.-om a system of exchange.
Here there are no prices, no wages for labour, no land or
house rent, no profits on capital, and accordingly neither
entrepreneurs nor wage-workers. We have in this case
peculiar economic processes and phenomena to which his-
torical political economy must not do violence, after such
frequent con plaints of harsh treatment in the past at the
hands of jurisprudence.

The surpluses of the manorial husbandry are the prop-
erty of the lord. They consist entirely of goods for
consumption which cannot be long stored up or turned
into capital. On the estates of the king they are devoted
as a rule to supplying the needs of the royal household,
and the king, travelling with his retinue from castle to
castle, claims them in person; while the large landed pro-
prietors among the religious corporations and the higher
nobility have them forwarded by a well-organized trans-
port of their villeins to their chief seats, where as a rule
they are likewise consumed.

Thus in this economic system we have many of the phe-
nom.na of commerce, such as weights and measures, the
carriage of persons, news, and goods. !io«te!r!es, nn;' the

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

107

transference of goods and services In all, however, there
is lacking the characteristic feature of economic exchange,
namely, the direct connection of each single service with
its reciprocal service, and the freedom of action on the
part of the individual units carrying on trade with one
another.

But it matters not to what extent independent house-
hold economy may be developed through the introduction
of slave or villein labour, it will never succeed even in its
highest development, to say nothing of its less perfect
forms, in adapting itself sufficiently to the needs of human
society for all time. Here we have continuously unfilled
gaps in supply, there surpluses which are not consumed on
the estates producing them, or fixed instruments of pro-
duction and skilled labour which cannot be fully utilized.

Out of this state of things arise fresh commercial phe-
nomena of a particular kind. The landlord, whose harvest
has failed, borrows corn and straw from his neighbour
until the next harvest, when he returns an equal quantity.
The man reduced to distress through fire or the loss of his
cattle is assisted by the others on the tacit understanding
that he will show the like favour in the like event. If any-
one has a particularly expert slave, he lends him to a
neighbour, just as he would a horse, a vessel, or a ladder;
in this case the slave is fed by the neighbour. The owner
of a wine-press, a malt-kiln, or an oven allovvs his poorer
fellow villager the temporary use of it, in retprn for which
the latter, on occasion, makes a rake, helps at sheep-shear-
ing, or runs some errand. It is a mutual rendering of
assistance; and no one will think of classifying such occur-
rences under the head of exchange.'**

" On the social duty of lending amonK primitive peoples, comp.
Kubary, Ethnogr. Btitrdge s. Kenntnis d. Karolmcn-Archiptls, p. i6ji.

i' 1

io8

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

W I

3 I
ii '!

Finally, however, real exchange does appear. The transi-
tion-stage is formed of such processes as the following:
the owner of slaves lends his neighbour a slave weaver or
carpenter, and receives in return a quantity of wine or
wood of which his neighbour has a surplus. Or the slave
shoemaker or tailor, whose labour cannot be fully turned
to account, is settled upon a holding, on the condition
that he work each year a certain number of days at the
manor. At times when he has no labour dues to pay and
little to do on his own land, he gives his fellow villeins in
their peasant houses the benefit of his skill, receiving from
them his keep, and in addition a quantity of bread or bacon
for his family. Formerly he was merely the servant of the
manor; now he is successively the servant of all, but of
each only for a short time.*^ At an early stage barter in
kind, aiming at a mutual levelling of wants and surpluses,
is also met with, as corn for wine, a horse for grain, a piece
cf linen cloth for a quj.ntity of salt. This trading process
expands owing to the Hmited occurrence of many natural
products and to the localization of the production of goods
for which there is a large demand; and if the various
household establishments are small, and the adjoining dis-
tricts markedly dissimilar in natural endowments, it may
attain quite a development.' » Certain articles of this trade
become, as has often been described, general mediums of
exchange, such as skins, woollen goods, mats, cattle, arti-

"On the corresponding conditions in Greece and Rome. comp. my
accounts in the Handwort. d. Staatswiss. fjd ed.). IV, pp. ,^6g-7i.

"To this circumstance is to be ascribed the relatively hi^'hly de-
veloped weekly market trade of ancient Greece and of the negro
countries of l.i-day; in Oceania the small size of the islands and the
uneciual development among their inhabitants of both household work
and riculture even calls forth in places an active maritime trade.
Similarly is the oft-cited maritime commerce of the ancient Greeks to
be regarded.

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

109

cles of adornment, and finally the precious metals. Money
comes into existence, markets and peddling trade arise;
the beginnings of buying and selling on credit appear.

But all this affects only the surface of the independent
household economy; and, though the literature on the
early history of trade and of markets has hitherto been
far from familiarizing us with a proper estimate of these
things, yet it cannot be too strongly emphasized that
neither among the peoples of ancient times nor in the early
Middle Ages were the articles of daily use the subject of
regular exchange. Rare natural products, and locally manu-
factured goods of a high specific value form the few articles
of commerce. If these become objects of general demand,
as amber, metal implements, ceramic products, spices and
ointments in ancient times, or wine, salt, dried fish, and
woollen wares in the Middle Ages, then undertakings must
arise aiming at the production of a surplus of these articles.
This means that the other husbandries will produce be-
yond their own immediate requirements the trade equiva-
lents of those articles as do the northern peoples their
skins and vadhmdl, and the modern Africans their wares
of bark and cotton, their kola nuts and their bars of salt.
Where the population concentrates in town? there may
even come into being an active market trade in the neces-
saries of life, as is seen in classic antiquity, and in many
negro countries of to-day. In fact even the carrying on
of industry and trade as a vocation is to a certain extent
possible.

Still this does not affect the inner structure of economic
life. The labour of each separate household continues to
receive its im, .ilse and direction from the >vants of its own
members: it must itself pro('-ice what it can for the satis-
faction of these wants. Its only regulator is utility. " That

THE RISE OF NATION/IL ECONOMY.

> I I

i i
I I

landlord is a worthless fellow," says the elder Pliny, " who
buys what his own husbandry can furnish him "; and this
principle held good for many centuries after.

One must not be led away from a proper conception of
this economic stage by the apparently extensive use of
money in early historic times. Money is not merely a me-
dium of exchange, it is also a measure of value, a medium
for making payments and for storing up wealth. Payments
must also constantly be made apart from trade, such as
fines, tribute-money, fees, taxes, indemnities, gifts of hon-
our or hospitality; and these are originally paid in products
of one's own estate, as grain, dried meat, cloth, salt, cattle,
and slaves, which pass directly into the household of the
recipient. Accordingly all earlier forms of money, and
for a long time the precious metals themselves, circulate
in a form in which they can be used by the particular
household either for the immediate satisfaction of its wants
or for the acquisition by trade of other articles of consump-
tion. Those of special stability of value are pre-eminently
serviceable in the formation of a treasure. This is es-
pecially true of the precious metals, which in time of pros-
perity assumed the form of rude articles of adornment, and
as quickly lost it in time of adversity. Finally, it is man-
ifest that the office of a measure of value can be performed
by metal money even when sales are actually made in terms
of other commodities, as is shown by the use in ancient
Egypt of uten, a piece of wound copper wire according to
which prices were fixed, while payment was made in the
greatest variety of needful articles.^" This is also shown
by numerous medi.Tval i ;cords in which, far beyond the
epoch here under review, prices are fixed partly in money
and partly in horses, dogs, wine, grain, etc., or the pur-

" Frman. Aegypten u. agypi. Leben in: Alierium, pp, 175, 6«7,

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

Ill

chaser is left at liberty to make a money payment " in what
he can " (in quo potiierit).^^

Lamprecht, discussing economic life in France in the
eleventh century, affirms that purchases were made only
in cases of want;2» the same holds in the main for sales
as well. Exchange is an element foreign to independent
household economy, and its entrance was resisted as long
and as stubbornly as possible. Purchase always means
purchase with immediate payment, and it is attended with
solemn and cumbrous formalities. The earliest municipal
law of Rome prescribes that the purchase must take
place before five adult Roman citizens as witnesses. The
rough copper that measures the price is weighed out
to the seller by a trained weigh-master Qibripens), while the
purchaser makes a solemn declaration as he takes posses-
sion of the purchased article. Contrasting with this the
formal minuteness of early German trade laws, we are eas-
ily convinced that in the economic period which witnessed
the creation of this rigid legal formalism buying and sell-
ing, and the renting of land or house, could not be every-
day affairs. Exchange value accordingly exercised no
deep or decisive influence on the internal economy of the
separate household. The latter knev; only production for
its own requirements; or, when sncn production fell short,
the practice of making gifts with the expectation of re-
ceiving others in return, of borrowing needful articles and

" Under similar circumstances the same is true to-day. " Through-
out West, Central, and East Africa quite definite and often quite com-
plex standards for the exchange of goods have been formed, just as
among ourselves, but with this diflference. that coined money is gen-
erally wanting. This, however, by no means prevents the existence
of a system of intermediate values, though it be but as notions and
names."— Buchner, Kamerun. p. 93.

"Fransos. Wirtsckaftsleben, p. 132. Comp. further his Deutsches
Wirtschaftsleben im M. A., II, pp. 374 S-

Ill

112

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

implements, and, if need be, of plundering. The develop-
ment of hospitality, the legitimizing of begging, the union
of nomadic life and early sea-trade with robbery, the ex-
traordinary prevalence of raids on field and cattle among
primitive agricultural peoples, are accordingly the usual
concomitants of the indep>endent household economy.

From what has been said it will be clear that under this
method of satisfying needs the fundamental economic phe-
nomena must be dissimilar to those of modern national
economy. Wants, labour, production, means of produ''-
tion, product, stores for use, value in use, consumption —
these few notions exhaust the circle of economic phenom-
ena in the regular course of things. As there is no social
division of labour, there are consequently no professional
classes, no industrial establishments, no capital in the sense
of a store of goods devoted to acquisitive purposes. Our
classification of capital into business and trade capital, loan
and consumption capital, is entirely excluded. If, conform-
ably to widely accepted usage, th< expression capital is
restricted to means of production, then it must in any case
be limited to tools and implements, the so-called fixed
capital. What modern theorists usually designate circu-
lating capital is in the independent household economy
merely a store of consumption goods in process of prep-
aration, unfinished or half-finisbed products. In the regu-
lar course of affairs, moreover, there are no sale-goods, no
price, no circulation of commodities, no distribution of
income, and. therefore, no labour wages, no earnings of
management, and no interest as particular varieties of in-
come.^^ Rent alone begins to differentiate itself from the

" For most of the conceptions here mentioned there are no ex-
pressions in Greek or Latin. They must be expressed by circumlo-
cutions or by viTv ccneral terms. This is true, in the first instance,
of the conception income itself. The Latin rcditus denotes the returns
from the land. Tacitus makes use of a similar liberty wher. (Ann.,

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

return from the soil, still appearing, however, only in com-
bination with other elements of income.

Perhaps, indeed, it is improper at this stage to speak of
income at all. What we call income is normally the fruit
of commerce; in independent domestic economy it is the
sum of the consumption goods produced, the gross return.
This return, however, is all the more inseparable from
general wealth the more the subjection of the husbandry
to the hazard of the elements compels the accumulation of
a store of goods. Income and wealth form indistinguish-
able parts of a whole, one part of which is ever moving
upward towards availability for use, another part down-
ward to consumption, while a third is stored up in chest
and box, in cellar or storehouse, as a kind of assurance
fund.

To the last belongs money. In so far as it is used in
trade it is for the recipient as a rule not a provisional but a
final equivalent. It plays its chief part not as an intermedi-
ary of exchange, but as a store of value and as a means of
measuring and transferring values. Loans from one eco-
nomic unit to another do indeed take place; but as a rule
they bear no interest, and are made only for purposes of
consumption. Productive credit is incompatible with this
economic system. Where money-lending on interest in-
trudes itself it appears unnatural, and, as we know from
Greek and Roman history, is ultimately ruinous to the
debtor. The canonical prohibition of usury thus had its
origin not in moral or theological inclination, but in eco-
nomic necessity.

IV, 6, 3) he designates the revenues of the state as fructus publici.
Compare with this the numerous and finely distiuKui^hed expressions
for the conception wealth. Mcrccs means not only waf^es. but also
land-rent, house-rent, interest, price. So also the Greek nurdot.
For the expressions vocation, occupation, undertaking, industry,
neither of the classic languages has corresponding itniis.

114

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

r! I

Where a direct state tax arose, it was regularly a tax on
wealth, generally a species of land-tax. Such was the
Athenian ei(T<t>opd, the Roman tributum civium, and the
scot or the bede of the Middle Ages. Along with these
demand was made upon the wealth of the individual for
direct services to the State or community, such as the
furnishing ships, the institution of festivals an.d enter-
tainments (liturgies). The idea of taxing income, how-
ever natural and self-evident it may appear to us, would
have been simply inconceivable to our ancestors.

By a process extending over centuries this independent
household economy is transformed into the system of direct
exchange; in the place of production solely for domestic
use steps custom production. We have designated this
stage town economy, because it reached its typical develop-
ment in the towns of the Germanic and Latin countries
during the Middle Ages. Still it must not be forgotten
that even in ancient times beginnings of such a develop-
ment ?r- [t ceptibic-, ind that at a later date they also
appeared in the more advanced Slavic countries, albeit in
considerably divergent form.

The transition to this economic stage is seen at the
stage of domestic economy itself in the loss by the sep-
arate household, founded upon the cultivation of the soil,
of a part of its independence through inability longer to
satisfy all its needs with its own labour, and through the
necessity of permanent and regular reinforcement from
the products of other estates. Yet there do not spring up
at once establishments independent of the soil, whose
members would derive their income entirely from the
working up of industrial commodities for others, or the
professional performance of services, or the conducting
of exchange. On the contrary, each proprietor still seeks,
as far as possible, to gain his livelihood from the land; if

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

his wants go beyond this, he calls into requisition any
special manual skill he may possess, or any particular pro-
ductive advantage of his district, whether in field, forest,
or water, in order to produce a surplus of some particular
article. One will produce grain, another wine, a third salt,
a fourth fisli, a fifth iinen or some other product of domes-
tic industry. In this manner separate establishments come
into existence specially developed in some one direction,
and dependent upon a regular, reciprocal barter of their
surplus products. This exchange does not at first demand
an organized system of trade. But it does require more
flexible commercial methods than were offered by the
early laws. These are furnished by markets which still
arise, in the main, under the household system.

A market is the coming together of a large number of
buyers and sellers in a definite place and at a definite time.
Whether this occur in connection with religious feasts and
other popular gatherings, or whether it owes its origin to
the favourable commercial situation of a locality, it is al-
ways an opportunity for producer and consumer to meet
with their mutual trade requirements; and such in its gen-
eral features it has remained down to the present day.
Markets and fixed trade are mutually exclusive. Where
a merchant class exists, no markets are needed; where
there are markets, merchants are superfluous. Only in
cases where a country must imf>ort articles for which there
is a demand and which it does not itself produce can there
be developed at the early stage of household economy a
distinct though not very numerous class, uniting under
their control the purchase, transport, and sale of these
goods, and utilizing for this last purpose the trade oppor-
tunities presented by the markets.

What changes, t •=■ i, were wrought in this condition of
things by the medu^val town, and in what does the eco-

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

nomic system which we have designated as exclusive town
economy consist?

The medi;c\al town is al)ove all things a biirg, that is.
a place fortified with nails and moats which serves as a ref-
uge and shelter for the inhabitants of the unprotected
places round about. Every lown thus presupposes the
existence of a defensive union which forms the ru^al sei-
tlements lying within a greater or narrower radius into a
sort of mihtary community with definite rights and duties.
It devolves upoi. all the places belonging to this commun-
ity to cooperate in maintaining imact the town fortifica-
tions bv furnishing workmen and horses, and in time of
war in 'defending them with their arms. In return they
have the right, whenever occasion arises, to shelter them-
selves their wives and children, their cattle and movables,
within its walls. This right is called the right of burgess,
and he who enjoys it is a burgher {hurgcnsis).

Oi-iginallv the permanent inhabitants of the town differ
in nowise, not even in their occupations, from those living
in the rural hamlets. Like the latter they follow farming
and cattle-raising; thcv use wood, water, and pasture in
common; their dwellings, as may =^ill be seen in the
structural arrangement of many old cities, are farmhouses
with barns and stables and large yards !)etween. But their
communal life is not exhausted in the regulation of com-
mon pasturage and other agricultural interests. They arc.
so to speak, a permanent garrison stationed in the burg,
and perform in rotation the daily watch-service on tower
and at gate. Whoever wishes to settle permanently in the
town must therefore not only be possessed of land, or a
house at least: he must also be provided rvilh weapons and

armour.

The s< -icl service and the extensive area of the
tovM. rcn. rcr cc^^ary by the law of burgess demanded

THE RISE OF NATION /tL ECONOMY.

117

a great number of men; and soon ihc ,. vn limits no
longer srfticed for tlieir maintenance. Then it was that
the one-sided dcvclopnient of the household establish-
ments, already described, lent its intlnence. and the town
became the seat of the industries and of the markets as
well. In the latter the country peasant continued to dis-
pose of his surplus supplies, obtaining from the townsman
that which he himself could no longer provide and which
the latter now exclusively or almost exclusively produced,
namely, industrial products.

The burgess rights underwent a consetiucnt extension.
All who enjoyed them were exempt from market dues and
town tolls. The right of free purchase and sale in the town
market is thus in its origin an emanation from the rights
of burgess. In this way the military defensive union be-
came a territorial economic comnumity based upon mutual
and direct exchange of agricultural and industrial products
by the respecti-, c producers and consumers.

All market traders on their way to and from a market
enjoyed — doubtless also in the period previous to the rise
of towns — a particularly active royal protection, which was
further extended to the market itself and to the whole
market-town. The effects of this market-peace were to
secure the market tradesmen during the time of their so-
journ in the town against legal prosecution for debts previ
ously incurred, and to visit injuries inflicted upon their
property or person with doubly severe punishment as be-
ing extraordmary breaches of the peace. The market
tra<lcsnien arc commonly known as Kattflcutc. niciratorrs.
fici^otiatoirs, cmf'forcs.'^

'* Recent litcr.iture nlatinpr to the oriRin nf the constitution of Ticr-
m.in (owns h.is overlooked the very wi<!e significance of the word
Kaufmann and ini.TKincd that the innnmerablo towns cxistin^r within
the tJn'iiiaii Iiini>irc lort.irils iht liuM- of lilt? Miiliiic; .'\k*;>, lloul

li }

ii8

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

Inasmuch as the town inhabitai.cj were themselves pecu-
liarly dependent upon the market for their buying and

Cologne and Augsburg down to Medebach and Radolfzell, were in-
habited by merchants in the modern sense of the term, that is, by a
specialized class of professional tradesmen, who are as a rule still
represented as wholesale merchants. All economic history revolts
against such a conception. What did these people deal in, and in
what did they make payment for their wares? Besides, the very terms
used are opposed to it The most prominent characteristic of the
professional merchant in his relation to the public is not his custom
of buying, but of selling. Yet the chapman (Kaufmann) of the Mid-
dle Ages is named from the word for buying— fea«/fn. In the State
records of Otto III. for Dortmund from 99° to looo a.d. the emptores
Trotmannice, whose municipal laws, like those of Cologne and Mainz,
are said to serve as a model for other cities, are spoken of in the
same connection as mercatores or negotiatores in other records. If the
abbot of Reichenau in the year I07b can with a stroke of the pen
transform the peasants of Allensbach and their descendants into mer-
chants (ut »7>« et eorum posteri sint mercatores), no possible ingenuity
of interpretation can explain this if we have in mind professional
tradesmen. That in point of fact merchant meant any man who sold
wares in the market, no matter whether he himself had produced them
or bought the greater part of them, is evident, for example, from an
unprinted declaration of the Council of Frankfurt in 1420 regarding
the toll called Marklrerhl (in Book No. 3 of the Municipal Archives,
Fol. 80). There we find at the beginning that this toll is to be
paid by " every merchant who stands on the street with his merchan-
dise, whatsoever it be." Then follow, specified in detail, the in-
dividual " merchants " or the " merchandise " affected by this toll.
From the lengthy list the following instances may be given: dealers
in old clothes, pastry-books, food-vendors, rope-makers, hazelnut-
sellers, egg- and chet'se-scllcrs with their carts, poultry-vendors who
carry about their baskets on thoir backs, strangers having in their
possession more than a maltcr of cheese, cobblers, money-changers,
bakers who use the market-stalls, strangers with bread-carts, geese,
wagons of vitch (fodder), straw, hay, cabbages, all vendors of linen,
flax, hemp, yarn, who sell their wares upon the street. Here we have
a confused medley of small tradesmen of the town, artisans and peas-
ants. That buyers as well as .sellers on the market were designated as
KauAeute (merchants) is evident from numerous records; in fact, pas
sages might be cited in which, when the merchant is spoken of, it is
the buyer that seems to be chicHy meant.

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECO'"OMY.

119

selling, the specific name of market people or merchants
was more and more applied to thtxii as the importance of
the market as their source of sinply increased. Propor-
tionately with this change, however, the region from which
this market drew its supplies and to which it sold extended
farther into the country. No longer did it coincide with
the domain of burgess rights, whose importance for the
rural population must of itself have diminished with the
incre-sing security of the whole country against external
attack. On the other hand, with the growth of the indus-
tries the whole town, and not merely the space originally
set apart for the exclusive purpose, became the market;
market-peace became town-peace, and for the maintenance
of the latter the town was separated from the general state
administration as a special judicial district. " City air
makes free " became r. principle. Thus arose a social
and legal gu'f between burgher and peasant which the
thirteenth anJ. ^urteenth centuries vainly sought to bridge
over by an extramural and intramural citizenship. The
name burgher was finally restricted to the members of the
communit, settled within the town limits; and the times
lent to this title a legal and Moral significance in vhich the
state idea of the ancient Greeks appeared to have returned

to lif?.

We cannot here occupy ourselves further either with the
development of the municipal constitution and its self-
administration ba.sed upon corporative gr?''ations, or with
the political power which the towns of Germany, France,
and Italy obtained in the later Middle Ages. We have to
do only with the matured economic organization of which
these towns fonned the central points.

If we take a map of the old German Empire and mark
upon it the places that, up to the close of the Middle Ages,
had received grants of municipal rights — there were prob-

I20

TH JSB OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

ably some three thousand of them — we see the country
dotted with towns at an average distance of four to five
hours' journev in the south ami west, and in the north and
east of seven to eight. All were not of equal importance;
but the majority of them in their time were, or at least en-
deavoured to be, the economic centres for their territory,
leading just as independent an existence as the manor be-
fore them. In order to form a conception of the size of
these districts, let us imagine the whole country evenly
divided among the existing municipalities. In this way
each town in southwestern Germany has on the average
forty to somewhat over fifty square miles, in the central
antl northeastern parts between sixty and eighty-five, and
in the eastern from somewhat over one hundred to one
hundred and seventy. Let us imagine the town as always
situated in the centre of such a section of country, and it
becomes plain that in almost every part of Germany the
peasant from the most distant rural settlement was able
to reach the town market in one day. and be home again
by nightfall.-"'

The whole body of municipal market law. as formulated
in early times by the lords of the town and later by the

^'.MthouRh since the Middle Ages muny places have lost their town
franchises, while others have gained them for the first time, yet the
number of places that to-day bear the name of town (Stadt) furnishes
a pretty correct idea of what it then was. There is in Baden at pres-
ent one city t'> every 132 s(iuare kilometres of territory [i s(i. km. =
about I S(|. nii'el. in Wiirtemberg to i.M. in Alsace-Lorraine to 137,
in Ifessc to 118. in the kingdom of Saxony to 105. in Hesse-N'assau
to 145. in the Rhine Province to 19J. in Westphalia to ig6. in the
province of Saxony to i;5, in Brandenburg to Jgi. in the kingdom of
Bavaria to 328. in Hanover to 341. in Schleswig-Holstein to 350. in
Pomcrania to 41J, in West Prussia to 473. and in East Prussia to 552.
The fever for founding tnunicipalities. which racked many medixval
rulers, called into existence a multitude of towns that lacked vitality.
Well known is the prohibition in the Saihsensfiegel that " No market
shall be founded within a mile of anoih..." Weiske, III, 66, 1 1.

THE RISE OF 1^ AT ION A L ECONOMY.

121

town councillors, is summed up in the two principles, that,
as far as at all possible, sales must be public and at first hand,
and that everything ixjhich can be produced zvithin the toz^'n
itself shall be produced there. For products of local manu-
'acture intermediary trade was forbidden to everyone, even
to the artisans; it was permitted with imported goods only
when they had already been vainly offered on the '^- .et.
The constant aim was to meet amply and at a just price
the wants of the home consumers, and to give full satis-
faction to the foreign customers of local industry.

The territory from which supplies were drawn for the
town market, and that to which it furnished commodities,
was identical. The inhabitants of the countr\- brought in
victuals and raw materials, and with what they realized
paiil for the labour of the town craftsmen, either in the
direct form of wage-work or in the indirect form of finished
products, which had been previously ordered or were se-
lected in the open market from the artisan's stand.
Burgher and peasant thus stood in the relationship of mu-
tual customers: what the one produced the other always
needed; and a large part of this exchange trade was per-
formed without the mediation of money, or in such a way
that money was introduced only to adjust differences in
value.

Town handicraft had an exclusive right of sale on the
market. The productions of other places were aumitted
only when the industry in cpiestion had no representatives
within the town. They were usually offered for sale by the
foreign producers at the annual fairs; at this one point
the spheres of the various town tvuirkcts overlap. But
even here the most essential feature, the direct sale by
producer to consume*, is also observed, though only in
exceptional instances. If a trade capable of supporting a
craftsman was not represented in the town, the council

i2a

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

^■%

called in a skilled master workman from outside and in-
duced him to settle by exemption from taxation and other
privileges. If he required considerable initial capital, the
town itself came to his aid, and at its own expense built
work- and sale-shops and established mills, grin^.ing-
works, cloth-frames, bleaching-places, dye-houses, fulling-
mills, etc., — all with a view to satisfying the greatest pos-
sible variety of wants by home production.

Although direct dealing with the consumer of his
wares ^^ tended necessarily to keep alive in the artisan a
sense of personal responsibility, an effort was made to
brace this moral relationship by .special ordinances. Hand-
work is an office that must be administered for the general
welfare. The master shall furnish " honest " work. So far
as the personal services of the craftsman remained avail-
able to his customers, a regular rate was fixed governing
the amount he could claim in wages and board while on his
itinerancy. In cases where the customer furnished him
with the raw material in his own home, as, for instance, tin
to the pewterer, silver and gold to the goldsmith, or yarn
to the weaver, provision was made that it should not be
adulterated. Where, on the contrary, the artisan supplied
the material there were erected in the market, about the
churches, at the town gates, or in particular streets, public
sale-booths which often served also as work-shops (bread-
stands, meat-stalls, drapers' and cloth shops, furriers'
booths, shoemakers' benches, etc.). It was a market rule
that those vending the same wares should do their selling
alongside one another in open and mutual competition
and under the supervision of the market wardens and over-

" Here and there this was further secured by the regulation that
not even the wife of the craftsman might represent him in selling.
Comp. Gramich, V'erf. h. Verw. d- St. Wiirsburg vom. XIII. bis XF.
Jkdt., pp. 38 f.

THE RISE OF NATION/IL ECONOMY.

X23

seers, and this rule was extended to craftsmen who merely
worked at home on orders, in that for the most part they
lived side by side on the same street. Many cities have
preserved to the present day the remembrance of this con-
dition of things in the names of their streets (such as Shoe-
maker, Turner, Weaver, Cooper, Butcher, Fisher Streets),
many of which led directly into the old market square. In
this way the greatest part of the town, or even the whole of
it, bore the outward aspect of one large market. It
is well known that the many prescriptions regarding the
raw material to be used, the method of doing work, the
length and breadth of cloths, and the direct regulation of
prices must have served for the protection of the con-
sumer.^®

Just as the urban craftsman enjoyed within the town
and the extramural judicial district {Banmneile) the ex-
clusive right of selling the products of his handicraft, so
the urban consumer possessed for the same area the ex-
clusive right to purchase imported commodities. This
right can be exercised, to be sure, only when the imported
goods actually come to market and stand on sale for the
proper length of time. To effect this a law of staple is
introduced; foreselling in the country places or before the
town gates is forbidden; selling to middlemen, artisans,
and strangers is permitted only after the consumers are
supplied, and then usually with the limitation that the lat-
ter, if they so wish, may have a share; and lastly, the
withdrawing of goods once brought to market was for-
bidden, or permitted only after they had remained three
days unsold.^^

** For the sake of brevity we refer for all details in this connection
to Stieda in the Jhb. f. N.-6k. u. Statistik, XXVII. pp. 91 «•

"These ordinances were most carefully wrought out for the corn
trade. Sec Schmolkr, Jhb. f. Gcsetzg. Verw, u. Volksw., XX. pp.
708 flf.

124

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

I 1

'•*• 3 »

But against the foreign 'seller there always prevails a
deep-rooted mistrust. To t lis is due the existence of that
peculiar system of exchange through official interme-
diaries, measurers, and weighers. To-day the State con-
trols weights and measures by official standards and pui^lic
inspections, and leaves the terms to the buyers and sellers
themselves. In the Middle Ages the technical means for
constructing exact measures and ensuring their accuracy
were wanting. Common field-stones — and at the Frank-
furt fairs as late as the fifteenth century even wooden
blocks — were used as weights. In order, however, to de-
termine accurately the amount of goods exchanged, the
handling of the measures was withdrawn from the parties
themselves and entrusted to special officers, whose pres-
ence was made obligatory at every sale made by an out-
sider. It was the duty of these intermediaries to bring
buyer and seller together, to assist in fixing the price, to
test the goods for possible defects, to select for the pur-
chaser the quantity he had bought, and to see to its propci-
delivery. The intermediary was forbidden to trade for
himself; he was not even allowed at the departure of the
foreign tradesnnn, whom he generally lodged, to purchase
remnants of goods remaining unsold.

This system of direct exchange is found, though with
many local peculiarities, carried out to the most min-
ute details in all mediaeval towns. This means. that the
actual circumstances in which its principles were devel-
oped render it inevitable. How far it was really prac-
ticable can only be decided when we are able to determine
what proportions trade assumed under it.

It is beyond question that a retail trade had taken root
in the town;,. To it belonged all who " sel! pennyworths
for the poor man." To understand this, we nvast bear in
mind that all well-to-do townspeople were accustomed

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

1 = 5

to purchase their supplies directly from foreign merchants
at the weekly and yearly markets. The poor man was
unable to make provision for any length of time; he lived,
as he does to-day, " from hand to mouth." For him the
retail tradesman, accordingly, undertook the keeping of
stores for daily sale.

We can distinguish three groups of such small trades-
men, namely, grocers, peddlers, and cloth-dealers. In the
earlier half of the period of town economy the last were
the most important, as, in many towns there was no local
wool-weaving done. With its development their activity
was limited to the handling of the finer kinds of Dutch
cloths, silks, and cottons, or else they made room for the
weavers in their shops.

The ti'holcsalc trade was exclusively itinerant and market
or fair trade; and down to the close of the Middle Ages
the majority of the towns probably saw no merchants
settled within their walls who carried on wholesale trade
from permanent headquarters. Only commodities not pro-
duced within the more or less extensive district from
which a town drew its supplies were the subject of whole-
sale trade. We know of but five kinds: (i) spices and
southern fruits, (2) dried and salted fish, which were then
a staple food of the people, (3) furs, (4) fine cloths, (5) for
the North German towns, wine. In certain parts of Ger-
many salt would also have to be included. In most cases,
however, the town council ordered it in large quantities
directly from the places of production, stored it in the
municipal salt warehouses, and after a monopolistic ad-
vance of its price gave it out to be disposed of by peddler
and saltman, who paid a fee for the privilege. Usually the
foreign wholesale dealers" were permitted to sell their

"In Jhb. f. Nat.-6k. u. Stat., 3 F- XX (1900). pp. i ff., G. v. Below
attempts to prove that in the Middle Ages there existed no class ot

126

THE RISE OF Ny4TION/4L ECONOMY.

ft 'a

!!'

1-1

wares only in large lots or in minimum quantities — in the
case of spices, for example, not under 1 2^ pounds. The local
retailers and peddlers then carried on the sale in detail.
This also holds good for many large producers, as, for
instance, hammersmiths, who might sell o founders the
iron they had failed to persuade smith-j and private indi-
viduals to buy.

Though the limits of the territory from which the mar-
ket of a mediaeval town drew its supplies and to which its
sales were made cannot be determined with precision, see-
ing that they varied for different wares, yet from the eco-
nom.ic point of view they formed none the less an inde-
pendent region. Each town with its surrounding country
constituted an autonomous economic unit within which its
whole course of economic Hfe was on an independent foot-
ing. This independence is based upon special currency,
and special weights and measures for each locality. The
relation between town and country is as a matter of fact
a compulsory relation such as that between the head and
the limbs of the body, and it displays strong tendencies to
assume the forms of legalized compulsion. The extra-
mural jurisdiction of the town, the prohibitions of export
and import already met with, the differential tolls, and the
direct acquisition of territory on the part of the large towns
plainly point in that direction.

Many as are the objections which may be urged against
deducing the constitution of the town from that of the
manor, the economic system of the town can be properly

wholesale merchants, and that the characteristic feature of those times
was for wholesale and reUil trade to be carried on by the same person.
He therefore takes exception to our use of the term wholesale mer-
chant. I cannot, however, see why when these persons appeared as
wholesalers they should not receive the name, particularly as there is
no evidersce to show that wholesale merchants were ever met with who
were not at the same time retail traders.

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

ia7

understood and explained only as a continuation of the
manorial system. What existed in the latter ia mere
germs and beginnings grew into finished organisms and
systems of organisms; factors that under the independent
household economy were found grouped in primitive
shapelessness, have now been differentiated by subdivision
and made independent. The forced division of labour of
the manor has broadened into a free division of production
between peasants and burghers, displaying morever
among the latter a varied multiplicity of separate trades.
The manorial workman carrying on domestic labour has
become the wage-earning craftsman, who in time comes
to possess his own business capital in addition to his tools.
The vital thread connecting manorial and cottier economy
has at length been severed; the separate household estab-
lishments have gained an independent existence; trade
between them is no longer conducted on the basis of a gen-
eral return, but on the basis of a specific payment for ser-
vices given and received. To be sure they have not yet
fully emancipated themselves from the soil, even in the
town; production is still dependent in large measure upon
the domestic husbandry; but there have been formed the
distinct vocations of agriculturalist, artisan, and trades-
Uian which have given a specific direction to the activities
and lives of those following them. Society has become
differentiated; classes now exist; and these were unknown
before.

T he whole circ le of economic Jife has_gained in fulness
and variety in comparison with the independent domestic
economy; the membership of the separate household es-
taMshments has become smaller; the individuals are inter-
dependent ; they undertake certain functions for each
other; exchange value is already forcing its way as a leter-
mining factor into their inner life. But the producingjrom-

128

TH'z RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY,

.tflllm I

munity still coincules with the consuming community; the
handicraftsman's assistants drawn from outside, and even
the tradesmen, are meml)ers of their employer's house-
hold, subject to his disciplinary control. He is their " mas-
ter," they are his " servants."

And still, as ever, by far the greater proportion of com-
modities does not pass beyond the lintels of the place of
production. A small part finds its way l)y the process of
exchange into other establishments, but the way travelled
is a very short one. namely, from producer to consumer.
There is no circulation of goods. The sole exceptions are
the articles of foreign trade few in number, and of the
petty retail trade. They alone became wares. They alone
must frequently take on the form of money before reach-
ing their domestic destination. But here we deal with an
exception to the system of direct exchange, not with a con-
stituent element of the whole economic order.

Jhough at this early point there is a social division
of labour, and also an interrc'.ationship of rades. there are
as yeTneitTier fixed Industrial undertakings nor the neces-
sary industrial capital. At most wt are justified in speak-
ing of trade capital. Handicraft undertakes work, but it
is no business undertaking. In the form? of itinerant
handicraft and home work it almo^^t totally acks capital.
It means wage-labour embodied in t:-€ material of another.
Even where the craftsman works w-'h iis nvr :ools the
product does not increase m value -rrwr :^tt> c nftant in-
corporation of fresh increme nts of -ztxzi^ nn :v m: the fact
that labour is being inve-tcu in it.

The amount of loar .ivA c-nstnnrrnjon -trsxtsi -^ also ex-
ceedingly small. It ma; ve- m dmsnf" -E-T^^ner in medi-
jeval trade credit open.Tiosi- :ui: »e ^^t^Hve- of at all.
Early exchange is base( ip»^ ^eat:^- TE^-menr nothing is

given except \MiCrC a ;- U=::— : =rxz;-^ . i:r-_ - -» 1»

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

129

received. Almost the entire credit system is clothed in
the forms of purchase. This was the case with the heredi-
tary peasant holding and with the giving of town building-
sites in return for a ground-rent, in which instances the
land was looked upon as the purchase-price for the right
to levy rent.-" So it was also under the earlier law where
the land placed at the disposal of the money-lender passes
as a temporary equivalent into the keeping of the " cred-
itor " and becomes his property if the debtor fails to repay
the loan. Economically considered, this commercial act
dififers in no way from selling in order to buy again; and
it is admitted that it is now >carcely possible to discover a
legal distinction between theitwo. A similar character is
borne by tl.'' most common of urban credit transactions,
the purchase of rents or stocks,-" as the name itself indi-
cates. The price is the capital loaned; the commodity
exchanged is the right to draw a yearly rent, which the
borrower on the security of a house transfers in such a
manner that the owner for the time being receives the rent.
The rent is of the nature of a charge up< r, the soil, and is
for a long time incapable of release; the party responsi-
ble answers for it with the house or land upon which it is
fixed, but not with his other assets. It is thus a charge
only upon the real properly that carries it, whose rcntabil-
ity'it proportionately diminishes. The person entitled to
the rent has absolutely resigned the purchase-price paid;
the document conferring the right to draw the rent can
be transferred without formality, just as a bill payable to
bearer. Every personal relationship is thus eliminated
from the wdiole transaction, which lacks that element of

" Compare in connection with this whole section the luminous ex-
planation by A. Heusler, Instituiionen d. deutsch. Privatrechls, II, pp.

128 ff.
"Rcntcnkauf and Giiltkr.uf.

13°

THE RISE OF NAT!ONAL ECONOMY.

trust peculiar to credit. The right of redemption bears
the same character; it is the sale of the rent under reserva-
tion of the privilege of re-purchase.

As in dealings in real property, so also with mov-
ables, the credit transaction is but a variation of ready pay-
ment. The security, as Heusler says, is a provisional
transfer on the part of the debtor of an equivalent that is
still redeemable (forfeitable security), not a covering of the
debt, which may eventually be claimed by the creditor and
realized upon by being converted into money (saleable
security). The pawnbroking business of the Jews •** is in
fact similar to our modern sale with right of redemption,
and the " goods credit " extended to-day by craftsmen
and shopkeepers, takes in the Middle Ages the form of
purchase on security." If at the same time we con-
sider that when personal credit was given in those times
the debtor almost always had to agree to submit to the
creditor's right of security; that in most instances he
could get money only by furnishing the best security un-
der pledges to the lender and similar burdensome condi-
tions; that the creditor in addition reserved the right, in
case of default, to obtain the money from Jews at the debt-
or's expense; and that the fellow citizens or heirs of the
foreign debtor could be distrained upon for the amount of
his debt, — we see plainly that in the town economy of the
Middle Ages a credit syrtem in the modem sense cannot
be spoken of.'*

•■ Comp. my Bev'nlkerung von Frankfurt, I, pp. 573 ff-
" Comp. the interesting examples in Stieda. as cited above, p. 104.
" A striking resemblance to the mediaeval credit system is offered
by the Greek system and its legal forms. Here likewise purchase and
loan are largely synonymous terms, and the language has not arrived
at the stage of distinguishing sharply the notions of buying, pledging,
renting, and subjecting to conditions. The Greek mortgage laws
coincide in all important points with the early German. Comp. K. F.

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

131

^1
1

There are two things in connection with this that must
appear especially strange to a student of modem political
economy, namely, the frequency with which immaterial
things (relationships) become economic commodities and
subjects of exchange, and their treatment under commer-
cial law as real property. These show clearly how primi-
tive exchange sought to enlarge the sphere denied it un-
der the existing conditions of production by awkwardly
transforming, into negotiable property, almost everything
it could lay hold upon, and thus extending infinitely the
domain of private law. What an endless variety of things
in mediaeval times were lent, bestowed, sold, and pawned!
— the sovereign power over territories and towns; county
and bailiff's rip^hts; jun&uiction over hundreds and can-
tons; church dignities and patronages; suburban monoi>-
oly rights; ferry and road privileges; prerogatives of mint-
age and toll, of hunting and fishing; wood-cutting rights,
tithes, statute labour, ground-rents, and revenues; in fact
charges of ever>' kind falling upon the land. Economi-
cally considered, all these rights and "relationships" share
with land the peculiarity that they cannot be removed
from the place where they are enjoyed, and that t^ey can-
not be multiplied at will.

Income and wealth are at this stage not yet clearly distin-
guished from each other. When in Basel in the year 145 1
the " new pound-toll " was introduced it was prescribed
that it should be paid: (i) from the selling-price of wares,

(2) from the capital invested in the purchase of rents, and

(3) from the amount of rents received.'" On every pound

Hermann. Lchrbuch dcr gritch. Privalaltcriumer mil Rinschluss der Rechls-
altcrhnncr, » 67 and (rt<. The old Roman fiducia and its later form as
tignus may be mentioned for purpose of comparison.

Comp. Schonbere, Finansrtrhdltnisst d. Stadt Basel im XIV. und
A J- . JHdt., p. 367.

13a THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

four pfennigs were to be paid, no matter whether the com-
modity had changed hands as purchase-money, as capital,
or as interest. In the first instance we have to do, accord-
ing to our terminology, with gross revenue, in the second
with property, in the third with net income; and yet all
three cases are treated alike. Similar examples might be
adduced from the tax-regulations of other cities."

Two of our modern classes of income, however, now
come more clearly into view, namely, ground-rent and
wages. The latter bears, to be sure, a peculiar character;
it is handicraft-wage, compensation for the use of the
craftsman's labour on behalf of the consumer, and not, as
to-day, the price paid to the wage-worker by the en-
trepreneur. Still this price already exists in germ in the
slight money-wage that the artisan gives to his journey-
man in addition to free maintenance, thus enabling the
latter to supply independently a limited proportion of his
wants. Earnings of management appear only in the
sphere of trade, and thus, like it, are the exception; more-
over through connection with transportation they are
more coloured by elements of labour-wage than are the
earnings from trade to-day. As a rule interest takes
on the form of ground-rent; and the same is true of the
many kinds of revenues arising from the juridical rela-
tionships that enter into trade. As credit operations
usually take the form of purchase, they almost always
mean for the creditor the actual transfer of a portion of
his property, in order that he may receive a yearly income
or a continuous usufruct. This is a rule, for example, of
enfeoffment; with mortgaged property, according to the
early law. it involved the transfer of the natural yield of

- For details see my paper on two medixval tax-regulations. Klcinert
Bdtriigf z. Gfschich. von Doccnitn d. Uipsiger HochschuU. Ftstscknft --.
('■ill. Hislorikertage (Leipzig. i8o4>. PP- >^3ff.

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

»33

the land, and with rent-purchases, of the ground-rent or
rent. On this basis arose the earliest type of personal in-
surance and at the same time the chief form of public
credit: the negotiating of annuities.

Public economy is still mainly of a private character:
revenues from domains, sovereign prerogatives, tithes,
statute labour, services, ground-rents, and fees preponder-
ate in the State, market revenues and imports on con-
sumption in the towns. The general property-tax con-
tinues to be the only direct tax, and mingled with it here
and there are elements of an income-tax. It is indeed
levied more frequently than in the preceding period, but
-.till it is not regular.

In Germany the economic supremacy of the towns over
the surrounding country blossomed only in a few places
into political sovereignty. In Italy a parallel development
led to the formation of a tyranny of the cities; in France
the beginnings of autonomy on the part of free municipal
communities were early suppressed by the kings with the
aid of the feudal nobility. The reason is that in Germany,
as in France, everything that lay without the town wall
was overlaid with a mass of feudal institutions. True the
great landed proprietors had long since given up the per-
sonal management of their manorial estates. — which be-
came for the owner, just as the town land and house prop-
erty for the patrician families, nothing more than a source
of income. But their original economic power had now be-
come political, the landed proprietors were now territorial
princes, and in the course of this transformation there had
arisen a new and widely ramified class of small titled pro-
prietors whose interests, purely agrarian in character, were
closely linked to those uf the princes. Henc that keen
struffgle in Germany between burj^her and n )!e whicl;

»34

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

■ m

fills the closing centuries of the Middle Ages, and in which
the towns maintain the political autonomy they had for
the most part acquired from their lords by purchase and
unredeemed pleilges, though they fail to wrest the peasant
clabs from the feudal powers.

It can thus be said that the economic development of the
towns in Germany and France remained incomplete; and
that they did not accomplish what the most vigorous
types of the period of autonomous household economy had
actually achieved, namely, the transmuting of their eco-
nomic power into political indepei'ui-nce. This was
perhaps fortunate for us. In Italy the wealth of the
cities expropriated in all directions the possessions of the
peasant, and down to the present has continued to exploit
him as a wretched metayer. In Germany the nobility were,
indeed, able to make of him a feudatorj-; but the con-
ception of nationality, which first came to life in the terri-
torial sovereignties, served to prevent his proletarization.

The final development of national economy is in its es-
sence a fruit of the political centralization that begins at
the close of the Middle Ages with the rise of territorial
state organizations, and now finds its completion in the
creation of the unified national State. Economic unifica-
tion of forces goes hand in hand with the bowing of private
political interests to the higher aims of the nation as a

whole.

In Germany it is the more powerful territorial prtnces,
as opposed to the rural nobles and the towns, who seek
to realize the modern national idea, often certainly under
j;rcat diffictilties. especially when their territories were
widely scattered. From the second half of the fifteenth
century we have many indications of a closer economic
union, such as the cre.ition of a territorial currency in
place of the numerous town currencies, the issue of tcrri-

THE RISE OF N/ITION/fL ECONOMY.

1 35

torial regulations regarding trade, markets, industry, for-
estry, mining, hunting, and fishing, the gradual formation
of a system of sovereign prerogatives and concessions, the
promulgation of territorial laws, conducive to greater legal
unity, and the emergence of an ordered public economy.

But for centuries longer agricultural interests predom-
inate in Germany, and as against them the exertions of the
imperial power in the direction of a national economic
policy lamentably failed. On the other hand the Western
European states, — Spain, Portugal, England, France, and
the Netherlands, — from the sixteenth century on appear
externally as economic units, developing a vigorous colo-
nial policy in order to turn to account the rich resources of
their newly acquired possessions over sea.

In all these lands, though with varying degrees of se-
verity, appears the struggle with the independent powers
of the Middle Ages, — the greater nobility, the towns, the
provinces, the religious and secular corporations. The
immediate question, to be sure, was the annihilation of the
independent territorial circles which blocked the way to
political unification. Put deep down beneath the move-
ment leading to the development of princely absolutism,
slumbers the universal idea that the greater tasks con-
fronting modern civilization demanded an organized union
of whole peoples, a grand living community of interests;
and this could arise only upon the basis of common eco-
nomic action. Each portion of the country, each section
of the population, must in the service of the whole take
over those duties that its natural endowments best fitted
it to perform. A comprehensive partitioning of functions
was necessary, a division into callings embracing the whole
population; and this division itself presupposed a highly
developed commerce and an active interchange of goods
amongst the population. If the sole aim of all economic

136

THE RISE OF NATION /I L ECONOMY.

I !

Ill

effort was in ancient times to make the house autonomous
in the satisfaction of its wants, and in later mediaeval times
to supply the needs of the town, there now comes into
being an exceedingly complex and ingenious system for
meeting the wants of the entire nation.

The carrying out of this system is from the sixteenth to
the eighteenth century the economic effort of all the ad-
vanced European states. The measures employed to at-
tain this object are modelled in almost every detail upon
the economic policy of the mediaeval towns.^* They are
generally summed up under the name of the mercantile
system. This latter has long been regarded as a theoretical
edifice culminating in the principle that the wealth of a
country consists in the amount of coin within its borders.
To-day, in all probability, this conception is universally
abandoned. Mercantilism is no dead dogma, but the
active practice of all leading statesmen from Charles V.
to Frederick the Great. It found its typical development
in the economic policy of Colbert. He sought the removal
or reduction of the internal customs and tolls, the intro-
duction of a unified customs system on the national bor-
ders; the assuring to the country of a supply of the neces-
sary raw materials and means of sustenance by hindrances
to export, and the institution of the forest regalia. He
fostered industry on a large scale by the establishment of
new industrial branches with state support and technical
supervision, by the exclusion of foreign competition
through prohibitive tariffs, and by the building of roads,
canals, and harbours. With the same end in view he strove
to unify the system of weights and measures, and to regu-
late commercial law and the commercial news-service.

•* For the German states this development is excellently portrayed
by Schmoller in the Jhb. f. Gesetzgeb. Verw. u. Volksw. VIII (1884).

pp. 22 a.

THE RISE OF N/fTlONML ECONOMY.

137

The cultivation of the technical arts, fine arts, and science
in special state institutions; the systematizing of state and
communal expenditure, the removal of inequalities in taxa-
tion, also served his one purpose — to create an independent
national economy which should satisfy all the needs of the citi-
zens of France by national labour, and by an active internal
trade bring all the natural resources of the country and all
the separate forces of the people into the service of the
whole. In considering the special encouragement given
by " Colbertism " to foreign commerce, the marine, and
colonial trade, it has all too often been overlooked that
these measures also strengthened the inner resources of
the country, and that the theory of the balance of trade
became a necessity at a time when the transition from
the still predominant household production to the system
of universal exchange indispensably postulated the in-
crease of the monetary medium of circulation.

Along with the state measures we must not fail to take
account of the social forces working in the same direction.
These naturally had their starting-point in the towns.
Here, by a gradual process of transformation, 'waning at
interest had been evolved from the purchase o! rents; and
thus in the course of the sixteenth century a true credit
system arose. In this we may see the influence of whole-
sale trade, which first discovered the secret of making
money with money. Through the liberation of capi-
tal invested in rents tlic wealth of the rich townsmen
acquired a greatly increased mobility and accumulative
power. Loan capital now took its place at the side of
trade capital, hitherto the only kind of capital; and the
two supplemented and supported each other in their fur-
ther development.

The immediate result was a notablejexpansion p£ tra4e^
Certain towns began to rear their heads above the uniform

) f]

X38

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

mass of mediaeval market and handicraft towns as centres
of state administration or as emporiums of trade. In Ger-
many, which through the decline of the Hansa and the
change in the highways of the world's trade, had lost most
of its importance as an intermediary of trade with the
North, the change manifests itself to some extent in the
growmg importance of the great fairs, and in the decad-
ence of the local markets. The Frankfurt fair reached its
zenith in the sixteenth century, that of Leipzig consider-
ably later. But soon trade capital is no longer content
with the importation and handling of foreign products;
it becomes, for native industry and the surplus products
of the peasant's domestic labour, commission capital.
Wholesale production with division of labour in manu-
factories and factories comes into life, and with it the
wage-earning class. In place of the mediaeval exchange
bank there is developed first the bank of deposit and cir-
culation, then the modern credit bank. The transport of
goods, which earlier was an integral part of trade, now
becomes independent. The state posts, newspapers, and
the national marine arise, and the insurance system is de-
veloped. On all sides are new organizations whose pur-
pose is to satisfy wide-spread economic wants; a national
industry, a national market, national commercial institu-
tions,— everywhere the capitalistic principle of business

enterprise in trade.

Everybody knows how the absolutist State furthered
this movement, ai d how not infrequently in the effort to
accelerate it it gave an artificial existence to what would
not flourish of its own strength. Nevertheless, though
limited in manifold ways by state legislation, the old eco-
nomic organization of the towns with its guild and monop-
oly privileges and the sharp separation of town and
country, persisted on until about the end of the eighteenth

i«

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

139

century, heedless of the new economic life springing up
roundabout and of the variety of new commercial forms
which it had nurtured. When the Physiocrats and Adam
Smith made these latter for the first time the subject of
scientific observation, they entirely overlooked the ob-
vious fact that they were not dealing with a spontaneous
product of mere social activity, but with a fruit of the
paternal government of the State. The barriers whose
removal they demanded were either the fossilized survivals
of earlier economic epochs, such as charges upon the soil,
guilds, local coercive rights, restrictions on freedom of mi-
gration; or they were devices of mercantilism for assisting
production, such as monopolies and privileges, which
might cease to operate after having fulfilled their purpose.
As far as the development of national economy is con-
cerned, the liberalism of the last hundred years has only
continued what absolutism began. Expressed in this way,
the assertion may easily seem paradoxical. For liberalism,
outwardly considered, has only demolished; it has over-
thrown the antiquated forms upon which household and
town economy were founded, and constructed nothing
new. It has destroyed the special position and special
privileges of individual territorial districts and individual
social groups, and in their stead established free competi-
tion and equality before the law. But though it has thus
decomposed into its elements the heritage of the past, it
has at the same time cleared the way for new economic
combinations of a truly national character, and made it
possible for every energy, according to the technical devel-
opment of the time, to enter into the service of the whole
at the point where it is of the greatest usefulness.

If liberalism has made the progress of national economy
absolutely contingent upon social freedom of action, and
thus taken an attitude in many respects hostile to

I40

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

v.^ii

the State, it has nevertheless failed to prevent the modern
State, as such, from pursuing the path chosen by it as early
as the sixteenth century, and leading to an ever-closer
union of all sections of the people and of the national ter-
ritory for the accomplishment of the steadily expanding
tasks' of civilization. All the great statesmen of the last
three centuries, from Cromwell and Colbert to Cavour and
Bismarck, have worked towards this end. The French
Revolution has been no less centralizing in its effects than
the political upheavals of recent decades. In the latest
phase of this evolution the principle of nationality has be-
come a principle of mighty unifying power. The small
separate States of earlier times were no longer equal to
the comprehensive economic tasks of the present. They
had either to disappear in one large national State, as in
Italy, or surrender considerable portions of their inde-
pendence, especially in economic legislation, to a federal
State, as did the individual States in the German Empire,
and the cantons in Switzerland.

We err, if we imagine ourselves justified in concluding
1 from the extent to which international -trade, has been
facilitated during the epoch of liberalism that the period
of national economy is on the decline and is giving place
to the period of world-ec ononix. The very latest political
development of the States of Europe has resulted in a
return to the ideas of mercantilism and, to a certain extent,
of the old town economy. The revival of protective duties,
the retention of national currency and of national labour
legislation, the public ownership of the machinery of trans-
portation already achieved or still aimed at, the national
control of workman's insurance and of the banking sys-
tem, the growing activity of the State in economic matters
generallv.— all this indicates that we have passed the ab-
solutist and liberalist periods and entered upon a third

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY. 141

period of national economy. Socially this period bears a
peculiar aspect. It is no longer merely a question of meet-
ing national wants as independently and completely as
possible by national production, but a question of the just
distribution of goods, of the direct action of the State in
the economic interests of the whole, and for the purpose
of securing to all its subjects according to their economic
services a share in the benefits of civilization. The requi-
site measures can be carried out only on a grand scale;
they demand an intimate union of all individual forces,'
such as a great national State alone can furnish.

With this we might fittingly close. For to present here
the multitude of new phenomena springing up under the
touch of national as opposed to household and town econ-
omy one would need to reproduce almost the whole con-
tents of a text-book on political economy. It will never-
theless contribute to a better understanding of the subject
if, by a comparison of some of the leading phenomena we
concisely review the fundamental features of the whole in
the three stages of its development.

The most prominent of these features is, that in the
course of history mankind sets before itself ever higher
economic aims and finds the means of attaining these in a
division of the burden of labour, which constantly extends
until finally it embraces the whole people and requires the
services of all for all. This cooperation is based, in the
*^^51^L!!P-"!?1^°1^^ economy, upon blood-relationship, of
town economy upon contiguity, and of national economy
upon nationality. It is the road traversed by mankind in
passing from clanship to society, which, as far as we
can see, ends in an ever-ti,q:htening social organization. On
this road the means for satisfying the wants of the indi-
vidual continually grow in fulness and variety, and at the
same time in dependence and complexity. The life and

142

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

labour of every individual becomes more and more en-
twined with the Hfe and labour of many others.

At the stage of household economy every commodity is
consumed in the place of its origin; at the stage of town
economy it passes immediately from the producer to the
consumer; at the stage of national economy, both in its
production and thereafter, it passes through various hands

it circulates. In the course of the whole evolution the

distance between production and consumption increases.
At the first stage all commodities are consumption goods;
at the second part of them become articles of exchange;
at the third most of then^ are wares.

The individual household at the first stage is a producing
and consuming community in one; at the stage of town
economy this state of things continues in so far as the
journeyman craftsman and the peasant workman make
part of the household of the person employing them; in
national economy community in production and com-
munity in consumption become distinct. The former is a
business undertaking from whose returns as a rule several
independent households are supported.

When outside labour is necessary, it is at the first stage
in a permanent relation of subjection to the producer (as
slaves and serfs), at the second in one of service, and at the
third the relationship is contractual. Under the inde-
pendent household system the consumer is either himself
a labourer, or the owner of the labourer; in town economy
he makes a direct purchase of the workman's labour
(wage-work), or of the product of his labour (handicraft);
in national economy he ceases to stand in any relation to
the labourer, and purchaser his goods from the entrepre-
neur or merchant, by whom the labourer is paid.

As for money, it is in independent domestic economy
either entirely absent, or an article of direct use and a

THE RISE OF NATION /tL ECONOMY.

means for storing up wealth. In town economy it is es-
sentially a medium of exchange; in national economy it
becomes a means of circulation and of profit-making as
well. The three categories, payment in kind, money pay-
ment Hnd payment based upon credit, correspond with the
variouj roles played by money, though they do not ex-
haust them.

Capital scarcely exists at the first stage; we meet only
with consumption goods. At the second stage implements
of labour may be classed under the usual head of business
capital, but this is by no means generally true of the raw
materials. Acquisitive capital proper exists only in the
form of trade capital. At the third, acquisitive capital rep-
resents the means whereby goods are raised from ona
stage of division of labour to the next and impelled
through the whole process of circulation.'® Here every-
thing becomes capital. From this point of view we might
describe the independent household economy as lacking
capital, town economy as hostile to capital, and national
economy as capitalistic.

Income and zvcalth under the household system com-
pose an undivided and indivisible whole; though the be-
ginnings of ground-rent are already perceptible. In town
economy interest also usually appears as ground-rent;
business profits are confined almost entirely to trade; the
chief form of labour-wage is the wage paid to the crafts-
man by the consumer. But even yet most commodities
do not pass from their place of production into other es-
tablishments. Pure income can be realized only by one
who dehnitely surrenders a portion of his wealth in the
purchase of rents. At the stage of national economy the
four branches of income are definitely separated. Almost

' Cotnp. also Chaps

v an

d VII

144

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

m V

the whole return from production is liquidated through
trade. Under wealth, rent and acquisitive capital are dis-
tinct from stores for consumption, which are kept at the
lowest imaginable limit, since commerce frees individuals
from the keeping of supplies. On the other hand the un-
used surpluses of income, which at the first and second
stages necessarily remained over from the wealth available
for consumption, are now either directly added to business
capital or transformed by means of saving- and other
banks into interest-bearing loans, — that is, they are, in
any case, converted into capital.

At the stage of household economy the division of labour
is confined to the household establishment; at the stage of
town economy it consists either in the forma a of, and
division into, trades within the town, or in a partition of
production between town and country; while the promi-
nent features of the stage of national economy are increas-
ing division of production, subdivision of work within the
various establishments, and displacement of labour from
one business to another.^"

Jndustry as an independent occupation is not found at
the first stage, the whole transformation of raw material
being merely housework. In the town economy we indeed
find labourers pursuing some special industrial occupa-
tion, but entrepreneurs are lacking; industry is either
wage-work or handicraft, and he who wishes to ply it must
first master it. In national economy industry carried on in
factories and under the commission system is preponder-
ant; and this presupposes extensive capital and an entre-
preneur with mercantile skill. Technical mastery of the
process of production by the entrepreneur is not indis-
pensable.'*

" For further details see Chap. VIII.
" Comp. Chap IV.

THE RISE OF N/ITIONAL ECONOMY.

145

In similar fashion a change occurs in the forms under
which trade is pursued. Corresponding to the household
system is itinerant trade, to town economy market trade,
and to national economy trade with permanent establish-
ment. If at the first two stages trade is merely supple-
mentary to an otherwise autonomous system of produc-
tion, it becomes in national economy a necessary link
between production and consimiption. It draws away
from transportation, which now attains an independent
position and organization.

Commercial services were, to be sure, not lacking in the
ancienTsTave and the mediaeval manorial systems; they de-
volved upon special slaves or serfs. In the Middle Ages
we find town messengers who were originally in the ex-
clusive service of the municipal authorities, but later added
the carriage of private correspondence. At the threshold
of modem times stands the postal service, at first restricted
to state purposes, by-and-bye extended to the public. In
our century follow the railway, telegraph, telephone, and
steamship lines — with which the State interferes in the
interest of economy — and along with them the most varied
private undertakings for facilitating communication."
AfaJlthestages, however, certain commercial services have
been organized by the sovereign administration, in the
initial instance always for its own special requirements.

Credit is at the first stage purely consumption credit;
and can be obtained only by the person pledging himself
and all his property. At the second stage, in the matter of
personal credit, servitude for debt is softened to imprison-
ment for debt. Along with consumption credit appears a
type of credit on the return from immovables which is
met in garb of a purchase, and must be considered as the
■ For the analogous development in the newspaper press see Chap.

146

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

normal form of credit under town economy. Business or
productive credit, the distinctive form of credit in modern
times, is first developed in trade, whence it spreads to
every sphere of industrial life. State credit appears in the
States of antiquity naturally as a forced loan; in the medi-
aeval towns as the sale of annuities and redeemable claims;
in the modern States as the disposing of perpetual rents
or of redeemable interest-bearing bonds.

In the domain of public services similar stages may also
be pointed out. Legal protection is at first a matter for
the clan, later for the feudal lord; in the Middle Ages the
towns form districts of separate jurisdiction; at present
the enforcement of law and police protection are functions
of the State. The same is the case with education. At
the first stage education devolves upon the family, as it does
to-day still in Iceland. The Roman pccdagogus is a slave.
In the Middle Ages it is autonomous household establish-
ments, namely, the monasteries, that organize the educa-
tional system; later arise the municipal and cathedral
schools; peculiar to modem times are the concentration
and supervision of instruction in state institutions. This
development is even more apparent in the arrangements for
defence. Among many peoples still at the stage of eco-
nomic isolation each separate house is fortified (for ex-
ample, the palisades c' the Malays and Polynesians), and
in early medijcval times the manor is protected by wall and
moat. At the second economic stage each city is a fort-
ress; at the th'rd a few fortifications along the borders
secure the whole State. It is sufficiently significant that
Louvois, the creator of the first system of border fortifica-
tion, was a coiitemporary of Colbert, the founder of mod-
ern French national economy.

These parallels might be multiplied. As in moving into
a new building one's first care is to introduce order for

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY. 147

the time being, so with regard to the subject-matter of this
chapter no fair-minded person will expect that everything
has been exhaustively treated and every detail assigned its
proper place. The writer clearly perceives how inade-
quately the various phenomena of the two earlier stages
of industrial evolution have as yet been worked over, and
how very seriously their economic significance still de-
mands accurate ascertainment. But for the present it may
suffice If we have made clear the regularity of development
both generally and in detail.

Only one thing further would we particularly em-
phasize. Household economy, town economy, national
economy— these phrases do not denote a series whose
terms are mutually exclusive. One kind of economic life
has always been the predominant, and in the eyes of con-
temporaries the normal, one. Many elements of town
economy, and even of independent domestic economy
still project into the present. Even to-day a very consid-
erable part of the national production does not pass into
general circulation, but is consumed in the households
where it is produced; another po-tion. again, circulates
no farther than from one establishment to another.

Hence it would almost appear as if those people were
in error who regard the task of political economy to be
the explanation of the nature and coherence of commercial
phenomena, and those right who confine themselves to a
descriptior of economic forms and their historical trans-
formations.

Vet that would be a fatal error, involving the sur-
render of the scientific labours of over a century, as wHl
ar a complete misconception of our economic prosf^nl.
To-day not a sack of wheat is produced even on the most
remote farm, that is not directly linked to the industrial
hfe nf the nation as a whole. Even if it be consumed m

148

THE RISE OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

the house of the producer, nevertheless a large portion of
the means of its production (the plough, the scythe, the
threshing-machine, the artificial fertilizers, the draught-
animals, etc.) is obtained through trade; and the con-
sumption of one's own products takes place only when
from market conditions it seems economically advisable.
Thus the sack of wheat is knit by a strong cord to the great
intricate web of national commerce. And so are we all in
our every economic thought and deed.

It is therefore a matter of great satisfaction that, after
a period of diligent collection of material, the economic
problems of modern commerce have in recent times been
zealously taken up again, and that an attempt is being
made to correct and develop the old system in the same
way in which it arose, with the aid, however, of a much
larger store of facts. For the only method of investigation
which will enable us to approach the complex causes of
commercial phenomena is that of abstract isolation, and
logical deduction. The sole inductive process that can
likewise be considered, namely, the statistical, is not suffi-
ciently exact and penetrating for most of the problems
that have to be handled here, and can be employed only
to supplement or control.

For the economic periods of the past the task will not be
different. Here, to be sure, it will be even more necessary
first to collect the facts and present them according to
form and function; next we must gain a proper conception
of the nature of the phenomena; and then we may logically
dissect them and investigate their casual connection. We
will thus have to advance by the same method that " classi-
cal political economy " has applied to the industry of the
present. For some phases of the economic life of the an-
cient oUos this has already been done in a masterful man-
ner by Rodbcrtus; for the economic life of the Middle

THE RISE OF N^ITIONML ECONOMY.

149

Ages such a task has yet scarcely been essayed. The at-
tempt can succeed only with investigators fully able to
grasp the actual assumptions of past economic periods
and our ancestors' ways of thinking on economic matters;
it can but fail if the half understood, half arbitrarily recon-
structed economic conditions of the past continue to be
reflected in terms of the modem theory of exchange.

Only in this way, in our opinion, can investigations in
economic history and the theory of contemporary eco-
nomics be mutually helpful; only thus can we gain a
clearer insight into the regularity both of economic devel-
opment and of economic phenomena.

CHAPTER IV.

A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

In economic and social matters most people have very
definite opinions on what should be, often much more
definite than on what is. What in their view should be is
by no means an ideal state of affairs, an imaginative crea-
tion that has never been realized. Very frequently indeed
it is a conception drawn from the conditions that prevailed
in times more or less remote, which long custom has led
us to consider normal.

Such is the case, if we mistake not, with many of our
contemporaries regarding what we call handicraft and the
so-called handicraft problem. One has become accus-
tomed to look upon handicraft as the normal form of in-
dustry, after it has dominated five centuries or more of
the life of the burgher class of Germany. The proverb
says " Handicraft stands on golden ground "; and obser-
vation teaches us that this ground is, according to present-
day valuation, no longer golden. We ask ourselves how
that happy condition can be restored, how handicraft can
be " resuscitated."

Rut what right has one to regard handicraft as the
normal form of industry and thus as it were to strive after
an ideal whose realization belongs to the past?

The earlier political economists represent handicraft as

the original form of industrial production. " In a tribe of

150

A HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 151

hunters or shepherds," says Adam Smith/ " a particular
person makes bows and arrows with more readiness and
dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges them
for cattle or venison with his companions; and he finds at
last that he can in this manner get more cattle and venison
than if he himself went to the field to catch them."
Finally, " the making of bows and arrows grows to be his
chief business and he becomes a sort of armourer." If we
follow this historical progress a couple of stages further,
the original handicraftsman will after a time probably take
an apprentice, and when the latter has learned his trade, a
second, while the first becomes his journeyman.

Seek as we may, we find nothing added by subsequent
development. When we speak of a craftsman to-day we
have in mind a business undertaker on a small scale, who
has passed by regular stages of transition from apprentice
to journeyman and from journeyman to master workman,
who produces with his own hand and his own capital for
a locally limited circle of customers, and into whose hands
flows undiminished the whole pi .duct of his labour.
Everything that one can demand of an industrial system
founded on justice seems realized in the life of the typical
craftsman— gradual social progress, independence, an in-
come corresponding to services rendered. And those
forms of industry that vary from this primal type, namely,
house industry and factory production, may readily ap-
pear abnormal; and the social stratification of those em-
ployed, and the accompanying unequal distribution of
income out of harmony with the idea of economic justice.
Even later economists are rarely free from this popular
conception. In contrasting the three industrial systems
that they recognise, handicraft, house industry, and factory

" Bk. I, ch. 2.

152 A HISTORICAL SURf^EY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

n P

production, they almost unwittingly draw from the funda-
mental institutions of handicraft the criterion for judging
the others. Until quite recently house industry was for
many of them merely a degenerate handicraft or a transi-
tional form, and the factory a necessary evil of the age of
machinery. This narrowness of view was prejudicial to the
scientific understanding of even modern industrial meth-
ods, open as these are to direct observation.

An historically constructive view, such as we will here
present, must from the start shake off the idea that any
particular form in any department of economic activity
can be the norm for all times and peoples. Even handi-
craft is for it only one phenomenon in the great stream
of history, with its origin, continuance, and success de-
pendent upon certain given economic conditions. It is
neither the original nor even a necessary form in the his-
torical evolution of industrial production. It is, in other
words, just as little necessary that the industry of a country
shall have passed through the handicraft phase before ar-
riving at house industry or factory manufacture as that
every people shall have been hunters or nomads before
passing over to settled agriculture. Among us handicraft
has been preceded by other industrial systems, which, in-
deed, even in Europe, still exist in part.

The great historical significance of these primitive in-
dustrial forms in the evolution of economic conditions has
hitherto been almost wholly ignored, although they shaped
for thousands of years the economic life of the nations and
left lasting marks upon their social organizations. Only a
comparatively small portion of the history of industry,
namely, that part which written laws have enabled us to
know, has been at all cleared up; and this. too. much more
on its formal side than as regards its inner life, its method
of operation. Even the guild handicraft of the Middle

■

M HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 153

Ages, to which in recent times so much persevering and
penetrating labour has been devoted, has, on the side of
its actual operation, enjoyed scarcely more accurate in-
vestigation. In this domain arbitrary theoretical con-
structions based upon the postulates and concepts of
modern commercial economy still widely prevail.

Our " historical " political enonomy, it is true, has a
wealth of material for the economic history of the classical
and modem peoples. But it has hardly yet been duly
noted that the complex nature of all social phenomena ren-
ders it just as difficult for the investigator of to-day to re-
construct the economic conditions of the life of the na-
tions of antiquity and of the Middle Ages as to forecast
even with the most lively and powerful imagination the
ultimate consequences of the " socialist State of the fu-
ture." We shall not arrive at an understanding of whole
epochs of early economic history until we study the eco-
nomic side of the life of primitive and uncivilized peoples
of the present with the care we to-day devote to English-
men and Americans. Instead of sending our young politi-
cal economists on journeys of investigation to these latter,
we should rather send them to the Russians, the Rumani-
ans, or the South Slavs; we should study the characteristic
features of primitive economic life and the legal concep-
tions of the peoples of our newly acquired colonies before
such features and conceptions disappear under the influ-
ence of European trade.

It is almost a fortunate circumstance that such external
influences rarely aflFect deeply the real life of the people,
but are confined chiefly to the more privileged classes.
Hence it is that in extensive regions of eastern and north-
ern Europe, which the unheeding traveller courses
through by rail, there may still be observed among the

154 A HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

rural population primiiive forms of production that mod-
em commerce has caused to vary but slightly.

In the attempt made in the following pages to give a
compact presentation of what we know of the industrial
methods of "-uch " backward " tribes and the present C' n-
clusions of industrial history, our sole aim is to present
in clear outline the chief stages of development.* In or-
der to have a guiding thread through the perplexing va-
riety and wealth of forms of individual ethnographical
observations, it is most necessary to separate i} ^lical and
casual, to disregard subsidiary and transitional forms, and
to consider a new phase of development as beginning only
where changes in industrial technique call forth economic
phenomena that imply a radical alteration in the organ-
ization of society. In this way we arrive at five main sys-
tems of industrj-. In historical succession they are:

1. Housework (Domestic Work).

2. Wage-work.

3. Handicraft.

4. Commission Work (House Industry).

5. Factory Work.

We shall first attempt to give a concise outline of
the characteristic economic peculiarities of these indus-
trial systems, merely indicating the socio-historical im-
port of the whole development. The filling out of oc-
casional gaps and the explanation of the transitions from
one system to the other may be left to detailed investiga-
tion. In our sketch we shall, naturally, devote most time
to the two industrial systems precedent to handicraft,

'The present sketch brings together in popular form only the most
important features. Further discussion, and references to the most
essential literature, will be found in my article under the head " Ge-
werbe" in the Handwort. der Staatswiss. (2d ed.), IV, pp. 360-393.

A HISTORICAL SURyEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 155

while for the later a brief account may suffice. We begin
with housework.'

Housework is industrial production in and for the house
from raw materials furnished by the household itself. In
its original and purest form it presupposes the absence
of exchange, and the ability of each household to satisfy
by its own labour the wants of its members. Each com-
modity passes through all the stages of production in the
establishment in which it is to be consumed. Production
is consequently undertaken only according to the needs of
the house itself. There is still neither circulation of goods
nor capital. The wealth of the house consists entirely in
consumption goods in various stages of completion, such
as corn, meal, bread, flax, yarn, cloth, and clothes. It also
possesses auxiliary means of production, such as the hand-
mill, the :i <e, the distafif, and the weaver's loom, but no
goods with which it could procure other goods by pro-
cess of exchange. All it has it owes to its own lalwur,

' It is from Norway and Sweden that the expression HausAeiss
(housework) has been transplanted into Germany, where during the
last twenty years it has become current. In those countries it was
employed for certain occupations of the members of the domestic
circle, such as spinning, weaving, sewing, the making of wooden
utensils, and tl. ° like. It is the application of industrial technique
that, favoured by climate and settlement, has from early times become
indigenous in those parts. Through it the peasant household works
up for its own use the raw material from field and wood. As this
technique threatened to disappear under the influence of modern com-
mercial conditions it was the opinion in Denmark and Norway that
it should he reanimated through school instruction. Few, indeed, of
the promoters of manual instruction — this new branch of instruction,
whose pedagogical importance cannot be denied— have formed a clear
conception of what housework really signified and in part still signifies
for the Northern peoples. Here and there, especially at its inaugura-
tion, manual tr ining was regarded as a means for establishing new
house industries. But housework and house industry are two indus-
trial systems separated historically from one another (at least among
us) by two centuries.

156 A HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

aiul it is scarcely possible to separate the operations of the
household from those of production.

In the fonn of housework, intlustry is older than agri-
culture. Wherever explorers of new countries have come
into contact with primitive peoples, they have found many
forms of industrial skill, such as the making of bow and
arrow, the wea\ mg of mats and vessels out of reeds, bast,
and tough roots, a primitive pottery, tanning skins, crush-
ing farinaceous strains on the grinding-stone, smelting
iron ore, the building of houses. To-day the huntini,
tribes of Norti< America, the tisher tribes of the South Se;i
the nomad hordes of Siberia, and the agricultural neg-^
tribes of Africa make similar display of varied technical
skill without possessi ig actual artisans. Even the wretched
naked forest tribes of Central Brazil make their clubs and
bows and arrows, build houses and >ark canoes, make
tools of bone and stoae, weave baskets for carrying and
storing, scoop out gourd dishes, spin, knit, and weave,
form artistically ornamented clay vessels without a knowl-
edge of the potter's wheel, carve ornamented digging-
sticks, stools, flutes, combs, and masks, and prepare many
kinds of ornaments out of feathers, skins, etc.

In the temperate and colder countries with the advance
to the use of the plough, this activity loses more and more
the character of the accidental; the whole husbandry ac-
quires a settled character; the mild period of the year must
be devoted to the procuring of raw material and to out-
door work: in winter the working up of this material
clusters the members of the household around the hearth.
For each kind of work there is developed a definite method
which is incorporated into the domestic life according to
the natural and imperative demand; of economy; about it
custom weaves its fine golden ethical thread: it enriches
and ennobles the lite of men among whom, with its sim-

A HtSTORIC/iL SURREY OF INDUSTRI/1L SYSTEMS. 157

pie technique and archaic forms, it is transmitted from gen-
eration to generation. As people labour only for their
own requirements, the interest of the producer in the work
of his hands long survives the completion r i the work. His
highest technical skill and his whole ariistic sense are em-
bodied in it. It is for this reason that the products of do-
■^estic work throughout Germany have become for our
v. of artistic industry such a rich mine of models of pop-
u a style.

'' le Norwegian peasant is not merely his own smith and
j ; ler, like the Westphalian Hofschulzc in Immermann's
' Munchhauset. "; with his own hands he also builds his
V joden house, makes his field-implements, wagons and
■sleighs, tans leather, carves from wood various kinds of
'louse utensils, and even makes metal ones." In Iceland
the very peasants" are skilful workers in silver. In the
Highlands of Scotland, up to the close of last century,
every man was his own weaver, fuller, tanner, and shoe-
maker. In Galicia and Bukowina, in many parts of Hun-
gary and Siebenbiirgen, in Rumania, and among the
southern Slav peoples there could scar ely be found, down
to recent times, any other craftsman than the smith, and
he was usually a gypsy. In Greece and other lands of the
Balkan peninsula the only additional craftsmen were oc-
casional vandering builders.'' Numberless examples of a

'Eile I Sundt. Om Hu.1iden i Norge (Christiania, 1867). Blom, Das
Konign .\on.'ege» (Leipzig, 1843), P- 237. Forester, Xoru<ay in
i84f end 1849 (London, 1850), p. 113. E- Sidenbladh. Schweden, Statist.
Mitteiiungen s. ll'icner IVeltausstellung, 1873.

•[Dr. Biicher is evidenUy speaking of the Icelandic peasant of an
earlier time. — En.]

' On the Austrian populations compare Die Hausmduslrie Oesterreichs.
Ein Kommcntar z. hausindustrieUen Abteilung auf d. allgemeinen land- u.
forJ.wirtschaftlich. Ausstdluug su IV'"*!. 1890, ed. by W. Exner; also
Oesterreichische Monatsschritt fiir Gesellschaftswissenschaft, IV,
90 ff.. VIII, 22. IX. 98 and 331; A. Riegl, Textile hausindustrie in

f?>.ti

158 A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

similar kind might be adduced from other peoples. The
wonderful adroitness and dexterity of the Russian and
Swedish peasants, to cite a striking instance, has its un-
doubted origin in the varied technical tasks of their own
households. The industrial employments of women in
ancient and modern times, such as spinning, weaving, bak-
ing, etc., are too well known to call for further reference.

In order to obtain an idea of the wealth of domestic in-
dustrial skill that charactenzes the life of less civilized peo-
ples a detailed description would be necessary. Lack of
space unfortunately forbids that here. It will suffice, how-
ever, to reproduce the following sentences from an account
of household work in Bukowina:*

•' In the narrow circle of the family, or at least within
the limits of his little village, the Bukowina countryman
supplies all his own necessaries. In building a house the
husband, as a rule, can do the work of carpenter, roofer,
etc., while the wife must attend to plastering the woven
and slatted walls or stopping the chinks in the log wa..:>
with moss, pounding out of the floor, and many other
dilated duties. From the cultivation of the plant from
which cloth is spun or the raising of sheep down to the

Oesterreich in the Mi.tciluPgT. d. k. k. tistcrreich. Museums, New
Series, IV, pp. .,11 ff.; Braar und Krejesi. Der Hausdeiss in Ungarn
(Leipzig, 1886); Schwic'<cr, i:tatistik d. Kbnigreichs Vngarn, pp. 403 ff-.
411, 426 flf.; J. Tanet, Luiartt u. Siebcnburgen (Leipzig, 184^), H, pp.
i6j! 173. 264. J69; Franz Joseph Prinz \->n BaUenberg, Die I'olks-
wirtschafll EntwicMung Hulgaricns (Leipzig, iSgi. ; Iwantschoff,
Primitive Formen d. Ccwerbcbctriebs in liulgaricn (Leipzig, 1896). On
the other lands of the Balkan peninsula sec Reports from Her Majesty's
Diflomalic and Consular Agents Abroad, respecting the Condition ot the
Industrial Classes in Foreign Countries (London, 1870-72); Tarajanz,
Das Ceu'erbe bei d. Armeniern (Leipzig, 1897): Petri, Ehstland u. d.
Ehslcn (r.ntli.i. i«o.'). II. pp. 2,10- 1.

"C. A. RomMorfcr in Kxner, Die llausinduslrie Oesterreuhs. pp.
iSOfT. Comp. H. Wiglitzky. Die Uukoumacr I'ausindustrie u. d. MiUtl
N. IVege :. Hebung derselb. (Czernowitz, 1888).

A HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 159

making of bed and other clothes out of linen, wool or furs,
leather, felt, or plaited straw, the Bukowina country folk
produce everything, including dyes from plants of their
own culture, as well as the necessary though, indeed, ex-
tremely primitive utensils. The same holds in general
of the food-supply. With a rather heavy expenditure of
labour the peasant cultivates his field of maize, and with
his handmill grinds the kukuruz meal used by him in bak-
ing mamaliga, his chief article of food, which resembles
polenta. His simple farming implements, the dishes and
utensils for household and kitchen, he, or, if not he, some
self-taught villager, is also able to make. The working of
iron, alone, a substance that the native population uses in
exceedingly small quantities, he generally leaves to the
gypsies scattered through the country."

Yet whatever the industrial skill developed by the self-
sufficing household, such a method of supply was destined
to prove inadequate when the household diminished to the
smaller cii ' ? of blood-relations, which we call the family.
The ancient family group, it is true, was broader than our
present family; but just at the time when wants are in-
creasing in extent and variety, the tribal organization of
many peoples breaks down and a more minute division of
labour among the members of the househo]<l is rendered
iinnossible. The transition to specialized production and
a system of exchange would at this point have been un-
avoidable had it not been possible, by adopting slaves or
by utilizing serf labour, to enlarge artificially the house-
hold circle. The greater the number of these unfrce mem-
bers of ti.c household, the easier it is to introduce a varied
division of labour among them atul to train each person
for a definite industrial employment.

Thus we find among the house-slaves of the wealthy

I tl

l6o A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

Greeks and Romans industrial workers of various kinds;*
and in the famous instructions of Charles the Great regard-
ing the management of his country estates we have definite
rules prescribing what kinds of unfree workers shall be
maintained at each villa. " Each steward," we read,
" shall have in his service good workmen, such as smiths,
workers in gold and silver, shoemakers, turners, car-
penters, shield-makers, fishers, fowlers, soap-boilers, brew-
ers of mead {siccratorcs), bakers, and net-makers," Co-
pious evidence of a similar kind is available for the manors
of the nobility and the monasteries. The handicraftsmen
maintained by them are at their exclusive service; in some
cases they are merely domestic servants receiving their
board and lodging in the manor-house, in others they are
settled and gain their living on their own holdings, and in
return render villein services in that branch of labour in
which they have special skill. In token that they are en-
gaged to hold their skill at the service of the manor, they
bear the title ofUcialcs, ofliciati, i.e., officials.

Hou.sework, we see, has here obtained an extensive or-
ganization, which allows the lord of the manor a relatively
large and varied consumption of industrial products.

But housework does not remain mere production for
direct consumption. At a very early stage inequality of
natural endowment causes a varied development of techni-
cal skill. One tribe produces pottery, stone implements, or
arrows, and a neighbouring tribe does not. Such industrial
products are then scattered among other tribes as gifts
of hospitality, or as spoils of war. and later as the objects
of exchange." .\mong the ancient Greeks wealthy slave-
owners cansed a considerable number of their dependent

•Comp H. Fr.incotte, l.'lnduslric dans la Crhc andenne, I (Briissels.
iqoo); Walloti, Hist, de Uisclavagc dans I /InliquiU ( 2(\ cd.. Vans, iS/g).
• Comp. above, pp. 54 IT.

A HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. i6i

labourers, whom they did not need for their o»vn estates, to
be trained for a special industry, and then to produce for
the market. In a similar fashion peasant families exchange
the surplus products of their household industry more fre-
quently than the surpluses from their apfriculture or cattle-
raising. As in the Old Testament it is one of the good
qualities of the virtuous wife to dispose of the wares that
her own hands have produced,** so to-day the negro wife in
Central Africa carries to the weekly market the pots or
basketware she produces in order to exchange them for
salt or pearls. In like manner, in many parts of Germany
the rural population have from the beginning of the
Middle Ages sold their linen cloths at the town mar-
kets and fairs; and in the era of mercantilism measures
were taken by the government in Silesia and West-
phalia to facilitate the export of home-made linen. So
also in the Baltic provinces during the Middle Ages the
coarse woollen cloth, Vadhmal, which is still woven by the
peasant women, was one of the best known articles of
trade, and actually served as money. Similarly among
many African peoples domestic products made by neigh-
bouring tribes serve as general mediums of exchange. In
almost every villager's house in Japan yarn is spun and
cloth woven out of cotton grown in his own fields, and of
this a portion comes into exchange. In Sweden the West
Goths and Smalanders wander through almost the whole
country offering for sale home-woven stuffs. In Hungary,
Galicia, Rumania, and the southern Slav countries. ever>'-
where one can meet with pe.i'^ants oflfering for sale at the
weekly town markets their earthen and wooden wares, and
peasant women selling, along with vegetables and eggs,
aprons, embroidered ribbons, and laces which they them-
.«elves have made.

' F. Buhl, Dit social I'crhdltnisse d IsratUtcn (LeipziR, iftyK), p. 34,

wmm

■

i62 A HISTORICAL SURyEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

It is especially when the land owned by a family be-
comes divided up and no longer suffices for its mainte-
nance, that a part of the rural population take up a special
branch of housework and produce for the market in ex-
actly the same way as our small peasants in South Ger-
many produce wine, hops, or tobacco. At first the neces-
sary raw material is gained from their own land or
drawn from the communal forests; later on, if need be, it
is also purchased. All sorts of allied branches of produc-
tion are added ; and thus there develops out of housework,
as in many parts of Russia, an endlessly varied system of
peasant industry on a small scale.

But the evolution may take another course, and an in-
dependent professional class of industrial labourers arise,
and with them our second industrial system — zvage-work.
Whereas all industrial skill has hitherto been exercised in
close association with property in land and tillage, the
adept house-labourer now frees himself from this associa-
tion, and upon his technical skill founds for himself an ex-
istence that gradually becomes independent of property
in land. But he has only his simple tools for work; he has
no business capital. He therefore always exercise^ his
skill upon raw material furnished him by the producer of
the raw material, who is at the same time the consumer of
the finished product.

Here again two distinct forms of this relationship
are possible. In one ca.se the wage-worker is taken tem-
porarily into the house, receives his board and, if he does
not belong to the place, his lodging as well, together with
the daily wage; and leaves when the needs of his customer
are satisfied. In South Germany we call this going on
one's itinerancy iuuf die Star j^chcn), and may accordingly
designate the wlmle industrial phase as that of ititirrancy
(Stor), and the labourer carrying on work in this manner

A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 163

as the itinerata (Storer). The dressmakers and seam-
stresses wham our women in many places are accustomed
to take inter the house may serve as an illustration.

On the otijcr hand, the wage-worker may have his own
place of business, and the raw material be given out to him.
For working it iip he receives piece-work wage. In the
country the linen-weaver, the miller, and the baker work-
ing for a wage are examples. We will designate this form
of work home work.'' It is met with chiefly in industries
that demand permanent means of production difficult to
transport, such as mills, ovens, weavers' looms, forges, etc.

Both forms of wage-work are still very common in all
parts of the world. Examples might be drawn from In-
dia and Japan, from Morocco and the Sudan, and from
almost all European countries. The system can be traced
m Babylonian temple records and in ancient Egypt; it can
be followed in literature from Homer down through an-
cient and mediaeval times to the present day. The whole
conception of the relation of the customer to the independ-
ent (personally free or unfree) artisan in early Greek and
Roman law rests upon wage-work; »° and only by it are
numerous ordinances of mediaeval guild law to be ex-
plained.

In the .\lpine lands it is still the predominant industrial
method in the country. The Styrian writer P. K. Roseg-
ger lias, in an interesting book, •> given a picture of his ex-
periences as apprentice to a peripatetic tailor carrying on
his trade among the peasants. " The peasant craftsmen,"
* Heimwtrk.

" in Diocletian's edict de pretiis rtrum venaHum of the year 301 it
appears as the prevailing industrial form. Comp. my articles in the
dit ges. Slaatswissenschaft.

67.1 flr.

"A
Jakob
H'ilde

SO (1894), especially pp

4us meinem Handwerk
Schnetballen, F
Kirschen, p. 347.

•erleben (LeipziR. 1880). C^

Series (Popular Ed ). pp. 12-ij.

omp. also Hans-

219-224.

i64 A HISTORICAL SURyEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

he says in the preface, " such as the cobbler, the tailor, the
weaver, the cooper (in other places also the saddler, the
wheelwright, the carpenter, and, in general, all artisan
builders), are in many Alpine districts a sort of nomad folk.
Each of them has, indeed, a definite abode somewhere,
either in his own little house or in the rented room of a
peasant's home, where his family lives, where he has safe-
keeping for his possessions, and where he spends his Sun-
days and holidays. On Monday morning, however, he puts
his tools upon his back or in his pocket and starts out upon
his rounds; that is, he goes out for work and takes up his
quarters in the home of the peasant by whom he has been
engaged, and there remains until he has satisfied the
household needs. Then he wends his way to another farm.
The handicraftsman in his temporary abode is looked upon
as belonging to the family." Every peasant's house has a
special room with a " handicraftsman's bed " for his
quarters overnight; wherever he has been working during
the week, he is invited to Sunday dinner.

We find described in almost the same words the indus-
trial conditions of rural Sweden and many parts of Nor-
way. In Russia and the southern Slav countries there are
hundreds of thousands of wage-workers, belonging espe-
cially to the building and clothing trades, who lead a con-
tinuous migratory life and who, on account of the great
distances travelled, often remain away from home half a
year or more.

From the point of view of development these two forms
of wage-work have different origins. Itinerant labour is
based upon the exclusive possession of aptitude for a spe-
cial kind of work, homework upon the exchisive posses-
sion of fixed means of production. Upon this basis there
now arises all sorts of mixed forms between housework
and wage-work.

A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 165

The itinerant labourer is at first an experienced neigh-
bour whose advice is sought in carrying out an important
piece of work, the actual work, however, still being per-
formed by the members of the household.^^ ^^^^ j^j^j. j^
is long the practice for the members of the customer's
family to give the necessary assistance to the craftsman
and his journeyman; and this is still met with in the
country, for example, in the raising of a frame building.

In the case of hontezvork the later tradesman is at first
merely the owner of the business plant and technical
director of the production, the customer doing the actual
work. This frequently remains true in the country to-day
with oil-presses, flax-mills, mills for husking barley and
oats, and cider-mills.

In many North German towns the mediaeval maltsters
and brewers were merely the owners of malt-kilns and
brewing-houses, who for a fee gave the citizens the
opportunity of malting their own barley and brewing their
own beer. In the flour-mills the customer at least sup-
plied the handler who attended to the sifting of the meal.
Even to-day it is customary in many localities for the
peasant's wife, after kneading the dough, to mould the
bread-loaves in her own house; the baker simply places
his oven at her disposal, heats it and attends to the baking.
In French and western Swiss towns the public washing
places are managed in much the same fashion, merely pro-

"The same is true of house-building in the Caroline Islands, where
the takelbay, or master builder, is scarcely more than the exerciser of
the evil powers that threaten the new structure. Sec Kubary, Ethnogr.
Beitrdge, pp. 227 ff. The case is different with wagon-building in
Armenia, where the skilled neighbour, in return for a present, directs
the putting together of the vehicle after the separate parts have been
made ready by the members of the household: Tarajanz, as above,
p. 27. Similarly with house-building in Faror; Ztschr. d. Ver. f.
Volksk.. Ill (1893), p. 163.

II
■lill

' V

i66 yt HISTORJCAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

viding their customers with washing-apparatus and hot
water, and frequently a drying-place in addition, while the
work is done by the servants or female members of the
customer's household. These afterwards bring the washed
and dried linen to the mangle to be smoothed out, in which
process the owner assists by working the handle. Pay-
ment is made by the hour. In Posen and West Prussia
until recently it was the custom for the owner of a smithy
merely to supply fire, tools, and iron, leaving the actual
work to his customers.^'

From the economic point of view the essential feature of
the wage-work system is that there is no business capital.
Neither the raw material nor the finished industrial
product is for its producer ever a means of profit.
The character and extent of the production are still deter-
mined in every case by the owner of the soil, who pro-
duces the raw material; he also superintends the whole
process of production. The peasant grows, threshes, and
cleans the rye and then turns it over to the miller to be
ground, paying him in kind; the meal is given to the
baker, who delivers, on receipt of a baker's wage and in-
demnification for the firing, a certain number of loaves
made from it. From the sowing of the seed until the mo-
ment the bread is consumed the product has never been

" F.rlcbnisse ewes Geistlichen im iistl. Grensgebiet. in the Tagl. Rund-
schau, L'nterh. Beilage. 1879. Mo 2S8. A point of interest here is
the supplying of the iron by the owner of the business, this method
of carrying on work thus forming a transition to handicraft. There
are also forms in which itinerancy and homework are mingled. To
this class belongs the Russian migratory tailor, who in each vil-
lage where he has customers rents a room for a time and does work
for wages. So also, according to Tarajanz, the silversmiths in Ar-
menia. In the latter country the owner of an oil-press has to provide
his machine, the necessary uirkmen. and the oxen for drivitig it; the
customer not only assists in the work himself, but he pays, and also
boards, the workmen and supplies the fodder for the oxen.

A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 167

capital, but always a mere article for use in course of prep-
aration. No earnings of management and interest charges
or middleman's profits attach to the finished product, but
only wages for work done.

Under certain social conditions, «nd where needs are
very simple, this is a thoroughly economic method of pro-
duction and, like housework, secures the excellence of the
product and the complete adjustment of supply to demand.
It avoids exchange, where this would lead only to a round-
about method of supplying the producer of the raw mate-
rial with wares prepared from his own products. But it
also forces the consumer to run the risk attaching to indus-
trial production, as only those needs that can be foreseen
can find suitable and prompt satisfaction, while a sudden
need must often remain unsatisfied because the wage-
worker happens at the very time to be elsewhere engaged.
In the case of homework there is the additional danger
that a portion of the material furnished may be embezzled
or changed. The system has also many disadvantages for
the wage-worker. Amongst these are the inconveniences
and loss of time suffered in his itinerancy from place to
place; also the irregularity of employment, which leads
now to the overwork, now to the complete idleness, of the
workman. Both forms of wage-work thus act satisfac-
torily only when the unoccupied hours can be turned to
account in some allied branch of agriculture.

In the Middle Ages, when this could be done, wage-
work greatly facilitated the emancipation of the artisan
from serfdom and feudal obligations, as it requires prac-
tically no capital to start an independent business. It is a
great mistake still common to look upon the class of
guild handicraftsmen of the Middle Ages as a class of small
capitalists. It was in essence rather an industrial labour-
ing class, distinguished from the labourers of to-day by the

i68 A HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

fact that each worked not for a single employer but for a
large number of consumers. The supplying of the mate-
rial by the customer is common to almost all mediaeval
liandicrafts; in many instances, indeed, it continues for
centuries, even after the customer has ceased to produce
the raw material himself and must buy it, as, for example,
the leather for the shoemaker and the cloth for the tailor.
The furnishing of the material by the master workman is a
practice that takes slow root; at first it holds only for the
poorer customers, but later for the wealthy as well. Thus
arises handicraft in the sense in which it is generally under-
stood to-day; but alongiide it wage-work maintains
itself for a long time, even entering, in many cases, into
the service of handicraft. Thus the tanner is wage-worker
for the shoemaker and saddler, the miller for the baker, the
wool-beater, the dyer, and the fuller wage-workers for the
cloth-maker.

In the towns itinerancy is the first of the two forms
of wage-work to decline. This decline is considerably
hastened by the interference of the guilds.** The itiner-
ancy was too suggestive of early villenage. In it the
workman is, so to speak, only a special kind of day-
labourer, who must temporarily become a subordinate
member of another household. Consequently from the
fourteenth century on we find the guild ordinances fre-
quently prohibiting the master from working in private
houses. To the same cause is to be ascribed the hatred

" In this connection it may not be out of place to point out that,
in the industrial limitation of those entitled to the privilcRes of the
guild, the old housework was at the same time aflfected. In very many
of the guild ordinances we find the regulation that the non-guildsman
may do handicraftsman's work, but only in so far as the needs of his
household demand, not for purposes of sale. The surplus house pro-
duction for the market described above (pp. i6o, i6l) was thereby
made impossible.

A HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 169

displayed by the town craftsmen towards those of the
country, because the migratory labour of the latter could
not well be forbidden. Eventually itinerant or botcher^'"
becomes a general term of contempt for those who work
without regular credentials from the guilds. In the North
German towns the guild masters claimed the right of en-
tering the houses of their customers to ferret out the itiner-
ant artisans and call them to account, — the so-called
" botcherhunt "; and the public authorities were often
weak enough to wink at this breach of the domestic rights
of the citizen.

But the guilds did not everywhere have such an easy
task in supplanting one industrial system by another. As
early as the middle of the fourteenth century the sovereign
authority in the Austrian duchy takes vigorous measures
against them. In the statutes of the electorate of Saxony
for the year 1482 shoemakers, tailors, furriers, joiners,
glaziers, and other handicraftsmen who shall refuse with-
out sufficient reason to work in the house of their cus-
tomer are made liable to a fine of three florins, a high sum
for those times. In Basel a definite statute governing
house tailors was enacted in 1526 for the maintenance of
" ancient and honourable customs." In many German ter-
ritories definite ordinances were made regulating the
charges of the various kinds of wage-workers. Thus in
many crafts, especially in the building trade, wage-work
has persisted down to the present time.

In the majority, however, its place has been taken by
the industrial system that to-day is customarily desig-
nated handicraft, whose nature we have indicated at the
beginning of the present* chapter. It might also be called
pricc-zvork,^^ which would mark the contrast with wage-

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170 y4 HISTORIC/IL SURREY OF INDUSTRJylL SYSTEMS.

work. For the handicraftsman is distinguished from the
wage-worker only by the fact that he possesses all the
means of production, and sells for a definite price the fin-
ished article which is the product of his own raw material
and his own incorporated labour, while the wage-worker
merely receives a recompense for his labour.

All the important characteristics of handicraft may be
summed up in the single expression custom production. It
is the method of sale that distinguishes this industrial sys-
tem from all later ones. The handicraftsman always works
for the consumer of his product whether it be that the
latter by placing separate orders affords the occasion for
the work, or that the two meet at the weekly or yearly
market. Ordered work and work for the market must
supplement each other if " dull times " are to be avoided.
As a rule the region of sale is local, namely, the town and
its more immediate neighbourhood. The customer buys
at first hand, the handicraftsman sells to the actual con-
sumer. This assures a proper adjustment of supply and
demand and introduces an ethical feature into the whole
relationship; the producer in the presence of the con-
sumer feels responsibility for his work.

With the rise of handicraft a wide cleft, so to speak,
appears in the economic process of production. Hitherto
the owner of the land, though perhaps calling in the aid
of other wage-workers, had conducted this whole process;
now there are two classes of economic activity, each of
which embraces only a part of the process of production,
one producing the raw material, the other the manu-
factured article. It is a principle that handicraft endeav-
oured to carry out wherever possible — an article should
pass through all the stages of its f)reparation in the same
workshop. In this way the needed capital is diminished
and frecjuent additions of profit to price avoided. Bv the

A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 171

acquisition of an independent business capital the artisan
class is changed from a mere wage-earning class of labour-
ers into a capitalistic producing class; and the movable
property now, dissociated from land-ownership, accumu-
lates in its hands and becomes the basis of an independent
social and political reputability which is embodied in the
burgher class.

The direct relationship between the handicraftsman and
the consumer of his products makes it necessary that the
business remain small. Whenever any one line of handi-
craft threatens to become too large, new handicrafts split
off from it and appropriate part of its sphere of produc-
tion. This is the medieval division of labour,'^ which con-
tinually creates new and independent trades and which led
later to that jealous delimitation of the spheres of work
that caused a large portion of the energy of the guild
system to be consumed in internal bickerings.

Handicraft is a phenomenon peculiar to the town. Peo-
ples which, like the Russians, have developed no real town
life, know likewise no national handicraft. And tlis also
explains why, with the formation of large centralized
States and unified commercial territories, handicraft was
doomed to decline. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries there was developed a new industrial system,
based no longer on the local but on the national and inter-
national market. Our ancestors have denoted this sys-
tem by the two names manufactories and factories, without
distinguishing between the two terms. When viewed
more closely these are seen to indicate two quite distinct
industrial systems. The one hitherto characterized by the
misleading phrase house industry we prefer to call the com-

" For details sec my work, Pit Bnolkerung von Frankfurt a. M im
Xir. und AT. Jahrhundcrt, I. p. jj8. Compare also Chapters III .ind
VIII.

172 A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

mission systcm,^^ the other is our factory system. Both
systems undertake the work of supplying a wide market
with industrial products, and both require for this purpose
a large number of labourers; they diflfer only in the man-
ner in which they accomplish the work and organize the
labourers.

In this respect the method of the commission system
is the simplest. In the first place, it leaves the exist-
ing method of production quite undisturbed and confines
itself to organizing the market. The business undertaker
is a commercial entrepreneur who regularly employs a
large number of labourers in their own homes, away from
his place of business. These labourers are either former
handicraftsmen who now produce for a single tradesman
instead of for a number of consumers, or former wage-
workers who now receive their raw material, not from the
consumer, but from the merchant; or, finally, they are
peasant families, the former products of whose domestic
work are now produced as market wares and by the en-
trepreneur introduced into the markets of the world.

In some cases the entrepreneur advances *® to the small
producers, who at first enjoy a fairly independent position,
the purchase price of their products; in some cases he fur-
nishes them with the raw material, and then pays piece-
work wage; while in others he owns even the principal
machinery, such as the weaver's loom, the embroidering
machine, etc. As the small producers have only the one
customer they graduall\ sink into ever-greater depend-
ence. The entrepreneur becomes their employer, and they
are employees, even when they supply the raw material
themselves.

It is scarcely necessary fo describe in detail the

"I'crlag.

" 1 crlcgcr cunies from I crlag, i.e. supplying or advancing.

A HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 173

commission system and its contingent method of work,
house industry. We have plenty of examples in tho moun-
tain districts of Germany, for instance, the straw-plating
and the clock and brush industries in the Black Forest, the
wood-carving of Upper Bavaria, the toy manufacture in
the Meiningen Oberland,the embroidery of the Voigtland,
the lace-making of the Erzgebirge, etc. The history and
present condition of these industries have been fairly well
investigated in recent times. But we can no more enter
into them than into the great variety of phases presented
by this form of industry.

The essential feature is ever the transformation of the
industrial product, before it reaches the consumer, into
capital — that is, into ? means of acquisition for one or more
intermediary merchants. Whether the entrepreneur place
the product on the general market, or keep a town ware-
room from which to sell it ; whether he receive the wares
from the houseworker ready for sale, or himself subject
them to a last finishing process; whether the workman call
himself master and keep journeymen, or whether he be a
tiller of the soil as well — the house workman is always far
removed from the real market of his product and from a
knowledge of market conditions, and therein lies the chief
cause of his hopeless weakness.

If under the connnission system capital has merely as-
sumed control of the marketing of the products, under the
factory system it grasi)s the whole process of production.
The former system, in order to accomplish the productive
task fallii / to it, draws loosely together a large number of
liomogeneous labourers, imparts to their production a defi-
nite direction, approximately the same for each, and
causes the product of their labour to flow, as it were, into
a great reservoir before distributing it in all directions.
The factory system organizes the whole process of pro-

174 A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

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duction; it unites various kinds of workers, by mutual
relations of control and subjection, into a compact and
well-disciplined body, brings them together in a special
business establishment, provides them with an extensive
and complex outfit of the machinery of production, and
thereby immensely increases their productive power. The
factory system is as distinguishable from the commission
system as the well-organized, uniformly equipped regular
army from the motley volunteer militia.

Just as in an army corps ready for battle, troops of
varied training and accoutrement — infantry, cavalry, and
artillery regiments, pioneers, engineers, ammunition col-
uirins and commissariat are welded into one, so under the
factory system groups of workers of varied skill and equip-
ment are united together and enabled to accomplish the
most difficult tasks of production.

The secret of the factory's strength as an institution
for production thus lies in the effective utilisation of labour.
In order to accomplish this it takes a peculiar road, which
at first sight appears circuitous. It divides as far as pos-
sible all the work necessary to a process of production into
its simplest elements, separates the difficult from the easy,
the mechanical from the intellectual, the skilled from the
rude. It thus arrives at a system of successive functions,
and is enabled to employ simultaneously and successively
human powers of the most varied kind — trained and un-
trained men, women and children, workers with the hand
and head, workers possessing technical, artistic and com-
mercial skill. The restriction of each individual to a small
section of the labouring process effects a mighty increase
in the volume of work turned out. A hundred workmen
in a factory accomplish in a given process of production
more than a hundred independent master craftsmen, al-
though ench of the latter understands the whole process,

A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. I7S

while none of the former understands more than a small
portion of it. As far as the struggle between handicraft
and factory is fought out on the ground of technical skill,
it is an evidence how the weak overcome the strong when
guided by superior intellectual power.

The machine is not the essential feature of the factory,
although the subdivision of zvork just described has, by
breaking up the sum of labour into simple movements, end-
lessly assisted and multiplied the appHcation of machinery.
From early times machines for performing tasks and for
furnishing power have been employed in industry. In
connection with the factory, however, their application
attained its present importance only when men succeeded
in securing a motive power that would work unintermit-
tently, uniformly and ubiquitously, namely, steam; and
even here its full importance is felt only in connection
with the peculiar industrial form of factory manufacture.

An example will serve to illustrate what has just been
said. In the year 1787 the canton of Zurich had 34,000
male and female hand-spinners producing cotton yarn.
After the introduction of the English spinning-machines
a few factories produced an equal or greater quantity of
thread, and the number of their workers (chiefly women
and children) fell to scarcely a third of what it had been
before. What is the explanation? The machines? But
was not the then-existing spinning-wheel a machine? Cer-
tainly it was; and, moreover, a very ingenious one. Ma-
chine was thus ousted by machine. Or better, what had
hitherto been done by the woman hand-spinner with her
wheel was now done by successive collaboration of a whole
series of various kinds of workers and machines. The
entire spinning process had been decomjiosed into its sim-
plest elements, and perfectly new operations had arisen for
which even immature powers could in part be utilized.

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176 ^ HISTORICAL SURyEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

In the suI)division of work originate these further pc-
cuHarities of factory production — the necessity of manu-
facture on a large scale, the requirement of a large capital,
and the economic dependence of the workman.

With regard to the two last points we easily perceive
an important difference between the factory and the com-
mission system. Its large fixed capital assures to factory
work greater steadiness in production. Under the com-
mission system the house-workers can at any moment be
deprived of employment without the entrepreneur running
any risk of losing capital; but the manufacturer must in
like case go on producing, because he fears loss of inter-
est and shrinkage in the value of his fixed capital, and
because he cannot afiford to lose his trained body of work-
men. This is the reason why it is probable that the com-
mission system will long maintain itself alongside factory
production in those branches of industry in which the
demand is liable to sudden change, and in which the articles
produced are of great variety.

If, in conclusion, we were briefly to characterize these
five industrial systems, we might say that housework is
production for one's own needs, wage-work is custom
work, handicraft is custom production, commission work
is decentralized, and factory labour centralized production
of wares. As no economic phenomenon stands iso-
lated, each of these systems of industry is at the same time
but a section of a great economic and social order. House-
work is the transformation of materials in the autonomous
household economy; wage-work belongs to the period of
transition from independent household economy to town
economy: the hey-day of handicraft coincides with the
period when town economy reached its full development;
the commission system is a connecting link between town
economy and national economy (independent State econ-

A HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 177

omy), and the factory system is the industrial system of
fully developed national economy.

It would lead us too far to explain in this chapter how
each industrial system fits organically into the contem-
porary method of production and how it is mutually deter-
mined by a series of allied phenomena in the spheres of
agriculture, personal services, trade and transportation. It
can scarcely escape the observant eye that all the elements
of the evolution here broadly sketched are contained in the
primitive cell of society, the family; or, in economic phrase,
in the conditions of production in the independent house-
hold. From this primitive social unit, teeming with life and
swallowing up all individual existence, parts have continu-
ally detached themselves through differentiation and in-
tegration, and become more and more independent. Wage-
work is only a sprout from the root of the tree of independ-
ent household economy; handicraft still needs its protec-
tion in order to flourish; commission work makes the mar-
keting of products a special business, while production
sinks back almost to the first stages of development. Fac-
tory manufacture, on the other hand, permeates with the
entrepreneur principle the whole process of production;
it is an independent economic system freed from all ele-
ments of consumption, and separated as regards commod-
ities and locality from the household life of those engaged
in it.

The position of the worker changes in a similar way.
With the commencement of wage-work the industrial
worker separates himself personally from the independent
household economy of the landed proprietor; with the
transition to handicraft he also becomes, through the elim-
ination of business capital, materially free and independent.
Through the commission system he enters into a fresh per-
sonal subjection, he falls into dependence upon the capi-

f 1

178 A HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

talistic entrepreneur; under the factory system he becomes
also materially dependent upon him. By four stages of
evolution he passes from manorial servitude to factory
servitude.

There is a sort of parallelism in this evolution. The re-
lation between the unfree houseworker and the ancient
landowner bears a certain resemblance to the relation be-
tween the factory hand and the modern manufacturer; and
the wage-worker occupies much the same position with
regard to the economy of the landed proprietor that the
worker engaged in house industry does to the entrepreneur
giving out commission work. In the middle of this ascend-
ing and descending series stands handicraft as its founda-
tion and comer-stone. From housework to handicraft we
see the gradual emancipation of the worker from the soil
and the formation of capital; from handicraft to the factory
system a gradual separation of capital from work, and the
subjection of the worker to capital.

At the stage of housework capital has not yet emerged;
there are only consumption goods at various stages of
ripeness. Everything belongs to the household— raw ma-
terial, tools, the manufactured article, often the worker
himself. In the case of wage-work the tools are the only
capital in the hands of the worker; the raw and auxiliary
materials are household stores not yet ready for consump-
tion; the work-place belongs, under the system of migra-
tory labour, to the domestic establishment that is to con-
sume the finished product, or, under the housework sys-
tem, to the worker who produces the article. In the case
of handicraft the tools, worl.-place, and raw material are
capital in the possession of the worker; the latter is master
of the product, though he invariably sells it to the imme-
diate consumer. In the commission system the product
also becomes capital— not the capital of the worker, how-

A HISTORICAL SURREY OS INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 179

ever, but of quite a new figure on the scene, the commercial
entrepreneur; the worker either retains all his means of
production, or he loses possession successively of his goods,
capilal, and his implements of production. Thus all the
elements of capital finally unite in the hand of the manu-
facturer, and serve him as a foundation for the reorganiza-
tion of industrial production. In his hands even the
worker's share in the product becomes a part of the busi-
ness capital.

This share of the worker consists, at the stage of house-
work, in a participation in the consumption of the finished
products; in the case of wage-work it consists in board,
together with a time- or piece-work wage, which even at
this point includes compensation for wear and tear of tools;
in handicraft it consists in the full returns from production.
Under the commission system the commercial undertaker
takes away a portion of the latter as profit on his business
capital; under the factory system all the elements of pro-
duction which can be turned into capital become crystal-
lizing centres for further profits on capital, while for the
worker there remains only the stipulated wage.

We must not, however, imagine the historical evolution
of the industrial system to have been such that each new
industrial method absolutely superseded its predecessor.
That would be just as far astray as. for example, to suppose
that a new means of communication supplants those
already existing. Railways have done away neither with
conveyances on the highways, nor with transportation by
means of ships, pack-animals or the human back; they
have only confined each of these older methods of trans-
portation to the field in which it can best develop its pe-
culiar advantages: it is probable that not only abso-
lutely but relatively more horses and men are employed in

I So /I HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

I- '

the work of transportation in our civilized countries to-day
than there were in the year 1830.

The very same causes that have produced such an enor-
mous increase in traffic are also at work in the sphere of
industry; and in spite of the continual improvement of the
mechanical means of production they demand an ever-in-
creasing number of persons. From two quarters, how-
ev^r, the sphere of productive industry is constantly re-
ceiving accessions; first, from the old household economy
and agriculture, from which even to-day parts are always
separating themselves and becoming independent branches
of industry; secondly, from the continual improvement ^^
and increase in range of articles serving for the satisfac-
tion of our wants.

As regards the first point, there have sprung up in the
industrial world during the last generation dozens of new
trades for takiig over such kinds of work as >.. • J formerly
to fall to the women of the household or to the servants,
such as vegetable and fruit preserving, fancy baking and
preparation of meats, making and mending women's and
children's clothes, cleaning windows, feather beds and cur-
tains, chemical cleaning and dyeing, painting and polishing
floors, gas and water installation, etc. Under the heading
"Art and Market Gardening," the latest statistics of trades
in the German Empire give thirty-five, and under the head-
ing " Stock-raising," thirty-one, independent occupations,
many of which are of very recent origin.

With regard to the second point, we will mention only
the bicycle industry, which within a short time has not only

'° In reply to a criticism of this expression in the Revue d'economie
politique (or November, i8q2 (p. 1228, note), we will not omit making
it more definite by saying that we do not mean by it the improvement
of the quality of already existing species of goods, but the supplant-
ing of existing poods by others which better and more cheaply supply
thv demand,

A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

i8i

necessitated the erection of a great number of factories,
but has already given rise to special repair-shops and sep-
arate establishments for the manufacture of rubber tires,
cyclometers and bicycle spokes. A still more striking ex-
ample is afforded by the application of electricity. In the
industrial census of 1895 there are enumerated names of
twenty-two electrical occupations that did not exist in 1882.
The production of electrical machines, apparatus and plant
in the German Empire gave employment in 1895 to 14-494
persons, with 18.449 members of their families and serv-
ants—thus furnishing a hving for nearly 33,000 persons."
In metal-work, in the manufacture of machinery, chemicals,
paper, in the building industries, the clothing and cleaning
industries the number of recorded occupations more than
doubled itself between 1882 and 1895. It is, at the same
time, to be remembered not only that specialization has
made immense strides, but that in many instances subsid-
iary articles of production and trade which have hitherto
been produced by the businesses using them are the ob-
jects of separate enterprises. In these fields industry not
only meets demand but frequently outruns it, as has at all
times been the case. In the patent lists %xe find significant
expression of this effort to improve the world of com-
modities; and though many of the new inventions prove
deficient in vitality, there always remains a considerable
number whereby life is permanently enriched.

"In a report appearing in the newspapers of August. 1900 Dr. R.
Burner estimates the total capital of German firms manufacturing
electr.cal apparatus, in round numbers, at 800 million marks ^200
million dollars), and the stock of the so-called finanaal corpora wns
which- are taken up with the laymg of electric car lines and works^ at
450 million marks (.12 million dollars). The electr.c Imes, electric
works and block stations in Germany are credited, in round numbers,
with I 250 million marks (312 million dollars). So that the whole
electrical plant of Germany represents a capital of about two and a
half milliards oi marks (b-'3 million dollars).

l82 A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

<R ''I

If we were able statistically to bring together the whole
sum of industrial products produced yearly in Germany in
such a way that we could separate the output of factories,
of house ir.dustry, and of handicraft, wage-work and
housework, we should without doubt find that the
greater part of the factory wares embraces goods which
were never produced under any of the other industrial sys-
tems, and that handicraft produces to-day an absolutely
greater quantity than ever before. The commission and
faciory systems, it is true, have completely absorbed some
of the lesser handicrafts and robbed many others of por-
tions of their sphere of production. But all the great guild
handicrafts that existed at the close of the iHth century,
with perhaps the single exception of weaving, ill exist
to-day. Handicraft is constantly being displaced by the
more perfect industrial systems, just as in mediaeval times
housework and wage-work were ousted by h" iidicraft,
only now it occurs in a less violent manner, on the field of
free competition. This competition of all with all, sup-
ported as it is by a perfected system of transf)ortation and
communication, often compels the transition from custom
to wholesale production, even where from the technical
standpoint the former might still have been possible.
Many independent master workmen enter the service of
the entrepreneur carrying on commission or factory work
just as their predecessors a thousand years ago became
manorial labourers.

Handicraft has thus been relegated economically and so-
cially to a secondary position. But even if it will no longer
flourish in the large towns, it has in compensation spread
all the more in the country, and here called forth, in com-
bination with agriculture, numerous industries upon which
the eye of the philanthropist can rest with delight. Handi-
craft, it mav 1)0 said with certaintv, will no more disappear

A HISTORICAL SURREY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS. 183

than wage-work and housework have disappeared. What
it has won for society in a time of universal feudalization,
namely, a robust class of people independent of landed
property, whose existence is based upon personal worth
and a small amount of movables, and who are a repository
of popular morality and upr- ;htness — that will and must
remain a lasting possession, even though the existence of
those whom these virtues will in future adorn may rest
upon a different basis.

In recent times there has been raised with rare persist-
ence a cry for the uprooting of the older industry. Handi-
craft, house industry, in general all forms of work on a
small scale are, we are told, a drag upon the national pro-
ductive power; they are "antiquated, superseded, rude, not
to say socially impeditive methods of production," which
in the best interests of those who follow them must be re-
placed by a " rational and judicious organization and regu-
lation of human activities on a large scale," if the actual
national production is not to lag far behind what is tech-
nically possible.

This short-sighted economico-political theorizing is not
new. There was once a time when every peasant shoe-
maker who raised his own potatoes and cabbage was
looked upon as a sort of enemy to the highest possible na-
tional wealth, and when people would have liked to force
him by police regulation to stick to his last, even though at
the same time he ran the risk of starving. Truly, it has al-
ways been much easier to censure than to understand.

If. instead of such dogmatic pronouncements, a willing-
ness had been shown to make an unbiassed investigation of
the conditions governing those older and supposedly an-
tiquated systems of production, the conviction would soon
have arisen that in the majority of cases where they still
persist they arc economically and socially justifiable; and

»84 A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS.

the means for the removal of the existing- evils would be
sought in the soil in which these industrial forms are rooted
instead of such drastic remedies being applied to them.
In this way we should undoubtedly preserve the good of
each of these individual systems and be striving only to re-
move their disadvantages.

For, after all, the comforting result of every serious con-
sideration of history is. that no single element of culture
which has once entered into the life of men is lost; that
even after the hour of its predominance has expired, it
continues in some more modest position to cooperate in
the realization of the great end in which we all believe, the
helping of mankind towards more and more perfect forms
of existence.

CHAPTER V.

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

There are in Germany two handicraft problems. One
is a problem belonging to the newspapers and the legisla-
tures, which since 1848 has repeatedly occupied the liveliest
public attention. For it the question is the extent to which
the particular interests of hand-workers as a class should be
given legislative expression. What the answer shall be
depends upon the relative strength of political parties.

The other problem relates to the vitality of hand-work
as a form of industrial activity. It is the query of Ham-
let's soliloquy: " To be or not to be! " The answer de-
pends upon actual conditions. Stated more explicitly, the
question would read: How far has hand-work up to the
present shown itself capable of holding its own? What de-
partment of industry does it still dominate?

So long as public policy weighs, not merely wishes and
votes, but also the facts of the case, it will not venture to
decide the first of these questions until the second has been
answered. Until lately the necessary established data
have been lacking. Recently, however, the German Social
Science Club has conducted a most comprehensive investi-
gation into those branches of industry belonging to the old
class of handicrafts.' It is therefore opportune to give a

' Investieations as to the Condition of Hnnd.jork m Germany, tvith
sptcial Reference to its Ability to compete u-ith industrial Undertakings on
a Inrf '^'c'e in S>hr.ft<!i d,'^ V.r(in>; fur Sozialpolitik. Vols. 62-70
" 185

l'-'

:.i,ait

1 86

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

general survey of the findings. In this it is not our inten-
tion to enter upon a discussion of the p. >'--it position and
future prospects of particular industrial tranches,* but
rather to present the common characteristics of the de-
velopment that has taken place during the past hundred
years or more. This will make it possible to appreciate in
their full strength and manifold modes of operation the
forces in modem national economy that act as solvents and
as creative agents.

A century ago handicraft still held undisputed sway over
all its mediaeval inheritance and over its sixteenth and
seventeenth century conquests as well. There existed be-
sides, it is true, a few manufactories and factories. But they
had developed apart from hand-work; what they produced
had never been handicraft work. Rivalry between these
new forms of industry and the guild hand-work there had
never been. Nor had the guilds as such been interfered
with by the State; they had only been made amenable
to its laws, and thus been in part stripped of their local
municipal character. Their scope indeed had been ex-
tended, in that those handicrafts were subjected to the
guild constitution, which, because of the limited number of
their representatives, had not as yet been able to form
local guilds in the various towns. Through the territorial
guilds, i 1 had been constituted for these "minor handi-
crafts," aiid through the " general guild articles " com-
pactly summarizing uniform trade regulations for all local
guilds, the requirements of modern national economy had

(Ltip^iR, 1804-1807). A further volume (Vol 71) relates to Austria.
SupplcTTientinK this is the inquiry into the conditions of handwork,
undertaken in the summer of 1805. and edited by the Imperial Statis-
tics lUire.iu (.( niiiTiber<=, Rtrlin. iSg:^.

'The results of the itivestiRations of FI. Grandke alon^ this line are
presentiil In Sclimoller's Jalirbuch I'ur GesetZKe''. V'erwa't. u, Volksw.,
Vol. XXI Ci8g;), pp. loji iT.

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

187

been at least formally asserted. In practice, however, the
local and craft prerogatives of sale, the town monopoly
and extra-mural rights of jurisdiction ^ remained in force.
Competition between the members of the same handicraft
from different towns and of the different crafts of the same
towns was entirely lacking; settlement in rural parts was
for most crafts forbidden, and to gain independence was
made a matter of extreme difficulty for all journeymen
who were not masters' sons or sons-in-law.

But what was the condition of the master craftsmen in
exclusive possession of these privileges?

Most of those who discuss handicraft to-day depict the
masters " of the golden era of handicraft " as well-to-do
people carrying on business " with considerable capital for
those times," owning " their own dwellings and extensive
workshops," working along with master journeymen and
apprentices, personally capable, honourable, respected. All
the painters dip their brush in glowing colours, so neces-
sary for the portrayal of a condition of prosperity.

Whence have they this picture? We have vainly sought
it in the eighteenth or seventeenth century. Moreover,
our classical poets could not have had it before their eyes;
for their " gossiping tailors and glovers " are petty, insig-
nificant apparitions. In the multitude of small towns the
masters were able to maintain themselves only through
their bit of farming and the lucrative brewing privilege,
and in the larger towns through the little counter kept by
many of them in connection with their workshop. Even
for a town of such commercial, prominence as Leipzig, the
mass of administrative records from the last two centuries
do not allow the impression that the craftsmen of that
place were on the average well off; and the extensive liter-

• [Comp. on the latter Roscher. System der Volksvi., 5th ed. Vol. 3.
S ii8.-ED.3

i88

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

\aiii.

ature on guilds that has come down from the close of the
last and the beginning of the present century, the " Pa-
triotische Phantasien " of Justus Moser, points in many in-
stances to very narrow circumstances.

The barriers erected against admission to mastership,
though extensive, had not been successfully defended.
Among the bakers and butchers, whom it is customary to
cite as types of prosperity, baking and killing in rotation
was the almost universal rule; that is, there were so many
masters that each baker could not bake afresh each day,
nor each butcher kill a head of cattle per week. As late
as 1 817 a writer cites as a normal case from Bavaria that
in a town with ten master bakers three bakings of bread
were consumed daily, so that every week the turn fell to
each twice. The butchers could slaughter regularly only
the smaller kinds of stock. In North German towns mat-
ters appear to have been in a favourable condition if one
beef were sold every week for every five or six masters.

Almost all crafts with a guild organization had a clause
in their statutes fixing the maximum number of journey-
men and apprentices which a master might ' -"ep. As a rule
he was limited to two. In the i8th century this number was
rarely exceeded. Under normal conditions, however, the
grci t majority of trades could not attain to this number.
Assuming that all who learned the handicraft acquired
master's standing, that a master lived on the average thirty
years after he attained that rank, and that ordinarily a man
became independent between the twenty-eighth and thir-
tieth year of his life, there could not have been at any time
more than half as many journeymen and apprentices as
masters.

The actual proportion at the end of the century was
often much smaller still. In the year 1784 there were in
the duchy of Magdeburg 27,050 independent masters and

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

189

only 4,285 assistants and apprentices. About the same
time, in the principality of Wurzburg (in Bavaria), 13762
masters with 2,176 assistants and apprentices were re-
turned." In both territories there were for every hundred
masters but 15.8 journeymen and apprentices. Thus, if
we assume that the assistants were equally distributed
among the masters, one journeyman or apprentice hardly
fell to each sixth master. In more than five-sixths of the
instances the master carried on his work single-handed.
In 1780 the town of Bochum (in Westphalia) counted for
every five master masons one; in the other crafts they were
for every twenty-six master shoemakers three, for every
twenty-one master bakers, every eight carpenters and
every five master masons one; in the other crafts they
were altogether lacking.

In some parts of Prussia, especially in Berlin, the con-
ditions were indeed somewhat more favourable. But in
general the idea must be abandoned that our modern in-
dustrial development began with the handicrafts in a con-
dition of general prosperity. The best that past times
could of?er the craftsmen was a modest competence, se-
curity against lack of work and against over-severe com-
petition from their fellows. They deal directly with their
customers, in quiet times work up a stock and take it to
market, and stand firmly together in the guild if it is a
question of voting down a new application for mastership,
taking action against an itinerant workman or resisting
an encroachment on the part of a neighbouring craft. To-
wards one another, however, they are possessed with the
pettiest bread-and-butter jealousy, and give a great deal of
trouble to the courts and administrative ofificials. Such
was the early handicraft.

♦AccordinK to Sclimoller, Zur Gcsch. d. dculsch KUingewerbe vn

jy. Jhdt., pp. 21. 22.

190

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

Down to the fourth decade of last century there was
no really great change. After the time of Napoleon, the
old industrial policy was repeatedly moderated, but in most
parts of Germany it was not abolished until the sixties. It
gave place to industrial freedom. Anyone might now carry
on any business anywhere and on any desired scale. The
local prc'^ibitive powers fell to the ground. Each trades-
man could dispose of his products where he would, and in
his own locality had to tolerate all external competition.
The barriers between the different branches of industry
dropped away, and everyone could manufacture what was
to his advantage.

All this took place with the full assent of the craftsmen
themselves. The conviction that the old industrial polity
had become untenable was shared in at least the more ad-
vanced parts of Germany by all. If ever an old insti-
tution was abolished with the approbation of the whole
nation, it was the guild system. The sole sporadic mis-
giving was that apprenticeship might fall into decay, and
that many would establish themselves as independent
craftsmen who had not regularly learned their trade. This
apprehension has proved groundless. According to the
results of the inquiry made into handicraft in various
districts of Germany, ninety-seven per cent, of those con-
sidered as still carrying on an independent handicraft had
enjoyed a preparatory training as hand-workers. The
small remainder consisted mainly of those who had re-
ceived their technical training in apprentice shops and
technical schools, asylums for the blind, institutions for the
deaf and dumb, in prison and in barracks.

The influence of the new conditions on the number, local
distribution, and extent of undertakings assumed a differ-
ent form. At first it was feared that the establishment of
numerous petty master workmen without capital would

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

191

lead to a mass of half-developed business undertakings;
but this has in nowise proved the case. On the contrary,
after a brief transitional period, the undertakings in the
towns have on the average during the last generation
numerically diminished, while in financial strength and in
the number of assistants, so far as their existence has not
been in general jeopardized by causes lying outside the
province of industrial legislation, the respective branches
of trade have increased. At the same time hand-work has
made striking advances in the country, and to-day is ap-
proximately as strong there as in the towns.

This equalization between town and country, however,
had been foreseen and aimed at at the time by the advo-
cates of industrial freedom. If there was the further
expectation that through industrial freedom the way of
the artisan would be opened to technical progress and to
economic advancement, this also has not lacked fulfilment.
Thousands of urban master workmen have in the last two
o-enerations become large manufacturers, or at least capi-
talistic entrepreneurs, and have participated fully in the
technical advances of the period. Freedom of mdustry
and enterprise has made it possible for them to broaden
their sphere of production and sale, and to utilize fully their
personal ability. This fact men to-day are only too prone

to overlook.

To be sure, the number of those who have not risen in
the world, but remained stationar>-, and of those reduced
to the level of master jobbers and homeworkers. or forced
to become factory employees, is much larger still. Whole
branches of industrv formeriy carried on as hand-work are
almost ruined, or at least are lost to handicraft as a par-
ticular industrial form. Others are still struggling for their
existence. A great weathering and transforming process
has here come into operation: in its train handicraft is

192

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

yielding place to other forms of business, such as the fac-
tory and commission systems, or the hybrid forms that
every period of transition begets.

The public at large is content to include all involved in
these processes under the simple headings: displacement
of hand-work by machinery, annihilation of handicraft by
the factory! The smaller cost of production by machinery
is looked upon as the sole cause.

The reduction of these expressions to their true value,
and the demonstration that a large part of the changes
which have taken place has its cau^e not in the advances of
manufacturing technique but in the direction taken by
economic consumption, and that so far as this is the case
handicraft disappears even without machine-work coming
into competition with it — this will remain one of the
greatest services rendered by recent investigators of hand-
work. It will be necessary first to present a summary view
of these changes in consumption, since they, so to speak,
condition the whole development.

In the first place, a local concentration of demand has taken
place. The aggregations of human beings that have been
formed in great cities in the course of the last half cen-
tury, furthermore the standing armies, the large state and
municipal institutiotis. prisons, hospitals, technical schools,
etc., the extensive establishments for transportation, fac-
tories, and large undertakings in the departments of trade,
banking and insurance, all form centres of wholesale de-
mand for industrial products. To these are to be added
the great departmental warehouses, export businesses and
cooperative societies, focussing the demand of large sec-
tions of the population at a few points. This demand they
are no longer able to satisfy as customers of individual
craftsmen.

There comes then as a secnnd cnn-sideration the many

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

193

instances in which modern civilization has propounded
such colossal tasks for industry that they cannot be accom-
plished at all with the implements and methods of handi-
craft, although each of them generally requires consid-
erable hand-work. The manufacture of a locomotive, of a
steam crane, of a rapid press, the building of a river bridge
or of a warship, the equipment of a street railway with
rails and rolling stock cannot be carried out with mere
hand apparatus and manual labour. They require im-
mensely powerful mechanical appliances, highly trained
engineers and craftsmen of exceedingly varied qualitica-
tions.

Even where technically such tasks might still be accom-
plished with the implements of hand-work, the entrusting
of them to master craftsmen is economic mj)ossihle be-
cause of the consequent heavy loss of erest. In the
Middle Ages the building of a cathedral might occupy two
or three generations, indeed, several centuries. Imagine
one to-day wishing to take as much time for the erection
of a railway station! When in 1896 the contract for the
main building of the Saxon-Thuringian Industrial Exhil)i-
tion in Leipzig was to be let, it was first offered to the
master carpenters of the city — contractors who carry
on work with considerable capital and are accustomed to
large undertakings. But all hesitated because of the short-
ness of the term for building and the extent of the risk.
Negotiations were thereupon entered into with a large firm
of builders in Frankfurt-on-Main. In a few hours the con-
tract was closed. The same evening the telegraph was
working in all directions. A week later the steam rams
were busy on the building site, and whole trains were ar-
riving from Galicia with the necessary timber.

In fact, one can say that to-day there are industrial tasks
of such magnitude that they can be performed by only a

194

THE DECLINE OF THE HASDICRAFTS.

few, perhaps indeed by but one or two firms in Europe.
Hence the development, beside the earHer type of factory,
which finds its strength in the wholesale production of
similar articles, of a new type whose raison d'etre lies in
the magnitude of the task of production. This more recent
kind of large industrial undertaking we might designate
by the already current er.pression, manufacturing estab-
lishment.^ At the head stands a staff of technically trained
men, with extensive mechanical appliances at command,
and with the necessary hand-work in most effective com-
bination.

But the demand for industrial labour has been not
merely locally concentrated and condensed to meet the
extensive requirements of production; it has also become
more uniform, and therefore more massive. A tendency
tozvards uniformity runs through our age, eliminating the
differences of habits and customs in the various strata of
society. Characteristic peasant costumes have disappeared
down to unimportant survivals; the furnishing of the dwell-
ing, of the kitchen, has become, it is true, more extensive,
but likewise more uniform. Even in the smallest home
one finds the petroleum lamp, the coffee-mill, some enam-
elled cooking utensils, a pair of framed photographs.
To make the desired ware accessible to the poorer classes,
it must be easily and cheaply produced. If an article is
lifted on the crest of a wave of fashion, the demand for it
in a cheap form advances even up to the better situated
grades of society, and thus the outlay for the folly of fash-
ion is made endurable. In ti iS way there arises a large
demand for cheap goods for whose manufacture the earlier
type of factory is naturally adapted. Hand-work is for such
too expensive; where it remains technically possible it must

' Fabrikationsansialt.

THE DECUSE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

195

be extremely specialized, and then it necessarily loses the
ground of custom work from beneath its feet.

There is finally another consideration to be alluded to.
which belongs to the sphere of domestic economy. The home
is being relieved more and more of the vestigial elements
of production, and is restricting itself to the regulation of
consumption. If our grandparents required a sofa, they
first had the joiner make the frame, then purchased the
leather, the horsehair and the feathers, and had the up-
holsterer finish the work in the house. The procedure was
similar for almost every more important piece of work.
To-day s' -cialized work demanding the whole strength of
each indr lual, frequently to exhaustion, no longer per-
mits such a participation in production. We will and must
purchase what we need ready-made. We desire to be
quickly supplied, and preferably renounce idiosyncrasies
of personal taste, rather than undertake the risk of order-
ing from different producers. Industry has to adapt itself
accordingly.

The same evolutionary process also asserts itself in de-
partments where the individual craftsman had been accus-
tomed from time immemorial to supply finished wares.
Here again the modern city consumer will no longer trade
directly with him by ordering the single piece that he re-
quires. He is averse to waiting; he knows that often the
work does not turn out as desired, and prefers to choose
and compare before he buys.

Thus the craftsman can no longer remain a custom
worker even in those departments in which technically he
is fully able to cope with the demands of production. He
no longer works on individual orders, but exclusively for
stock — which formerly he did only in case of necessity.
To reach the consumer he needs the intervention of
the store. By the discontinuance of personal contact be-

196

THE DECLINE OF THE H/INDICRAFTS.

i' i 1

tween producer and consumer, hand-work as a phase of in-
dustry disappears. It becomes a capitalistic undertaking,
and demands management in accord with mercantile prin-
ciples. All now depends upon the question whether busi-
ness on a large or a small scale offers the greater advan-
tages. In the first case the department of work formerly
represented by handicraft falls to the factory, in the latter
to domestic industry.

For even where modern demand has not yet appeared
as wholesale concentrated demand, or become condensed
to meet the necessities of production on a grand scale, it
is universally well adapted, by virtue of its great uniformity
and its emancipation from household labour, to localization
at a few points. The perfected commercial machinery of
modern times, the low tariffs for post and telegraph, tha
rapidity and regularity of freight and news transportation,
the innumerable means of advertising and of making an-
nouncements afford here their mighty assistance. Indus-
trial freedom thus found a well-prepared soil when it
sprang mto life. It but created the legal forms that voice
the character of modern economic demand. All those
circles of consumers of the craftsmen so long kept arti-
ficially asunder could now be united through the interven-
tion of commerce into a large manufactory and commis-
sion clientele, not necessarily limited to national boundaries.

Concentrated demand does not permit of satisfaction by
scattered production. Along with the process of concen-
tration of demand must go a process of concentration in the
department of industrial production. It is to this that handi-
craft on every side succumbs.

But this process is very complicated, and it is not alto-
gether easy to separate from one another the individual
processes of which it is composed. Wc will nevertheless
essav the task, choosinir the fate of hand-work as the deter-

THE DECLINE OF THE H/INDICRAFTS.

197

mining factor in the divisions made by us. We thus arrive
at the five following cases:

1. Supplanting of hand-work by similar factory produc-
tion.

2. Curtailment of its department of production by fac-
tory or commission.

3. Incorporation of hand-work with the large undertak-
ing.

4. Impoverishment of hand-work by shifting of demand.

5. Reduction of hand-work by way of the warehouse to
home and sweat-work.

Several of these processes often go on simultaneously.
In our consideration of the subject, however, we will keep
thom as far as possible apart.

I. The case in which capitalistic production on a large
scale attacks handicraft along its whole front, in order to
expel it completely from its sphere of production is compara-
tively rare. From earlier times we may mention weaving,
clock and gun making, and also the sm'dler industries of
the pin-makers, button-makers, tool-smiths, card-makers,
hosiers; from recent times hatmaking, shoemaking, dyeing,
soap manufacture, rope-making, nail and cutlery smithing,
comb-making: to a certain extent beer-brewing and
coopering also belong to the list.

The process of displacement assumes now a quicker now
a less rapid character, according as the handicraft in ques-
tion formerly carried on manufacture for stock along with
market and ^'u,p sale, or restricted itself to custom work.
Thus the making of shoes for market sale paved the way
for the manufacture of shoes by machinery, because it had
long accustomed certain classes of the people to the pur-
chase of ready-made footwear.

For handicraft the result of such a development varies
accordin"- n^ th<' f:!'.-tnry product, after being worn out.

193

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

permits of repair or not. In the latter case handicraft dis-
appears altogether; in the former it evolves into a repair
trade, with or without a sale shop. The carrying on by a
hand-worker of a shop trade with factory goods in his own
line is not exactly an unfavourable metamorphosis; but
only craftsmen with considerable capital can manage it.
On the oiher hand, pure repair trade very easily loses
the ground of hand-work beneath its feet, if the factory-
product passes completely into the control of retail mer-
chants. For then the majority of consumers prefer to have
repairs made in the shop in which they have purchased the
new ware. The proprietor of the shop keeiis a journey-
man or sends out the mending to a petty master workman.
This greatly diminishes their return, and makes them com-
pletely dependent. Moreover, repairing can also be car-
ried on on a large scale, as with the so-called rag-dyeing,
which works with considerable capital and independent
collecting points. Finally, the repairing can become quite
superfluous through very cheap i)roduction of new wares,
as. for example, with clocks and shoes; repair would cost
more than a new article.

2. Much more frequently does the second group of evo-
lutionary processes make its appearance. Here it is not a
([uestion of the com])lete loss of the new manufacture, but
merelv of the curtailment of the department of production fall-
ing to handicraft through factory or commission business.
The causes of this process may be very diverse. While
recognising the impossibility of being exhaustive, we will
distinguish four of them:

ia) I'arious handicrafts are fused into a single manufac-
turing establishment : for example, joi-icrs, wood-carvers,
turners, upholsterers, painters. !ac<|uerers into a furniture
factory; wheelwrights, smiths, saddlers, glaziers into a car-
riage manufactory; bnsket-inakers. joiners, wheelwrights,

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

199

saddlers, smiths, locksmiths, lacquerers into a baby-car-
riage factory. We may mention further all kinds of ma-
chine-shops, locomotive and car-works, piano factories,
trunk factories, billiard-taLle factories, and also the estab-
lishments for the production of whole factory plants — dis-
tillery, brewery, sugar-refinery, etc. As a rule the part of
production withdrawn from the individual handicraft
through such an incorporation forms but a small frap^ment
of its previous sphere of work and of its market. J how-
ever, such blood-lettings are frequent, as among the
turners, saddlers and locksmiths, there finally remains
very little, and the handicraft may die of exhaustion.

(/;) Various remunerative articles adapted to zJiolcsalc pro-
duction by factory or house industry are withdrawn from
hand-work. Thus bookbinding has 1 1 to resign ah.iost its
whole extensive department of pro iction to more than
forty kinds of special trades; there remains but the indi-
vidual binding for private customers. Basket-making has
surrendered the fine wares to homework, baby-carriages
and the like to factories, and only the coarse willow wicker-
work remains to handicraft. The locksmith has even lost
the article, the lock, from which he has his name; the
brush-maker the manufacture of paint, tooth, and nail
brushes; the cabinet-maker has been compelled to re-
nounce the intermediate wares (Berim furniture), and
ordinary pine furniture has become a stock-in-trade of
the store; confectionery is threatened, in the cities at
least, with being despoiled by the factories of the manu-
facture of bread; the tinsmith no longer makes his vessels;
in short there arc likely but few handicrafts that have not
similar losses to record.

(f) The factory takes over the primary stages of production.
It was precisely the first rough working of the material
which demands the greatest exi)enditurc of strength, it

200

THE DECLINE OF THE HAKDICRAFTS.

was exactly this primary handling that suggested the ap-
plication of machinery, while the finer and individual
shaping of the product in the later stages of the process
of production tempted the entrepreneur but slightly. In
almost all metal and wood industries the raw material is
now used only in the form of half-manufactured wares.
The furriers work up skins already prepared, the smith
purchases the finished horseshoe, the glazier ready-made
window-frames, the brush-maker cut and bored wooden
parts and prepared bristles, the contracting carpenter in-
laid flooring cut as desired and doors all ready to ha*"^.

At first such a loss is generally felt by the handicraft con-
cerned as an alleviation rather than an injury. The process
of production is shortened; the individual master can pro-
duce a greater quantity of finished articles than formerly;
and if he reckons on each piece the same profit as for-
merly, his income can easily advance provided he retains
sufficient work. A locksmith, who procures all door-
mountings ready-made from the hardware shop, can
readily finish several buildings in one summer, while pre-
viously, when he had first to make these wares, he perhaps
completed only one. But still, in most cases, through such
a cutting into the roots of hand-work, not a few of the mas-
ter craftsmen become superthious. At the same time, how-
ever, the amount of busiuf'ss cai)ital rec|uired increases,
since the craftsman has now to make disl)ursements not
merely for the raw inaterial. but also for the costs of pro-
<luction of the ]iart!y manufactured jiroduct. and further-
more. Ir ■ to furnish the manufacturer's ami tra-I :r's profits
as well.

This is all the more vital, since just in the first-hand pur-
chase of the raw material and in its proper selection the
greatest profit is often made. For this reason trading
l^oi.'.ce* b.avc v,ot infre!j!!!-!'.'!v tnki-!'. over the preparatory

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

20X

Stages in production even where a partial manufacture
with machinery is not to be thought of. There is abso-
lutely no doubt that the hand-worker in wood was in a
better position when he could purchase his wood in the
form of logs in the forest than now, when he procures it in
the form of boards, laths, and veneers from lumber-dealers;
and that the brush-maker worked to greater advantage
when he bought the rough bristles from the butcher than
now, when he must buy them arranged by the dealer in
innumerable classes.

Of course this trade in partly finished goods is very con-
venient for the craftsman; he can obtain from the dealer
even the smallest quantities. But it is exactly this that has
contributed not a little to the decline of the handicrafts,
since the journeyman can now go into business almost
without capital. Thus, for instance, in the shoe trade the
manufacture of vamps at first greatly promoted business
on a small scale, not because it shortened the manufactur-
ing process for the shoemaker, but because it placed him
in a positior to purchase a single pair of uppers at the
shoefinder's where formerly he had to procure from the
tanner at least a whole skin.

This cooperation of mechanical preparatory work and
handicraft assumes a particularly interesting form where
the wliolc productive part of the labour process drops
away from hand-work. The craftsman can then continue
to maintain himself only if the product needs to be set in
place or fitted. But he sinks back once more almost to the
state of the wage-worker. Thus the locksmith and the
joiner (the latter for ready-made doors and inlaid flooring)
are now but " fitters ""; and the role of the horseshoer nail-
ing on ready-made horseshoes is not very dilTerent.

On the other '..and, the shortci.lng of the process of
manufacture makes the business more capitalistic and the

303

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

turnover more rapid. The vital element of handicraft,
however, is not the profit on capital, but the labour earn-
ings, and these under all circumstances are being curtailed.

{d) The appearance of nciv rmv materials and methods of
production better adapted for manufacture on a large
scale than those prev'ously employed in hand-work, handi-
caps the latter for a part of this sphere of production.
We may cite among other instances the appearance of
the curved (Vienna) furniture, the manufacture of wire
nails and its influence on nail-smithing, the wire-rope
manufacture in opposition to the hempen rope, the in-
vasion by gutta percha of the consumption sphere of
leather and linen. The enamelled cooking utensil has en-
croached simultaneously upon the manufacture of pottery,
tinsmithing and the business of the coppersmith; and the
invention of linen for bookbinding in place of leather and
parchment has smoothed the way for wholesale book-
binding by machinery.

Thus at the most diverse points handicraft is being as-
sailed by the modern, more progressive, forms of manu-
facture. The attacks, generally delivered in a manner to
disarm opposition, are not infrequently made under the
fair mask of the stronger friend taking a load from its
shoulders, until finally nothing remains to tempt the capi-
talistic appetite of the entrepreneur.

3. We come now to those cases in which handicraft
loses it*; independence through being appended to a large
business. Every more extensive undertaking, be it manu-
facturing, trading, or a general commercial establishment,
requires for its own business various kinds of hand-work.
As long as such tasks are few i- number, they are given
out to master craftsmen. But if they grow more numerous
and regular, it becomes advantageous to organize a sub-
department for them within the walls nf the establishm.ent.

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

203

Today every large brewery or wine-house has its own
cooperage; the street-railway companies maintain work-
shops for smiths, saddlers, wheelwrights and machinists;
canning factories have their own tinshops; a shipyard
keeps cabinet-makers and upholsterers for the internal fur-
nishing of its passenger steamers; almost every large
manufactory has a machine and repair shop. The master
who enters such a large establishment as foreman of the
special workshop ceases, of course, to be free from the con-
trol of others, but enjoys, on the other hand, a position
that is to a certain extent independent, and, above all, se-
cure.

By the free craftsmen, however, the loss of such strong
purchasers is most bitterly felt. Indeed, the system de-
scribed can lead to the starving out of whole crafts — a fate
that has overtaken, for example, turning, which is being
appended to all trades using its products in the par-
tially manufactured state. But this process is too much in
the interests of a good economy to make it possible to
check i;.

The workmen for such subdepartments of a large in-
dustrial establishment, be it further remarked, receive as
a rule a training in their handicaft as long as it continues
to have an independent existence. An abnormally large
number of ai)prentices can thus be employed by it, while
the journeymen have a much more extended labour market
than the handicraft alone could offer. This is the explana-
tion, for instance, of the occasional discovery in the lock-
smith's trade of ten times as many apprentices as journey-
men.

4. Handicraft is impoverished through shifting of demana,
and entirely ruined through cessation of demand. Such
shiftings have occurred at all epochs — we may recall the
use of parchment and periwigs — hut perhaps never tnnre

204

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

frequently than in our own rapidly moving times. We will
give only a few instances.

The cooper prq)ared for the household of our grand-
parents divers vessels now sought for in vain, at least in
a city home: meat-barrels, tubs for sauerkraut and beans,
washtubs, water-buckets, rain-barrels, even bathtubs and
washing vessels. We no longer keep supplies of meat and
preserved vegetables; water is furnished us by the water-
works system; and the place of the small wooden vessels
has been taken by those of tin, china, or crockery. A sec-
ond example is offered by the turner, who formerly had to
supply almost every household with a spinning-wheel or
two, spools and reels. To-day the spinning-wheel has sunk
to the position of an " old German " show-piece. Botli in-
dustries have, of course, found fresh purchasers for those
they have lost, especially coopering, through the increase
of barrel-packing. But the new customers are factories
that at the earliest opportunity incorporate the cooperage
as a subsidiary department. The industry of the pewterer
presents a third example. The pewter plates and dishes
that were to be found in almost every house throughout
town and country have passed out of fashion. In their
place have come porcelain and stoneware, and the pewter-
er's trade has thus to all intents lost the very foundation
of its existence. Finally, we may recall the shiftings in
demand which the great revolutions in the sphere of travel
have lirought about, and which have fallen with especial
severity on the saddler, trunk-maker and furrier.

5. In a last group --f instances handicraft come, into com-
plete dependence on trade; the master becomes a home-
worker, shice his products can now reach the consumers
only through the store. The cause of this phenomenon
is of a double nature: on the one hand, the high rents of
city business sites, whicli force the master to live and pen

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

205

up his workshop in a garret or a rear house where he is
with difficulty found, and where at no time is he sought
out by his better customers; on the other, the inchna-
tion of the pubUc to buy only where a larger selection is
to be had, and where the merchant is " accommodating,"
that is, sends goods for inspection, takes back if they do
not suit, articles like brushes, combs, fine basket-maker's
wares and leather goods, small wooden and metal articles
which in larger towns are now scarcely ever purchased
from the producer or outside the fancy-goods and hard-
ware stores. Indeed, we even give our orders to the stores
if we wish to have a special article made. Who to-day or-
ders his visiting cards from the printer, or a smoker's table
from the cabinet-maker? Anyone who has the oppor-
tunity of seeing, along the streets that he must traverse
perhaps several times a day, so complete a display of every-
thing necessary for his wants that he can in a few minutes
procure any desired article, will seldom care out of love
for a declinirg handicraft to betake himself to a distant
suburb and there, after a long inquiry and search, climb
three or four gloomy staircases before he can deliver his
order, in the execution of wliich the appointed time will
perhaps even then be disregarded. And shall, for instance,
anyone who finds in a furniture stock everything that is in
any way necessary to the furnishing of a room, shall a
young housewife who in a few hours can gather together
in a housefurnishing estajlishment a complete kitchen
outfit, shall these preferably seek out a half dozen hand-
workers from whom they can obtain what they want only
after weeks of waiting?

Such may be regarded as the chief features of the process
of transformation that is taking place to-day in hand-
icraft. We may, in conclusion, scate it as a matured con-

'Mi

206

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

viction compelled by the results of the investigations, that
in all cases xvhcre it suttH^'S finished goods zi'liicli arc not very
perishable, and which can he manufactured in definite styles for
average requirements, hand-zcork is endangered in the highest
degree. This applies even ivhere a technical superiority on the
part of tlic large undertaking does not exist. These are, in
short, cases in which the product is suited to immediate
consumption without further assistance from the producer.

In all these instances trade in its various branches, down
to that of hawking, will more and more form the uni-
versal clearing-house for industrial wares. Handicraft must
specialize as far as possible; and it can save itself from the
fate of dependence upon the store only by becoming a cap-
italized industry on a small scale. The union of a sale shop
with the workshop is then indispensable.

In the contrary instances, where the product of handi-
craft must be placed in position or separately fitted, the crafts-
man at least does not lose touch with the consumers. But
even in such cases he can maintain himself in the large
towns only if the demand is strongly centralized (as with
locksmiths and generally all craftsmen connected with
building in the widest sense), or again if he keeps a shop
(as with tinsmithing. saddlery, or ordered tailoring), which
serves as a collecting bureau for orders. In both cases a
business without some capital lacks sufficient vitality to
exist.

With this conclusion correspond the results of the " In-
vestigations into the Conditions of the Handicrafts."
Everywhere in the tozvns the relative number of masters
has greatly diminished, the number of their assistants in-
creased: that is, the businesses have grown. In a still
higher degree must their capital have advanced. Mani-
festly it is the upper stratum of city handicraftsmen which
has here maintained itself by adopting business methods

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICR/tFTS.

207

suited to the requirements of the present, and which
probably has prospects of holdinj? its own for some time
to come. Where an equal variety is ofifered, the public
will always prefer the shop of the master craftsman to that
of the pure tradesman, if for no other reason, because of
the convenience for repairs and the greater technical
knowledge of the master. The latter, moreover, through
the custom coming to the workshop, remains protected
from that officious idleness to which the city shopkeeper
so readily falls a victim.

In the country conditions have a fairly different aspect.
Those causes of repression of hand-work that result from
the altered form of demand and the conditions of life in
the towns prevail here only in a lesser degree. Rural de-
mand is not yet so very concentrated; it is to a large extent
of an individual nature; everyone knows the hand-worker
and his household personally. Connections with neigh-
bours, school comrades or family relatives likewise play
a part in holding trade. Here real handicraft soil is still
to be found. The craftsman cultivates in many cases a
bit of land; at the harvest he will assist his neighbour in
mowmg and the like; he possesses a cottage of his own;
in short, for his sustenance he is not exclusively dependent
upon his trade. In his business wage-work and the system
of credit balances « still largely prevail.

Most of the crafts that have any real footing in the coun-
try are in our opinion secure as far as the future can be
forecasted. Of course, they cannot completely escape the
revolutions in urban industry. In the country the tin-
smith, as a rule, no longer makes the tinware he sells,

•[For a general discussion of credit balances (Gcs^enrcchuMig) as a
feature of public ^inancini^ conip. an instructive article by the anttnir
in Ztschr. d. Resamt. Staatswiss. for 1896, pp. i fT.: Dcr jffentl. Haus-
hatt d. StadI t'r. «»i MilU-iilU-r.—ED.]

3o8

THE DECLINE OF THE HASDICRAFTS.

and ♦he smith uses horseshoes purchased ready for
use. But the customs connected with consumption change
here but slowly; the demand remains more individual, and
there is relatively far more repair work; indeed, the agri-
cultural machines have brought fresh w rk of the latter
type for iron-worker, smith, tinsmiti., cooper, joiner.
About fifty-two per cent, of the master craftsmen in Ger-
many to-day are found in the country. The country has
come to equal the cities in density of hand-worker popula-
tion. Certainly the number of separate shops i.. the coun-
try is particularly large. In Prussia the average num-
ber of persons as assistants has seemingly diminished some-
what since 1861; the number of apprentices is relatively
high. But in this there is no ground for anxiety. The
relation between th .lumber of assistants and the number
of masters is much more favourable to-day in rural parts
than it was in the cities at the beginning of this century;
and the condition of the rural cxsui^n.^ accorair.g to all
that has been published on the subject, though modest, is
still satisfactory. In this the reports to hand from
Silesia, Saxony, East Friesland, Baden, and Alsace agree.
There are certainly some village craftsmen leading very
meagre lives; but such there have been in handicraft at

all times.

Among those who consider handicraft the ideal form
of industrial activity two means have long been extolled
for restoring solid footing and strength to the tottering
industrial middle class; and there are many who still believe
in their efficacy.

The first is the "return to artistic zcork." Efforts of this
kind have been diligently fostered for well-nigh twenty-
five years. For their encouragement museums, technical
schools, and apprentice workshops have been instituted.
But experience has soon taught, and the investigations of

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDlCR/tFTS.

309

the Social Science Club have confirmed it anew, that these
efforts have borne very little fruit for the small trader.
Ironwork alone has gained at a few points through the re-
newed employment of wrought-iron trellis-work, stair bal-
ustrades, chandeliers, and the like. Otherwise all establish-
ments successfully carrying on artistic industry are manu-
facturing businesses of a large, and indeed of the largest,
type. This is the case, for example, with bookbinding, art
furniture, pottery

The second means is the extension of small power ma-
chines and the electrical transmission of power, which shall
enable the smallest master to obtain the most impor-
tant labour-saving machines. Even men like Sir William
Siemens and F. Reuleaux have placed the greatest hopes
on the popularizing of these technical achievements. These
expectations they have based upon the beliet that success
is simply a question of removing the technical superiority
of the large undertaking, this superiority resting indeed
in great part upon the employment of labour-saving ma-
chines.

In this they have curiously overlooked the fact that
mechanical power is the more costly the smaller the scale
on which it is employed. According to a table given by
Riedel in the Ccntralblatt deutschcr Ingenieurc for 1891,
the conparative expenses of a small motor working ten
hours per day and horse-power are as follows (in cents —
four pfennigs equal one cent):

Type of Motor.'

Small steam

Gas

Compressed air.

Electrical

Petroleum

Horse-power of Motor.

1/4

13
10}

9j
..1
/ 1

i3i
20

61-
Ili
15

4i
5
10
8|

4t
4i
4i

'si*

'The price of gas is taken at 3 cents per cubic metre.

2IO

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

To place two businesses on a footing of technical equal-
ity is thus not to give them industrial equality. A machine
must be fully utilized and able to pay for itself if it is to
cheapen producton. As it cannot take over the whole
process of production, but only individual parts of it, it
presuppo.es, if it is to remain continuously in action, an
expansion of the business, the employment of a larger
number of workmen, greater outlays for raw material,
rent of workshop, etc. For this tiie sma.i master generally
lacks the capital. Did he possess it. the advantages
of more favourable purchase of raw material, of greater di-
vision of work, of employment of the most capable tech-
nical and artistic workmen, and of l^etter chances of sale
would always remain with the large undertaking.* It is
difficult to imagine how shrewd men could o^'erlook r.ll
this. Has the tailor's, shoemaker's, or saddler's handicraft
gained in vitality through the sewing-machine?

The hDpe of finding through these two devices a new
ba>is for handicraft must be abandoned; in most indus-
trial branches in the larger cities there is no longer any
such footing. Only in so far as the conditions of custom
work continue unaltered does there remain room for a
limited number of businesses leavened with capital. In
these other persons take the place of the craftsmen; small
and moderately large entrepreneurs, foremen of the fac-

' An interest! riR proof of what has been said is oflfered by the wood-
turninn machines in cal)inet-makinn. None of the many larger handi-
craft shoi)s in the cabinet trade of Berlin (anions which are also some
wdl-'ounded businesses of niu.lerate si/c. with twenty or more work-
men) have adopted tin ^e machines in their work, although mechanical
piiwer of anv strength is to be rented in many worlshoi."! in the city
at a c.miparatively moderate price. It sr - rather to be the case that
small independent want-paying shops 1 been opened which take

charge of the cutting and fitting; and y t'l- largest furniture fac-
tories and cabinet-making establishmcn ha- ' up those machines
in their !in<ines<.

THE DECLIUE OF THE H/INDICR/IFTS.

21 I

tory v'O '..shops and skilled factory hands, contractors and
hoLic-workcr,-? Fxternally all these groups, with the ex-
cef .'\o\ of the last, are better situated than the majority
of tr.e ^niall master? of the past. Whether they are better
satisfied anci i-iii^picr is another question.

Here, however, we are dealing rather with the tendency
of the development than with the actual conditions of to-
day. But we must not be deceived. The decline takes
place slowly and silently; great misery, such as prevailed
among the hand-weavers when they fought their forlorn
battle against the mechanical spinning-mule, is found, with
rare exceptions, only in the clothing industries. Certain
grades of city population have ever remained true to the
handicraftsman, and will be faithful for some time to come.
There thus remains time for the coming generation to
adapt itself to the new conditions. What it needs for the
transition is a better general, mercantile and technical edu-
cation. The thrifty, cautious person still finas opportunity
to carry on work and gain a position; he is not so destitute
and at a loss as those who leave school and workshop with
insufficient equipment for life.

It is our conviction that the process in question cai.not
be arrested by legislation, though it may perhaps be re-
tarded. But would that be a gain?

In the preceding chapter the evolution of systems of
industry was compared with the development of the ma-
chinery of commerce, in which the earlier forms were, it
is true, pressed ba'k. though not destroyed, by the new.
The comparison is applicable likewise to handicraft.
Handicraft as a form of work is not perishing::; it is only be-
ing restricted to that sphere in which it can make the most
of its peculiar advantages. That sphere to-day is the
country, the districts where it still finds the conditions of
existence that gave birth to it in the Middle .\ges.

Zl2

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS. *

In rural Germany we have at present, according to tol-
erably exact estimates, some six hundred and evemy
rousand maste. craftsmen and more than a half m.lhon
housana m • ^, together about one and

journeymen and apprentices, or i ^ kaa\„„ the

one-f^fth millions engaged in active worl. Adding the
n^embers of the masters' households we have at a low
estimate, a total of over three million persons. The largest
paTof this numerical success has been achieved by haiidi-
craft in our own century. From the socio-pol.tical stand-
pott there is no ground for weeping with the masters of
{^he small country hamlets who have lost their rural cus-
tomers. Rather the contrary.

During the period of the jealous exclusiveness oi the
town guilds, when one could pass on the highway t ou-
sands of journevmen who could nowhere obtam admit-
ance to mastership, the journeymen smiths had a saying
which the stranger at the meeting-house had to recite to
the head journev man." It ran: " A master I have not
been as vet. but hope to become one in time, if not here,
then elsewhere. A league from the ring, where the dogs
leap and break the hedges [town limits], there it is good

to be a master." ... u _

Settlement in the country, at that time the sheet-anchor
of the journevman smith, still saves many thousands of
craftsmen who do not feel themselves ec,ual to the demands
of citv life For the country an important social and eco-
nomic a.lvance lies in this admixture of industrial elements
among the people; and the livelihoods there resting upon
the foundation of handicraft are among the most whole-
some ofTered by present society. Of course, they are to
be measured by the natural standanl of early hand-work,

•Comp. L. Stock, C.rund-.ugc d. Vcrfassung d. Gcscllenwcscs d.
deulsch. Handwtrker. \k >*-'

THE DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

213

not by the artificial standard taken from the phantasy of
economic and political romancers.

For just there lies the seat of the complaints and griev-
ances which since the beginnings of modern development
have been raised so persistently by the surviving repre-
sentatives of urban craftsmen, that they have given rise to
a false impression of the degree of comfort that handicraft
as an industrial system can possibly attord its representa-
tives. This standard was comparatively high in the Mid-
dle Ages, because the hand-worker's position in life was
then measured by the position of those in the social grade
lying next below his own, from which he himself had often
come — the class of villein peasantry, the " poor people "
of the country. Compared with this unspeakably op-
pressed class, handicraft had "golden soil." for it regu-
larly yielded a money return and secured its members
civil freedom, while the peasant was exj d to all the
vicissitudes of agriculture and to the oppressions of the
owners of the soil. It would be false to assume that the
mediaeval craftsmen had on the average considerable cap-
ital ; and it was almost the same with the smaller tradei .
With what lay beyond — patrician families and nobility —
the craftsman did not compare himself: under the system
of classes founded upon birth the individual is satisfied if
he obtains what is due his class.

Our social system of to-day rests upon classes deter-
mined by occupation. In such a system everyone com-
pares himself with all others, because no legal barrier sep-
arates him from the rest. In comparison with the other
classes of modern society, the position of handicraft,
even where it is still capable of holding its own, ap-
pears a very modest one. A*! other classes would seem
to have raised themselves, and the hand-worker class alone
to have remained stationary. Where hand-work is strug-

1
I

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"wS

np J

l|H

H 1

*!^'l

1h i

i >'V^9

^m-

.-iS-j

K i

8I4

r«£ DECLINE OF THE HANDICRAFTS.

gling for its very existence, it presents a sad picture of
oppression.

It is certainly not a spectacle to be viewed with com-
posure to see that broad stratum of small independent
persons who formed the heart of the early town popula-
tions disappear and yield place to a disconnected mass of
dependent labourers. It is a loss to society for which we
find in urban soil no present compensation.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

The close connection existing in Germany between
scientific investigation and university instruction, while
exhibiting many unquestionably pleasing features, has this
one gjeat disadvantage, that those departments of knowl-
edge which cannot foim the basis of an academic career are
inadequately investigated. This is the fate of journalism.
While in France and England the history of journalism
presents an extraordinarily rich and developed literature,
we in Germany possess but two essays worthy of mention,
one treating of the beginnings, the other, in a decidedly
fragmentary manner, of the later development of the daily
press.*

In this condition of affairs there would be little profit
in determining to which of the existing departments of
scientific research this neglected tUok really falls. A sub-
ject so complex as journalism can be treated with advan-
tage from very different standpoints: from the standpoint
of political history, of literary history, of bibliography, of
law. of philology even, as writings on the slovenliness of
journalistic style give proof. The subject is, without
doubt, of most direct concern to the political economist.

' The little book by Ludwig Salomon. Ctsck. d. deulsch. Zeitungs-
tcesciis von J. erst. Anfang. b\s s. Wicderaufricht. d. Deutsch Retches,
I, igoo. with its incomplete treatment of the subject, cannot materially
alter this opinion.

«I5

2l6

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

For the newspaper is primarily a commercial contrivance,
forming one of the most important pillars of contemporary-
economic activity. But in vain do we search economic
text-books, and even commercial manuals in a narrower
sense, for a paragraph on the daily press. If, under these
circumstances, we venture a brief and summary treatment
of the beginnmgs of journalism, we are ourselves most
fully conscious of our inability to make more than a partial
presentation, and in so far as economic method is incapable
of exhausting the material in all its phases, of the possible
necessity of deceiving legitimate expectations.

Our descriptions of the beginnings of journalism will
vary with our conceptions of what a newspaper is. If the
question. What is a newspaper? be put to ten different
persons, perhaps ten different answers will be received.
On the other hand, no one who is asked to name the
agencies that weave the great web of intellectual and ma-
terial influences and counter-influences by which modern
humanity is combined into the unity of society will need
much reflection to give first rank to the newspaper, along
with post, railroad, and telegraph.

In fact, the newspaper forms a link in the chain of mod-
ern commercial machinery; it is one of those contrivances
by which in society the exchange of intellectual and ma-
terial goods is facilitated. Yet it is not an instrument of
commercial intercourse in the sense of the post or the rail-
way, both of which have to do with the transport of per-
sons, goods, and news, but rat'ier in the sense of the letter
3nd circular. These make the news capable of transport,
only l)€cause they are enabled by the help of writing and
printing to cut it adrift, as it were, from its originator, and
give it corporeal independence.

However great the difference l)etween letter, circular,
and newspaper 5nay appear to-d.iy, .a little reflection shows

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

217

that all three are essentially similar products, originating
in the necessity of communicating news and in the em-
ployment of writing in its satisfaction. The sole difference
consists in the letter bemg addressed to individuals, the
circular to several specified persons, the newspaper to
many unspecified persons. Or, in other words, while letter
and circular are instruments for the private communication
of news, the newspaper is an instrument for its publication.

To-day we are, of course, accustomed to the regular
printing of the newspaper and its periodical appearance
at brief intervals. But neither of these is an essential char-
acteristic of the newspaper as a means of news publication.
On the contrary, it will become apparent directly that the
primitive paper from which this mighty instrument of
commercial intercourse is sprung appeared neither in
printed form nor periodically, but that it closely resembled
the letter from which, indeed, it can scarcely be distin-
guished. To be sure, repeated appearance at l^rief inter-
vals is involved in the very nature of news publication.
For news has value only so long as it is fresh; and to pre-
serve for it the charm of novelty its publication must follow
in the footsteps of '.^' events. We shall, however, soon
see that the periodicity of these intervals, as far as it can
be noticed in the infancy of journalism, depended upon the
regular recurrence of opportunities to transport the news,
and was in no way connected with the essential nature of
the newspaper.

The regular collection and despatch of news presupposes
a wide-spread interest in pul-lic affairs, or an extensive
area of trade exhibiting numerous commercial connec-
tions and combinations of interest, or both at once. Such
interest is not realized until people are united by some
more or less extensive political organization into a certain
community of life-interest. The city republics of ancient

2l8

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

times required no newspaper; all their needs of publica-
tion could be met by the herald and by inscriptions as oc-
casion demanded. Only when Roman supremacy had em-
braced or subjected to its influence all the countries of the
Mediterranean was there need of some means by which
those members of the ruling class who had gone to the
provinces as ofificials, tax-farmers and in other occupa-
tions, might receive the current news of the capital. It is
significant that Caesar, the creator of the military mon-
archy and of the administrative centralization of Rome, is
regarded as the founder of the first contrivance resembling
a newspaper.^

We say resembling a newspaper, for journalism as now
understood did not exist among the Romans; and Momm-
sen's mention of a " Roman Intelligence Sheet " ^ is but a
distorted modernization. Caesar's innovations are to be
compared rather with the bulletins and " laundry-lists "
which the literary bureaux of our own governments supply
for the use of journalists, than with our modern news-
papers. Thus in his case it was not a question of founding
journalism, but of influencing the newspapers already in
existence.

Indeed, long before Caesar's consulate it had become
customary for Romans in the provinces to keep one or
more correspondents at the capital to send them written
reports on the course of political movement, and on other
events of the day. Such a correspondent was generally an

* Leclerc, Des journaux ches les Romains (Paris. 18,38). Lieberkiihn,
De diurnis Romanorum actis (Vitnar. 1840). .'\. Schmidt, Das Staats-
ecitungs'iccsen d. Rihtier, in Zt«chr. f. Gcschichtsw.. I, p. 303 ff. N. Zell,
Ober d. Zcitungcn d. alien Rlimcr u. d. DoduiTschen Fragwcnte. in his
Ferienschriften, pp. i ff., 109 ff. Hiibner, Pc sciiatus toptiUq^e Romani
actis, in Fleckeiscn's Jhrb. f. Philol.. Suppl. III. pp. 5^4 ff. Heinze.
Df spuriis diurttorum actorum fragmcnHs (Grcifswald, i860).

' Monimjtii. JVuiii. Gcsch., Ill (4ih cd.), p. 60;.

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

219

intelligent slave or freedman intimately acquainted with
affairs at the capital, who, moreover, often made a business
of reporting for several. He was thus a species of primitive
reporter, differing from those of to-day only in writing not
for a newspaper, but directly for readers. On recom-
mendation of their employers, these reporters enjoyed at
times admission even to the senate discussions. Antony
kept such a man, whose duty it was to report to him not
merely on the senate's resolutions, but also on the speeches
and votes of the senators. Cicero, when pro-consul, re-
ceived through his friend, M. Ca^lius, the reports of a cer-
tain Chrestus, but seems not to have been particularly well
satisfied with the latter's accounts of gladiatorial sports,
law-court proceedings, and the various pieces of city gos-
sip. As in this case, such correspondence never extended
beyond a rude relation of facts that required supplement-
ing through letters from party friends of the absent per-
son. These friends, as we know from Cicero, supplied the
real report on political feeling.

The innovation made by Caesar consisted in instituting
the publication of a brief record of the transactions and
rcbolutions of the senate, and in his causing to be pub-
lished the transactions of the assemblies of the Plebs, as
well as other important matters of public concern.

The first were the Acta senatus, the latter the Acta diurna
populi Romani. The publication was made by painting the
text on a white tablet smeared with gypsum. The tablet
was displayed publicly, and for the inhabitants of the cap-
ital was thus what we call a placard. For those abroad
copies wer^" made by numerous writers and forwarded to
their employers. After a certain interval the original was
placed in the archives of the state.

This Roman Public Bulletin was thus not in itself a
newspaper, though it attained the importance of such by

220

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

what we would consider the cumbersome device of private
correspondence to the provinces.

The Acta senatus -ivtre pubHshed for but a short time,
being suppressd by Augustus. On the other hand, the
Acta dinrna populi Romani obtained such favour in the eyes
of the people that their contents could be made much more
comprehensive, while their publication was long con-
tinued under the Empire. They more and more developed,
however, into a kind of court circular, and their contents
began to resemble the matter ofifered by the official or
semi-ofificial sheets of many European capitals to-day. On
the whole, the; confined themselves to imparting facts;
their one noti-eable tendency was to ignore the disagree-

i.b1e. .

The contents still continued to reach the provmces by
way of correspondence; and, as Tacitus tells us, the people
had regard not merely for what the official gazette con-
tained but also for what it left unrecorded: people read
between the lines. How long the whole system lasted we
do not know. Probably after the removal of the court to
Constantinople it gradually came to an end.

The Germanic peoples who, after the Romans, assumed
the lead in the history of Europe, were neither in civiliza-
tion nor in political organization fitted to maintain a sim-
ilar constitution of the news service; nor did they require
it. All through the Middle Ages the political and social
life of men was bounded by a narrow horizon; culture re-
tired to the cloisters, and for centuries afifected only the
people of prominence. There were no trade interests be-
yond the narrow walls of their own town or manor to draw
men together. It is only in the later centuries of the
MiddleAges that extensive social combinations once more
appear. It is first the church, embracing with her hierarchy
all the countries of Germanic and Latin civilization, next

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

221

the burgher class with its city confederacies and common
trade interests, and, finally, as a counter-influence to these,
the secular territorial powers, who succeed in gradually
realizing some form of union. In the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries we notice the first traces of an organized
service for transmission of news and letters in the messen-
gers of monasteries, the universities, and the various spirit-
ual dignitaries; in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we
have advanced to a comprehensive, almost postlike, organ-
ization of local messenger bureaux for the epistolary inter-
course of traders and of municipal authorities. And now,
for the first time, we meet with the word Zcitung, or news-
paper. The word meant originally that which was happen-
ing at the time {Zcit — time), a present occurrence; then
information on such an event, a message, a report, news.

In particular do we find the word .ised for the com-
munications on current political events which were re-
ceived by the town clerks from other towns or from indi-
vidual friends in the councils of those towns, either as let-
ters or as supplements to them, and which are still fre-
quently found in their archives. Thus the municipal
archives of Frankfurt-on-Main possess as many as i88 let-
ters relating to the raids of the Armagnacs in the early
forties of the fifteenth century; they are mostly descrip-
tions of sufferings and appeals for help from towns in Al-
sace and Switzerland. Among them are not less than
three accounts of the battle of St. Jacob, one from Ziirich,
one from Strassburg. and one from the council of Basel.*

•Wiilkor, Vrkundcn u. Schrcibcn. bctreff. d. Zug d. Armagnaken: in
Neujahrsblatt d. Vcreins f. Gesch. u. Altertumsk. 7.11 Frankfurt-a.-M.
for 187,^.

On the followins section consult: Hatin. Ilistoire politique et Uttcrairc
dc la frcssc en France (Paris, i85(H)i), Vol. I, pp. 28 ff., and his Biblio-
graphic historiquc ct critique dc la prcsse pcriodique fran(;aisc. prcccdce
d'Mn Ess!! hi^ti-'rique ct sUitixtique sur la fiaissance et Ics progrcs dc la

223

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

This reporting is voluntary, and rests upon a basis of
reciprocity. It sprang from the common interest uniting
the towns against the noble and the territorial powers,
and found effective support in the numerous town-
messengers who maintained in regular courses — for this
reason called " ordinary " messengers— the connection
between Upper and Lower Germany.

In the fifteenth century we find a similar exchange of
news by letter between people of high standing— princes,
statesmen, university professors — which reaches its high-
est development during the era of the Reformation. It is
now good form to add to a letter a special rubric, or to
insert on special sheets. '" Noz-issima," " Tidings," " New
Tidings " or " News." " Advices." Moreover, we already
notice how people have ceased to give each other mere
casual information abo-n the troubles and distress of the
time, and aim at a systematic collection of news. It was
especially to the great commercial centres and the trading
towns wnich were the centres of messenger activity and
the seat of higher education that news items flowed from
all quarters, there to be collected and re-edited into letters
and supplements, and thence to be diverted in streams in
all directions. Ever>-where these written tidings bear the
name of newspaper (Zcitini^ or natc Zeitungen).

The largest part of this correspondence is of a T)rivate

frcsse pcriodiquc dans Ics Deux Mondes (Paris, 1866), pp. xlv ff.;
Leber Dc Vctat red dc la prcsse et des pamphlets depuis ''^^cois
JHsqua Louis XIV (Paris. 1834). Alex. Andrews. The .-nrnry '
Bnlish Journalism (London. T850). Vol. I. pp. i^ ff.; Ott.no ... sta^^
periodica, il commercio dci llbri e latipographia tn Italm (Milan- i>* ^
p 7; Roh. Pnit7, r,e!:chichie d. dcutsch. Jouriialismus (Ilanovc- iH^
Vol 1- J Wincklcr, Pie period. Presse Ocstcrrcichs (Vienna, ih^O. ,"C
10 ff; Gm>shofT, Pic hncHtehe Zcitung d. XVI. Jah-hundcrts .^ii^£.
1877): Steinhauscn, in Archiv f. Post u. Telegraphic. 1895. P' .Ur*.
and lli^ Gcschichtc d. dcutsch. Bficfes. 2 vol?.

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

223

character. Men at the centre of political and ecclesiastical
activity communicated to each other the news that had
come to hand. It was a reciprocal giving and receiving
which did not prevent those with a heavy correspondence
from multiplying their news-sheets in order to append
them to letters to different persons, nor the recipients
from redespatching copies of them or circulating them
amongst their acquaintances. Princes, it would seem, al-
ready maintained at important commercial points their
own paid correspondents.

For a time these written newspapers did not find their
way among the masses. The circles for which they were
intended were: (i) princes and statesmen, as also town-
councillors; (2) university instructors and their immediate
cooperators in the public service in school and church;
(3) the financiers of the time, the great merchants.

Almost all reformers and humanists are diligent news-
paper correspondents and regular recipients of newspaper
reports. This is especially true of Melancthon, whose
numerous connections throughout all parts of Germany
and the neighbouring countries continually brought him a
plentiful store of fresh news, with which he in turn sup-
plied his friends, and certain princes in particular. In
comparison with his. Luther's and Zwingli's correspond-
ence is relatively poor in such tnatter. On the other hand,
John and Jacob Stunn. Bucer and Capito of otrassburg,
Oecolampadin.N and Beatus Rhenanus of Basel. Hiitzer and
Ur'hanus Rhegiu- of Augsburg, Ilier. Baumgartner of
NtTremberg, Joachim Camerarius, Bngcnhagen. and oth-
ers were very zealous and active in this direction.

The sources for their news are manifold. Besides oral
or written conmuuiications from friends, we know of nar-
ratives of incoming merchants, particularly of book-dealers
who had visited the Frankfurt fair, reports of letter-car-

,24 :he genesis of journalism.

riers accounts from soldiers returning home from their
campaigns, communications from strangers passing
through their town or from visiting friends, and especially
from students coming from foreign lands to study at Ger-
man universities; finally, any items gleaned from foreign
ambassadors who happen to be passing through; from
chancellors, secretaries, and agents of important person-

^^Naturally such oral news collected at random varied
creatly in worth, and had first to undergo the editona
criticism of the correspondent before being circulated
further The news-items based upon written mformation
were of much greater importance. It may be of some
interest, by following Melancthon's correspondence, to in-
quire somewhat into the sources of them.'' , , . .,

We soon perceive that there were a number of definite
collecting centres for the various classes of news. In the
forefront of interest at that time stood the Eastern ques-
tion, that is, the threatening of the countries of Central
Europe by the Turks. Ncv^s of the engagements with the
latter came either from Hungary through Vienna, Cra-
cow or Breslau, or from Constantinople by sea by way of
Venice. The reporters are mostly ecclesiastics, adherents

of the New Learning.

On affairs in the South communications came from
Rome, Venice, and Genoa, as well as from learned friends
in Padua and Bologna. News from France and Spam was
procured by way of Lyons. Genoa, and Strassburg; from
England and the Netherlands by way of Antwerp and Co-
logne; from the countries c.f the North by way of Bremen
Hamburg, and Lubeck; from the Northeast by way of
Konigsberg and Riga.

•According to Grasshoff. cited above, pp. 2i^.

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

225

In Germany, Nuremberg was the chief collecting centre
for news, partly by reason of its central position, partly
because of its extensive trade connections. Anyone de-
sirous of receiving reliable and definite information on the
doings of the world wrote to Nuremberg or sent thither
a representative. Princes like Duke Albert of Prussia
and Christian III of Denmark there maintained resident
correspondents, whose duty it was to collect and report
any fresh items of news. Town officials, councillors, and
reputable merchants frequently undertook such an office.
Besides Nuremberg. Frankfurt, Augsburg, Regensburg,
Worms, and Speier were also important news centres.

The newspapers that Meiancthon compiled from these
various sources are simply historical memoranc'a, selecteo
with some care and interspersed at rare intervals with
discussions of a political nature, and more frequently
with all kinds of complaints and fears, wishes and hopes.
Along with the important news from the Emperor's court,
from the various seats of war and on the progress of the
Reformation, we meet with others reflecting the complete
naivete and incredulity of the times: reports of political
prophecies, strange natural phenomena, missbirths, earth-
quakes, showers of blood, comets and other celestial ap-
paritions.

In the second half of the sixteenth century this species
of news-agency received definite form and organization as
a business, not merely in Germany, but, apparently even
earlier, in Italy, especially in Venice and R^me.

Venice was long regarded as the birthplace of the news-
paper in the modern acceptation of the word. This opin-
ion was supported by the extensive use of the name ga-
zctta or gazcUc amongst the Latin nations for a newspaper:
and this word is to be found eariiest in Venice as the name
of the small coin.

326

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

We will not enter into the accounts — at times rather
romantic— that have been given to justify the derivation
(in itself improbable) of the name of the newspaper from
the name of the coin.'

In itself, however, there is much to be said for the pre-
sumption that journalism, as described above, v»as first de-
veloped as a business in Venice. As the channel of trade
between the East and West, as the seat of a govern-
ment that first organized the political news service and
the consular system in the modern sense, the old city of
lagoons formed a natural collecting centre for important
news-items from all lands of the known vvorld. Even
early in the fifteenth century, as has been shown by the
investigations of Valentinelli, the librarian of St. Mark's
Library, collections of news had been made at the instance
of the council of Venice regarding events that had
either occurred within the republic or been reported by
ambassadors, consuls, and officials, by ships' captains, mer-
chants and the like. These were sent as circular despatches
to the Venetian representatives abroad to keep them
posted on international affairs. Such collections of news
were called fogli d'azi'isi.

Later on, duplicates of these official collections were
made, though evidently not for public circulation, but
rather for the use of prominent citizens of Venice who
sought to derive advantage from them in tiicir commercial
operations, and also communicated them by letter to their
business friends in other lands.

This appending of political news to commercial corre-
spondence, or the enclosing of the same on special sheets,
soon became the practice also among the lartjc traders
of Augsburg. Nureniburg. and the other German towns.

• Comp. Hatin, Bibliograpkie dt la presse perioduiue, p. xlvii.

19 I

THE GENESIS OF JOURN/fUSM.

227

By and by it occurred to some that the collection and
transmission of news by letter could be made a source of
profit. In the sixteenth century we find on the Venetian
Rialto, between the booths of the changers and gold-
smiths, an independent news-bureau that made a business
of gathering and distributing to interested parties polit-
ical and trade news: information as to arrival and clearance
of vessels, on prices of wares, on the safety of the high-
ways, and also on political events.'' Indeed, a whole guild
of scrittori d'awisi grew up. In a short time we meet with
the same people in Rome, where they bear the name nov-
ellanti or gazettanti. Here their activity, whether because
they circulated disagreeable f' ':ts or accompanied their
facts with their own comments, became discomforting to
the Curia. In the year 1572 not less than two papal bulls
were issued against them (by Pius V and Gregory XIII);
the writing of " advices " was strictly forbidden, and its
continuance threatened with branding and the galleys.
Nevertheless we continue to meet numerous indications
of a news service from Rome to the Upper Italian cities
and to Germany.

In the meantime, newspaper writing had also become a
business in Germany with an organization that, for the
existing conditions of trade, is really wonderful. This
organization is connected on the one hand with the further
develojjment of despatch by courier, and on the otner with
Emperor Maximilian's institution of the post from the
Austrian Netherlands to the capital, Vienna, by which the
regular receipt of news was greatly facilitated. We thus
find, at various places, in the second half of the sixteenth
century, special correspondence bureaux which collect .md
communicate news by letter to their subscribers. Several

'According to Prutz, Ctsch. d. Journalismus, I, p m.

228

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

collections of these epistolary newspapers have been pre-
served: for instance, one from 1582 to 1591 in the Grand
Ducal library in Weimar, and two in the University li-
brary at Leipzig from the two last decades of the same
century.®

Let us refer briefly to the oldest year of the Leipzig col-
lection. It bears the heading: " News to hand from
Nuremberg from the 26th of October Anno '87 to the 26th
of October Anno '88." Then follow in independent group-
ings transcripts of the news received weekly from Rome,
Venice, Antwerp, and Cologne at the office of the Nurem-
berg firm of merchants, Reiner Volckhardt and Florian
von der Bruckh, and thence given out again either by the
house itself or by a special publisher. The person who re-
ceived the present collection was probably the chief city
clerk of Leipzig, Ludwig Triib.

The communications from Rome are as a rule da*ed
about six days earlier than those from Venice, and the
Antwerp correspondence about five days earlier than that
from Cologne. All four places lay on the great post-routes
from Italy and the Netherlands to Germany. Along with
these periodical communications irregular ones appear
now and then, for instance, from Prague and Breslau, and
particularly often from Frankfurt-on-Main.

Examining the contents of these news-items more
closely we soon find that we have to do not with events
occurring in Rome, Venice, Antwerp, etc.. but with re-
ports collected at these places. Thus the correspondence
from Antwerp contained not merely news from the Neth-
erlands, but also from France, England, and Denmark; by
way of Rome came news not only from Italy, but from
Spain and the south of France as well; from Venice came

" Comp. Jyt. Oixl, Die Anfangf d deulsch. /Uilungstrcsst in Archiv
f C;t:bch. d. d'jlU- !>. Miu-Iihaiuiels. \'ol. Ill (1^50).

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM. 229

news from the Orient. The reports are soberly descriptive
and commercial in tone. Political items preponderate;
communications on trade and commerce appear less fre-
quently. There is no trace of the favourite tales of won-
ders and ghosts.

But how was the news service in these four great collect-
ing points organized? Who were the collectors and the
intermediaries? How were they paid? What were their
sources of information? Unfortunately we can answer
only part of these questions.

In the first place, as to the sources from which the au-
thors of the letters derive their information, they them-
selves appeal at times even to the last mail or to the regular
messenger service, the " Ordinari." Thus we read in a
letter from Cologne dated February 28, 1591: "The let-
ters from Holland and Zeeland, and also from Italy, have
not yet appeared." In a similar letter from Rome of date
February 17, 1590, we are informed that the postmaster
there has contracted with the Pope to establish a weekly
post to and from Lyons; and at the close we read, " In this
way we shall have news from France every week."

Nothing more than this is to be gleaned from the collec-
tion itself. When, however, we notice contemporaneously
in several German cities that it is the heads of the town-
couriers and the imperial postmasters who in particular de-
vote themselves to the business of editing and despatching
news-letters, the supposition gains greatly in probability
that the collection of news is in most intimate connection
with the nail service of the time. The messenger mas-
ters and the postmasters probably exchanged at regular
intervals the news they had collected, in order to pass it
on to their particular clients. But the whole matter
stands greatly in need of closer investigation."
•Steinhausen in Archiv f. Post u. T\\.. 1S.J5, p. J55. expresses merely

f' !

230

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

The relations between wholesale trade and newspapers
somewhat clearer. Like the Nuremberg merchants
mentioned above, some large trading houses in other local-
ities had also organized an independent news service. Es-
pecially prominent were the Welsers and Fuggers, whose
news reports we find in the celebrated letter-book of
the Nuremberg jurist, Christoph Scheurl,»° along with the
Nuremberg correspondence. In the second half of the six-
teenth century the Fuggers had the news coming to them
from all parts of the world, regularly collected and appar-
ently also published. The title of the regular numbers was
" Ordinari-Zeittungen." There were also supplements, or
" specials." with the latest items. The price of one num-
ber was four kreuzer; the yearly cost in Augsburg, includ-
ing delivery, was 25 florins, and for the ordinari numbers
alone, 14 florins. One Jeremiah Krasser, of Augsburg,
burgher and newspaper writer, is named as editor. He
informs us that he supplied many other gentlemen m
Augsburg and district with his news. A file of this organ
of publication, so rich in material, for the years 1568 to
1604 is found in the Vienna library.'*

The newspapers of the Fuggers regularly contain news
from all parts of Europe and the East, and also from places
still further removed: Persia, China and Japan, America.
Besides the political correspondence, we have frequent re-
ports of har\'ests and memoranda of prices, now and then
even communications in the nature of advertisements, and
a long list of Vienna firms— how and where all things
could now be procured in Vienna. Even literary notices

a supposition, though indeed a very well grrounded and probable one.
on the course of development. , „ ,

" Christoph Scheurl: Brxffbuch. fin Bcilrag :. Geschich. d. Reforma-
tion u. ihrer Zett (Sooden u Knaake, Potsdam. 1867-187^).

" S.cket. Weimar Jahrb. f. dcutsche Sprache «. Litteratur. I. p. M^

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

231

of recent and noteworthy books appear; and there is one
account of the presentation of a new drama.

As in Augsburg, so in other places in Germany we meet
individual correspondents — ^journalists (Zeitunger), novel-
ists — who carry on their newspaper writing in the service
of princes or of cities. Thus in 1609 the elector of Saxony,
Christian II, made a contract with Joh. Rudolf Ehinger,
of Balzhein in Ulm, whereby the latter undertook for a
yearly fee of 100 florins to furnish reports upon events in
Switzerland and France, Swabia naturally being included.
In the year 1613 Hans Zeidler, of Prague, received from
the Saxon court for similar service a yearly salary of 300
florins, together with 3319 thalers 6 g. gr. for expenses
incurred in collecting his news.'^ In the same year the
sovereign bishop of Bamberg had newspapers forwarded
to him by a Dr. Gugel, of Nuremberg, for a fee of 20 flor-
ins. In the year 1625 the town of Halle paid the news cor-
respondent. Hieronymus Teuthorn, of Leipzig, the sum of
two schock, eight groschen. as quarterly fee; and as late as
1662 the council of the town of Delitzsch was subscriber to
a newspaper correspondence from Leipzig at a quarterly
fee of two thalers. The postmasters and messenger chiefs
appear to have been paid somewhat l>etter for their ser-
vices, which were indeed more valuable. At least, we
know that in the year 1615 the postmaster at Frankfurt,
Johann von der Birghden. who furnished a great number
of German princes with news.*'' was in receipt of a yearly
salary of 60 florins for supplying the electoral court of
Mainz with the weekly newspapers.'*

"C. D. V. Witzk'bcn. Gesch. d. Leifsiger Zeitung (Leipzig, i860), pp.
5-6. The Saxon court in i6.'9 maintained similar agents in Vienna,
Berlin. Brunswick, .\ugsburg. Ulm, Breslau, Hamburg, Liibec,
Prague, Amsterdam, at the Hapiie. and in Hungary.

"Comp. Opel, as above, pp 28, (6

"'* Fauthaber, Gesch. </. I'vst m Irankiurl-a.-M. (Archiv, f. Frankf.
Gesch. u. Kunst. New Series, XI. pp. 31, toff.

ill

232

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

Even in the seventeenth century the wrritten newspapers
appear not to have made their way to wider circles. They
were still too costly for that.

At the close of the sixteenth and in the seventeenth
century we find written newspapers in France and Eng-
land, as well as in Germany and Italy. In France they are
-" " ed nouvellcs a la main; in England, news-letters. In both
countries they are confined to the capital city.

The line of development in Paris is the more interest-
ing: it may be said indeed that the most primitive of all
newspapers, the precursor of the written newspaper, is to
be found there. It is the related, or spoken, paper."

In the turbulent times of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries groups of Parisian burghers would assemble each
evening on the street corners, on the Pont Neuf, and on
the public squares, bringing together the news of the day
and making their own comments upon it. As is easily
conceivable, there were among these groups individuals
who became adepts in the collection and repetition of news.
Gradually method and organization were introduced; the
so-called nouvellistes held regular meetings, exchanged
their news with each other, and made comments thereon,
discussed politics, and laid plans.

" Comp. Hatin, Histoire de la presse en France, Vol. I, pp. 32-33- I An
interesting present-day instance of the " spoken " newspaper, which
may indeed nut be so very rare a phenomenon, is given in a sketch
of Swiss life in the little village of Champcry by a recent writer in
the Canadian Magazine. " On three of the houses of the village," it
is stated. " are curious balconies, which are in reality old pulpits,
once used for open-air preaching. They now serve the place of the
country newspaper, for en Sundays, after mass, a man calls out from
them the news of the week, what there is for sale, what cattle have
been stolen or have strayed, and other items of interest to those who
have come down for the day from the isolation of the high moun-
tains."— .S"7t»M Ufe and Scenery, by E. Fanny Jones. Can. Mag., Aug.
1898, p. 287.— Ed. i

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

233

The writers of the time treat these groups with never-
ending satire; the comic dramatists seize the fruitful theme,
and even Montesquieu devotes to them one of the most
entertaining of his Lettres Persancs}^

What was at the outset a mere pastime for news-hunters
and idlers, enterprising brains soon developed into a busi-
ness. They undertook to supply regular news to people
of rank and standing. Men in high station kept a nouvel-
liste as they kept a hair-dresser or surgeon. Mazarin, for
instance, paid such a servant 10 livres per month.

These groups of nouvellistes soon began to seek cus-
tomers in the Provinces also, and these, of course, could be
supplied only by letter. Each group had its particular
editorial and copying bureau, and its special sources for
court and official news. The subscribers paid a fixed sum,
according to the number of pages that they desired each
week. Thus originated the celebrated nouvellcs a la main,
which, in spite of many prosecutions on the part of the
government, lasted till well towards the end of last cen-
tury, and which were often sent abroad as well.'^ That
which gave them a firm footing along with the printed
newspapers was, to a certain extent, the circumstance that
they rendered the secrecy of the government system
largely illusory, and further, took the liberty now and
then of animadverting on public conditions.'^

In England likewise the nczvs-lcttcrs, more especially
devoted to furnishing the country nobility with the news
of the capital anrl the court, maintained themselves well
"(Euvres computes (Paris, 1857), p. 87, Lettre CXXX.
"La Gasette de la Rcgencc. janvicr iriS—juin ///p. publicf d'apres le
manuscrit inedit conserre a la Ribliolhcque royale de La Uaye. par Le Comte
E. de Barthilemy (Paris, 1887) gives a description of the contents of
these sheets.

'* Similarly in Austria: Joh. Winckler, Die period. Presse Oesterreichs
(Vienna, 1875), pp ag-q.

ft!

234 THE GENESIS OF JOURNAUSM.

into the eighteenth century. The printed newspapers of
that epoch indeed adapted themselves to the system to
the extent of appearing with two printed and two un-
printed pages, thereby enabling their subscribers to send
them to others, enriched with additional notes m writing.

Thus we see that at about the same time in all the ad-
vanced countries of Europe the written newspaper anses
as a medium-of course, as yet a decidedly restricted me-
dium-of news publication, and maintains itself for more
than two hundred years. It is, however, most remarkable
that the production of these written news-sheets as a busi-
ness can nowhere be traced beyond the period of the in-
vention of printing. In this connection the question
naturally arises, why the printing-press was not taken into
the service of the regular news publication.

The question is answered by the simple fact that even in
young colonial countries with an European population ac-
customed at home to printed newspapers, the written pre-
ceded the printed news-sheets. This was true of the
English colonies in America at the beginning of the eigh-
teenth century,- and of the colony of West Australia in
18^0 " This proves that it could not have been so much
the pressure of the censorship, that so long delayed the
employment of the press for news publication, as the lack

pp, 14 ft.; Hatm. a» *<'"■ P^ ' ' ,,„, ,bat likc«ise in

(New York. 1873). PP- 5' «•
" Andrews, as above, Vul. IT, pp. 3'- ff- ^

THE GENESIS OF JOURNjIUSM.

23S

;

of a sufficiently large circle of readers to guarantee the
sale necessary to meet the cost of printing.

However, since as far back as the close of the fifteenth
century, special numbers of those written newspapers con-
taining matter of a presumably broader interest were fre-
quently printed. These were the one-page prints issued by
enterprising publishers under the name of " Ncue Zeitmtg,"
and disposed of at fairs and markets. Collections are to
be found in every old library.22 The oldest of these
prints is a report of the obsequies of Emperor Frederick
III from the year 1493. From that time till the sixteenth
century had run its course they continued to hold their
own; but with the growth of periodical news-sheets,
they became rarer, and finally, in the eighteenth, disap-
peared. The earliest numbers bear either no title at all or
take their title from the contents. The name Zeitung,
or newspaper, for such a loose sheet appears for the first
time in 1505. We find, however, various other appella-
tions; for example, Letter, Relation, Tale, News, Descrip-
tion, Report, Advice, Post, Postilion, Courier, Rumour,
Despatch, Letter-bag.^^ To these all kinds of qualifying
titles are frequently added, such as Circumstantial News,
Truthful and Reliable Description, Faithful Description,
Truthful Relation, Review and Contents, Historical Dis-
course, and Detailed Explanation; very often we have:
New and Truthful Tidings, Truthful and terrible Tidings,
Wonderful, terrible, pitiful Tidings. In England some of
the titles are: Newes, Newe Newes, Thiding, Woful
Newes, Wonderful and strange News, Lamentable News;

"Treated bibiographically by Weller, Die erstcn deutsch. Zcituugen
(Bibliothek d. Iterar. Vereins, Vol. LXI). Supple'..ent to same in
the " Germania," XXVI, p. 106.

"Brief. Relatiot,, Mar, Nachricht, Beschreihung. Bericht. Aviso. Post,
Postillion, Kurier, Fama, Depesehe. FeUHsen.

. -.tli.l .

iilii'

836

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

and in France: Discours, Memorable Discours, Nouvelles,
Recit, Courier, Messager, Postilion, Mercure, etc.

The titles, we notice, are sensational and pretentious.
The contents vary greatly. In the great majority of cases
they consist of political news; argument remains altogether
in the background. The written news-letters are the chief,
though not the sole, source for these fugitive productions
of the printing-press. Ordinarily, the one-page prints are
independent of each other; and only here and there at the
end of the sixteenth century can several consecutive num-
bers be instanced; but this is not sufficient to justify us in
supposing a periodical issue. These loose sheets, however,
at least prepare the way, as regards form and matter, for
the printed newspaper with its regular issues. And they
render a like service in so far as they awakened among the
masses an interest in occurrences reaching beyond mere
parish affairs.

The first printed periodical news collections begin as
early as the sixteenth century. They are annual publica-
tions, the so-called Postreuter (postilions) or news epit-
omes whose contents may in a manner be compared with
the political reviews of the year in our popular calendars.**

These are supplemented by semi-annual news sum-
maries, the so-called Relationcs semestralcs or Fair Reports.
They were begun between 1580 and 1590 by Michael von
Aitzing. They drew their information chiefly from the
regular post and traders' newspapers, and for more than
two centuries formed one of the chief articles of sale at
the Frankfurt fair, and later on at the Leipzig spring and
fall fairs as well.^^ The first printed weekly of which we

"According to Prutz, cited above, p. 179. they appeared as early as
the middle of the sixteenth century.

" F. Stieve, Ueber d. dltest. halbj'dhrig. Zeitungen odtr Missrelationen,
u. ir.sbesond. iiber derm Rcgriindcr. Frhm. Michael <on Aitzing: Abh,

THE GENESIS OF jOURNAUSM. 237

have direct information is a Strassburg sheet, whose num-
bers for the year 1609 are found in the University library
at Heidelberg, while fragments of later years are pre-
served in the public library at Zurich.2« Jt corresponds
exactly in matter and form with the regular despatches
Y.hich the post brought weekly from :..e chief collecting
places of the news trade. It was soon imitated; and after
the beginning of the Thirty Years' War the growth in the
number of pnnted weeklies was particularly rapid. We
have evidence of the exisience of about two dozen in the
second and third decades 01 the seventeenth century. They
were established chiefly by book-printers; though in
numerous places the post assumed, naturally with varying
success, the right of printing despatches as a part of its
prerogative. While in Frankfurt, Leipzig, Munich. Col-
logue, and Hamburg the old connection between post and
newspaper continued for a considerable time, the publica-
tion of news was in many other towns completely absorbed
by the book-printers, a fact of the greatest moment for its
further development.

Germany is the first country that can show printed
newspapers appearing regularly at brief intervals. The
English and the Dutch claims to the honour of having
produced the earliest printed weeklies are now generally
abandoned. England can point to nothing similar before

the year 1622: the first French weeklv sheet appeared in
163 1. 2T '*

der k. bayer Akad. d. Wiss., III. CI. XVI, p. , (Munich. 1881).
Cotnp. also Ort.i. Ausfiihrl Abhand. von d. bcriihmtcn zwocn Reichs-
*"^sse„ so ,n d. ieichsstadt Frankfurt-a.-M . jahrlk: abgehaltm werden
(Frankfurt, 1765] pp. 7,4 ff.; Prutz, as above, pp. 188 IT • J von
Schwarzkopf, Ueb^r potitische u. gelehrte Zeitungen in Frankf'urt-a -M

1802.

' Opel, as above, pp. 44 ff.

' [See article Nmspapers in the hncy. Brit, and the literature th

given, — Ed.1

ere

*;H

338

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

!■

iiill!'

It will perhaps seem strange that a leap was made di-
rectly from half-yearly reports to weekly publications
without a transitional stage of monthly reports. It must,
however, not be forgotten that the collection of news, as
well as the distribution of the news-sheets, had to conform
to the peculiar commercial facilities of the time. The most
important of these were the fairs and the stage-posts. The
semi-annual fairs made possible the distribution of the
printed news from one great centre of trade and travel to
even the most remote points. But the stage-posts tra-
versed the chief trade-routes once a week each way. The
leap from the half-yearly to the weekly reports lay thus in
the nature of things.

By the weekly newspapers the impetus was given to the
essentially modern development of the press. Yet it was a
considerable time before the first daily newspapers ap-
peared. This occurred in Germany in 1660 {Leipziger
Zcitung), in England in 1702 {Daily Courant), in France in
I jjj {Journal de Paris).

We need not pursue this theme down to our cosmopol-
itan papers that appear three times a day. The distin-
guishing feature of the latter as contrasted with the written
newspaper of the sixteenth century is not so much the
magnitude of ♦'^e organization for procuring news and the
rapidity in trar.smitting it, as the transformation in the
nature of the contents, particularly the advertising, and
the influence thereby exerted on pul)lic opinion, and, con-
sequently, on the course of the world's history.

For the sixteenth century the network of agencies for
the regular collection of news already described, was with-
out doubt magnificent. There runs through it a modern
characteristic, the characteristic of uniting individual
forces in divided labour towards a single end. In the de-
partment of news collection there has been little advance

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

»39

since the sixteenth century. The whole subsequent de-
velopment of the newspaper in this direction rests on the
separation of news collection from news despatch (post),
and on the commercial organization of the former into
correspondence bureaux and telegraph agencies. To the
telegraph agencies have fallen the duties of the earlier
postmasters and news-scribes, but with this difference, that
they no longer labour directly for the newspaper readers,
but supply the publishing house with half-finished wares,
making use in such woik of the perfected commercial ma-
chinery of modem times.

Again, the further development of news publication in
the field that it has occupied since the more general
ioption of the printing-press, has been peculiar. At the
outset the publisher of a periodical printed newspaper dif-
fered in no wise from the publisher of any other printed
work— for instance, of a pamphlet or a book. He was but
the multiplier and seller of a literary product, over whose
content he had no control. The newspaper publisher mar-
keted the regular post-news in its printed form just as an-
other publisher oflFered the public a herbal or an edition of
an old writer.

But this soon changed. It was readily perceived that
the contents of a newspaper number did not form an
entity in the same sense as the contents of a book or pam-
phlet. The news-items there brought together, taken
from different sources, were of varying reliability. They
needed to be used judicially and critically: in this a polit-
ical or religious bias could find ready expression. In a still
higher degree was this the case when men began to discuss
contempoiary political questions in the newspapers and
to employ them as a medium for disseminating party
opinions.

This took place first in England during the Long Parlia-

%*\

240

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

ment and the Revolution of 1649. The Netherlands and a
part of the imperial free towns of Germany followed later.
In France the change was not consummated before the era
of the great Revolution: in most other countries it oc-
curred in the nineteenth century. The newspaper, from
being a mere vehicle for the publication of news, became
an instrument for supporting and shaping public opinion
and a weapon of party politics.

The effect of this upon the internal organization of the
newspaper undertaking was to introduce a third depart-
ment, the editorship, between news collecting and news
publication. For the newspaper publisher, however, it sig-
nified that from a mere seller of news he had become a
dealer in public opinion as well.

At first this meant nothing more than that the publisher
was placed in a position to shift a portion of the risk of his
undertaking upon a party organization, a circle of inter-
ested persons, or a government. If the leanings of the
paper were distasteful to the readers they ceased to buy
the paper. Their wishes thus remained, in the final analy-
sis, the determining factor for the contents of the news-
papers.

The gradually expanding circulation of the pnnted
newspapers nevertheless soon led to their employment by
the authorities for making public announcements. With
this came, in the first quarter of last century, the extension
of private announcements,'^ which have now attained,
through the so-called advertising bureattx,^^ some such or-
ganization as political news collecting possesses in the cor-
respondence bureaux.

" At first, it would seem, in special advice or intelligence sheets
which in many cases come from general agencies (Inquiry of!ices,
Bureaux of Information). Comp. F. Mangold, in Basler Jhrb., 1897.

" AHno»ccn-Exi>ediliontn.

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM. 241

By admitting advertisements the newspaper fell into a
peculiarly ambiguous position. For the subscription price
it formerly published only news and opinions of general in-
terest; now, through all sorts of advertisements, for which
it receives special remuneration, it also serves private trade
and private interests. It sells news to its readers, and it
sells its circle of readers to any private interest capable of
paying the price. In the same paper, often on the same
page, where the highest interests of mankind are, or at
least should be, represented, buyers and sellers ply their
vocations in ignoble greed of gain. For the uninitiated
it is often difficult to distinguish where the interests of the
public cease and private interests begin.

This is all the more dangerous in that in the course of
the past century the subjects discussed on the editorial
page of the newspapers have grown to embrace almost the
whole range of human interests. Statecraft, provincial
and local administration, the administration of justice, art
in all its manifestations, technology, economic and social
life in its manifold phases, are reflected in the daily press;
and since the development of the feuilleton, a good pro-
portion of literary and even of scientific products flows
into this great stream of contemporary social and mental
life. The book as a form of publication — we may have
no doubts on the point — loses ground from year to year.

It is impossible to enter into these matters at greater
length. The sole aim of this cursory survey of the mod-
ern development of journalism has been to give, from
the view-point of historical evolution, the beginnings of
the newspaper press their proper setting, and at the same
time to show how the gathering of news has been con-
ditioned at each epoch by general conditions of trade.

The Roman newspaper is one feature in the autonomous
administration of the wealthy and aristocratic household.

K^\

i|'

242 WE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

A news-clerk was kept, just as was a body-surgeon or a
librarian. In most cases he is the property, the slave, of
the news-reader, working according to the directions of

his master.

In the written newspaper of the sixteenth century there
is exhibited the same handicraft character then domi-
nating all branches of higher economic activity. The news-
writer, on demand and for a definite price, furnishes di-
rectly to a circle of patrons the news that he had gathered
—in which proceeding he doubtless suits the amount to
the latter's needs. He is reporter, editor, and publisher in

one.

The modem newspaper is a capitalistic enterprise, a sort
of news-factory in which a great number of people (cor-
respondents, editors, typesetters, correctors, machine-
tenders, collectors of advertisements, office-clerks, messen-
gers, etc.) are employed on wage, under a single adminis-
tration, at very specialized work. This paper produces
wares for an unknown circle of readers, from whom it is,
furthermore', frequently separated by intermediaries, such
as delivery agencies and postal institutions. The simple
needs of the reader or of the circle of patrons no longer de-
termine the quality of these wares; it is now the very com-
plicated conditions of competition in the publication mar-
ket. In this market, however, as generally in wholesale
markets, the consumers of the goods, the newspaper
readers, take no direct part; the determining factors are
the wholesale dealers and the speculators in news: the gov-
ernments, the telegraph bureaux dependent upon their
special correspondents, the political parties, artistic and
scientific cliques, men on 'change, and last but not least,
the advertising agencies and large individual advertisers.

Each number of a great journal which appears to-day is
a m.^rvpl of economic division of labour, capitalistic organ-

THE GENESIS OF JOURNALISM.

243

ization, and mechanical technique; it is an instrument of in-
tellectual and economic intercourse, in which the potencies
of all other instruments of commerce — the railway, the
post, the telegraph, and the telephone — are united as in a
focus. But our eyes can linger with satisfaction on no spot
where capitalism comes into contact with intellectual life;
and so we can take but half-hearted pleasure in this ac-
quisition of modem civilization. It would indeed be diffi-
cult for us to believe that the newspaper in its present de-
velopment is destined to constitute the highest and final
medium for the supplying of news.**

** [Comp. Mr. Alfred Harmsworth on The Newspapers of the Twen-
tieth Century in North Amer. Rev., Jan. 1901. — Ed.]

• i

i Uu

CHAPTER VII.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

There is in Germany perhaps scarcely a modern text-
book or contemporary course of university lectures on
political economy in which some ment.on ,s "ot m^le o
the principle of union of labour and some remark offe e
thereon. No one has really much to say about it. \ et it
is there, and has its traditional place after the section on
the division of labour, where, if it be thought at all worthy
of it it receives with regularity its paragraph, to come to
light' no more in the later text of the book or lecture.

And so it has been for more than half a century. But a
science cannot be lenient with concepts that are not fitted
to give a deeper insight into a series of phenomena, simply
because thev have once gained currency, it is at length
time for a closer investigation of this ancient inyentonal
item in order, if it is really unserviceable, to discard ,t. or to
assign it its proper place should it be found useful in fur-
thering our knowledge. .

According to the text-books, union of labour is nothmg
more nor less than "the other side of division of labour; or
" division of labour viewe.l from the standpoint o the or^-
ganizing unit;" ' the " correlative of division of labour;
"the reverse side of the medal whose obverse side is the

> Roll, in Philippovicb. (:ru„dr,ss </. toUt. (V/;. (2A cd.). p. 78.
• M Mt Crun^irUs d. lolks-.v^rthschaftslfhre. 9 29.

UNlOhl OF L/tBOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. 24S

division of labour," ^ These are all somewhat vague ex-
pressions, which on the whole ^>eem to have their origin in
the view that if labour is divided it must also be reunited,
since the separate parts cannot exist independently. Here
then the idea of division of labour is either conceived of
very restrictedly — somewhat after the manner of Adam
Smith's pin-manufactory — in which case the unifying force
is supplied by the capital of the entrepreneur; or the con-
ception is broadened to embrace the so-called social
division of labour, in which case the labour-uniting element
must be furnished by trade; so that union of labour would
be synonymous with commercial organization generally.

In fact, Roscher, who gives the most detailed treatment
of the subject, and to whom all later writers resort, re-
garded the subject in this light.* Division of labour and
union of labour are in his view, " but two different aspects
of the same conception, namely, social labour: separation of
tasks so far as they would incommode one another, and
their union in so far as they aid one another." " The vine-
dresser and the flax-grower," he continues, " would neces-
sarily die of hunger if they could not count for certain on
the grower of grain; the workman in the pin-factory who
merely prepares the pin-heads must be sure of his comrade
who sharpens the points if his labour is not to be entirely
in vain; while the labour of a merchant simply cannot be
conceived of without that of the different producers be-
tween whom he acts as intermediary."

The whole phenomenon is thus shrouded in the mists of
processes of commerce and of organization; it is made
synonymous with economy generally. In particular it alto-
gether loses its correlation with the notion of division of

• Kleinwachter. Die rolksw. Produktion in Schonberg's Handbook,
* Pnncifks of Foiiiical Economy (New York, 187S), I, pp. 203-4.

ir 1 ■'

V 1

246 UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

labour. For the rest, Roscher discusses at length only the
constancy of the progress of civilization — which is realized
by each generation leaving to its successors the augmented
inheritance of its predecessors; and further, the advantage
of large undertakings and the association of small ones
whereby labour ultimately disappears almost completely
from the horizon.

Roscher in all this goes back to Frederick List,* who,
in his theor>- of the development of national productive
powers, was the first in Germany, as far as I am aware, to
use the expression " union of labour." Moreover, he
turned it to peculiar account. Starting from a criticism of
the " natural law " of division of labour, neither Adam
Smith nor any of his successors have, in List's opinion,
thoroughly investigated the essential nature and character
of this law or followed it out to its most important conse-
quences. The very expression " division of labour " was
inadequate, he says, and necessarily produced a false con-
ception. He then continues: " It is division of labour if
one savage on one and the same day goes hunting or fish-
ing, cuts down wood, repairs his wigwam, and makes ready
arrows, nets, and clothes; but it is also division of labour
if, as in the example cited by Adam Smith, ten different
persons share in the different occupations connected with
the manufacture of a p:.i. The former is an objective, and
the latter a subjective division of labour; the former hin-
ders, the latter furthers production. The essential differ-
ence between the two is that in the former one person
(liviles his work so as to produce various objects, while in
the latter several persons share in the production of a single
object."

" Both operations, on the other hand," we read further,

' The National System of Political Economy (London, 1885), pp. 149 ff-

UNION OF LABOUR /1ND LABOUR IN COMMON.

247

" may with equal correctness be called a union of labour;
the savage unites various tasks in his person, while in the
case of the pin-manufacture various persons are united in
one work of production in common. The essential charac-
ter of the natural law from which the popular school ex-
plains such important phenomena in social economy, is
evidently not merely a division of labour but a division
of different commercial operations among several indi-
viduals, and at the same time a federation or union of
various energies, intelligences and powers in a common
production. The cause of the productiveness of these opera-
tions is not merely the division, but essentially this union."

This latter List develops further, and upon it endeavours
to base the demand for the establishment of a harmony of
the productive pozvers in the nation. The highest division of
occupations and the highest unification of the productive
powers in material production are found in agriculture
and manufacturing. '' A nation devoting itself exclusively
to agriculture is like an individual engaged in material
production with one arm gone," etc.

Free these explanations from the ingenious rhetoric of
the great agitator, and we find, as so often, that he has
been unjust towards Adam Smith. The latter in no way
overlooks the fact, as List is frank enough to admit, that
division of lal)our postulates a cooperation of forces; and
at the close of his celebrated chapter on division of labour
he explains expressly that by means of this joint labour
the meanest person in a civilized country may attain a
more ample accommodation than an African king." But
he was keen-sighted enough not to regard this fact, which
was involved in the nature of division of labour and iden-
tical with it, as an independent economic phenomenon.

-^.J

• Book I, Chapter I, towards end.

a48 UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

'1' ., -

What purpose would it serve to call the same thing at one
time division of labour and at another union of labour, ac-
cording as it was viewed from one side or the other? In a
young science that would have been only a source of con-
fusion.

Of course the procedure of the Indian who successively
hunts, fishes, fells trees, etc., would never have been recog-
nised by Adam Smith as a particular instance of division
of labour. On the contrar>', he would have designated it
undivided labour,^ a condition such as preceded division
of labour throughout society. Division of labour is for
him something else than division of time.

Of the factor of time in the disposal of labour List speaks
more at length in another place.* He there explains that
the individual branches of industry in a country only
gradually gain possession of improved processes, machin-
ery, buildings, advantages in production, experiences and
skill, and all those details of information and connections
that insure to them the profitable purchase of their raw
material and the profitable sale of their products. It is
easier, he believes, to perfect and extend a business already
established than to found a new one; easier to produce
superior goods at moderate prices in a branch of industry
long domiciled in a country than in a newly-established
one. " A- in all human institutions, so in industry there lies
at the root of important achievements a law of nature that
has much in common with the natural law of the division of
laboi"- and of the federation of productive forces. Its es-
sential feature consists in several successive generations
as it were uniting their forces towards one and the same
end, and as it were dividing among them the expenditure
of energy necessary to its attainment." List calls this the
'On his conception of division of labour, compare following chapter.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. 249

principle of stability and continuity of work, and seeks to
prove its operation in history by a series of examples: the
superiority in strength of a hereditary over an elective
monarchy, the transmission of the acquisitions of human
knowledge *hrough printing, the influence of the caste
system upon the maintenance and development of indus-
trial skill, the building of cathedrals in the Middle Ages
during several generations. The system of public debts by
which " the present generation makes a draft on a future
gent- ation " is also cited as a peculiariy apt instance of
the application of the principle of continuity in work.

It is easily seen that List here is dealing only with a
rhetorically clad analogy to union of labour. This, how-
ever, has not prevented later writers from forming out of
" continuity of work " a special type of union of labour,
although a little reflection might have taught them that it
is a phenomenon not at all peculiar to economic activity.
Continuity of work is the universal historical principle of
social development by which man is distin<^uished from the
animal. With each lower animal begins anew a similar
existence which runs its course, so far as we know, to-day
as thousands of years ago. leaving not a record, not a trace.
But each human generation takes over the fruits of the
civilization of all preceding generations, and iiands them
down with an increase to the succeeding age. This is true
not merely of material production but also of art, science,
religion, law, and custom. Continuity of work thus forms
one of the essential conditions and first postulates of hu-
man existence, and there is no reason fo; giving it special
treatment in the theory of the econnmic employment of
labour, particulariy since it offers for the latter no new
instructive points of view.

Sundry text-books recognise stili a third t\ pe of union
of labour, which is said to arise "when several do

•-■ jj

-■' ^i

r ^

I*'

»50 UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

similar work concurrently, and by virtue of union ob-
tain a greater result than would be possible to them work-
ing inaividually." Heinrich Rau, who incidenta'ly men-
tions this case,* instances temporary companies of forest
wood-cutters, of raftsmen, and of reapers. In reality he
here singles out a procedure that is not division of labour,
although an increased productivity in the labour of the
individual results from the simultaneous cooperation of
several. This case then, like the one of the varied activity
of the Indian mentioned by List, caimot be summarily
dismissed as already embraced under the conception of
division of labour and as ill-adapted to special scientific
treatment.

Without doubt the real reason for the formation of the
concept union of labour and for its long retention in the
literature of the science is the vague feeling that there
must be an economic principle forming the counterpart rf
division of labour. Cooperation it cannot be, for that is
identical with certain 'irms of division of labour,^ <^ its
" other side." What then is this principle?

All division of labour is an accommodation of work to
limited human capacity. It takes place when a qualitative

*Grundsatce der I'olksxvxrthschaftslehrc, I. § ii6 (a). Rau appeals to
Gioja, who had studied the matter somewhat in his Nuovo prospeUo
ddle scienze economiche, I, 87 ff. Moreover Hermann, Staatstv. Untcr-
suchungcit, new edition, p. 217, had also given it some attention. He
designates it as " the simplest combination of labour." Similarly by
the French who distinguish co-operation simple and co-operation cottpkxe,
and make the latter identical with division of labour. Comp. Cauwes,
Cours d'Econ. pal, I, S 225.

" For example, subdivision ef labour and division of production, but
not division of trade. If various specialists take the place of a general
practitioner no cooperation takes place amongst them either in com-
mercial dealings or in any other way similar to that amongst the
different workers in a factory.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. 2^1

\^■iti

jil; vvould in part lie fal-

ndciiii'; of strength would

. >r,l(i not, perhaps, form the

;uioi! The labourer, even

lil 'e driven to help himself

, tiic first a second activity to

• r'-. y suitably call this union

disproportion exists between the work to be done and the
individual's capability."

But there may aiso be a quantitative disproportion be-
tween the two factors in two ways: (i) the quantity of
work to be done may be less than the available labour-
power, and it may jb-. (2) be more than equal to the
strength of a sinji, i-idividual.

In the arst cp tl v ;)'' sic: 1 to e would not be com-
pletely utilized \i 1 iu '.-oo-'.er .1,1. d himself to this one
line of work. H- c <,>:
low, and ai^ ni. ju<. / n- >ir.r.
result. Th'^' •, rl< <' - nu
basis for a I'l— lUj,
in his own pri> ate ii
by combining or t re-
fill out his leisure lin
or combination of labour }-

In the second case the individual by himself cannot pos-
sibly perform the task, or can do so only with a dispropor-
tionate expenditure of time and energy. A single work-
man, for instance, might, if necessity demanded, succeed in
cutting the trunk of a large tree into boards with a hand-
saw-; but with what t. uble and needless expenditure of
time! If two rien and a whip-saw are called into service,
however, the work goes forward not only absolutely but
relatively better. Th^ picture of the s w-pit then arises,
which at times can still be seen in rural i nber-yards. The
union of the workers organizes the lauour of each indi-
vidual more productively. If we are to avoid the most
lamentable confusions we must no longer designate this
procedure union of labour," but at most union of labour-

"Comp. following chapter.

" Arbeiisvereinigun^.

"To distinguish from the first case we would then have to saj

W '

15 ll
11 If

25a UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

ers. More accurate does it seem, especially in view of the
varieties of this process to be mentioned later, to employ
the expression labour in common}* In this phrase the
personal element, which here comes into prominence, is
more clearly expressed.

Union of labour is then tlie union of different classes of
work in one person; labour in common is the concurrent em-
ployment of several zcorkers in the accomplishment of one task.
In union of labour the same producer turns out various
products or combines production with trading or with
personal service; in labour in common various labourers
produce in common the like product. In the one case the
uniting point is in the subject of the work, the labourer, in
the other the community lies in the object of the labour.

The two processes are independent of each other and of
division ot labour. They, of course, play their chief
role during primitive stages of development and in the
lower strata of economically organized society. Two
great stages in the economic life of nations might indeed
be (liitinguished: a lower one. in which the principle of
union of labour and labour in common comes preeminently
into play; and a higher one. with the principle of division
of labotir predominant. In the same way two sphe-es ot
social existence may be distinguished in contemporary
economic life: one with pronounced division of labour, the
other with union of labour and labour in common.

In a separate consideration of each of these two phe-
nomena \vc had better begin with union of hihoiir. It appears
early in the history of peoples. It is universally met with
directly the stage of individual search for food is passed.

"subjective" (personal) uninn of labour; while the first case would be
desiKnatcfl as ■ (.l.iective " (material) uiiioti of labour.
'♦ Arbciltgctncinichaft.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. 253

and when economic motives, be they even of the crudest
kind, become discernible in men's transactions. For at
that point we everywhere notice the sharp separation of
two distinct spheres of production, each of which again
contains many subdepartments. One embraces men's
work, the other women's work." Essentially the same
arrangement, with unimportant variations in detail, is
found among all more advanced primitive peoples, and we
cannot deny that there is a certain instinctive system about
it. Of a division of labour between man and wife one can-
not seriously speak, for from all we know none of the occu-
pations assigned to either of the two sexes has ever been
carried on by the other.

It must be assumed that this condition of things de-
veloped quite naturally. In at., case the statement is false
that the stronger man " imposed " ui)on the woman the
tasks falling to him. Much rather is it correct to say that
each sex 1 s of its own impulse — it might perhaps be said
under the stress of environment — created 1 the course of
time its own department of production, developed the
technical details connected with it, collected the experi-
ences, and transmitted them to the following generation of
the same sex. Thus these two combinations of tasks,
through contiinicd hereditary transmission within the
same sex, Iiave almost been evoived into sexual character-
istics or functions. The hereditary ta. k of the woman, in
which the man was not instructed, formed a species of
natural equipment that made her valued by the man and
gave her a i)rice. Though it is true that from this
grew the conception of the wife as propyl ty of the husband,
it is none the less true that the important part played by
the wife in production has been not the least important

A (k'tailcd (liscii^iion of tlu-so, pp. .V» ff., 55.

254 UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

factor in the gradual elevation of the rude primaeval union
of the sexes to a community of life in which the woman
has finally raised herself to equality of rights with the hus-
band.

The economic importance of the union of various tasks
in the hands of each sex is essentially of an educational and
disciplinary nature. It compelled as it were of itself, at
least on the part of the wife, attention to the elements of
time at seed-time and at harvest, and finally to a di-
vision of time, very crude though it was, for the single day.
It is a matter of particular moment in this connection that
the preparaiion of grain by means of the primitive rubbing-
stone, which is the method employed by most primitive
peoples down to :lie present day, makes exceedingly heavy
demands upon the operator's time, so that the mere main-
tenance of three or four persons required the labuur of one
woman.'" 1 1 - ih one of the most important supports of
polygamy among these peoi)lcs, and renders it tolerable
for the wife. I''or a new spouse brought home Ijy the hus-
band always appears to the other wives as a helper to
lighten their lot. It is thus comprehen.sible that the posses-
.'ion of numerous wives nnist serve as an indication of
wealth. We may even assert that the careful employment
of time, with which systematic economic action first be-
gins, finds its starting-point in the union of labour on the
part of the women.

Moreover, when in the course of subsctiuent develop-
ment considerable shiftings took place in the boundaries
(if the spiieres of work of both sexes, forcing the wife ever
more towards the side of supervising consumption within
the household and placing almost all the production in
the hands of the husband, the principle of division of

"Comp Dr \V. Junkir's Travels in Africa, II, pp. 170, 171, and my
Arbeit u. Hhylhmm. pp. jS, (». 6l.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

255

labour made itself felt almost solely in man's sphere of
work, while to the wife's household management remained
the most varied duties of preparing, disposing, cleaning,
and repairing. The course of these latter really deter-
mines the division of time in our daily life.

To be sure, union of labour has not on that account dis-
appeared completely from the economic world. Agricul-
ture still embraces occupations varying greatly from one
another; everywhere in civilized lands its development has
been intimately connected with cattle-raising, while sub-
sidiary industries are often included within its sphere.
It is indeed one of the most important tasks of the farm-
director so to arrange matters that the working powers of
man and beast can he turned to full account in as many
ways and in as regular a manner as possible. In the change
of activity following the seasons of the year there is, even
in large agricultural undertakings, but little room for sub-
division of work and specialization; different kinds of oc-
cupations must always be united in one person, and among
the women workers a clear division into farm hands and
household servants is not feasible.

Similar considerations hold for forestry, in which keen
practical men condemn the system still common in many
places of having specialized labour for each season.'^ and
demand the employment throughout the whole year of a
permanent staff of all-round workmen. Such a require-
ment can be met only on the basis of union of labour.

In industry handicraft has frotn time itnmemorial been
founded on union of labour. It was not the highest pro-
ductivity that determined the mutual delimitation of the
departments of pro<luction. but regard for the daily bread
which each master was to find in his craft. The number-

" Comp. Fr. Jentsch, Die Arbeiten'erhiilt. in d. Forstwirth. d. Staats
(Berlin. i88j).

256 UNION OF L/IBOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

less disputes between different guilds as to the limits of
their trade which fill the pages of industrial history during
the last few centuries continually raised discussions on the
practicableness of this or that combination. In the age
of industrial freedom handicraft has also advanced in the
large cities in the direction of specialization; in the smaller
towns the old combinations have been retained, and m
countrv parts new ones are still arising each year. The ma-
son is here often plasterer, painter, and paper-hanger as
well, while in winter he serves for wage as butcher; the
smith is at the same time locksmith and chief engineer of
the threshmg-machinc; paper-hanging is cared for now by
the saddler, now by the painter, now by the bookbinder.
In the towns the greatest variety of combinations are
made by the new occupations. Gas-fitting and plumbhig
are undertaken now by the locksmith, now by the tinsmith,
and electric services are installed in houses by craftsmen of
most diverse types. Everywhere the craftsman appears
willing to ad<l to his workshop a small counter trade,
especially with wares of his own <lepartment of labour no
longer produced by hand-work, but often with various
other articles as well. Justus Moser long since remarked
the sound economic idea realized in this union: and would
willinglv have seen all petty retailing transferred to hand-
workers and their wives.' ^ If we a.ld t« this the various
alliances that handicraft makes with services of a personal
character, especially minor civil offices, and in the country
as a regular thing with agriculture, we are rea<li1y con-
vinced that the union of labour still commands a very ex-
tended field.'" Men of " modern mind " may deplore the

" Patrwitsche I'hintastcn. Vo!, II. No. XXXVIl.

'"( ,.j.t(.ii> m.-itirial on the c.niilMiKHions of tra.les and si-oundary
ocnuMiions of haiuKsorkcr^ .» ofTcritl in I nlcrsurhungni ubcr d. La^e
d. Ua,idiitrhs i« IhuUckUnd. edited by r.iy;elf. in Schrif'.en 0. Verc.ns

fe«S'<

WF!PPiWPP

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. 2$^

great number of such " backward trades " ; pessimists may
see in them a sign of the " distress in handicraft " ; fanatics
on production may regret that under such ramditions the
highest possible measure of productivity is not reaHzed in
every branch of industry. But an unprejudiced judgment,
based upon an investigation of the facts, will rind that in
the union of labour the middle class of small independent
workmen has its firmest footing; it will find too that in
the majority of cases the due observance of sound business
principles has not been wanting. For as a rule it is really
a question of making use of time that is not taken up by
the chief occupation, and of giving employment to capabil-
ities that would otherwise lie dormant.

Union of labour is relatively still more common in house
industrx where the women employed at the same time at-
tend to their doincstic duties, and where the men often
follow agriculture or some other business as primary occu-
pation. Indeed the origin of many commission industries
rests finally upon the consideration that persons not fully
occupied could profitably combine them with their other
business.

Trading primarily is always union of labour, since in the
earlier stages of its development it regularly includes
transportation. Caravan trade is an example. In modern
commercial life division of labour li.is strongly asserted it-
self in wholesale trade, and also in tlie retail trade of large
cities. But along with these are numerous businesses,
such as hardware and house-furnishing shops, which bring
together the most varied articles. In the wholesale ware-
houses and export businesses, in the sixpenny bazaars and
cash stores this devclojiment has reached its highest point.
These ^iant undertakings of course lie beyond the range

f. Socialp.ilitik. Vols LXIULXX, especially in the descriptions of in-
dustries in small towns and country districts.

i^ii

258 UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

of our Study, since with them the work is generally ar-
ranged in strict accordance with the principle of division
of labour. On the other hand, the numerous small retail
businesses carried on in suburban places, in small towns,
and in the country usually as the sole occupation of one
person lie within its survey, because here the owner
deals in every possible article that will bring in money.
Indeed one would have to write a detailed account of the
sale shops to explain all that is to be found gathered to-
gether there. Certain wares are specially prized for filling
out the stock, such as canes, cigar-holders, combs, brushes,
and straw hats; and it is often difficult to learn how they
have come into the company they keep. Many tradesmen
of such a class at the same time carry on commission busi-
nesses, insurance and news agencies, sell lottery and
theatre tickets, receive advertisements and savings-bank
deposits, and the like.

In the great world of commerce there are various spe-
cialized occupations that can hardly be carried on with
profit by themselves, and therefore are always followed in
conjunction with another pursuit. What village could
support a special precentor, village clerk, or sexton; what
rural loan association maintain a treasurer; what insurance
company pay its army of sub-agents sufficient for their
support? Without the possibility of union of labour these
and many other economic functions would simply have to
remain unperformed.

The consideration determining the combination in each
case could only be gleaned from a minute statistical and
descriptive investigation. In most cases the influence
that decides the person devoting himself to different
kinds of work is the full employment of his time and the
gaining of a full livelihood. For the method of combina-
tion, however, many other considerations come into play.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

259

Now it is to take advantage of a clientele already existing,
now to utilize a particular talent or skill possessed by the
workman for a further object. The economic principle
will in these cases in one way or another always come into
play.

The actual extent of union of labour in national economy
is not easy to determine. Statistics have sought to answer
the need by creating the rather unsatisfactory category of
the auxiliary occupations; but it is easy to see that this
designation does not exhaust the total number of cases
that come here into question; it gives at most only those
in which the auxiliary occupation ranks in some degree as
an independent vocation. A union of occupations might be
spoken of in this case.-" Yet some conception of the im-
mense economic importance of the union of labour may be
gained when we learn from the results of the last German
industrial census that on June 14, 1895, there were almost
five million persons in the German Empire who had some
secondary occupation, and that agriculture alone was an
auxiliary pursuit for 3,648,237. Of 3.999,023 proprietors
and managers in some branch of agriculture, industry, or
trade, 36.9 per cent. (1,475.023) had an auxiliary occupa-
tion, while 2,928,530 carried on these branches as auxiliary
work.

The following table gives a survey of the whole field of
industrial activity covered by that census. In it those car-
rying on independent and dependent work are grouped
together.

Ffdm this table we find that out of every 100 persons
pursuing their chief occupation in one of the classes indi-

On the occurrence of combined occupation"; in town life in the
Middle Apes there are some details in my Bcfiilkerung von Frankfurt,
I. pp. Jj2ff., 41; ff.

a6o UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

DIVISIONS OF THE INDUSTRIAL POPULATION OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE
ACCORDING TO CHIEF AND AUXILIMIY OCCUPATIONS ON 14TH
OF JUNE, 1895.

CUuof
Occupation.

No. of Per-
lont finding
tbeir Chief
Occupation
in Clan
indicated.

No. of Pettoni having

a
Secondary
Occupa-
tion.

A. Agriculture,
forestry, stock-
raising, fishing.

B. Mining and in
dustries

C. Trade and com
meice

D. Domestic ser-
vice, hired labour
of various kinds.

E. Public service,
liberal profes-
sions

8,292,692
8,281,220
a.338.S»i

432.491

i,4as.96i

no
Sccondaty
Occupation,

No. of

fersont

making

tbeir

Occupation

indicated

in Col. t

Secondary.

ToUl No.

in the
Variout
Diviaiont.

Total.

Of these were :

Males

Females

20,770.875

15,506,482
5.264,393

1,049.542

1,491.865

384.105

31.333
115,266

3,072,111

2,816,655
255.456

7.243.150
6,789.355
1,954,406

401,158

1,310,695

17,698,764

12,689,827
5.008,937

3,648,237
619,386

569.877

16.765

95.436
4,949,701

11,940,929
8,908,606
a,908,388

449.256

1.521,397

25,720,576

3.203.375
1.746,326

18,709,857
7,010,719

cated, whether as proprietor or workman in any capacity,
a second or third (auxiliary) occupation was added—

In agriculture, forestry, stock-raising, fishing, by 12.6 persons

In mining and industry by |°®

In trade and co.nmcrce by ,'■".' 'C Z.

In domestic service and hired labour of various kinds by. 72 ^

In public service and liberal professions by 8.1

Of the total number of persons following an occupation
(either chief or auxiliary) in one of the said classes, a
secondary pursuit from the same class was chosen—

In agriculture, forestry, stock-raising, fishing, by 30.6%

In mining atrl industry by ig't'fc

In trade and )mmerre by ,' ■" a"u •. -%

In domestic > -vke and hired labour of -.anous kinds by 3-/^

In public service and liberal professions by °-'7°

MlilHH

lanfti.V..4H

"TTV'-iEiaB'EW.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. a6i

Even from the returns of occupations, which unfortu-
nately are not sufificiently detailed for this purpose, it is
clear that many occupations are carried on chiefly in con-
junction with other pursuits. For exam^ile, in the table
next presented the total number of persons following the
vocation are contrasted, by percentages, with those fol-
lowing it either as principal or subsidiary, along with an-
other occupation.^^

Stock-raising 83.4%

Inland fishing 69.370

Turf cutting and preparing 93-9%

Stone cutting and carving 57-2%

Marble, stone, and slate quarrying and the manufacture of rough

wares from these materials 78.6%

Manufacture of fine stone wares 50-2%

Brick and clay-pipe making 86.9%

Butchering S8.i%

Insurance 68.7%

Personal transport and post 53-2%

Freight delivery 75-7%

Pottery 57-5%

Manufacture of earthenware and glass toys 56.0%

Nail-manufacture 67 o7o

Blacksmithing 7f>.^%

Wagon-making 74-8%

Flaying 85.9^0

Charcoal-burning 81.2%

Flour-milling 9'-6%

Baking 61.6%

Turning 52.7%

Advertisement and labour-agency work 54-4%

Inn-keeping and refreshments 64.4%

These figures naturally are far from giving a true picture
of the results of combined and divided labour in the oc-
cupation classes indicated. It is at once apparent that in a
statistical return on extractive production a country shoe-
maker who devotes a quarter of his time to land-cultivation

" Columns 6 and 8 of Reichistatiitxk, Tab. I.

262

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

has necessarily the other three-quarters of his time left
out of account. This, however, is not the point; it is
rather the question of the number of human beings to
whom a combination of occupations assures more abun-
dant sustenance and also in most cases a more satisfying
existence, both as regards health and morals, than a one-
sided employment in full agreement with the principle of
division of labour. In the German Empire this num-
ber is large beyond expectation, amounting almost to one-
third of all persons engaged in earning their living.

The principle of union of labour, despite the wealth of
forms in which it appears, is quite simple: how shall surplus
strength be productively employed? The principle of
labour in common cannot be reduced to such a smooth for-
mula. In general, its aim is so to supplement the insuffi-
cient strength of the individual that the task presented can
be accomplished. But the individual workman's insuffi-
ciency of strength may again have different causes. It
may be based on a definite mental disposition that pre-
vents the workman labouring continuously by himself; it
may rest on lack of bodily strength; or, finally, it may re-
sult from technical conditions rendering it impossible
for one piece of work to be performed unless accompanied
by a second of a different character. Each of these three
cases produces a distinct kind of labour in common. The
first may he called companionship or fraternal labour, the
second, labour aggregation, and the third, joint labour. We
will consider them in order.

I. Companionship or fraternal labour^- occurs when sev-
eral workers come together and labour without the indi-
vidual 1 ecoming in the progress of his task in any way

" Gesi u-hiflsiirli,:! nr j,'.mt/(1I,'(' .-Irbeil.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

263

dependent upon the others. Each thus labours for himself
independently and adopts any tempo he pleases. The sole
aim in union is to have the company of fellow-workmen, to
be able to talk, joke and sing with them, and to avoid soli-
tary work alone with one's thoughts.

The student whose work thrives best in undisturbed soli-
tude will on hearing this probably shrug his sympathetic
shoulders in pitying contempt, and find the subject hardly
worth serious consideration. But anyone who has ever
observed a group of village women braking flax, or doing
their washing at the brookside, or watched a troop of
Saxon field-workers hoeing turnips, or a line of reapers at
work, or listened to the singing of a group of house-paint-
ers, or of women at work in an Italian vineyard, will be of
a different opinion. The lower the stage of a man's cul-
ture the more difficult is it for him to stick to continuous
and regular labour, if he is to be left by himself.

But the best proof of the importance of fraternal labour
lies in its having found some sort of organization in all
parts of the earth. We may call to mind the public work-
ing-places and common-houses of the savages,^^ the com-
mon workrooms of the house-workers in Russia, the spin-
ning-rooms of our peasant girls which the bureaucracy of
the eighteenth century so fatuously opposed, but which
live on in many villages to the present day in the evening
gatherings for work in common. Custom everywhere

"K. V. d. Steinen, Unter d. Naturvdlk. Brasil. p. 374. Erman in
Ztschr. f. Ethnol., II, p. ,v8 (on the Coljusches in Sitka). Jacobsen.
Reise in d. InsclwcU d. Banda-Meeres. p. 213. Finsch. Samoafahrten. p. 357.
Burton, as above, pp. 54. 2<i7, 461. Nachtigal. Sahara u. Sudan. II.
p. 624; III. pp. 146, 244. Count Schweinitz, Durch Ostafrika im Krieg
u. Frieden, p. 171. Stanley. Through the Dark Continent, II. p. 82, and
How I found Livingstone, pp. 546 flf. Semon, In the Australian Bush,
p. 324. Comp. also Arbal u. Rhythmus, pp. 38, 39. 71 ; and above,
P 37.

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('16) *S2 - 0300 - PhoM

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a64 UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

joins to these gatherings dancing, feasting or other
practice tending to make the work more agreeable. A
few instances will serve to show the wide extent of such
institutions.

In the Fiji Islands " several women always unite in the
preparation of tapa; frequently all the women of the place
sit together," and in net-fishing " women always work to-
gether in small groups; the work is at the same time a
recreation, and there is often a merry time in the cooling
bath." '* Among many negro tribes in Africa women can
be seen at public work-places pounding or grinding corn
in common. A more circumstantial report is given by a
missionary as to the North American Indians: *" " The till-
ing of the ground, getting of the fire-wood, and pounding
of com in mortars is frequently done by female parties,
much in the manner of . . . husking, quilting, and other
frolics. . . . The labour is thus quickly and easily per-
formed; when it is over, and sometimes in intervals, they
sit down together to enjoy themselves by feasting on some
good victuals prepared for them by the person or family
for whom they work, and which the man has taken care
to provide beforehand from the woods; for this is consid-
ered a principal part of the business, as there are generally
more or I'^^s of the females assembled who have not, per-
haps, for a long time tasted a morsel of meat, being either
widows or orphans, or otherwise in straitened circum-
stances. Even the chat which passes during their joint
IaI>our is highly diverting to them, and .so they seek to be
employed in this way as long as they can l)y going round
to all the villagers who have ground to till."

The same linking of work and pleasure is found in the

"A. Biisslcr, Sudste-Ptldcr. pp 224-6

** HeckfWflder, as above, p. 156. Similar report from South Amer-
ica in Elu<nreich, Beitriigr ~ I'Hlkcrkund. IWasiL. p. .'S.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. 265

lie social houses that are met with almost universally
among primitive peoples. Divided regularly according to
the sexes, they are most frequently built for unmarried
men and girls. They serve not merely as places of resort
for common tasks, but often as sleeping places as well, and
always as places for dancing and play. There singing and
joking and chatting go on ; the fruitless efforts of the awk-
ward are ridiculed and the successful work of the diligent
and skilful applauded.

A distant parallel to this institution has been retained
among ourselves almost down to the present in the spin-
ning-rooms of peasant girls.'** These rooms had in every
part of Germany their well-defined though unwritten rules

** But with similar conditions these are met with everywhere. Henry
Savage Landor (In the ForbiddeH Land, an Account of a Journey in Tibet,
I, pp. 109 flF.) found them even in the southern Himalayas among
the Shokas, where girls and young men come together at night in
particular meeting-places (Rambangs), for the sake of better acquaint-
ance, prior to entering into matrimony. " Each village possesses one
or more institutions of this kind, and they are indiscriminately patron-
ized by all well-to-do people, who recognise the institution as a sound
basis nn which marriage can be arranged. The Rambang houses are
either in the village itself, or half-way between one village and the
next, the young women of one village thus entering into amicable
relations with the young men of the other and vice versa. I visited
many of these in company with Shokas, and found them very inter-
esting. Round a big fire in the centre of the room men and women
sat in couples, spinning wool and chattinp merrily, for everything ap-
peared decorous and cheerful. With the small hours of the morning,
they seemed to become more sentimental, and began singing songs
without instrumental accompaniment, the rise and fall of the voices
sounding weird and haunting to a degree. . . Smoking was general,
each couple sharing the same pipe. . . . Signs of sleepiness became
evident as morning came, and soon tliey all retired in couples, and
went to sleep in their clothes on a soft layer of straw and grass. . . .
At these gatherings every Shoka girl regularly meets with young men:
and while she entertains the idea of selecting among them a suitable
partner for life, she also does a considerable quantity of work with her
spinning-wheel."

1 if

266 UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

and laws. " In Brunswick the spinning-rooms began with

the approach of winter, when the field-work was ended. In

many villages this occurred at Martinmas. They lasted

then till Lent, or at latest till Palm Sunday, when other

work had to be done. The evening gatherings were held

in rotation at the houses of the different members of the

particular weaving-circle. The membership of such a circle

was made up of four, or at most of eight girls, who were

fi lends or relatives of each other. The majority consisted

of servants, though the daughters of peasants also joined

in. The old folks spun by themselves. In the early part

of the evening the girls were alone; for not till later on,

about eight o'clock, did the male visitors, who by that time

had finished their work, put in an appearance and take

part in the company, at first with reserve, and then more

and more boldly. The institution has as its basis a

laudable diHgence on the part of the girls." " Generally

there was a fixed amount of work for the week reckoned in

yarn; anyone not doing it received a nickname. At times

a spinning contest was arranged, while a feeling of lively

emulation always prevailed.^* Indeed a species of labour

police was maintained over the individual members. In

the district of Nassau a moustache was painted with a piece

of charcoal on the spinne. who fell asleep; if she let the

thread break and slip from her a lad might take her distaff,

which she had to redeem with a kiss.^^

"R. Andrec, Braunsch-veig. I'olkskunde. pp. 168 ff, Comp. K. Frei-
herr v. LeoprcchtiriK, Aus d. Lcchraiii. pp. 201-2; Ztschr. d. Ver. f.
Volkskundf. III. pp. 2qi. 202. VIII, p. 366; and in detail Biickel. I'olks-
Ixedcr aus Oherhcsscn. pp. cxxiii flf.

" IntiTcstinK nnti s on competitive Ramcs in spinninj? in Ztschr d.
Ver. f. Volksk., VIII. pp. .'15, 216. Comp. Arbeit u. /?A.v//imi<,t. pp. 91 flf.

" .\monR the Wends in Lusatia on the l.Tt .'pinning nitjht before
Christmas the slow and lazy ones are brouelit to trial: Haupt and
Srhm.Tler, I'olkslicdrr d. Wnidcii in d. Oher- u. Xicdcr-I.nusit:. II. p. 220.
Similar instances of l.ibour supervision by coniraiKs are found in

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. 267

The spinning-room has fallen a sacrifice to the technical
revolutions of modem times; but all through the country
during long winter evenings the young girls still congre-
gate with their work in the house of a friend. This is also
the case with several house industries carried on in the coun-
try, for instance, with lace-making in the Erz mountains,
where this kind of gathering of working girls is still re-
ferred to as " go spinning." ^° This practice is full^ devel-
oped in the system of house industry in Russia.'^ Here
male and female Kustaris frequently work together outside
their homes. Large companies, often composed wholly of
house-workers of the one village engaged in a similar
trade, gather together in a particuL. workroom, which is
either a large room rented in a peasant's house or a shop
erected for the purpose. Such a common workroom is still
most frequently termed " spinning-room" {Szvetjolka), and
often " factory." It is to be found, for instance, in do-
mestic cotton-weaving, cloth-making, silk-spooling, and
the making of shoes and toys. In women's work only
young girls, as a rule, attend, while the married women
work at home.

" According to the statements of the oldest people, cot-
ton-weaving was at first carried on exclusively in the swet-
jolka, because the technical handling of the loom could be
learned more quickly and easily under the constant super-
vision of one skilled in weaving. The living-room of the
house served at first as swetjolka, but later on a swetjolka
separate from the house was built. To-day the young peo-
ple and the diligent weavers still prefer to work in the

other classes of peasant working groups. Conip. Hormann, D. TiroUr
Baucrnjahr (Innsbruck, iSqq). pp. 50. 5-2, 66, 70, 71, 75, I2g.

"Arbeit u. Rhylhmus. pp. 99, 100.

" Details in Stellmachcr, Ilin Beitrag a. Darstelluite d. Hausindustrit
in Russhtid. pp. 106 ff. M. GorbunoflF. C'bcr russischr Spitscnindustrit
(Vienna, 1886). pp. J,^ ff.

268 UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

swetjolka rather than at home; the former because it is
more sociable, the others because they can work more
regularly and to greater advantage. At home the weaver
is often called away to domestic affairs; the Uving-
room there is not so spacious and bright, the air not so
pure, since calves and lambs are not infrequently co-
dwellers with the folks; in the swetjolka, also, the cotton,
which at home is very liable to become moist and mouldy,
can be better preserved."

Thus fraternal labour accords very well with the eco-
nomic principle, even though it originates primarily in the
social instinct. In the company of others people work with
greater persistence than they would alone, and in general
because of the rivalry, also better. Work becomes pleas-
ure, and the final result is an advance in production.

2. By labour aggregation^^ we mean the engaging of
several workmen of similar capacity in the performance of
a united task, such as loading a heavy burden, shifting a
beam, mowing a meadow, beating for the hunt. In order
to make the employment of a plurality of workers profit-
able, the work to be done need not be of itself too heavy
for the strength of one person; it is only necessary that it
cannot be done by such an one in a reasonable time. La-
bour aggregation is of special importance for seasonal
work or for work that is dependent upon the weather.
Social conditions can also play a part in expediting certain
tasks.

These circumstances have early led to a species of social
organization of aggregated labour, founded on the duty
recognised the world over of mutual assistance among
neighbours. We may use the expression current among
the south Slavs and call it bidden labour.^' Whenever any-

** Arbeitskiiufutig.
•* Bttlarbeit.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

269

one has work to be done for which his own household is
not adequate, the assistance of the neighbours is sought.
They give it at the time without further reward than their
entertainment, which the head of the house offers in the
accustomed way, solely in the expectation that when need
arises they, too, will be aided by their neighbours. The
work is carried out in sprightly competition amid jokes
and song, and at night there is often added a dance or like
merry-making.^^

This is a world-wide practice. Traces of it can even be
found among the South Sea Islanders. In New Pomer-
ania, for example, it is the custom for several families to
cooperate in plaiting the fishing-baskets and large fishing-
nets. " Before the basket receives its first dip in the water
a meal in common is g^ven, in which all who were engaged
in the making participate." '*

In Djailolo (Halamahera) when a piece of land belong-
ing to a local community is to be cleared, ten to twenty
relatives are called together to assist in felling the trees,
their services being compensated later in other work. So
it is at the planting of paddy, and at the rice harvest.^'
" Whenever anyone wants to build a house he solicits some
of his relative? to help cut the building material while the
tide is out, he providing them the while with food. For
the roofing, which is done with sago leaves, more helpers
are invited. These then hold a feast, at which the chiefs
are generally present." ^^

" Numerous instances of this custom in Chapter V of my Arbeit u.
Rhythmus.

•* Parkinson, Im Bismarck-Archipel, p. 115.

"Riedel, in Ztschr. f. Ethnol., XVII (1885), pp. 7ofI. Similarly in
New Guinea, Finsch, Samoafahrten, pp. 56 ff. Among the Bagobos in
South Mindanao: SchadenberR in Ztschr. f. Ethnol., XVII, pp. 19 ff.

•* Riedel, as above, p. 61. Kubary, Ethnogr. Beilrdge z. Kenntnis d.
Karolinen-Archipels, p. 264. C. Hose, The Natives of Borneo, in Journ,
of Anthrop. Inst., XXIII (1894). pp. 161, 162.

270 UNION OF LMBOUR y4ND LABOUR IN COMMON.

Among the Madis or Morus in Central Africa each culti-
vates his own land; if it is of considerable extent, and re-
quires more hands than his family can furnish, he calls his
friends and neighbours to his assistance. On such occa-
sions payment is neither given nor expected, but all are
ready to render such help and to receive it." This cus-
tom appears to be prevalent throughout Africa; the pos-
sessor of the land has, as a rule, to supply generous enter-
tainment to the whole company.^s Among the Gallas the
inhabitants of a village assemble on the threshing-place to
thresh the panicles of the durra and to root up the
corn amid the singing of melodious songs adapted to
the strokes in threshing.3» Bidden labour is also common
in building a house.*" Among the Hovas of Madagascar
when the grave of an important man is to be built, not the
relatives and members of his tribe alone assist in trans-
porting the heavy rocks, but all the inhabitants of the vil-
lage in which he lived. There is no money-payment for
such services; in its stead, however, great masses of pro-
visions must be supplied during the transport of the heavy
stones, which usually lasts many days, often for long inter-
mediate periods; and above all many oxen must be killed.
As the people are accustomed to help one another, no in-
considerable part of their time is spent in such services.
On the highways of the country one often meets great
processions of two to three hundred men, women and
slaves, who pull by starts on the strong ropes by which

"Robert Felkin in Proceedings of Roy. Society of Edin. 1883/4
p. 310.

" Endemann in Zt=, hr. f. Ethnol., VI. 1874, p. 27. Pogge in Wiss-
mann, ( -utcr deutsch. Plagge quer durch Afrika. p. 311. Nachtigal. Sahara
u. Sudan. III. p. 240. Post, Afr. Jurisprudens, II, p. 172.

•• Paulitschke, Ethnogr. Nordost-Afrikas. I, pp. 134, 217.

"Schurtz, Afr. Gmrrbe, p. 21.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

271

means the stone, placed on a rough boat, is drawn for-
ward.*^

The Georgians (Central Transcaucasia) resort to bidden
labour at the vintage, in sowing and harvesting maize and
wheat, in hewing and drawing wood from the forest. In
Servia it is customary at grass-mowing, maize-cutting,
plum harvest, the vintage, and also with spinning, weaving
and carpet-making; in many parts of Russia at the hay and
grain harvests, in hoeing turnips, felling timber, transport-
ing manure and in ploughing, as well as with the women
in spinning and even in scrubbing the house. In Germany
it remains quite general in the country in house-building
and locally in minor agncultural tasks (flax-pulling, bean-
cutting, sheep-washing). It is an expedient of independ-
ent household economy, as is readily seen, and recedes
more and more with the appearance and advance of the
entrepreneur system.

But in most cases where bidden labour was formerly
usual the large landowner will still engage a number
of labourers if he is not able to hurry along the work fast
enough with his machines. Labour aggregation becomes
particularly important for him in the early stages of a
process of production whose final stages can be more
cheaply completed when carried on concurrently. A
meadow could perhaps be mowed by one labourer in three
days. Yet where possible the owner will employ six or
more mowers who dispose of the work in a forenoon, be-
cause all the grass should lie dried uniformly and all the
hay drawn in at once. Frequent drawings would increase
the costs of production.

Even where there are no such reasons the farmer
whose fields are intermixed with those of others will always

" Sibree, Madagaskar, pp. 255, 236.

872 UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

prefer to undertake the fields in succession with all his help
rather than divide it among the different fields. The work
goes forward better and more briskly in company than in
solitude, for no one will lag behind the others; moreover,
of itself the rapid progress of the work 'Enlivens the work-
ers, while a piece of work in which no progress can be
recognised, and the end is not in sight, always disheartens.
Thus the six mowers in the instance just given will, with
average diligence, finish th^ meadow not in one-sixth of
the time that the single mower with the same diligence
would require, but in a shorter time. Moreover with large
undertakings in which the proprietor does not work along
with the others, it has further to be considered that with
dispersion of the workers the costs of supervision per unit
of acre increase.*^

Labour aggregation belongs almost exclusively to the
class of work requiring little skill, and which can be exe-
cuted with simple manual implements, or even without
any tools whatever. It is thus found in its widest extension

*• Even in the Grundsdtse d. rationetten Landwirthschaft (4th edition,
Berlin, 1847), I, pp. 112 ff., of A. Thaer we find the following rules:
" Large tasks are never to be undertaken many at a time, especially in
places at a considerable distance. As far as possible they must be
finished in succession, and in every case with all possible energy,
partly on account of the superintendence, partly because a certain
rivalry can be awakened among the workers if many of them are un-
der supervision together. On the other hand, if the task is extensive
and only a few of them are set to work, they become almost fright-
ened at its extent and its slow progress and even lose courage, and
believe that, because of its magnitude, t leir absence will not be no-
ticed. In such extensive tasks one man or one team too many is
always better than one too few. In smaller tasks, on the contrary,
care must be taken not to employ more than are necessary. The men
easily get in each other's way, depend upon one another, readily be-
lieve that their work has been thought heavier than it really is."
Similarly, H. Settegast, Die LandwirihsclMft u. ihr Bctrieb, I, p. 313;
III, p. 138.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. 2 75

in epochs of undeveloped technique,*' declining as the im-
plements of labour are improved. Yet a considerable
sphere still remains to it. The grandest instance of labour
aggregation is at all times presented by the standing
armies.

When a large number of persons labour together two
kinds of labour aggregation are possible. In the first the
individual workmen remain independent of one another
during the moments their strength is called into play, and
work together only for the more speedy disposition of the
task. We will designate this first species simple aggrega-
tion of labour. Instances are presented in several masons
working on a new structure, a number of pavers on a road,
a group of diggers or snow-shovellers, a row of mowers
or turnip-hoers. An intermediate form is offered by a
band of African carriers marching one after the other in
single file, by beaters at a hunt, by several ploughers in a
field.

In the second case the activities of the different work-
men do not proceed independently of one another, but
either simultaneously or with regular alternations, that is,
they always proceed rhythmically We ^ '1 name this kind
of labour agglomeration concateiation iboiir, because it,
so to speak, links each one taking pan
neighbour through the succession ol ''
combining all by means of the tempo
makes it, as it were, an automatical!
All tasks falling under this head must. \
time, adopt a rhythmical course. The-
sure, that are completed with a sm

1 the work to his

movemeris, and

mity ( system,

kg virganism.

;e(l for some

-e some, to be

exertion of

"This was the case especially among the anc •
details on this have been gathered together w
pp. 109, 1 10.

itian' Some
Kh_ "US,

I; 1

If- 'I;

: '*

874 UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

Strength, such as several lifting a heavy weight by word of
command or pulling down the trunk of a tree with a rope.

The tasks of this class, which are performed rhythmic-
ally, can be sub-divided according as the powers of the in-
dividual workers are exerted simultaneously or alternately
into labours with coticurrent tempo and labours with alternate
tempo.**

Labours Zi'ith concurrent tempo are performed, for in-
stance, by the two lines of rowers in propelling a boat by
oars, by sailors in heaving an anchor, in hoisting sail, in
towing a boat against the stream, by carpenters, who, in
laying a foundation with a pile-driver, drive great posts
into the earth, by those drawing up barrels, and generally
by all groups of workmen who have to move a weight by
pulling together on a rope, by the two, four, six, or eight
people carrying a hand-barrow or a sedan-chair, and by
.soldiers on the march. Very frequently the keeping of
tune during the work is assisted by simple counting, by a
chorus among the workers, or by the sound of a musical
instrument, especially of the drum.

Examples of workmen labouring with alternate tempo
are: three stone-setters hammering in time the pavement
stones with their paving-beetles; three or four threshers
on the barn floor, two smiths hammering, two woodmen in
the saw-pit or chopping a tree, two maids blueing linen or
beating carpets.

In tasks to be performed with concurrent tempo the
problem is to accomplish by combination a task far surpass-
ing the strength of one person, with the smallest number of
labourers possible, so that all taking part in the work

i V

** More in detail in my paper already frequently mentioned, Arbeit u.
Rhythmus. to which reference may once for all be made for the follow-
ing paragraphs as well.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. 275

shall be led to apply the utmost amount of energy at the
same moment.

In tasks with alternate tempo we meet as a rule with
labours that in themselves could be performed by a single
individual. Generally they are fatiguing tasks in which
the various motions, such as raising and lowering the arms
in striking with the threshing-flail, require more or less
time. The individual worker here is always tempted to
allow himself a brief pause for rest after each stroke or
thrust, and thus loses the rhythm of the movements. The
strokes or blows then succeed one another with unequal
force and at irregular intervals, whereby the work is much
more tiring in its results. If now a second or third work-
man be added, the motions of each individual will regulate
themselves by the rhythnnc sound that the instruments
give forth in striking the material worked upon. A quicker
tempo is realized, which can be maintained with little diffi-
culty. Each workman remains indeed independent; but
he must adapt his movements to those of his comrades.
The import of the matter is thus not that the magnitude
of the task demands a doubling or tripling of forces, but
that a single person working alone cannot maintain a
definite rhythmical motion.

To be sure, the sole consequence of calling in a second
or third workman one would imagine to be the doubling
or tripHng of the eflfect of one workman's expenditure, yet
this kind of labour concatenation results in a heightened
production, inasmuch as it regulates equably for each the
expenditure of force and the pauses for rest. The single
workman lets his hands fall when he grows tired, or at
least lengthens the tempo of his movements. Quick lempo
in work enlivens; the men working in common are stimu-
lated to rivalry; none will fall behind the other in strength
and endurance.

276

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

i ;
i i

This pressure upon the weaker workman to equal the
stronger becomes prominent in some tasks with a some-
what free rhythm in which the concatenation is realized by
grouping the workmen in rows and making the progress
of the work of the one row dependent upon the activity of
the other. In a line of mowers in a meadow each man
must perform his task uniformly with the rest if he is not
to retard the man following him or run the risk of being
struck with his scythe. In a line of labourers handing or
tossing each other the bricks for building, each one in a
se' 'cs must receive with equal speed if he does not want to
bring the whole work to a standstill.

This mutual accommodation of workmen to each other,
which is peculiar to all kinds of labour concatenation, thus
becomes a disciplinary element of the greatest importance,
especially for unskilled work, such as preponderated at
primitive stages of economic and technical development.
1 1 can, indeed, be instituted also as a means of discipline
to accelerate the work in those cases of labour aggregation
that in themselves do not require such a linking of move-
ments. For these there are artificial means of marking the
tempo (counting, singing, accompaniment of music), by
means of which simple labour aggregation is changed into
labour concatenation. This is the case with slave labour,
which, for obvious reasons, must always be carried on by
gangs, and with the public labours of primitive people.

In Camerun " the chief Ngilla, a well-known Moham-
medan slave-hunter, drew up his people in companies of
one hundred, and had his hoeing done to the beat of music
which followed. Behind these workmen marched the sow-
ers to the same beats, throwing see<ls from a sack which
was hung about them." *^ Tlie Basutos assemble every
" Meinecke, />. deutsch. KoUmien in Wort u. Pild. p 35, with illustra-

tion.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

277

year to cultivate the fields necessary for the personal sus-
tenance of their chief and his principal wife. " It is a re-
markable picture, "writes the missionar>- Casalis,*" " to see
on such an occasion hundreds of black men drawn up in
straight lines moving their hoes up and down in unison.
The air resounds with the songs by which the workers are
enlivened, and by which they can keep the proper time.
The chief makes a point to be present and sees to it that
several fat oxen are killed and made ready for the labour-
ers. All classes adopt the same plan to lighten and ex-
pedite their work; but among the common people it rests
on reciprocity."

The last example shows very clearly the transition from
bidden to manorial labour. We find the same thing in
the Soudan, where the erection and repairing of the village
walls in particular is carried out to the accompaniment of
music; and again among the Malays and the Chinese, who,
since early times, have directed the public manorial services
by the beat of the drum. In Europe also this means has
been essayed. In the Baltic provinces down to the end of
the eighteenth century landowners had their harvesting
done by the serfs to the rhythm of the bagpipes, and
traces of similar usage are at hand from other countries.
In our modem States we meet with this species of labour
concatenation brought about by artificial means only in the
measured cadence of military forces, where the aim is al-
ways to train a number of men to complete unanimity in
their exercise of strength, and where the breaking of the
tempo by a single person detracts from the general effect,

" Les Bassoutos, p. 171, with illustration. Another can be seen in
Gerland. Atlas d. Ethnographie (Leipzig, 1876). Tab. XXII, No. 25.
Similar reports by K. Endemann of the Sotho negroes in Ztschr. f.
Ethnol., VI. pp. 26 and yo: Paulitsclike. as above, I, p. 216; from the
Gallas by Harar; and on the Bagabos in Southern Mindanao by
Schadcnberg in the «amc publication. XV'II, pp. 19, 20.

278

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

H,i

il »

3. We come now to the last kind of labour in com-
mon, which we have designated joint labour*'' Certain
tasks in production require for their performance the
simultaneous cooperation of various classes of labour.
These latter supplement one another, and may be called
complementary phases of labour. Since they cannot
possibly be performed by one workman, several workmen
of various kinds must be combined in one group to form
an organized and indivisible whole. Such a group is some-
times called gang, company, band. (In Bavaria and Aus-
tria Pass; *^ in other parts, Rotte, Truppe, Bande.)

Instances from agriculture are quite numerous. Thus in
drawing in hay or corn, the load-builder, the pitcher, the
after-raker, in binding, the binder and the gatherer, form
natural groups; in mowing grain a second person is re-
quired to glean, in digging potatoes another gathers them
up. From the sphere of industry may be mentioned the
smith and the bellows-man, the rope-maker and the man
who turns the wheel, mason and hod-carrier, those placing
and those pounding in the paving-stones; from other
spheres: the cook and the turnspit; inn-keeper, waiter, and
house-boy; on the street-car, driver and conductor; in the
row-boat, oarsman and steersman, likewise hunters and
beaters, musician and dancer, blower and organist, drum-
mers and pipers, judge, bailiffs and clerk, doctor and at-
tendants, a theatrical troupe, an orchestra. The list could
be continued much further.

In all these cases it is not a question of processes that
have arisen through division of labour and then been re-
united, but of activities of quite different kinds, none of
which could ever exist by itself, and which, therefore, have

" Arbeilsvrrbitidung.

"Comp. Schmeller, Bayer. H'orterbuch, I. p.
words is not clear.

409. The origin ot the

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. 2 79

come conjointly into being. In their advancement these
occupations are dependent on one another, support one
another and only together from a coordinated whole. The
workers engaged must therefore accommodate themselves
to each other; the one must work into the hands of the
other, without whom he could accomplish nothing at all.
In most cases his labour by itself would be quite unpro-
ductive.

As a rule there will be in such associations of labour an
activity that can be designated the leading or dominant
one, while the other is subordinate and auxiliary. Ac-
cordingly th<; personal relationship between the workmen
employed will also take the form of a dependent relation-
ship. If the directing workman is independent, the work-
man who in technical matters is dependent will frequently
stand in the relation of employee. If the associated
labour is made part of an undertaking it is usual for the
whole work (" team-work," collective piece-work) to have
assigned to it a collective wage, as is the case with the
cigar bunch-breaker and roller, the glass-blower and at-
tendant. The plan thus offers a means of applying the
system of piece-wage even in cases where the work of one
labourer cannot be separated from that of another or of
several others; but it results in most cases to the disad-
vantage of those who perform the subordinate labour.*"

On the whole, this form of labour in common belongs
also to the stage of undeveloped technique in the instru-
ments of production. With advancing development the
supplanting of the subordinate labour by animal or me-
chanical power is aimed at. The most familar example is
offered by the plough, which was formerly drawn by hu-
man beings, later by oxen. In this, however, the combina-

" Comp. Schloss, Methods of Industrial Remuneration, rp- (>i ff-

I ' I

a8o i/WO// OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON.

tion of labour endured some time longer, inasmuch as a
second driver or several drivers were required besides the
ploughman, until at length a more perfect construction of
the plough made them superfluous.^"

In conclusion, it is again to be emphasized that the whole
sphere of labour in common belongs, like that of union of
labour, preeminently to the departments and the epochs of
labour possessing little or no capital. They are the re-
source of the economically frail. As such, however, their
great evolutionary and historical importance lies in their
training of man to methodical division and economy of
time, to self-subordination to a general aim, and to regular
and intensive labour. These supplement each other in that
the inherent weakness of union of labour, pervading
the life of each man in primitive times, everywhere finds its
counterpart in the temporary communities of labour that
arise wherever the variously employed skill of the indi-
vidual is inadequate to a given task. Resting originally
on custom alone, they lead in course of time to relation-
ships capable of legal compulsion, such as slavery and serf-
dom.

The principles of union of labour and labour in common
have in other respects contributed little to the creation of
permanent organizations, but they have left permanent
works. The pyramids and stone monuments of Egypt, the

*" Interesting modifications of the system of combination of labour
are found in the cases where more expensive implements are neces-
sary, and only one of the parties pc sesses them, while the others
merely contribute their labour. In North Russia this is particularly
the case in fishing, and again in the work of ploughing, where the
hitching together of six to eight animals is rendered advisable from
the heaviness of the soil. Examples from Wales, Ireland, and Scot-
land in Secbohm, Village Communities (4th cd). p. 81. Meitzen, Sicde-
lung u. Agrarwesen d. IVestgermanen u. Ostgcrmancn. d. Kelten. etc., I,
pp. 212 fT.; II. pp. ijo. 1.^0 Similarly on the Bogos in the mountains of
Abyssinia, in Post. Afr. Jurispimiens, II, pp. 184, 185.

UNION OF LABOUR AND LABOUR IN COMMON. 2S1

ruins of the giant cities of Mesopotamia, tlie structures
of the peoples of early American civilization must be ob-
served if we would know what human beings are capable
of performing, even without the knowledge of iron, with-
out draught animals, and without such simple mechanical
expedients as lever, screw, or pulley, when united by one
mighty mind in community of work.

For science also the two phenomena here referred to,
now that they have been defined, maj prove themselves
upon unbiassed testing not altogether useless building
stones. The theory of labour still stands in need of further
extension. The development of the points of view, which
in this chapter it has been possible in most cases only to
indicate, would probably show that there is still much to be
harvested in this region. For we have even now an inkling
of the truth, that in union of labour and labour in common
much more subtle psychical influences cooperate than in
the division of labour, which has hitherto been the almost
exclusive object of our attention. To discover them all is,
indeed, possibly only to the reflecting and self-observant
worker.

;i ;

CHAPTER VIII.

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

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5 i'

In most of the sciences nowadays there are popular
truths. They consist as a rule of general principles, to
which their propounders have given such initial complete-
ness of form and substance that it would seem as if they
might be added at once to our store of knowledge as an as-
sured acquisition of the human mind incapable of being
either shaken or lost. Such truths become the mental
property of the educated with a rapidity often surprising.
The convenient impress they bear from the beginning
makes them coins for intellectual exchange that gain cur-
rency far beyond the department of knowledge for which
they were issued. On the other hand, their passage over
into the intellectual and linguistic circulation of the edu-
cated world serves again to confirm their validity within
the narrow department of study from which they have
sprung. If knowledge is making rapid progress in this
department it comes to pass that these now popular truths
remain inviolate while all the remaining structure of the
science is demolished and rebuilt. They are like inorganic
bodies overrun and enveloped by the luxuriant growth of
living organisms.

Such is the case, if we are not mistaken, with the theory
of division of labour in political economy. In its present
form this theory dates from Adam Smith, and its popular-
ity is indeed due in no small measure to the external cir-
cumstance that it is presented in the first chapter of Book I

282

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

283

of his classical work, where it could not escape even the le-
gion of those who merely " read at " books. Adam Smith
is, of course, not the originator of the theory. He borrows
it in its essential features from the Essay on the History of
Civil Society, which his countryman, Adam Ferguson, pub-
lished in 1767. Yet the theory has been adopted by all
later students in the agreeable form in which Smith pre-
sented it. In this form it has also gone over into other
sciences and become familiar to every educated person.

In essaying then to subject the economic theory of di-
vision of labour to a critical examination, and to supple-
ment this examination by the application that this theory
has quite recently received in the department of sociology,
we count upon dealing with a circle of ideas familiar to
many.^ For this last application marks at the same time
one of the few attempts made by economic science to ad-
vance on this point beyond Adam Smith. In other re-
spects students have contented themselves with correcting
Smith's theory of division of labour in subsidiary points,
tracing it back historically and dogmatically to the ancient
Greeks, adapting explanatory examples to the technical
advances of the present, and besides its bright sides, bring-
ing forward the dark sides as well. On the whole, how-
ever, our remarks on popularized scientific truths hold
good for this theor>-. While round about it the structure
of economic theory has been diligently altered and
extended, it has remained intact. Only recently a
reputable economic writer, in a critical survey of the pro-
gress of political economy since Adam Smith, stated that
the subject is exhausted; that regarding it one can but re-
peat what has been already said by others.^

' Comp. following chapter.

' M. Block, Le progrcs de la science rconomique dcpuis Adam Smith
(Paris, 2d ed., 1897). I. P- 533-

ix^^

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r "• ■'

lit

384

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

Under these circumstances it will suffice for us to discuss
the subject in direct connection with the celebrated Scotch-
man's presentation of it. We will, however, not cover the
whole subject, but attempt merely to answer the two ques-
tions: What is division of labour? and How does it operate?

What division of labour is we can nowhere learn from
Adam Smith. He illustrates the process that he designates
by this name only by individual examples, and from them
deduces directly the statement which has since been
termed the " law " of division of labour, and which can be
summarized in the words, that in every industry the pro-
ductivity of labour increases proportionately with the ex-
tension of labour.' His examples, however, when closely
scrutinized by no means illustrate similar economic
processes.

There is first the celebrated instance of the pin-manufac-
tory. With the ordinary workman, who is not particularly
adept at this special branch of business and who perhaps
could, with his utmost industry, make scarcely one pin in
a day, and certainly could not make twenty, Smith con-
trasts the factory in which a considerable number of work-
men with divided labour produce similar wares. " One
man draws out the wire; another straights it; a third cuts
it; a fourth points it; a fifth grinds it at the top for receiv-
ing the head; to make the head requires two or three dis-
tinct operations," etc. In this manner there result up to
the completion of the pin eighteen distinct operations, each
of which can be transferred to a particular hand. Smith
finds that in such a cooperating group of workers the out-
put of each individual, as compared with that of the la-

'The correctness of this sharp formulation is manifest from the
wo'ds of the first chapter: " The division of labour, so far as it can
be introduced, occasions in every part a proportionable increase of the
productive powers of labour."

DIVISION OF LABOUR.]

28s

bourer working separately and prodacing the whole pro-
duct, is increased a hundred, indeed a thousandfold.

This example has been repeated even to wer-iness; it
has become, in general, the classic type of division of
labour. Most people can conceive of it only in this
one form, the form of a factory in which the total labour
necessary to the production of the ware is divided into as
many simple operations as possible, carried on simultane-
ously by different persons in the same establishment.*

But Adam Smith has not confined himself to this exam-
ple. He calls it also division of labour when a product has
to pass through various trades and employments in a coun-
try, from the procuring of the raw material till it is ready
for use; as, for instance, the wool through the hands of the
sheep-breeder, the spinner, the weaver, and the dyer. In
a rude state of society all this, he points out, is the work of
one man; in every improved society, on the contrary, the
farmer is generally nothing but a farmer; the manufacturer
nothing but a manufacturer. The labour, too, that is
necessary to produce any complete manufacture, is almost
always divided among a great number of hands.

Smith makes no distinction between the two kinds of
division of labour, and ascribes to both the same effects.
But it does not require lengthy consideration to recog-
nise that we are here dealing with two distinct processes.
In the case of the manufacture of woollen cloth a whole
process in production is separated into various depart-
ments. Each of these departments becomes an inde-
pendent economic organism; and a ware must, from the

• Helmolt, De laboris divisione, 1840, (a Doctor's Dissertation from
the University of Utrecht,) pp. 38, 39: " Ubi plures operarii siinul opus
quoddam conficiunt. singuli vero continue eadem operis parte sunt
occupati, ut, si aliquid perfecerint eandem rem de novo aggrediantur."
And yet Ferguson had previously entitled his chapter on the division
of labour: " On the Separation of Arts and Professions."

286

DiyiSION OF LABOUR.

'I 1°

procuring of the raw material on, pass through a series of
trades before it can be offered ready for consumption, each
change in ownership involving a charge for profits. In the
case of the pin, on the contrary, the manufacture of the
object of the division of labour does not constitute a com-
plete process in production, but merely a single depart-
ment. For its raw material, the wire, is already well ad-
vanced towards completion. The result of the division is
not a series of new trades, but a chain of dependent em-
ployments whose successful utilization under present con-
ditions postulates the existence of wage-workers held to-
gether by one entrepreneur. The product, before it is
completed, passes, it is tnie, through a larger number of
hands than previously, but it undergoes no change of pro-
prietorship.

Two industrial processes so thoroughly different de-
mand different names. We will designate the division of a
whole process of production into several industrially inde-
pendent sections division of production; and the breaking
up of a department of production into simple dependent
labour elements subdivision of labour.'^

Finally Adam Smith cites a third example that is neither
division of production nor subdivision of labour. He com-
pares three smiths: a common smith, who can handle the
hammer well, but has never been accustomed to make
nails, a second smith who has been accustomed to make
nails, but has not this for his sole or principal occupation,
and finally a nail-smith who has never followed any other
calling. He finds that if all three make nails for a definite
period the work done increases according as the workman
limits himself to the production of one product. It is this
hmitation to the exclusive production of a single line of
goods that he calls division of labour.

* Produktwnsteilmg and Arbeitszcrlegung.

DIVISION OF L/1BOUR.

287

The justification for this nomenclature is not at once
apparent. What is divided? Where are the parts?

Manifestly Smith conceives the whole business of a
smith who, as in olden times, makes horseshoes, plough-
shares, and wheel-tires, as well as axes, spades, and nails,
as the subject of the division. From this comprehensive
department of production a line of products is separated,
and their production taken over by a special workmar
nail-smith, while the remaining products continue to
part of the smith's work. The articles formerly prod
jointly in the one business of the smith are for the k.
manufactured in two different businesses. In the plact
one industry there are now two; and each forms £0* .4
individual a separate business or vocation.

It is clear that in this case it is neither a question ot cut-
ting a somewhat extensive process of production into va-
rious sections, nor of si. ling such a section ittto its
simplest elements. For, as h himself explair^N the
labour process of the nailer is neither shorter nor less
complex than the smith's: each for himself blov he bel-
lows, stirs the fire, heats the iron, and forges ev pan >t
the product. A change has taken place only m one re-
spect: each applies this process to fewer classes of good-
Under the system of divided labour, however, the goo.Ls
produced, taken singly, do •, )t pass through more hands
than formerly. We will cal! this third species of division
of labour specialization or division of trades.

How specialization is distinguished from subdivision of
labour is readily perceived. The one is a division of the
whole task of production between different businesses;
the other takes place within a single business. It is per-
haps more difficult at first sight to distinguish division of
production and specialization of trades. In division of
production cross-cuts, as it were, are made through a

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288

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

somewhat extensive process of production; in specializa-
tion a distinct department of business is split lengthwise.

To offer a simple example, the production of leather
articles of use was originally confined to the one estab-
lishment. The Siberian nomad and the Southern .Slav
peasant still procure the hides, tan them, and out of the
leather make footwear, harness, etc., within their own
household establishment. In the countries of Western
Europe the trades of the tanner and the currier had
arisen by the early Middle Ages. Leather goods
down to their finished condition then passed through
three trades, — that of the furnisher of the hides, of the
tanner, and of the currier. That was divis. i of produc-
tion. In time the special handicrafts of the shoemaker,
the saddler, the strap-maker, the maker of fine leather
goods, etc., have separated themselves from the large
industry of the currier; and each produces a particu-
lar class of leathei wares by approximately the same
process of work. That is specialization, or division of
trades.

In division of production, o use a simile, the whole
stream of production of gooas is from time to time
dammed up by weirs; with specialization it is diverted into
numerous small channels and rivulets.

In his explanatory examples Smith goes no farther
than this. We may also for the present pause here
and lay before ourselves the question: What led the
" father of political economy " to embrace under the one
name division of labour three processes so different as
division of production, subdivision of work, and specializa-
tion? Wherein are these processes, whose fundamental
differences we have been able only briefly to indicate, es-
sentially similar?

The true response to this question will at the same time

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

289

furnish us with the simplest and broadest definition of
division of labour, a definition which must be accepted by
all who, on this point, have followed Adam Smith, that is,
by all scientific political economists."

Manifestly those three different kinds of division of
labour have only the following in common with each
other: all three are f^rocesses in the economic evolution of
society which have orif;inated through acts of human volition,
and in which an eco'wnic task is transferred from tlie one
person hitherto performing it to several persons, the transfer
being so made that each of these performs but a separate part
of the previous total labour. Division of labour will ac-
cordingly always be characterized by an increase in the
number of labourers necessar}' for the accomplishment of
a definite economic end, and at the same time by a differ-
entiation of work. The economic tasks become simplified,
better adapted to limited human capacities; they become,
as it were, individualized. Hence division of labour is al-
ways at the same time classification of labour, organiza-
tion of labour in accord with the economic principle; its
result is ever the cooperation of varied energies in a com-

* Those savants of course excepted who no longer define at all.
Most later definitions overlook the causal force of the word division,
and in place of the process of division put the realized condition.
Schmoller, for instance, understands by division of labour "the per-
manent adaptation of the individual to a specialized life-work affecting
and dominating the whole life " (Jhrb. f. Gesetzg., Verw. u. Volksw.,
XIV, 47). He thus forces under division what can be but its result.
E. V. Philippovich states in his Grundriss d. Pol. Gel:., I, 50: " Division
of labour is the actual divided performance of tasks leading to a com-
mon end. It assun s, lik- every division, a unity from whose stand-
point the labour of tie individual appears not as something exclusive
and self-contained, but as a part of a larger whole. This unity is de-
termined either by society as a whole, or by some organization of
society into separate parts." But why first construct this totality?
Why not begin with it? Society and tbe business undertaking have
surely not been divided; they are but results of the division of labour.

290

DiyiSION OF LABOUR.

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mon work which could formerly only be performed by a
single pair of hands.

Keeping this clearly in mind, and passing in review from
this standpoint the whole field of the economic employ-
ment of labour in its historical and contemporary develop-
ment, we soon recognise that with the typical examples
of Adam Smith and the three kinds of division of labour
deduced by us from them, the range of the latter is by no
means exhausted. We find, on the contrary, a fourth and
a fifth type of division of labour, which we will designate
respectively the formation of trades and the displacement of
labour.

Let us begin with the fonnation of trades, which should
indeed rank first in an enumeration of the kinds of
division of labour. For it forms the beginning of all eco-
nomic development. To understand it one must start
from the conception, that before the origin of a national
economy the different peoples pass through a condition of
pure private economy in which each house has to produce
through the labour of its members all that is required.
This labour can be divided among the members of the
household in various ways, according to age, sex, and
physical strength, and according also to their relation to
the father of the family. But this distribution of labour is
not division of lal)Our from the standpoint of society, for its
eflfects remain restricted to the household and exert no
creative influence upon other economies; nor does it in-
fluence the formation of classes in society. At this stage
there are. therefore, all varieties of agricultural and in-
dustrial techniciue: but there is no system of agriculture,
no industry, no trade as a separate branch of business:
there are no peasants, no industrial classes, no merchants
as social business groups.

This state of affairs is altered as soon as individual tasks

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

291

separate from this many-sided activity and become sub-
jects of vocations, the bases of particular business occupa-
tions. The way for this advance is prepared by the
division of labour of the great slave and serf husbandries.
We cannot, however, treat of these here. The part that
detaches itself from the range of work of the autonomous
domestic establishment and becomes a separate and inde-
pendent business is at one time a complete process of
production, for example, pottery; or again, a single
section in production, for example, cloth-fulling, corn-
grinding; • or still again, a species of personal service, for
example, surgical work. Most frequently, however, it is
the productive part of the domestic labours that is
abridged through the formation of trades; and in the
course of centuries these labours are more and more re-
stricted to the province of consumption. On the other
hand, there arise the different branches of production and
the various industries which through specialization and
division of production become multiplied ad infinitum.

It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that this
process of the formation of vocations which begins with
us in the early Middle Ages has long been completed.
Parts of the old domestic economy are still falling
away; in the country, slowly; in the towns, more rapidly.
Every city directory can disclose to us a series of inde-
pendent industries which have come into existence only
within the present century, through the splitting up of
former single phases of domestic activity.

Of course it wouUl be erroneous to assume that each
instance of a new trade which is not division of an old trade
or <if a branch o\ production is to bi> traced hack to divi-
sion of labour between household and new business occu-

*In this case the formation of a trade is at tlif same time division
of production.

I ^f

I I

25a DIVISION OF LABOUR.

nations. A bicycle-factoiy, a galvanizing or electrical
establishment, an ice-factory, and a photographic atelier
are industrial undertakings owing their origin not to
division of labour, but to the rise of entirely new species of
goods. They must accordingly be excluded from this sur-
vey Yet they are not on that account beyond the mflu-
ence of division of labour, since from the beginning they
accommodate themselves to the forms of production con-
ditioned by such divisi^ n. . , ^

Connected only ex rnally with this process is the phe-
nomenon that we have already termed displacement of
labour It accompanies the invention of new machines and
other f^xed tools of labour. The division of labour here
operates in the following manner:

With the introduction into a branch of production of a
newly-invented machine there is a complete displacement
of the previous organization of work. As a rule the
mechanism undertakes only separate movements that un-
til then have fallen to the human hand; and m the busmess
installing the machine the sole initial change is generally
the transfer of the workman, who formerly performed
those muscular motions, to attendance upon the machine,
which demands from him other muscular motions. In
this way, for instance, after the intr. .duction of the sewing-
machine, the labourer in the tailoring establishment works
with hand and foot, while formeriy his hand alone was
called into action, and then, moreover, in a difTereat man-
ner.

But even previously to that there were many more per-
sons engaged in the making of a coat than the tailor.
There were in the first place the producers of the ma-
terials used bv the tailor: the wool-producer, the spinner,
the weaver, the dyer, etc.: then the producers of fine im-
plements: the needle-manufacturer, the scissors-manufac-

DiyiSION OF LABOUR.

293

turer, and many others. All these producers still continue
active after the introduction of a sewing machine. But a
new one is added, the machine-manufacturer; or, since the
machine is produced through subdivision of work, at once
a whole group: the machine-fitter, the founder, the metal-
turner, the carpenter for the models, the mounter, the var-
nisher, etc. We have, if we embrace under our view the
whole pr- ess of production, a part of the total labour
pushed back from a later to an earlier stage. The work
oi tailoring is in part transferred from the tailoring estab-
lishment to the machine factory.

The whole process is typical, and undoubtedly exhibits
the characteristics of division of labour. If we employ for
it the exnression displacement of labour the phrase must be
understood in a local and temporal sense. As regards
locality, displacement of labour means the partial trans-
ference of the manufacture of an article from one place
of production to another; as regards time, it signifies the
substitution of work that has been previously performed
for work being performed now, the pushing back of a sec-
tion of the work that was formerly devoted to the pro-
duction of consumption goods to the furnishing of the
means of production. In this, however, it is not at all
necessary that a new undertaking should be formed to
produce the new implement of labour exclusively. For,
as in the case of the sewing-machine, a machine-factory
already in existence can undertake its production. The
essential thing to note is that the new process for the pro-
duction of clothing contains an increased number of dif-
ferent employments, and accordingly claims the service of
more labourers.

We have now become acquainted with five diflfercr.t
kinds of economic processes falling under the head of
division of labour, which are still in operation every

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DIVISION OF LABOUR.

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: ^-

day before our eyes. This is of course saying very little as
to their relative importance in modern industrial life. For
the latter is itself the result of a long process of develop-
ment; and he who regards it with the eye of an historical
student will find everywhere side by side the most primi-
tive and the most modern: the one with a modest, the
other with a ubiquitously prominent sphere of influence.
Society in its long evolution from the isolated to the social
economy has ever been seeking and finding new methods
of organization in work. But it has not on that account
discarc ' the old, nor will it discard them so long as their
roles have not been completely played. For here too the
great law of economy prevails; nothing is lost that is still
capable of being at any point advantageously employed.

This also holds for the various forms of division of
labour. Even though subdivision of work and displace-
ment of labour at present surpass in importance specializa-
tion and division of production, and even though forma-
tion of trades as a species of division of labour need hardly
be longer taken into account, none of these piinciples of
economic organization has ceased to operate. Each con-
tinues active in the places where it can still assert its force.
In economic history each of them has had a period of
preponderance. Formation of trades appears with us in
the early Middle Ages. The chief activity of specializa-
tion is coincident, with the prime of municipal develop-
ment. Division tl production begins at the same time.
Its whole force in the economy of capital, however, is de-
veloped only after subdivision of work and displacement
of labour begin to operate, and neither of these can with
certainty be trared back beyond the seventeenth century.
It is with reluctance that we refrain from a detailed
presentation of the historical conditions governing ihem,
as well as of the causes and consequences nf their appear-

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

295

ance. We are the more loth because only in this way can
the sharp distinctions we have made between the different
processes find their full justification, and the traditional
abstract treatment of the whole matter its refutation. We
must, however, devote a few general words to the cause
and result of division of labour. For the distinguishing of
those five kinds of the latter would necessarily appear
scientifically unimportant, or an idle nicety of refinement,
if all stood in like casual connection with the economic
phenomena that precede or follow them.

Adam Smith derives all division of labour from one com-
mon origin: man's natural propensity to trade. He does
not determine whether this is the result of instinct or of
conscious mental action. He thus renounces a sharp psy-
chological analysis of economic action, and contents him-
self with considering division of labour as deep-rooted in
the dark depths of instinct.

In this, however, he falls foul of his own examples. For
if division of labour has its origin in an immemorial in-
stinct of man. then it is a fundamental factor of economic
life, which must assert itself whenever and wherever men
exist. Yet Adam Smith's examples regularly set over
against the condition of divided labour a condition of un-
divided labour, and deduce the former from the latter.
For this has to be inferred from the dynamic employment
of the word division. There actually existed for centuries,
as we already know, a condition of society in which divi-
sion of labour was wanthig: and the different kinds of the
latter can be pretty definitely determined by the time of
their origin. Social division of labour is thus generally a
historical category-, and not an elemental economic phe-
nomenon.

The same is true of exchange. Just as there have been
epochs without economic division of labour, so there have

396

DiyiSlON OF LABOUR.

l\%"

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I

been epochs without exchange. The first acts of trade do
not appear simultaneously with division of labour, but
long precede it. They serve the purpose of equalizing
casual surpluses and deficiencies that have made their ap-
pearance in otherwise autonomous economies. Exchange
is here something accidental; it is not a necessary con-
comitant of the husbandry of the time. Even when with
the formation of trades social division of labour arises, ex-
change is still very active in forms which it is the evident
purpose to exclude as far as possible. The housewife of
early time uses the hand-mill to grind the corn she herself
has grown, and from the flour thus produced she bakes
her bread. After the industries of the miller and the baker
have been established the grinding is turned over to the
miller, and the baker then receives the flour to make
bread of. From raw material to finished product the new
article of consumption has never changed its proprietor.
For their pains, miller and baker are allowed to retain a
definite part of their product. In the whole process of
production with divided labour this is the sole occurrence
partaking of the nature of exchange.

From this one readily recognises that the alleged pro-
pensity to trade is for Adam Smith only a means of extri-
cating himself from an embarrassment. We can the more
readily spare ourselves the trouble of entering further into
this point since recent economists have not accepted this
tenet of their Scottish master. They rather prefer to re-
gard exchange as the unintentional result of division of
labour. This we can accept, with the limitation that v/ith
<livided labour exchange becomes necessary from the mo-
ment that the producer possesses all the means of jifoduc-
tion. It tlien becomes a vital element of each economy;
and from this point on almost cver>' advance in division of
labour increases the number of necessary acts of exchange.

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DIVISION OF LABOUR.

297

But this Stage of development is not reached tiJ centuries
after the earliest origin of economic division of labour.
Even to-day, for example, it is by no means the rule m
country parts for the miller to own the corn and the baker
the flour, and a triple exchange to be necessary before the
consumers can come into possession of the bread.

If then exchange is merely a secondary phenomenon m
the evolutionary processes of social division of labour, we
are by this very fact compelled to seek another motive
for man's efforts toward this division.

In this we are led back directly to the fundamental facts
of economy: the boundless extent of human needs, and
the limited means of satisfying them. Human needs are
capable of an infinite multiplication and subdivision; they
are never at rest; they increase in degree and extent with
the progress of civilization. The material suitable for
human ends is limited, as is also human labour which in-
vests it with the qualities of a marketable ware and in-
creases its quantity. With the increase in the number of
human beings the relation of the total demand to the
mass of raw material capable of profitable utilization
which nature can offer becomes even more unfavourable.
The quantity of labour necessary to satisfy the total re-
quirement thus increases for a double reason: more and
better goods are to be produced: and they are to be
turned out under more unfavorable conditions. The share
in head-work falling to each one engaged in the under-
taking would thus become at length intolerable were it not
possible to reduce it through an economic employment o.

labour.

Now simi 'e observation teaches that every person is
not equally' qualified by nature for every employment.
The differing bodily and intellectual tendencies of indi-
viduals necessarilv occasion important differences in the

298

DmSION OF LABOUR.

.1
f

products of labour; and these differences become ever
more marked with advancing social development or, what
is the same, with increasing variety of work to be per-
formed. The principle of economy requires that every-
one's employment befit one's capabilities; for only in this
way can labour yield its highest service. To have " the
right man in the right place " becomes all the easier as the
tasks increase in number and each is permanently con-
signed to a special hand.

Along with the multiplication of occupations comes a
simplification. Every composite work means for the indi-
vidual executing it a frequent change of motions, and
every such change a waste of energy. For passing
from one kind of movement to another calls for mental
and bodily accommodation to the new class of work, which
means an outlay of strength yielding in itself no useful
return. With muscular movements pursuing a uniform
course, however, the mind's share in the work can be
eliminated, and an automatic performance of those
movements soon enters, which, with increasing practice,
removes farther and farther the limits of fatigue. At the
same time the intensity of automatic labour can be greatly
increased, so that not only can the movements be
continued longer, but a larger numl)er of them is pos-
sible within a given unit of time. An extraordinary ad-
vance in the effectiveness of labour is the result.''

All this makes it. as it were, a command of economy to
narrow the labour tasks if we are to utilize every kind of
end wment.and avoid every bootless waste of strength. In
most processes of production, however, we find decidedly
heterogeneous employments united: hand-work and head-
work; operations demanding great muscular power along

I \rf.,p ;^. ;t..tp.;t in Arbeit «. Rhythmua, pp. 24 ff.

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

299

with those in which suppleness of the finger, delicacy of
touch, keenness of sight come in question; tasks requir-
ing a skill gained through theory and practice, and those
that even the unpracticed is in a position to undertake.
In early times when these different tasks were placed in
one hand a great waste of skilled labour resulted, and the
productive part of the population was limited to those
who had mastered some one branch of technique in all its
parts. By separating the qualitatively unequal labour ele-
ments from one another, division of labour succeeds in
utilizing the weakest as well as the strongest workers, and
in inciting them to the development of the highest special

% skill. .

Thus division of labour is, in the last analysis, nothmg
but one of those processes of adaptation that play so
great a part in the evolutionary historj- of the whole in-
habited world: adaptation of the tasks of labour to the
variety of human powers, adaptation of individual powers
to the tasks to be performed, continued differentiation
of the one and of the other. Therewith the whole
process advances out of the twilight of instinctive life into
the bright day of conscious human activity.

Yet one fact still requires special mention. It is, that
the personal casual element in division of labour stands out
more clearly the further back we go in the history of man-
kind. For this reason the predominant forms of division
of labour in the early stages of development are those in
which the individual is assigned an independent task that
can be carried cut without any extensive material equip-
ment. It is more especially the intellectual and artistic
activities that expand earliest into vocations. The priest,
the prophet, the magician, the singer, and the dancer are
the first to gain a separate position on account of special
gifts.

300

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

If an unfree system of labour exists, division of labour
develops first within the slave family; and it is with the as-
sistance of a personal and moral feature hitherto hardly
heeded that it comes into being. Wherever the system of
supervised labour in common is inapplicable, the master
must provide every unfree worker with a particular range
of duties, for which he can be held responsible. He must
impose on him a single definite kmd of work if he wishes
to profit by his labour. Hence among the Romans that
almost over-refined specialization of work in the familia
urbana,* the careful selection of slaves according to bodily
and mental endowment for the different agricultural em-
ployments;* and among the serfs of the Middle Ages the
extreme frequency with which the rent paid in kind was
fixed in very special products of domestic work.^" The
man acting in the slave household exclusively as field-
worker or smith, barber or scribe, the rent-collector and
the man whosp sole duty it was to supply the court with
casks or vesseii, knives or linen cloth, acquired a special
dexterity wherewith, when the hour of emancipation
sounded, they entered society as professional workers.
Thus in the individual task rendered necessary by the slave
economy of the stage of exclusive domestic husbandry,
and in the specialization that it conditions, lay the seed-
time for the social division of labour of the following stage.

It is at a much later date that material cletnents supple-
ment the personal element of endowment and adaptation

' Compare above, p. 99.

• Compare on this the fine remarks of Columella, I, 9: " Sed et
illud censeo, ne confundantur opera familia;, sec ut omnes omnia
exsequantur; nam id minime conducit agricolae, seu quia nemo suum
proprium aliquod esse opus credit, seu quia, cum enisus est, non suo
sed communi officio proficit ideoque labori multum se substrahit; nee
tamen viritim malefactum deprehenditur, quod fit a multis," etc.

'° A Hit ii given above, on page ,04.

DiyiSlON OF LABOUR.

301

in originating division of labour." Formerly it was men
alone, now things also become diflferentiated, — tools, raw
materials, products. Each advance in division of labour
seeks to adapt itself to the existing tools and implements,
or to provide new ones for the particular task. Let one
but think of the innumerable kinds of hammers, tongs,
and chisels used in the different branches of metal- and
wood-working! The division of labour among persons
finds its counterpart in a division of use among the instru-
ments of work. But as long as the tool is merely a rein-
forcement of the human agent, the personal adjustment
will dominate the process of production. It is only when
artificial appliances are introduced which enable man to
subdue natural powers to his service that the labour in-
strument gains control over the labourer's social indi-
viduality, as well as over his bodily movements. And now
the impetus for a fresh advance along the path of division
of labour can as readily originate in a newly-invented im-
plement of labour as in the possession or acquisition of a
particular personal qualification. Most newly-invented
machines require the attendance of workmen possessing a
qualification not previously represented in the business.
Then, joined to this, comes the saving consequent upon
the growing extension of production, a feature of impor-
tance from the standpoint of capital. But this saving can
take place only on the assumption of a unification and con-
centration of demand sufficient to make the wholesale

" Oh what follows compare Arbeit u. Rhythmus, Chap. IX. How
strongly the personal element still predominated in the division of
labour in the town economy of the Middle Ages is seen from the con-
ditions for admission into a guild. As far as the carrying on of a trade
came in question only persona! requirements were made— ability to do
the work with one's own hand. Material requirements had to be met
by the person seeking admission only as a citizen— possession of a
house and of arms: and as a Christian— entrance-fee in wax.

302

DiyiSlON OF L/1BOUR.

production, which perhaps has long been technically pos-
sible, economically possible also. Many labour-processes
cause approximately the same costs whether they embrace
many or few pieces, as is the case, for example, with dye-
ing, grinding, drying, postal delivery. But if the method
of work can be so contrived that masses of the raw or half-
manufactured material which are to be worked over are
collected at definite points, the employment of hands at
these points solely for this purpose becomes profitable,
with, on the whole, a considerable saving in costs.

How far in such matters the social principles of immo-
bility of labour and of free competition may cooperate to
retard or to advance is not to be investigated here. A
warning is merely to be given against observing and judg-
ing these matters solely in the light of modern industrial
conditions. Division of labour reaches out far beyond the
sphere of material things. It can show in recent times,
espcc'ally in the field of intellectual work, advances and
results far surpassing those in the department of manu-
facturing technique. Indeed, the former are largely the
direct cause and occasion of the latter. On the other
hand, in the whole broad field lying beyond the limits of
material production the material aids to labour play only
an unimportant part. The personal element is here con-
tinually decisive for the further developrrent of division
of labour; and we thus have to recognise it as paramount
in the whole great process of advancing civiHzation.

As to the universal originating cause of division of
labour more than this cannot be said. The particular
conditions of origin under which the various kinds and
forms make their appearance will be briefly discussed in
another place.

At this point we can make but like cursory reference
also to the economic consequences of division of labour, al-

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

303

though it is in this very particular that the various forms
most vddely diverge

Adam Smith knows but one effect of division of labour:
the increased productivity of labour. He thus restricts
its influence to the s,.here of production. In this he is
right. Division of labour permits the production of
more and better goods with a given expenditure of hu-
man strength than was possible with undivided labour.
Production becomes cheaper; its costs diminish as far as
labour is concerned. And since Smith considers labour
the true measure of exchange value, he can dispense with
investigating whether under all circumstances division of
labour also insures a cheaper satisfaction of the wants of
the customer. . ,

However narrow this conception may appear, it is cer-
tainly more reasonable than the unlimited extension g-en
by many recent economists " to the effects of division of
labour when they derive the whole of our present com-
m;:rcial organization directly from division of labour, and
think to characterize it sufficiently by caUing it, as they
commonly do, the " economy of divided labour." In this
they allow themselves to be guided by the opinion that in
their present form and method of action the most im-
portant economic phenomena are determined by division
of labour; that in the highly refined subdivision of trades
occasioned by it division of labour is, so to speak, the
skeleton supporting the economic organism, while trade
and commerce represent the ligaments and muscles that
hold it together and enable it to functionate like a great
living body. Commerce, however, they say, is occasioned
(':-ectly by division of labour; division of labour is its
?. ase.

" Schmoller may again serve as an example: Grundriss, I. pp. 304 ff-

III

304

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

Therein lies a great mistake. By i'^^self, division of
labour does not create trade. And iverscly, ii condition
of undivided labour may easily be inngiiied concurrent
with a relatively well-developed traf .

Let us elucidate the last sentence nrsi. \Vc nay recall
that peoples standing at the stage of private domestic
economy can have a relatively weli-developed exchange
of goods — for profit or otherwise, if smallness of the
household membership or extraordinar>- inequality in the
distribution o. the gifts of nature give occasion for it.
Each house and each worker produces, in a condition of
complete union of labour, everything that the natural ad-
vantages of the place of habitation permit of. Exchange
but fills up the gaps of home-produci.on; its objects are
merely surpluses of otherwise autonomous establishments.
The weaker the different households are numerically and
the oftener unfavourable seasons— dying of cattle, spoiling
of the stores, or sickness of members of the household —
threaten at particular points the satisfaction of their needs,
the more frequently will surplus ware be drawn from an
outside source in exchange for the excess commodity in
one's own sphere.

Thus tlie negro races of Central Africa have a great
number of weekly markets, which are usually held under
special peace protection in the midst of the primieval
forest. Yet among them there is scarcely a single in-
dustry carried on as a business; and every species of di-
vision of labour is lacking, save the separation of the
spheres of work according to sex. The same state of
things has been observed in different parts of Oceania.
Even in the countries of Western Europe a fairly
brisk market trade must seemingly be assumed for the
early Middle Ages, notwithstanding the complete absence
of a developed subdivision of labour.

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

305

On the other hand, as aiready frequently remarked,
when the existence of slavery or serfdom calls into bemg
households numerically extensive, division of labour
can establish itself at the same stage of domestic work
without giving rise to exchange. On the estates of
wealthy Romans there were workmen of very different
grades of skill, perhaps even some who produced accord-
ing to the principle of subdivision of work; but exchange
neither united them with each other nor with the con-
sumers of their products. The power holding the-n to-
gether was the authority of the head of the family. Under
slavery this power lay in the ownership of the persons,
under serfdom, in the ownership of the soil. An establish-
ment thus organized is a permanent community for produc-
tion and consumption. What it produces it also consumes.
Indeed, division of labour really appears for it a welcome
means of avoiding exchange.

In such large households regular division of labour ac-
cording to employment paves the way for the succeeding
economic stage. It is the starting-point lor the formation
of trades. On the latter is baged the origin of special
economic life-vocations. It liberates a section of humanity
from the soil, on the possession of which its existence had
solely depended. It furnishes the burghe- s well as the
peasant with the means of livelihood. cialization in-

creases the number of opportunities for trade, it supplies
the framework within which higher mechanical skill is
developed. And at first division of production has no
other efTect. Formation of trades, specialization, and
division of production— all three together— are indeed
able of themselves to create an economy based upon di-
vided labour, but this economy is not at once national
economy. For, first of all. it still lacks the circulation
of goods.

3o6

DiyiSION OF LABOUR.

The whole process of division of labour up to this point
proceeds, as we know, by the method of workers separat-
ing from the independent household of the proprietor of
the soil, and in the service of other households turning to
account any special skill in the form of wage-work. They
are, it is true, tradesmen living from the earnings of their
special trade; but the raw material that they work up is
owned by the person who will finally consume the product
in his own house. Now there are certain cases in which
several of such wage-workers must cooperate in one
process of manufacture if the commodity is to be com-
pletely finished; for example, in preparing bread, the
miller and the baker; in making a garment, the weaver,
the dyer, and the tailor. In the exercise of their technical
skill all these labourers engaged in independent trades
are united with one another through the product which
passes through their hands in different stages of its manu-
facture. The whole employment of the one is to con-
tinue the work of the other. Their economic coopera-
tion, however, is effected by the owner of the raw ma-
terial, who has himself generally produced it, and to whom
the finished product returns— that is, by the consumer.
The means, however, by which the same person attracts
to his service the various part-producers is the wage that
he pays to each. This payment, moreover, represents the
sole commercial act involved in this kind of division of

labour.

In b'lilding a house one employs successively on wage
the mason, the carpenter, the roofer, the glazier, the
joiner, the locksmith, and the decorators, and supplies
them with the material necessary for their work. Their
objective point of union they all find in the new structure;
their personal point of union they possess in the builder.
He unites them, so to speak, into a temporary community

on SION OF LABOUR.

307

of production. J-ut their union is a loose and constantly
changing one. No permanent economic organization of
society arises fiom it. To-day they serve this builder, to-
morrow that. Division of labour makes the producers so-
cially dependent neither upon one another nor upon the
contractor. They remain " master workmen."

Nor is there much change in this regard when the wage-
worker rises to the position of craftsman and himself sup-
plies the raw material for his labour. A wagon, for in-
stance, is ordered from the wagon-maker, is ironed by the
smith, and painted by the painter. The wagon-maker fur-
nishes the wood, the smith the iron, the painte*- the paint.
The payment that they receive at this stage is a remunera-
tion for the labour and the material furnished by each.
But the one guiding the production is still, as ever, the
consumer of the commodity produced by divided labour.

Through all earlier forms of division of labour, as one
perceives, there runs an obvious endeavour to restrict the
number of commercial transactions evoked by it to
those absolutely necessary. In the midst of all trades
originatiii, in division of labour stands domestic work,
the mother of them all, with its primeval community of
labour dissolving but slowly. Alongside it, even through-
out the stage of town economy, the particular manufac-
turing establishments and professional workmen called
forth by formation of trades, specialization, and di-
vision of production continue to be firmly and clo«ely
united. From the customer's house they receive the com-
missions which tl.ey execute; and even then during the
performance of the work they frequently enter into a tem-
porary consuming community}'

In the stage of national economy the consumer with-

"[Comp. Chap. IV, remarks on i/iWraHO'— Ed.1

3o8

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

iii

draws more and more from his century-old position as
director and uniter of divided production. These duties
now develop into a vocation. This vocation, however,
can be independently exercised by those alone in whose
hands the means of production — or at least the circulating
means of production — are at the same time found, that is,
by the capitalists. Because of the double duties that thus
fall to them — procuring capital and directing the produc-
tion — they are called business undertakers or entrepre-
neurs.

In their hands the division of labour undergoes a com-
plete transformation. In so far as it is division of produc-
tion each part-producer now disposes of the products of
his own raw material to his successor. They become for
each a source of profit, that is, circulating capital. Thus
arises along with the trade in certain classes of finished
wares, a series of exchanges of raw material or unfinished
goods with no other aim than to unite the various stages
of division of labour with each other. This exchanging
is in character quite unlike the one between the consumer
and the various producers in succession, which previously
held exclusive possession of the field. The earlier ex-
change, at least for the one acquiring the product, is pure
exchange for use, in which he is concerned with the com-
modity as an object of consumption. The later exchange is
for purchaser and seller always a business transaction in
which the utility of the object of exchange is of secondary,
and its character as capital — the profit to be gaine<l by it —
of primary, importance. The forms of division of labour,
displacement of labour, and subdivision of work now aris-
ing for the first time have by their mutual relationship the
effect of imparting the quality of capital to the fixed means
of product" n as well. The subdivision of work makes
necessary a permanently dependent labouring class. It

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

309

alone gives to the method of capitalistic production its
full expansion. Although, on the other hand, it largely de-
stroys, in the department accessible to it, that which the
formation of trades and specialization had previously cre-
ated — the independence of the petty traders.

This new phase of division of laL- , accordingly, raises
commerce to a height unknown before. In trade, in trans-
portation, in credit negotiation, in insurance, it calls forth
numberless other phenomena of division of labour under
the shadow of the entrepreneur system, which lead in turn
to fresh commercial services of a manifold kind. But in
itself division of labour does not create this new com-
merce. The impelling and creative element in modem
national economy is not division of labour, but business
capital, and commerce is its spring of life.

The point at which capital in its primal form of money
first displayed its earning power was trade. From there
it has encroached upon production by enabling the trader
to take the consumer's place as director of production.
In this way that commission system first took its rise in
the world of industry in which the commission manufac-
turer enters into the same ouier relationship with wage-
worker and craftsman that the father of the household
formerly held. To the one he advances the raw material,
from the other he purchases the finished products made
from self-supplied material, with the object of further dis-
posing of them. Where a productive process falls into
different sections he guides the product from one to the
other, and finally places it on the market as finichcd war".
As a rule, he operates merely with circulating capital.
He has to do permanently with fixed capital only when it
becomes profitable to pass over from commission to fac-
tory production. While, however, in the provi.ice of
industry trading capital was merely a transforming agency,

3IO

DiyiSlON OF LABOUR.

■■

■ 1

n^^^K

w^m

^^B

pvp

in the departments of banking, transportation, and in-
surance it has been creative. These departments of busi-
ness are really, when ve consider them from the side of
division of labour, only ramifications of trade.

Thus, it seems to us, we have to recognise capital as the
creative influence in modem national economy, and division
of labour as the medium through which it operates. Its
support and representative is the entrepreneur.

That the latter has been able to utilize this medium of
division of labour to much greater purpose than the head
of the household before him is plainly evident. To-day the
entrepreneur determines what we shall eat and drink, read
in the papers and see at the theatre^ how we shall lodge
and dress. That means everything. For a great part of
the goods we consume the right of self-determining is
taken away. And since uniform production on a large
scale is most advantageous to the manufacturer, there is
operative in the sphere of consumption an increasingly
active uniforming process.

In contrast with ihis the province of labour exhibits a
continually advancing differentiation. The field of work
of each individual is ever growing more restricted. It is
only when broken up on the basis of technique into
its parts, that labouring skill can furnish workable building
material for the task of the entrepreneur. Every business
establishment is a union of various fragmentary activities,
originating through division of labour, into an organic
whole. It unites workmen economically and technically
dependent into a permanent community of production. This
community of production, however, luis ceased to be at the
same time a community of consumption. On the contrary, its
members belong to distinct households which have been
freed from all the burdens of production, and which are in

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

no wise connected with one another or with the employer's

household.

In the formation of those communities of production
the entrepreneur's plan of action varies according to the
presence or absence of the earlier forms of division of
labour in the manufacture in which he wishes to place his

capital.

In the first case he absorbs into his undertaking all the
independent branches of business that up to that time had
to do with the wares to be produced. He specializes their
workers and permanently allots to them the performance,
side by side, of the part-tasks required by the business. As
an example, take the furniture-factory, in which joiners,
turners, wood-carvers, upholsterers, glaziers, painters,
and finishers are incorporated in a common productive

process.

In the second case he first organises the work according
to the principles of subdivision of labour, in the branch of
production concerned, and furnishes the business with a
comprehensive outfit of machinery.

In both instances there are in the fully-equipped busi-
ness, in addition to the entrepreneur, only subject part-
workmen whom the technical arrarpement of the work
renders dependent. In the one case they have been inde-
pendent craftsmen, and the task of the entrepreneur con-
sists in combining them into one industrial imit; in the
other the business unit already exists, and its component
parts are to be sought. Very soon the employees of
either origin are no longer to be distinguished from one
another.

Early handicraft had as a basis a few workmen of
similar training who, even though at different stages (ap-
prentices, journeymen, master workmen), worked side by
side. The qualifications of the groups so composed bear,

312

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

from handicraft to handicraft, no resemblance to each
other. It is impossible for a transfer to be made from one
species of employment to another; for instance, the smith
cannot be wheelwright. The law recognises this by the
sharp dividing lines it dravvs between them.

Modern industrial activity unites workers difTering in
skill and strength into cooperative harmony within the
undertaking. Their grouping for business purposes fol-
lows the same principles of organization from branch to
branch of production: there are no sharp boundary lines
between industries. A distinction of vocations hardly oc-
curs among entrepreneurs, though to a certain extent it
exists among the workmen. As far as the entrepreneur's
functions are concerned, it is almost a matter of indiffer-
ence whether he manages a street-railway, iron-works,
or a weaving factory. Among the employees, on the con-
trary, in consequence of the continued subdivision of work,
there are now numerous specialists who are required in
very different branches of production. The locksmith, the
metal-turner, the moulder, the planer, and the cutter ap-
pear in all branches of well-ad\ iced metal industry, in
each special department of machine-construction, in rail-
way workshops, etc. Fireman and engineer are neces-
sary in every large establishment, whether it produces
cotton thread or illustrated papers. Joiners, tinsmiths,
coopers can be incorporated into or attached to under-
takings of the most varied type, and office-clerks, pattern-
artists, and engineers have a similarly varied usefulness.
To these is to be added the mass of unskilled labour that
is swallowed up by the large manufac curing establish-
ments. For many entrepreneurs almost the sole remain-
ing question is how to apportion and arrange these labour
elements in such a way that they may cooperate as a me-
chanical unit.

DiyiSION OF LABOUR.

;i3

This cursory survey has taught us how at different
epochs division of labour has exerted an influence upon
the industry of peoples, and upon the existence of in-
dividuals, varying according to the organizing principles
dtDminating the different economic stages.

During the stage of independent household economy
there prevails either union of labour in the hands of the
father and mother of the family, or division of labour de-
veloped upon the basis of slavery or serfdom. In both
cases the household represents a permanent community
of production and consumption. The principle holds
good: who works with me shall eat with me.

In the stage of town economy specialization and division
of production predominate. The part-producers are per-
sonally free ; but the consumer of their wares, who unites
them under favourable circumstances into temporary com-
munities of production, determines in the main the nature
and time of their production. During the period of com-
mon production he often provides them with their keep.

During the stage of developed national economy the
entrepreneur controls the production of wares under di-
vision of labour. The part-producers are personally free
labourers. They are united by the employer into per-
manent communities of production. All other community
of living is excluded; and if perchance on occasion of a
business jubilee the entrepreneur gives a dinner to his
workmen, the newspapers report how he ate and drank
with them at the same table, and consider it a particular
condescension on his part.

These are different economic worlds, separated from
one another by a deep gulf. If there breathes in the prim-
itive union of labour of the home, and. in part, in the
eariier division of labour as well, a warm breath of social
fellowship, there surge through the modern division of

3»4

DiyiSION OF LABOUR.

labour the cold, cutting winds of calculation, contract, and
greed of gain. If the older division of labour was the
caryatid of economic independence, the modern is ever
forcing large masses ir o a condition of dependence. The
pressure of capital is making men's occupations increas-
ingly dissimilar; it is making the men, as consumers, ever
more alike. If in the olden time the individual's portion
of goods was shaped by his own hands and head, and was,
so to say, a component part of his being that had taken
objective form, the consumption goods surrounding us
to-day are the work of many hands and heads. As to
the workers, we are supremely indiflf erent ; and as to their
work, when once we have paid its last possessor the mar-
ket price, we for the most part reck but little. In the
narrow circle of a life-vocation the mind becomes nar-
rowed, frequently to obtuseness. In our sphere of activ-
ity we have lost in fulness of life, and the worker has not
the old joy in his work. Are we sufficiently compensated
for these losses by the variety of articles which it is ours
to use because thousands of hands labour for us, because
thousands of heads think for us? Or has division of labour
merely made life richer in pleasures, but poorer m real
joy?

CHAPTER IX.

ORGANIZATION OF WORK AND THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL

CLASSES.

The economic processes involved in the organization
of work are processes of adaptation. Whether they fall
under the head of union of labour, of labour in common,
or of division of labour/ they all originate in the effort to
remove the disproportion perchance existing between the
labour to be performed at a given moment and the powers
of the individual labourers, and to bring them into agree-
ment with each other. They must accordingly react upon
the individual in compelling him to adapt, to accommo-
date himself mentally and physically to a definite work.
In this adaptation certain resistances on the part of human
nature are first to be overcome. Once vanquished, how-
ever, this negative element is, usually by virtue of con-
tinued practice, replaced by a positive one. The individual

' It will assist to an understanding of the present and the two pre-
ceding chapters if we present here the various kinds and varieties of
labour organization in tabular survey. [Comp. Chapters VII and
VIII.— Edu]

A. Union of Labour.

B. Labour in Common.

C. Diviiion of Labour. •

I. Fraternal labour.
3. Labour aggregation.
3. Joint labour.

1. Formation of trades.

2. Specialization.

3. Division of production.

4. Subdivision of work.

5. Displacement of labour.

(a) Simple aggre-
gation.

{t) Concatenation
of labour.

3«5

3i6

ORGANIZATION OF H^ORK AND

^HlfO

■ 1

^^K,p

mi d.

i^^E^ '-^

gains insight into the special character of his work; he
develops a particular dexterity for it; his mental powers
are directed continuously towards the same goal, and
therefore expand in a definite direction; in short, his
adaptation to the work becomes a part of his being and
distinguishes him from other individuals.

If, then, the class of work to which the workman de-
votes himself be of such a nature as to accentuate the
special character of the individual man in society, the
question naturally arises, how fai such individual charac-
teristics arising from work react upon the social life of the
species. More specifically stated, the question would be:
Is there a definite organization of society corresponding
to a definite organization of work; and what is the nature
of the influence exerted by the one upon the other?

The question is not so simple as it may perlKips at first
sight appear. Nothin/, for instance, seems easier than to
trace back the caste system of India to the hereditary
character of occupations, and accordingly to seek its
origin in division of labour. But we know positively that
the lower and the higher castes have different origins;
and many indications favour the view that place of resi-
dence and possts^ior of property have cooperated in the
genesis of that hi -^ecitar- str aification of society. Finally
we see that the --^^^f^r^zii^i na nrt- of the caste lay in purity
of hiooc and < --oil •rla.!onshi])s. Difference in caste
excindt ! eatrair n TEiJincn .-specially, although it does
nor ■'crr t< ni; e i-.^^-nTr- a similarity of occupation.
Ai; nis ^v«s j^.o«i ir^fiTSL for the assumption that the
sepamtim ai-cnrriinir t- ermlovments was only a result of
the fn^5??wi iTm- -a^-^ wftidi had ori.^inated in differences
in rz^t.- A srniiar course of development can be shown
for r-e ssiciai crosses c th* Middle Ages.

-^ ~e -^rTTSiSr "sir o:: pp. ;:.4 f?. regarding tribal indus-

tries «3vt at the

THE FORMATION OF SOCI/tL CLASSES.

317

In considering tlie relations between economic activity
and society generally, it is never to be forgotten that they
are reciprocal, and that with them we can seldom deter-
mine with certainty action and reaction. Just as a
particular kind of organization of work, when it lays
hold of the individual for life, furnishes specially dif-
ferentiated men to society, so society on the other hand
has from its stratifications and its individuals to provide
the plastic material used by organization of work. Cer-
tain strata of society will favour distinct forms of labour
in common and division of labour, others will place ob-
stacles in the way of their operation. Slavery, for in-
stance, encourages the concatenation of labour; the pres-
ence of a numerous class of unpropertied wage-workers
promotes subdivision of work. But those social influences
alone are not able to produce these results; others of a
technical and a general civilizing nature must be assumed,
for instance, with subdivided labour, a highly specialized
equipment of instruments of production.

All these relationships are thus of an extraordinarily in-
tricate nature and demand the most circumspect treat-
ment. As a rule we can tell what features in the economic
and social world are found side by side, but it is seldom
that we can determine how they are mutually connected.
In attempting, then, to discover the social bearings of
organization of work in its various forms, we enter a field
as yet little investigated, in which each step aside from
the path leads into an impenetrable thicket of confused
ideas.

At first the oldest system of organization of work,
union of labour, seems to have been socially unimportant.
Its earliest appearance reaches back into the pre-economic
period where the individual Jias to perform all the labour
necessary to his maintenance. It is to be found more ex-

3i8

ORGANIZATION OF IVORK AND

tensively, then, in the earlier stages of independent do-
mestic economy. The tools are simple and few, each
must serve the most varied purposes, and everyone must
be acquainted with their use. From work of such a type
the impulse to a division of society, to a formation of re-
lations of social dependence, manifestly cannot come.
Society, it appears, must consist of a uniform mass of indi-
vidual households; and such is its actual constitution as
long as collective ownership of the soil prevails. Within
the individual households, on the other hand, a separation
of male and female work can take place. But this is not
transferred to society; each household is in this respect
an exact replica of the other. If social differences never-
theless exist, their cause is to be sought in other con-
ditions.

Union of labour maintains this [socially trivial] charac-
ter in the higher stages of development even up to the
highest. To-day it is met nith almost exclusively in the
humbler spheres of economic life and in the lower strata
of society. Here it arises in most cases from the striving
for independence; it is the support, the stay, and the com-
fort of the common folk. Indeed, it can appear here even
as recoil from an excessive division of labour.' If it were
the sole active factor in the economic life of a people, it
would lead to a society of lifeless uniformity and render
a successful struggle from the lower to the higher im-
possible.

With labour in common it is different. To be sure, in its
loosest form of fraternal labou»- it exists between equals
only temporarily, and therefore can have scarcely any
effect upon the organization of society. At the most, it
can l)ut suggest it. The two forms of labour aggrega-

* Comp. our remarks in the Handwort. d. Staatswiss., IV, p. 377.

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

319

tion, on the contrary, become a means to the formation
of special groups; they create and maintain relations of
social dependence or, at least, assure their continuance
where they have been developed from other causes. The
same can be said, although not with equal definiteness, of
many forms of union of labour. In both cases cooperation
amongst a plurality of persons depends upon the extent
of the work to be performed as compared with the im-
perfect nature of the tools; and where those tasks are of
a permanent nature or, at least, are frequently repeated
in any one department of economic labour — for example,
in agriculture — they require for their stability permanent
social j^roupings secured by some controlling power.

On this rests, in large part, the long continuance of
slavery and serfdom, although it cannot be said that the
necessity for union of labour originally created these in-
stitutions. Nevertheless wherever property in man and
hereditary dependence of the labouring population have
existed, we notice in the early stages that master and slave
are distinguished but slightly from one another; that they
perform their work together; that the dependent class
is, in numbers, hardly stronger, .ndeed often weaker, than
the ruling one. But in the course of time this is changed;
the enslaved part of the population becomes more numer-
ous, though less through natural internal increase than
artificial augmentation from without by means of wars
of conquest, men-stealing, the slave trade, and misuse of
power against weaker freemen. At the same time the
class of propertied frc -nen is ever more sharply distin-
guished from that of ti unfree; labour becomes in the
eyes of the former a disgrace, while for the latter it de-
velops into a burden of constantly growing oppressive-
ness. A deep gulf rends society, and there is no means
of bridging it other than release from the condition

ii'ii

320

ORGANIZATION OF U^ORK AND

of compulsory labour. Frequently even this does not
suffice, as is shown, for instance, by the sharp distinction
between freemen and freed men among the Romans.

The necessity for this graded progress lies in the tech-
nical conditions affecting the developed forms of labour
in common. The natural consequence of the imperfect
character of the implements * is that larger tasks can be
accomplished only through the application of combined
human labour on a large scale. Each advance of the
household economy thus necessarily presupposes an in-
crease in the number of its unfree workers. Each rise in
the standard of life of the ruling class involves a waste of
human material, which, according to our conceptions, is
monstrous. To realize an effective union of labour this
material must be organized and disciplined.

The necessity of working slaves in gangs has from time
immemorial been deduced from their unreliability and lazi-
ness which compelled the strict supervision of their work.
It is indeed true that these features everywhere character-
ize servitude. But not it alone; they are rather phenom-
ena incident to a half-developed culture in general, which
at such a stage may be found even among free people.
Moreover the slave-holder applies the system of division
of labour along with labour in common whenever this
can result in such an assignment of definite duties to the
individual workman that he can be made responsible for
the performance of them." But in the sphere of produc-
tion the allotment of particular tasks to the individual is
usually either impossible or inadvisable, because profitless.

'Comp. also A. Loria, Dit Sklaventuirtkschaft im modem. Amtrika
u. im turopiiisck. AUertum, in Ztschr. f. Sozial. u. WirthRchaftsgesch.,
IV, pp. 68fl.

'This indeed takes place especially with housework and personal
•ervicei. See above, pp. 98, 99, 299, 300.

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

321

Thus at this stage we see labour in common assuming
extensive proportions and becoming by far the most
potent organizing principle of unfree labour.

David Hume long since remarked ' that slavery neces-
sitated a strict military discipline; and our investigations
are corroborative of this observation.

In early Egypt " each of the great administrative offices
possessed its own craftsmen and workmen. These were
divided into bands. We even meet with such a company
on the estates of the more prominent men of the ancient
empire, and notice how, led by their ensign, they draw
up on parade before the lord of the estate. The galley-
slaves of every larger ship likewise form a company, and
even the demons that nightly propel the ship of the sun
through the lower world bear this name. The craftsmen
of the temple and of the necropolis are similarly organized.
The Egyptian magistrate cannot think of these people of
lower rank otherwise than collectively; the individual
workman exists for him no more than the individual sol-
dier exists for our high army officers. Just as these free
or half-f.ee workers always appear in companies, so the
slaves of the temple and the necropolis and the unfree
peasants of the manors are duly organized in military
fashion and regarded as a part of the army." ^

The large Roman slave estates exhibit like phe-
nomena. On the rural estates the unfree workers are
divided into groups according to their occupation; each
group falls again into trains of not more than ten men
under a " driver " ; the villicus is commander-in-chief over
all. Their day's work is performed with military discip-
line; at night they are lodged in barracks. In the
wealthiest homes the urban 'imily likewise exhibits such

* Essays, p. 252.

' Erman. Aegypten und agyptisckes

.ibcn im Altertum, pp. 180-186.

322

ORGANIZATION OF IVORK AND

ordered gp'oups; in the Imperial household the separate
slave groups are expressly designated colleges or cor-
porations.*

We see here how the need for labour in common led
to permanent organizations among the unfree; and this
need was met in the same way by the agriculturalist of
later Roman times, by the manorial constitution of the
Middle Ages, and by the more modem servile tenure. In
each of these the labourers necessary for the large rural
estates were united into distinct corporate groups at-
tached to the soil, in order that they might always be
ready for seed-time and for harvest. One can really say
that manorial servitude, attachment to the soil, and per-
sonal subjection " owed their ascendancy to the necessity
of labour in common, and that their great extension and
long duration were conditioned by this necessity.

A reaction of labour in common upon the organization
of society is thus established beyond doubt, giving it not
merely a peculiar socio-judicial impress, but also deeply
influencing the mental disposition of the associated work-
ers. One of the keenest observers of agrarian conditions
in North Germany'** found as a prominent trait in the
character of the peasants " that they cling very closely to

•Thus mention is made of collegia {corpora) kctkariorum, taber-
Hoclariorum, cocorum, pragustatorum, decuriones or prapositi cvbiculario-
rum, velariorum, fricliniariorum, structorum, ministratorum, balntariorum,
UHctorum, etc. On all this comp. Marquardt, PrivatUben der Romer, pp.
144 ff., 154. The remarks in text do not contradict what was said above
on pp. 98, 9Q resarding division of labour in the slave family of the
Romans. This sprang from the necessity of having for each piece ol
work required by the household a responsible person — not from the
knowledge of the greater productivity of divided work — while labour
in common had its basis in technical considerations.

' ilorigkeit, SchollenpAichtigkeit. Leibeigenschaft.

" Christian Garve, Utber d. Charakter d. Bauern u. ihr Verhattnis gegtn
d. Cutskerrn u. gegen d. Rtgierung (Breslau, 1786), pp. 14 ff.

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

323

each other." They live much more sociably among them-
selves than the ordinary citizens of the towns. They see
each other daily at each piece of demesne work, in summer
in the field, in winter in the barn and in the spinning-room.
Like soldiers, they constitute a corps, and like them gain
an esprit de corps. The same may be said of all unfree
conditions; uniformity and the disciplining of work create
uniform herd-like masses which become more dull and in-
dolent the more hopeless their condition.

This explains the small productiveness of their labour,
which in turn leads to inhumanly harsh treatment, re-
ducing the labourers to the level of the animal. Genera-
tion after generation of like labour perpetuates the same
way of thinking, the same feelings and sensations towards
the oppressors. The ruling race is now markedly distinct,
both intellectually and physically, from the subject one,
just as the vigorous tree in the forest stands out from the
weakling. But in this evolutionary process causes and
consequences are confused as in a tangled skein; one
perceives only a labyrinth of economic and social factors,
acting and reacting, and nowhere a thread to guide with
certainty the investigating eye. There are close relation-
ships existing between the two spheres; that is all that
we can with some measure of assurance determine.

The problem offered by the third primal form of or-
ganization of labour, division of labour, would seem rela-
tively much easier of solution. Moreover, each indi-
vidual in the world of to-day has a certain interest in it,
inasmuch as he is personally affected by it. For every-
one, if he does not wish to be a useless member of society,
has to accommodate himself to a particular task; and the
more completely he succeeds in this, the more diversified
do men themselves become in their every action and
thought.

384 ORG/INIZATION OF U^ORK j4ND

The German census of occupations of 1895 recorded in
all 10,298 distinct trade designations. Now one may as-
sume that different names are current for many trades in
different parts of the country, and that a deduction is ac-
cordingly to be made for double counts. On the other
hand, one must also remember that very different kinds
of work, especially in the public service and the liberal
professions, are designated by the same name, and that
the numerous individual tasks which have arisen within
the separate industrial undertakings through division of
work and which have been transferred to special work-
men, can be but imperfectly taken into account in the re-
turns. Thus the census figures should rather be increased
than reduced. We have thus in round numbers 10,000
kinds of human activity, each of which can become in our
modern society a life-work, and subject the whole person-
ality to its sway.

New special trades, moreover, are being formed con-
tinually." Each new process of production, each advance

" From 1882 to 1895 the number of trade designations in the Ger-
man census of occupations has been increased by 4"9. The returns

were as follows:

Aceordias to the Ceniui
For the CtaM of Occupations. ol OccupmUont lor

iWa. •'95*

A. Agriculture, gardening, cattle-raising, forestry,

fisheries ••••• 35a 465

B. Mining and quarrying industry, and building

trades ^,661 5.406

C. Trade and commerce ••• L^is 2,216

D. Domestic services and wagework of varying kind. 75 8i

E. Military, court, civil, and ecclesiastical service,

liberal professions ^>^T^ *'°79

Total 6.179 10.398

How far this growth in figures is to be traced to an actual increase m
trades, how far to greater exactness in statistical census work, cannot
be determined. A part of the diflTerence, however, is certainly to be
attributed to increasing division of labour.

t
f

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

3*5

465

5.406
2,216

82
2,079

of technique and science, is subjected to the universal di-
vision of labour. Thinking and feeling men are thus
forced into the restricted field of trade interests of the
narrowest and pettiest sort. The time foreseen by Fer-
guson, when even thinking would become a special busi-
ness, has long since been reached.'* The scope of uni-
versal human interests grows narrower the greater the
divergence of the special interests of the numerous spheres
in life from one another, and the greater the severity of
the struggle for existence.

The differences among men due to nature and culture
without doubt assist this divergence in the most varied
spheres of life; yet, in our opinion, this is true to a much
smaller extent than is frequently assumed. Of course, as
everyone knows, a jockey must differ from a carrier, a
brewer from a tailor, a dancer from a singer, a poet from
a merchant, if he is to be competent for his vocation. But
what natural talents cause one man to appear destined to
be an inspector of diseased meat, another a bookbinder,
and a third a chiropodist, hosiery Vianufacturer, or tobac-
conist, will likely be as difficult to fix as to determine
beforehand the success of a particular individual in any
given liberal profession.

Although, then, many classes of occupations are
adapted to bringa particular talent to the highest develop-
ment, with many others the presence of such a talent will
he of no perceptible importance. All, however, through
continuous practice and use, will produce a certain
differentiation of the men devoting themselves to them;

" Most notoriously in politics, where the majority of men procure
their ideas ready made from some newspaper editorial. But also to no
inconsiderable degree in scientific circles, where on this account the
last is always right; for example, the reviewer of a book over the au-
thor.

■-,Wi

3a6

ORGANIZATION OF WORK AND

. I

certain organs will become enfeebled through lack of use,
while others, through constant exercise, will be developed
to greater perfection; according to his task the individual
will be attuned physically, intellectually, and morally, to
a definite key; through his occupation he will be given a
particular impress which will often be even externally dis-
cernible. This we all recognise when we come into con-
tact with strangers and involuntarily classify them to our-
selves according to callings.

With this personal differentiation, however, the eco-
nomic graduation is transferred also to society at large.
Similar occupations and views of life, similar economic
position and social habit lead to a new distribution of
social groups. They produce classes based on occupation
and a community of interests which dominate them even
in their most minute social ramifications, and are strong
enough to cover up inherited diflferences in position
due to birth, or to reduce them to insignificance. We
have even seen how these new social aggregations
reach out beyond the political boundaries, and how the
social interests and feelings of kinship resting on di-
vision into trades overtop those of nationality based upon
similarity of blood.

Under these circumstances we may raise the question,
which recent biology has brought into close connection:
whether, and to what extent, in a society with free choice
of occupation, the personal variations developed through
division of labour are hereditary, just as under the system
of castes and of classes according to birth such peculiar-
ities are transmissible. In this it is not merely a question
of natural capacities which may be utilized in one's occu-
pation and in which the possibility of hereditary transmis-
sion — though not more — is readily admitted. It is a
question rather of tlic whole physic.il and mental aptitude

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

327

for a vocation, of the skill gained through accommodating
oneself to a circumscribed task, of the intellectual plane
consequent upon such work, of the conception of life, and
the direction of the mind resulting from the character of
one's vocation.

From the latter point of view, ever since Shakespeare's
" Winter's Tale," the problem has frequently been treated
in literature. Generally this has been done by making
educational influences that counteract upon the character
and social position of the parents determine events.
Views as to the issue havt greatly changed in the course
of the last century. It would certainly be a profitable
undertaking for a literary historian to take up this prob-
lem of education and heredity, and investigate more
closely the dependence of literature upon the spirit of the
times and upon the position in life of the writers.*^ While
Lindau in Countess Lea makes the daughter of the
usurer develop, in spite of the paternal education, into a
paragon of nobleness, in a story by Arsene Houssaye (Les
trots Duchesses), of three children interchanged directly
after birth, the son of the peasant woman remains peasant
in understanding and in way of thinking, although edu-
cated as a prince; the daughter of the frivolous actress
becomes a courtesan, and the daughter of the duchess,
even in humble surroundings, displays the native eleva-
tion of her character.

The question has also been touched upon in numerous
ways in more serious literature. But a short time ago
W. H. Riehl, in his Culturgeschichtliche Characterk'dpfe,
drew a contrast between the " peasant youngsters with
limited capabilities " who had graduated from the gym-

"The latest treatment of this subject is to be found in Ludwig
Ganghofer's tale, Der Klosttrj'dger (Stuttgart, 1893). It is exception-
ally healthy and subtle.

" IF

1:11

iil

Hit

3a8

ORGANIZATION OF tyORK AND

nasium with highest standing and the " intellectually
highly trained sons of cultured parents," between whom,
class for class, there arises an insurmountable wall. The
former, he believes, would develop at the university into
mediocre students, whom the " cultured son of cultured
parents," if he went to the university at all, would soon
overtake. Finally the former peasant youth becomes " a
very mediocre though clerically efficient civil servant."
What becomes of the son of the cultured parents, " who
has already been favoured by the manifold educational in-
terests of his parents' home," we are, unhappily, not in-
formed.

The first to discuss the subject with a claim of strict
scientific treatment,^* which, to be sure, is not made in
the above case, was Professor Gustav Schmoller, who, in
a very confident manner, rendered his decision that " the
adaptation of individuals to various activities, increased
through heredity during centuries and thousands of years,
has produced men of ever more individual and diverse
types." All higher social organizations, it is claimed,
rest upon continued differentiation produced by division
of labour. " The castes, the aristocracies of priests, of
warriors, of traders, the guild system, the whole constitu-
tion of labour to-day are but forms diflfering according to
the times, which division of labour and differentiation

"Schmoller has objected to this expression in his review of my
book in Jhrb. f. Gesetzg. Verw. und Volksw., XVII (1893). pp. 303 ff
He desires to have his remarks regarded as but " a kind of essay in
philosophical history." I can perceive in this characterization no re-
pugnancy to the expression used by myself. Nor can I discover that
the further remarks of Schmoller in the paper cited have furnished
proof that I have misunderstood him in essential points. I believe,
therefore, that I am acting most correctly in allowing the following
remarks to appear again word for word as they stood in the first edi-
tion, and in directing the attention of the reader to Schmoller's re-
marks on the same in the article indicated.

I'i

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

329

have imprinted upon society; and each individual has ar-
rived at his peculiar function not merely through indi-
vidual adroitness and fate, but also through his physical
and mental disposition, his nerves, and his muscles, which
rest upon hereditary tendencies and are determined by a
causal chain of many generations. The differences in social
rank and property, in social esteem, and in income are only a
secondary consequence of social differentiation." ^'

One will perhaps expect that the proof for these sur-
prising sentences has been attempted with the help of
biology. But, aside from cursory reference to biological
analogies, that path is avoided. Yet it would certainly
have been useful to pursue it further, because it must
have led inevitably to a point where the conception of
heredity must needs have been defined and its sphere
marked off from that of imitation and education."

On this account we also will have to avoid this path,
and enter upon an examination of the elaborate historical
and ethnographical material that Schmoller adduces for

his assertions.

Such historical proofs are of a nature peculiar to them-
selves. To the eye of one gazing backwards things get
shifted from their proper place. Cause and effect appear
equally near in point of time. One finds oneself in a posi-

" Comp. Schmoller's articles on the division of labour in his Jhrb.,
XIII, pp. 1003-1074; XIV, pp. 45-105; and a short summary of his
conclusions in the Preuss. Jhrb., LXIX, p. 464. [See further his
Grundriss, pp. 395-411— Ed.].

" Such an attempt, though indeed with but meagre results, is to be
found in Felix, Entwickelungsgesch. d. Eigenlhums, I, pp. 130 flf. Among
the more recent biologists this point in the problem of heredity i»
really no longer a matter of controversy; especially Weismann (The
Germ-plasm, Eng. ed., London. 1893) has decidedly contested the trans-
missibility of acquired characteristics. Comp. also Galton, A Theory
of Heredity, in Journal of Anthropolog. Institute, V, pp. 329 ff.; James,
The Principles of Psychology, II, 678.

33°

ORG/INIZATIOS OF IVORK AND

tion similar to that of the man who looks away into ti:«
distance and sees a church steeple that really rises far
behind a group of houses apparently standing directly
over the nearest building.

After a similar fashion, we fear, SchmoUer in the critical
instances of his comprehensive investigations has viewed
the causal relationship of the historical processes in an in-
verted succession as regards reality. So far as th' ^e are
occurrences that do not reach back into epochs be-
yond the range of historical investigation, such as the
origin of castes, of the priesthood, of the oldest nobility,
we would venture to believe that one might unhesitatingly
reverse his surprising conclusion and say: the diversity of
possession and of income is not the result of division of
labour, but its chief cause.

For the past, in so far as it lies open to our eyes, this
can be demonstrated with absolute certainty. Inequality in
the extent and tenure of landed property forms among the
ancient Greeks and Romans, and even among our own
people from the early Middle Ages onward, the basis of
class organization. The noble, the peasant class, the class
of villeins and serfs are at first mere classes based on prop-
erty; it is only after a considerable time that they de-
velop into a species of classes based on occupation."
When in the Middle Ages along with the rise of the crafts-
man class the definite formation of trades sets in, it pro-
ceeds again from distribution of property. The demesne
servants, the landless villeins who h^ve learned an indus-
trial art, begin to turn their industrial skill to independent
account. The industrial process followed must adapt itself
to their poverty; it is pure wage-work, in which th" work-

"The presence of the unpropertied noble in the service of others
(Dienstadef) is a proof, not against, but for, this conception. It
would be inconceivable that the landed noble had not preceded him.

'H 1

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

33»

man receives the raw material from the customer. Only
later do we have a real division of production between
agriculturalist and craftsman. The latter acquires a busi-
ness capital of his own. But how trifling this is, is best
indicated by the circumstance that, as a rule, the crafts-
man works only on ordered piece-work, and that the
whole industrial process for liansforming the raw into the
finished product Hes usually in one hand." The industrial
undertakings were exclusively small undertakings. Where
the great extent of the sphere of production of a handi-
craft called for an increased supply of ccpital, men did not
turn to production on a large scale with subdivisi' n of
work, but to specialization which limited the demanc for
capital and kept the business small.

As one observes, each step taken by mediava! division
of labour in industry was conditioned by the possession of
wealth. It is the same with trade. The tradinp^ c isi of
the Middle Ages is derived from the class of ur m land-
owners, who had become, through the introduction of
rents on houses and the practice of rent-purchase>, pos-
sessors of movable capital. It is from this class c' • )ck-
holders and tradesmen that the present manufacturing
class has sprung since the seventeenth century. T) rough

"The longer the duration of the process of production th- aller
the business capital that the single producer requires, but th. gr -ater
the mass of labour which the completed product contains In he
Middle Ages, to cite a very familiar example, the shoemaker w.. re-
quently tanner as well. The whole process of industrial elaboration
from the raw hide to the finished footwear thus lay in one hand. Ai
suniing new that the tanning of the hide required 'lalf ihe time tha-
was necessary to its transformation into shoewarc, a shoenr kcr d'
siring to carry on tanning alone would have required thrte limes
much business capital as the tanner who at the same time mad, sho
But if he wished merely to make up into shoes leather already tanned,
his business capital must amount to one and a Naif times the former,
together with w.iges and profits.

..tJ

! I'

33J ORGANIZATION OF IVORK AND

the fertilizing of industry with their capital, the two new
forms of division of labour— subdivision and displacement
of labour— arise, and the division of production for the
first time realizes its full efficiency. Half-manufactured
products now wander in masses from workshop to
workshop; in each place they become capital, in each
they yield a return; from one department of pro-
duction to another fresh outlays in interest and other
charges are added, and through them profits on cap;-
tal are made.*» Subdivision of labour presupposes a
class of non-propertied wage-workers. This class comes
from that section of the aftsmen who, through the capi-
talistic character assume*, ay division of labour, have be-
come incapable of competing, and from the landless
peasant population.

In industry, indeed, the dependence of division of labour
upon possession of property becomes especially manifest.
In the Middle Ages each advance of industrial division of
labour augmented the number of urban " livelihoods,"
because it diminished the business capital; at the present
time the progress of division of labour diminishes the num-
ber of independent existences since it increases either the
fixed or the business capital, or both. In the Middle Ages
the effort was made to keep each industrial product as
long as possible in one establishment in order to embody
in it as much labour as was feasible; nowadays, by di-
vision of work, the business capital is carried with the
utmost rapidity through the separate stages of production
in order to make the relation between interest expended
and profit realized the most favourable possible. In the

"The connection of capital with division of labour has been pre-
sented in a masterly manner by Rodbertus (Aus d. lilttf. ^<"*'f *■ "•
pp. 255 flf.); but in this he has not adequately distinguished the dif-
ferent kinds of division of labour.

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

333

Middle Ages dearth of capital led to specialization; in our
time abundance of capital imnels to subdivision of work
and displacement of labour.

Thus from the varied distribution of property have the
general features of our organization of society according
to occupation been developed historically; and on this
foundation, which our present industrial organization is
ever strengthening and solidifying, they continue to rest.
The latter is explained very simply from the following cir-
cumstance: I. Every vocation under our industrial or-
ganization yields an income; and only the propertied per-
son is in a situation to seek out for himself the more lucra-
tive positions within the universal organization of labour,
while the unpropertied person must be content with the
inferior positions."" 2. Property itself, by virtue of its cap-
italistic nature, furnishes an income to its owner, even
without work on his part, and transmits itself from gen-
eration to generation with this capability. In so far as
our propertied classes are also social classes according
to occupation, they are not such because their cccupation
creates property, but rather because property determines
the selection of a vocation, and because as a rule the in-
come that the calling yields is graded much the same way
as the property on which the vocation is founded.

True, there is no novelty in this statement. Each
of us acts conformably to this view. Daily experience
readily suggests it; and scientific political economy
has always recognised it. The whole wage-theory il'.elf
rests on the assumption that the son of the workman can
become nothing else than a workman. This is a conse-

•• This means, then. " that those whom poverty drives to seek a
profitable vocation are compelled by their very poverty to abandon
that vocation." Lotmar, Di* FrrihtH d. BtrufswaU (Leipzig. 1898).
p. 27-

liiil;

! I'lii:

■if

334

ORGylNIZylTION OF fVORK AND

quence of his poverty, not of hereditary adaptation to his
trade. Must one then really prove now for the first
time that occupations whose inception and conduct re-
quire capital, or whose acquisition demands large outlays,
are as good as closed to those without capital? The
much-boasted " freedom of enterprise " thus exists only
within very narrow limits. In very exceptional cases
these indeed are now and then transgressed; but as a rule
it is not the particular vocation, but rather the general
vocational class ^* to which the individual is to belong in
society that is indicated for each person by the wealth of
the paternal house. The " social rank " that in popular
estimation is enjoyed by a particular class, however, can
hardly be maintained without corresponding financial
equipment — a proof that it also is not a secondary conse-
quence of social differentiation (resting upon division of
labour), but essentially a child of the rational union of
wealth and vocation.

No matter how many vocational classes may be dis-
tinguished in society, occupations of very diverse charac-
ter will still be represented in each, and between these
callings a rontinuous exchange of labour will take place.
This exchange extends as far as the classes of work de-
mand approximately the same equipment of wealth, and
as far. therefore, as they stand in the same " social rank ";
one might also say that it extends as far as people marry
among each other, or regularly associate with one an-
other, or as there is approximately the same plane of cul-
ture. All these things stand together in a mutual rela-
tionship. It is an every-day occurrence for a high public

" On this concept, in which we attempted to express the reciprocally
conditioned existence of property and vocation lonR before we were
ac(iuainted with Schmoller's wot';, compare my Btvolktnmg d. Kantons
Bastl-Sladt, p. 70.

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

335

I
I

official to destine his son for agriculture in order, later on,
to purchase him an estate, for the son of a large land-
holder or manufacturer to enter upon an academic career,
for the son of a clergyman to become a civil engineer,
the son of the engineer a physician, the son of the physi-
cian a merchant, the son of the merchant a lawyer or an
architect. Just as easy and frequent is the transition
from peasant to schoolmaster or to brewer, from baker to
watchmaker, from blacksmith to bookbinder, from miner
to factory-hand, from farm-hand to station-hand or coach-
man, etc. We all look upon these transitions, in spite of
the great diflferences in labour skill, as socially proper and
industrially unobjectionable, although there can hardly be
men " differentiated " more widely through division of
labour than a statesman and a farmer, a manufacturer and
a professor, a merchant and an architect, and so forth.
When the son of the manufacturer in turn becomes
manufacturer, and the son of the peasant again a peasant,
we know that in many cases the financial means once
consonant with this vocation have dictated the occupation
without regard to the fitness or unfitness of the individual
for the role thrust upon him.

This glance at practical life must restrain us from con-
ceiving in too narrow a sense Schmoller's theory oi .h
hereditary transmission of personal differentiation conse-
quent upon division of labour. That the son of the shoe-
maker by virtue of inherited adaptation should be in a
better position to produce shoes than, let us say, picture-
frames; that the clergytnan's son. tliough his father had
been taken from him on the <lay i)f his birth, will, of all
classes of occupation, exhil)it the greater natural aptitude
for the clerical calling, cannot possibly be meant by that
theory, even if in the last-mentioned case the forefathers
of the clergyman during the previous two centuries had

^ ntf^

336

ORGANIZATION OF (VORK AND

handed down the spiritual office to each other from gen-
eration to generation. For if we hold strictly to the bi-
ological idea the adaptation to occupation would neces-
sarily increase from age to age, and reveal itself in
continually improving performance of duties. It will,
however, hardly be seriously maintained that the numer-
ous clerical families of Protestant Germany, who are in
the position just described, furnish to-day relatively better
pulpit speakers and more efficient pastors than in the
seventeenth century.

In the domain of the guild handicraft of our towns, in
consequence of the jealous exclusiveness of the different
trades, the positions of master-craftsmen, with but few ex-
ceptions, have been actually passed down from father to
son from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. The
technique, however, not only has not improved, but has
lamentably degenerated, and now languishes, as Schmol-
ler himself m an earlier treatise has shown.** Far from
augmenting the technical acquisitions of their fathers, the
sons have not even been able to maintain the standard of
professional aptitude reached by them.

We must therefore look upon the new theory, if we
would not be unjust to it, as referring to the inheritance
of bodily and intellectual characteristics by the members of
social classes grouped according to occupation. But these
classes arc, as a rule, likewise based upon property and
income, since the standard of their life, both material and
intellectual, is conditioned by property and income. Ac-
cordingly one must demand of the originator of the the-
ory to distinguish between the consequence of the charac-
ter of sustenance and education rendered possible for each
class by the possession of wealth, and the result of heredi-

"Znr Gfsck. d. deutsch. Kkingeucrhr im 19 Jhdt.. pp. 14. 667 AF.

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

337

-i
■i

tary adaptation to occupation. If such a distinction of
the probable and possible causes is not undertaken, or if
without examination there is ascribed to division of labour
that which can be traced back with greater probability to
the apportionment of wealth, the whole theory must be
content in its undeniable weakness in " historical proof "
to be treated as an inexact Darwinian analogy, as a thesis
advanced without proof.

That within a whole social class of this kind a trans-
mission of the " bodily and intellectual constitution," of
the " nerves and muscles " takes place from one genera-
tion to another no one has as yet doubted. One may in-
deed term this heredity, but in this he must not overlook
that each fresh generation must be raised through theo-
retical and practical education to the inte'lectual and
moral level of the parents. Though in this the elements
of culture " fly to " them, to use Riehl's expressive
phrase,^' though the example of their surroundings in-
cites them to imitation, though much is appropriated
without trouble which under other conditions must first be
learned with effort, it is still a question of the acquired,
not of the innate. This holds to a certain extent even of
the bodily constitution — the "nerves and muscles" — so
far as it rests upon the character of sustenance and edu-
cation.'^

Elements of adaptation to a vocation can certainly be
transferred by the indicated paths of " unconscious ab-

" AnHiegtn.

"Schiiffle, Bau u. Lthen d. sot. Korpers (i. Aufl.), II, p. aoi, desig-
nates that the physical side of pedagogy. He says: "The physical
education of each new generation and its schooling in the external
graces of the parents or ancestors cotnes as an immense additional task
to the procreative activity of the sexes. ... In this second act
physical adaptations are obtained that were unknown to the parents
themselves."

' ii

338

ORGANIZATION OF WORK AND

sorption " and imitation, just as well as other elements
of education. But this process is fundamentally different
from inheritance in the biological sense.'^" That which in
this sense is said to be hereditary must make its appear-
ance even when the offspring are completely removed at
the moment of birth from the influence of their pro-
genitors.

We know not whether there are people who consider
the physical and intellectual peculiarities constituting
the plane of culture of our six or eight vocational classes
in society as transmissable in the sense that they must ap-
pear among the descendants of each class even when
brought up within another class. It is only individual in-
stances of this kind that practical life is ever presenting;
and as yet no one has taken the trouble to collect them.
They are generally cases of children of the humbler classes
who are brought up or formally adopted by members of a
higher class. There will scarcely be anyone bold enough
to maintain that these persons, artificially united to social
groups of higher rank, are later on distinguishable from
the members of these groups by birth by reason of less
business ability or of a lower plane of culture.

A further series of observations of this nature is offered
by the instances in which descendants of one class have by
their own energy raised themselves into a higher class.
Everyone knows what difticulties the era of capitalistic
production opposes to such an attempt, and frequently
only too successfully. Everyone, too, can readily call up
the picture of the " upstart " who, with all the technical

"This latter is the real question with Schmollcr, as he plainly indi-
cates in Preuss. Jhrb.. Vol. 69. p. 464- The sociological conception of
inheritance which Schaffle has constructed in works cited (II. pp.
308 ff.) is not treated l>y Schtnolltr, tiiongli many of his remarks re-
call it.

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

339

ability he shows for his trade, is defeated in his effort to
reach the intellectual and moral level of his new class.
This serves again to illustrate the truth that the adapta-
tion to an occupation enjoined by division of labour — the
prime condition of business success — is accomplished by
each individually, and without too much difficulty. But
the moral and intellectual adaptation demanded by the
plane of culture of the class ripens slowly even amid
favourable surroundings, and comes to full maturity only
in the second or third generation.

A strict proof of the fallacy of SchmoUer's theory
of heredity cannot be adduced; but the proofs hitherto
advanced in favour of its accuracy fall equally short of
conclusiveness. Before venturing to dogmatize one
would perhaps have to pass in review the great men of a
nation and note the vocations of their parents, and the
number who have issued from classes of humble occupa-
tion. At the same t-me one would need to determine for
the dififerent classes the degree of probability of their
members attaining a prominent position in which they
alone could display high ability. Finally one would
have to ascertain what relation the number of promi-
nent men who have actually come forth from any given
class of tradesmen bears to the number obtained by the
calculation of probabilities. It does not need to be demon-
strated that for such an investigation all the data are lack-
ing.

But it may be maintained that the new theory contra-
dicts the belief of modern civilized people based, as it is,
upon the observation of many generations.

How often the complaint is made that so much talent
pines under the weight of adversity? If to this dictum
we oppose the other that real talent will always find a
way, wc may indeed offer a formula to (latter the egoism

i1^:

i i

340

ORG/tNlZATION OF fVORK AND

of successful competitors, though in reality it meets all
too rarely with confirmation.

Our whole socio-juridical development since the French
Revolution is based on the assumption that admission to
every free calling and to all public offices, which latter,
after all, we still regard as tJie pinnacle of class divisions,
shall be free to all. This principle of free choice of voca-
tion, whose recognition has been gained only after severe
struggles, would be a great mistake, and every endeavour
towards its realization lost labour, if beside the inequality
in distribution of wealth the hereditability of vocational
aptitudes likewise stood in the way of its establishment.

Even many of our oldest academic arrangements must,
in the light of this theory, necessarily appear funda-
mentally erroneous. To what a high degree the costli-
ness of preparation narrows admission to the favoured
positions of the business world is well known. From time
immemorial, however, a great peril to the efficiency of
the official and the scholastic class has likewise been per-
ceived; and an effort has been made to obviate this danger
through scholarships, free board, remission of fees, and
similar arrangements for rendering study possible to those
without means. The practical results of these arrange-
ments may be a subject of dispute. Yet in judging them
it is essential to remember that advancement in the voca-
tion enjoying popular esteem depends not only upon per-
sonal integrity, but also upon the social education of the
individual, upon his ability to make his own strength felt;
that in this imperfect world even the capable man who too
modestly holds back may all too easily be outdistanced by
the mediocre man who is boldly self-assertive; that he
who seeks to climb the social ladder from the lower rungs
will find it much more difficult to reach the top than the
man who starts halfway up. The German language has an

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES. 341

expression for denoting distinction in a line of business
which happily characterizes the importance of the personal
element in the achievement of success. It is sich hervortlnin
[literally, to do oneself forwardj. Thus it may indeed be
that the student sons of the peasant in Riehl's story failed
to distinguish themselves in their vocations because they
lacked capacity. It is none the less true that many of them
missed success because they did not know how to " do
themselves forward " in the right place, how to bring their
personality into play. ,

In every social grouping in which the occupation exerts
an influence there is generally formed within the different
classes a community of feeling that turns instinctively
against the intruder, and in spite of all his talent frequently
dooms him to failure; while, on the other hand, it supports
and carries along weaklings belonging by birth to the
group in question. Thus, as concerns advancement in the
public service, which still bears in a preeminent degree the
sign manual of a class characterized purely by its voca-
tion, personal and family connections often play, along
with financial standing, a decisive part. Where these
become a cloak for nepotism they can indeed impress upon
it the characteristics of an hereditary class. In the broad
realm of labour, organized according to occupation and
extending beyond it, property will indeed remain, as long
as the present economic system lasts, the prime cause of
social class-formation. And just such an accessory im-
portance as fell in the stages of unfree labour to com-
munity of labour, will here attach to division of labour. If
the employment is inherited it is not because the adapta-
tion to the vocation has been inherited, but because the
property is transmitted by which membership in it is con-
ditioned.

The above theory of heredity consequently bears.

:ilr

mi i ;i ■

'" "1

342 ORGANIZATION OF f^ORK AND

though certainly unknown to its originator, the cheerless
lineaments of a social philosophy of beati poss^dentes It
calls to the man of humble birth who hinks he has m hmi
the power to occupy a higher position in life: Abandon
all hope- your physical and intellectual constitution, your
nerves, your muscles, the causal chain of many genera-
tions, hold you fast to the ground. For centuries your
ancestors have been serfs; yoar father and grandfather
were day-labourers, and you are destined for a l>ke posi-
tion " We need not recite how the consequences of this
new theory do violence to our moral consciousness, to
our ideal of social justice.

In the ^tate of improved thesis in which it at present
stands, the theory, in our opinion, falls to the ground from
the very fact that, as is frequently enough observed, in a
single generation the whole road from zero to the highest
point of modem culture, from the lowest to the highest
stage of division of labour, from the foot to the summit of
the social ladder is traversed, and vice versa. One must
indeed wonder that such a theory could originate among
a people who count among their intellectual heroes a
Luther the son of a miner, a Kant the son of a saddler, a
Fichte the son of a poor village weaver, a Winckelmann
the son of a cobbler, a Gauss the son of a gardener, not to

mention many others." , .u 1 j

There is an old anecdote of a cardinal whose father had

-Valerius Maximus wrote a chapter (III, 4). de humililoconatis,
aui clari evaserunt, that begins thus: " Sxpe even.t ut et hum.l. loco
Tati ad summam dignitatem consurgant et generosiss.marum 'naagmum
foetus in aliquod revoluti dedecus acceptam a majonbus lucem in
tenebras convertant."-In the most recent presentat.on of h.s theory,
which shows considerable modification, (Grundnss. pp. 396ff..)
SchmoUer rests the fact "that talents and great "^e", ^"^^ f^^") ^'
classes of a generally hishb cultured -rtety ' upon thf peculiar .«
fiuences of variation." But this explains nothmg.

THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

343

-A

tended swine, and a French ambassador filled with the
pride of noble birth. In a difficult negotiation in which
the cardinal represented the interests of the church with
adroitness and tenacity the ambassador was so carried
away that he taunted the other with his origin. The
cardinal answered: " It is true that my father tended
swine; but if your father had done so, you would be tend-
ing them too."

This little story has perhaps expressed better than a
long disquisition could have done what the observation
of many generations has established: that the virtues by
which the fathers rise are as a rule not handed down to
grandson and great grandson; that even if the occu-
pation is inherited, the ability to carry it on disappears.
Each aristocracy, be it aristocracy of property or of occu-
pation, degenerates in the course of time like the plant
growing in too fertile soil. In this it is not at all necessary
to think of a moral decay; it suffices if the physical and in-
tellectual powers decline, and procreation grows weak.
The introduction of uncorrupted blood, ascending from the
lower to the higher vocations, appears then a condition
fundamental to the healthy exchange of social material.
The great problem of the century, indeed, we have always
considered to be the ensuring that a gradual rise in the so-
cial scale is made pjossible; that a continuous regeneration
of the higher vocational classes takes place. -• the caste
system, which would be a necessary consequence of the
theory of heredity, we have ever seen the beginning, not
the end of the progress of civilization.

We will not allow ourselves to be led astray in this con-
ception. The solution of the problem just mentioned is
for modern civilized peoples a question of their very ex-
istence. For if history has taught anything with insistence
it is, that for a people that can no longer bt renewed

I SI

344

tyORK AND SOCIAL CLASSES.

from the fresh spring of pure physical and intellectual
strength flowing in the lower classes, the statement once
made by B. G. Niebuhr with regard to England and Hol-
land holds good: the marrow has departed fvoi;' their
bones, they are doomed to inevitable decay.

"Ml

,.'!

CHAPTER X.

INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE GROWTH
OF TOWNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY.

All prehistoric investigation, as far as it relates to the
pJienomena of the animate world, necessarily rests upon
the hypothesis of migration. The distribution of plants,
of the lower animals and of men over the surface of the
earth; the relationships existing between the different
languages, religious conceptions, myths and legends, cus-
toms and social institutions; all these seem ir this one
assumption to find their common explanation.

In the history of mankind we have, to be sure, aban-
doned the view that nomad life is to be regarded as a
universal phase in the r rowth of civilization, which each
people necessarily traversed before making fix'^ settle-
ments, and which served, along with the taming of
domestic animals, as the " natural " pathway of a people
passing from the hunting stage to agriculture. Ethno-
graphic research has made it sufficiently clear that all
primitive peoples, whatever the economic foundations
of their existence, readily, often, indeed, for very insig-
nificant reasons, shift their habitations, and that they
exhibit an extraordinary number of stages intermediate
between nomadic and settled life.' The northern and
southern limits of the inhabited world are stiU peopled

Comp. Z. Dimti off. Die Geringschatsung d. menscklichcn Lebens u.
ihre Ursathen bei d. Naturvclk. (Leipzig, 1891), pp. 33 ff.

345

346 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

by races without fixed abode; and even in its midst there
are broad areas in which a condition of continual migra-
tion prevails. Most civilized peoples have proverbs or
other historic bequests from such a time.

In the German language this far-distant period of univer-
sal mobility has left distinct traces. The word for " healthy"
{gcsnnd) meant originally " ready for the road." « Gesmde,
signifying to-day household servants, is, in the olden
speech, a travelling retinue; companions (Gcfdhrtc and
Gefdhrtin) means, in the strictly literal sense, the fellow-
traveller. Ertahrmg (experience) is what one has ob-
tained on the journey {fahmi); and bcwandcrt (skilled) is
applied to the person who has wandered much. With
these the list of such expressions is far from ex
hausted. In the general significance attached to them
to-day the universality of the concrete range of concep-
tions and observations from which v ey originally sprang

finds expression.

It is natural to suppose that this condition of general
nomadic wandering, with its deep-rooted nomadic cus-
toms, did not suddenly cease; that, in all probability,
the wiiolc course of further development down to our own
day has been a gradual progress towards a settled condi-
tion and an ever-closer attachment of the man to the spot

wner* he was born.

Various indications support this view. Among our
forefathers the house is reckoned movable property;
and it is demonstrable that many settlements have within
historic times changed their locations. Despite the lack
of artificial roads and comfortable means of transporta-
tion.the individual appears in the Middle Ages much more
migratory than ac a later time. This is supported by the

* [From sendtn, meaning to go, to travel.— Ed.1

GROIVTH OF TOH^NS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 347

numerous pilgrimages that extended as far as St. lago, in
Spain, by the crusades, by the great bands of travellers,
the migratory life of king and court, the rights of hospi-
tality of the marquisates and the developed system of
escorts.

Each fresh advance in culture commences, so to speak,
with a new period of wandering. The most primitive agri-
culture is nomadic, with a yearly abandonment of the cul-
tivated area; the earliest trade is migratory trade; the
first industries that free themselves from the household
husbandry and become the special occupations of separate
individuals are carried on itinerantly. The great founders
of reHgion, the earliest poets and philosophers, the musi-
cians and actors of past epochs are all great wanderers.
Even to-day, do not the inventor, the preacher of a
new doctrine, and the virtuoso travel from place to place
in search of adherents and admirers — notwithstanding the
immense recent development in the means of communi-
cating information?

As civilization grows older, settlement becomes more
permanent. The Greek was more settled than the Phoe-
nician, the Roman than the Greek, because one was al-
ways the inheritor of the culture of the other. Conditions
have not changed. The German is more migratory than
the Latin, the Slav than the (Jernian. The Frenchman
cleaves to his native soil; the Russian leaves it with a light
heart to seek in other parts of his broad Fatherland more
favourable conditions of living. Even the factory work-
man is but a periodically wandering peasant.

To all that can be adduced from experience in support
of the statement that in the course of history mankind
has been ever growing more settled, there comes a gen-
eral consideration of a twofold nature. In tlie first place
the extent of fixed capital g'ows with advancing culture;

» \

348 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

the producer becomes stationary with his means of pro-
duction. The itinerant smith of the souther Slav coun-
tries and the Westphalian ironworks, the pack-horses of
the Middle Ages and the great warehouses of our cities,
the Thespian carts and the resident theatre mark the
starting and the terminal points of this evolution. In the
second place the modern machinery of transportation
has in a far higher degree facilitated the transport of
goods than of persons. The distribution of labour de-
termined by locality thereby attains greater importance
than the natural distribution of the means of production;
the latter in many cases draws the former after it,
where previously the reverse occurred.

To these statements there are, of course, some consider-
ations and facts opposed. First, the extent to which man
was by law tied to the soil in the earlier agrarian period —
the unfree nature of all his economic and legal relation-
ships in contrast with the modern freedom of person and
property. Further, and in part as a result of this,
we have in modem times the entire dependence of many
individuals upon movable capital or personal skill. Still
further, the growing ease of transfer of landed property
which to-day allows the peasant to convert house and land
into money and on the other side of the ocean to start
life anew; while the villein of the Middle Ages could at
most attach himself as an c.xtra-nuiral citizen to a ncigli-
bouring town whence he either contiimed to carr>- on his
work in the village personally, or leased it in some form
or other to a second person for a yearly rent. Finally.
the increase one observes in the flow of rural popula-
tion to the to\<ns which has been manifesting itself for
half a centurv in a remarkably rapid rise in nrhan. and
at some pc^ints in a stationary or even declining rural,
poi)ulation. \\ itli .ill these circuinstatv> ?s in mind, many

GROIVTH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 349

consider themselves justified in speaking of the steadily
advancing mobility of society.

How are these two series of phenomena to be recon-
ciled? Is it a question of two principles of development
mutually opposed? Or is it possible that modern migra-
tions and those of past centuries are of essential!} diflferent
types?

One would almost be inclined to believe the latter The
migrations occurring at the opening of the history of
European peoples are migrations of whole tribes, a push-
ing and pressing of collective units from east tc; west which
lasted for centuries. The migrations of the Middle Ages
ever affect individual classes alone; the knights in the
crusades, the merchants, the wage craftsmen, the journey-
men hand-workers, the jugglers and minstrels, the villeins
seeking protection within the walls of a town. Modern
migrat'ons, on the contrary, are generally a matter of pri-
vate concern, the individuals being led by the most varied
motives. They are almost invarialily without organiza-
tion. The process repeating itself daily a thousand
times is united only throu}^!-]! the one characteristic, that
it is everywhere a question of change of locality by per-
sons seeking more favourable conditions of life.

Yet such a distinction would not be fully in accord with
the nature of either modern or media-val migrations. If
we would grasp their true importance in historical evolu-
tion we must fust thin out the tangled thicket of con-
fused contemporar) opinions that still surrounds the
whole subject ilespite all the ctTorts of statistics and politi-
cal economy.

Among all the phenomena of masses in sticial life suited
to statistical treatment there is without tloubt scarcely
one that appears to fall of itself so complett'Iy under the
general law of causality as migrations; and likeuisc hardly

til

1' ' !" ^1

350 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

one concerning whose real cause such misty conceptions

prevail.

Yet, not merely in popular circles and in the press, but
even in scientific works, migratory instincis are spoken of;
and thus those movements of men from place to place are
put without the pale of deliberate action. Indeed, a statis-
tician once entitled an article in the Journal of the Prus-
sian Statistical Bureau of 1873 "The Affection for the
Homestead and the Migratory Instinct of the Prussian
People," just as if home-keeping depended merely upon
natural disposition, and the abandoning of it upon an
irresistible instinctive impulse stronger with one race

than another!

In strange contradiction to this, to be sure, is the fact
that while the great bulk of official statistical compila-
tions remains unheeded by wider circles, the publication
of the emigration returns generally excites a most active
expression of public opinion. The rising and faUing of the
figures bring fear and hope, approbation and disapproba-
tion, editorial leaders and speeches in Parliament. Here
naturally we hear less about migrator>- instincts and the
love of home; people have avague feeling that behind those
Huctuating phenomena stand very concrete causes. Cut
how little they comprehend the nature of these causes
is evident when we recall, for example, that a few years
ago it was a matter of grave debate in the (lerman Reichs-
tag whether people emigrated because they were getting
along well or because they were not.

With regard to this jjfoblem one cannot say that as yet
statistics have succeeded in escaping from the turbid
-waters of confuse<l popular opinions to the firm conclti-
sions of exact observation. From the statistical stand-
point migration is above all an economic and social phe-
nomenon of masse>^; .iiul stritistin;.ns. in our opinion, have

W^.

awngyami lji.i: >*«» .

GROU^TH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 35 »

been precipitate in abandoning the attempt to discover
with their peculiar machinery the causes of these migra-
tions and turning to investigation by inquiry before the
resources of the statistical method were exhausted.

A perusal of the perfunctory remarks that Quetelet'
devotes to the phenomenon of emigration will readily con-
vmce anyone that his exposition of the subject hardly rises
above the prosaic commonplace. True, one finds on go-
ing through the official publications of recent date that
detailed systematic interrogations on the " causes " and
" grounds " of emigration, which would not even perplex
the less intelligent of the communal officials consulted, are
by no means infrequent. But one immediately feels that
such suggestive (|uestions mean the substitution of a series
of subjective presumptions for the objective results of in-
vestigation.

Before resorting, however, to a means of information
that reads into the numbers only a strained interpre-
tation not following of itself, we should rather tr>'
to determine the phenomena of migrations themselves.
We should classify them according to numerical regu-
larity, and connect them with other mass-phenomena of
difTerent times and places accessible to statistics (for ex-
ample, the density of population, its division into trades,
the .listrihution oi landed property, the rate of labour
wages, the oscillation in food prices); that is, undertake
the statistical experiment of drawing up parallel lines of
isolated series of figures.

From even these first steps on the road to an exact
method we are. however, still far removed. The whole de-
partment of migrations has never yet undergone system-
atic statistical observation; exclusive attention has hith-

• D« systime social ft des lots qui It ri-gissent, pp. 186-190.

!!■' V- p

3Si INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

erto been centred upon remarkable individual occur-
rences of such phenomena. Even a rational classification
of migrations in accord with the demand of social science
is at the present moment lacking.

Such a classification would have to take as its starting-
point the result of migrations from the point of view of
population. On this basis they would fall into these
groups: —

1. Migrations with continuous change of locality.

2. " '■ temporary change of settlement.
3.' " " permanent settlement.

To the first i^roup belong gypsy life, peddling, the carry-
ing on of itinerant trades, tramp life; to the second, the
wandering of journeymen craftsmen, domestic servants,
tradesmen seeking the most favourable spots for tempo-
rary undertakings, officials to whom a definite office is
for a time entrusted, scholars attending foreign institu-
tions of learning; to the third, migration from place to
place within the same countr>' or province and to foreign
parts, especially across the ocean.

An intermediate stage between the first and second
group is found in the periodical migrations. To this stage
belong the migrations of farm labourers at harvest-time,
of the sugar labourers at the time of the campagne, of the
masons of Upper Italy and the Ticmo district, common
day-labourers, potters, chimney-sweeps, chestnut-roast-
ers, etc.. which recur at definite seasons.

In this division the influence of the natural and political
insulation of the different countries is. it is true, neglected.
It must not. however, be overlooked that in the era of
nationalism and protection of national labour political al-
lej^iance has a certain importance in connection with the
objective point of the migrations. It would, therefore, in

'-•v»!^Tr-Ear jz»:*wfe r /x. . .ta'n.*i"»r?n^». "wrj"

CROIVTH OF TOfVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 353

our opinion, be more just to make another division,
taking as a basis the politico-geographical extent of the
migrations. From this point of view migrations would
fall into internal and foreign.

Internal migrations are those whose points of departure
and destination lie within the same national limits; for-
eign, those extending beyond these. The foreign may
again be divided into continental and extra-European
(generally transmaritime) emigration. One can, however,
in a larger sense designate all migrations that do not leave
the limits of the ODntinent as internal, and contrast with
them real emigration, or transfer of domicile to other parts
of the globe.

Of all these manifold kinds of migration, the trans-
maritime alone has regularly been the subject of official
statistics; and even it has been but imperfectly treated, as
every student of this subject knows. The periodic
emigrations of labour and the peddling trade have occa-
sionally been also subjected to statistical investigation —
mostly with the secondary aim of legislative restriction.
The Government of Italy alone has long been endeavour-
ing to clear up the subject of the periodic migration of a
part of her population to other European lands through
local investigations, exchange of tabulation-cards and
consular reports.

The migrations involving permanent and temporary
transfer of settlement between the different European
countries are but very imperfectly noticed in the publica-
tions of the population census by means of the returns of
births and of nationality. As for internal migrations, they
have only in rare instances met with serious consideration.

Yet these migrations from place to place within the
same country are vastly more numerous and in their con-

.i,'B'»»rei*sS5«

f!'V

II i ii

354 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

sequences vastly more important than all other kinds of
migration put together.*

Of the total population of the Kingdom of Belgium
there were, according to the results of the census of 31st
December, 1880, not less than 32.8 per cent, who were
born outside the municipality in which they had their tem-
porary domicile;' of the population of Austria (1890),
34.8 per cent. The actual population of Prussia on the
first of December, 1880, was divided as follows: —

No. of Per ct. of whole
PUcc of Birth. Peisona. Population.

1. In the municipality where enumerated 1S.721.S88 57-6

2. Elsewhere in census district (.Krtis) 4.S99.664 16.9

3. Elsewhere in enumerated province 4.556.124 i6.7

4. Elsewhere in Prussia 1,658,187 6.1

5. Elsewhere in Germany 526,037 1.9

6. In foreign parts under German flag 212,021 0.8

Of 27,279,111 persons, 11,552,033. or 42-4 per cent.,
were born outside the municipality where they were domi-
ciled." More than two-fifths of the population had
changed their municipality at least once. Of the popula-
tion of Switzerland on the first of December, 1888, there
were born in the commune where then domiciled 56.4. in
another commune of the same canton 25.7. in another
canton 11. 5, in foreign parts 6.4 per cent.^ The commune
in this enumeration is an administrative centre, which in
many parts of the State embraces several places of resi-
dence. The figures here given thus exclude altogether
the numerous class of migrations from locality to locality
within the commune itself.

•Comp. now also G. von Mayr. Statistik m. GeselUckaftsUhre, II, pp.

li6fT. 354 ff- _^

" \ntiuairt statist, de la Belgique. XVI (1885). p. 76.
•Ztschr d. k. preus^ statist, Bureaus, XXI (1881), Beilage I, pp.

46.47

♦Statist. Jhrb. <! Schweiz. II (1892), p. 57.

GROIVTH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 355

This latter class of internal migrations, as far as we are
aware, has been but once a subject of investigation. This
was in connection with the Bavarian birth statistics of
1871.* According to these the total actual population of
Bavaria was divided as follows: —

Place of Birth. No. of Pw ct. of whole

Penom. Population.

1. In the municipality where enumerated 2,975,146 61.2

2. Elsewhere in census district (Kreis) 143,186 3.0

3. Elsewhere in enumerated province 677,752 13.9

4. Elsewhere in Bavaria 944, loi 19.4

5. Elsewhere in Germany 78,241 1.6

6. In foreign parts 44,150 0.9

The Bavarian population of 1871 thus appears some-
what more settled than the Prussian of 1880 and the Swiss
of 1888, a circumstance perhaps due to the earlier year of
the census. Nevertheless, two-fifths of the inhabitants
(1,888,000 out of 4,863,000) were not native to the place
in which they were living; that is, had migrated thither
at some time or other. In the larger cities the number of
people not of local birth amounted to as much as 54.5 per
cent., in the small rural towns 43.2 per cent.; even in the
communes of the open country it sank to merely 35.6 per
cent.

These are colossal migrations that we are dealing with.
If one may venture an estimate, the data for which cannot
be. gfiven in detail here, we believe ourselves justified in
maintaining that the number of the inhabitants of Europe
owing their present place of domicile not to birth, but to
migration, reaches far over one hundred millions. How
small do the oft-cited figures of transmaritime emigration
appear in comparison! ®

' Die bayerische Bevdlkerung nock d. Gebiirtigkeit. Bearbeitet von Dr.

G. Mayr (No. XXXII of Beitrdge s. Statistik d. Konigr. Bayem), p. 10.

*In the seventy years, 1821-1891, the United States of America re-

W !'i

f *!

(:•<'

356 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

That such enormous movements of population must
draw after them far-reaching consequences is obvious.
These consequences are chiefly economic and social.

The economic result of all kinds of migrations is a local
exchange of labour and, as people cannot be dissociated
from their economic equipment, a considerable transfer of
capital as well. Or we may say, since we must presume
that in these matters also men's actions have definite pur-
poses behind them, that they bring about more effective
distribution and combination of labour and capital
throughout the whole inhabited world. In this regard it
is indifferent whether labour follows capital or favourable
natural conditions, or capital seeks unemployed hands.

Their social result is great shiftings of the population,
which with an endless, undulatory motion seeks to pre-
serve the equilibrium between itself and existing advan-
tages for trade. These shiftings retard the increase in
population at certain points, and accelerate it at others,—
at once a thinning out and a concentration. The local
distribution of the population, which is ordinarily deter-
mined by natural organic increase, through surplus of
births over deaths, is broken through.

But in this very respect there is for the individual State
an important difference between internal migration and

emigration.

The immediate effect of emigration upon the mother
country shows itself in only one way: it thins out the pop-
ulation and gives elbow-room to the remainder. That at
the same time the settlement and development of thinly-
peopled colonial territories is accelerated only indirectly
affects the mother country when ultimately by the prac-
tice of agriculture on a virgin soil the emigrants create a
ceived from all countries of Europe 13.692.576 immigrants, v. Mayr, as
above, p. 344-

CROIVTH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 357

dangerous competition for home agricultural products, or
by the transference of industrial skill and means of pro-
duction into foreign lands cut off the market of home in-
dustry.

The effects of internal migrations, on the other hand,
are always of two kinds: those displaying themselves
at the points of departure; those perceptible at the objec-
tive points. In the one case they reduce, in the other
they increase, the density of the population. They
thus cause, as it were, a division of the popula-
tion centres and districts into t'.iose producing and
those consuming human beings. Our producing centre"
are generally the country places and smaller towns; our
consuming centres, the large cities and industrial districts.
The latter increase in population beyond the natural rate
of the birth surplus, while the former remain noticeably
behind it. Taking a yearly average for the period of eigh-
teen years from 1867 to 1885, the total population of the
German Empire has increased by 0.86 per cent, of the
mean population." Yet when we look at the details we
see that the average yearly increase amounted:

In the large cities (pop. loo.cxn and over) to a.6 per cent.
" " medium-siied cities ( " 30,000 to 100,000) " 3.4 " "
" " small cities ( " 5,000" 30,000) " 1.8 " "
" " country towns ( " a.ooo •' s.ooo) " i.o " '•
" " villages (below 8,000) •'

But of course the phenomenon of inland migrations is
really not so simple and clear as this row of figures would
seem to indicate. It certainly vividly illumines the much-
talked-of " inHux to the cities." This expression, however,
tells only half the truth. It overlooks the great number of
internal migrations that counterbalance one another, and

"According to Schumann in Mayr's Allg. statist. Archiv., II (1890),

P- 518.

MKIOCOnr RtSOUJTION TEST CHAtT

(ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2)

/APPLIED IM/QE I

<6S3 Eoit Main Strnt

RochMttr, N«w Torh 1 4609 USA

('!«) *82 - 0300 - Phon«

("«) 2M- 5989 -Fo,

;iil (r

358 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

therefore find no expression in a change in the number
of inhabitants of individual localities.

If we take a collective view of the internal migrations
of a large country, without regard to their effect on the
distribution of the inhabitants over the surface, their
routes appear to us as a close variegated web in which the
interwoven threads cross and recross continually. Into
the rather simple warp stretched from the country places
and towns to the large cities and industrial centres is
woven a many-coloured woof whose threads run hither
and thither between the smaller centres of population. Or,
to use a different figure, the broad and majestically surg-
ing surface-current, which alone we see, is not the only
one; beneath it numerous lesser currents sport at will.

Up to the present these latter have received scarcely
any attention, certainly not so much as they deserve, even
in cases where they happen to have been statistically as-
certained. The Bavarian census of 1871 shows the follow-
ing situation:

Retidcnti native •>„_
toLoc»lilyof pi^I^„ ToUl.

EnumeiatfoD. E^^'h^"-

In the self-governing cities ^. . 301, 494 361.899 663.393

In other places of over 2,000 population. 205,887 iS7.o<» 36^,887

Total 507,381 518,899 T j6,28o

In the rural municipalities 2,467,765 i.3S7.98l J,«-25,746

Grand total 3,975.146 1,876,880 4.852,026

From these figures it is plainly evident that the abso-
lute number of persons who during the last generation
migrated into rural municipalities is far more than twice
as great as the number who had migrated to the cities.
The same relation probably holds good for all larger
countries.

But the significant feature in this connection is not that

CROU^TH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 359

the country places receive as well as give in this inter-
change of population; it lies in two other considerations.
The one is that they give out a larger population than
they receive; the other, that their additions are made
chiefly from the rural municipalities, while those leaving
them find their way in part to the more distant cities. The
excess of decrease over increase thus accrues to the bene-
fit of communities of higher order; so much of the popu-
lation enters into a sphere of life economically and socially
diflferent.

If we call the total population born in a given place
and domiciled anywhere within the borders of the coun-
try that locality's native population, then according to the
conditions of interchange of population just presented
the native population of the country places is greater than
their actual population, that of the cities, smaller. Thus
in Bavaria, according to the census of 187 1, the native
population of the rural municipalities amounted to 103.5
per cent, of the enumerated population, that of the cities
to only 61 per cent." In the Grand Duchy of Olden-
burg '* according to the census of December ist, 1880,

The influx from other places amounted in the citiei to 25,370 persons

The exodus to " " cities " io,ao8 "

The influx from " " " " " country " 57,366 "

The exodus to " " " •• " country "72,528 "

A balancing of the account of the internal migrations
thus gives the cities a surplus, and the country municipal-
ities a deficit, of 15,162 persons. In the economy of popu-
lation one is the complement of the other, just as in the
case of two brothers of different temperament, one of
whom regularly spends what the other has laboriously

" Mayr, as above, pp. 5.1, 54 of the introduction.

"Comp. Statist. Nachrickten iiber d. Grosch. Oldtnbwt, XIX, p. 64.

360 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

saved. To this extent then we are quite justified from
the point of view of population in designating the cities
man-consuming and the country municipalities man-pro-
ducing social organisms.

But the total remaining loss of population of the coun-
try municipalities exceeds the surplus that they furnish
to the cities, even in the example here given from a small
State, by almost four times. And the amount that they
receive from one another is just as great. However large
this mutual exchange of population by the country places
may appear, only a relatively limited scientific interest
really attaches to it. For here we are dealing with a
species of migration which arises from the social limita-
tions of the rural places, and which accordingly gains in
importance the smaller the communities. In the whole
Grand Duchy of Oldenburg the number of persons not
bom where at the time residing amounted in:

Municipalities of less than 500 inhabitants to SS-of»

" " 500 to 1,000 " " 37-4%

" i.oooto i.soo " " 417%

" " 1,500 to 2,000 " " 40.4%

" 2,000 to 3,ooo " " 387%

" " 3,000 to 4.000 " " 22.2%

" " 4,000 to 5,000 " " ao.6%

« " over 5.000 " " 29-4%

From this we notice that in the smaller municipalities
(up to 4000 inhabitants), as the absolute size of the mu
nicipality increases the influx from other places decreases
relatively to the native population, while in the larger
places it increases.

Mayr has shown that the same holds for Bavaria. There
in the year 1871 in the lartjer rural municipalities (of 2000
and more inlubitants) the number of those resident in the
place of birth was 66.9 per cent., but in the smaller mu-

GROWTH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 361

nicipalities only 64.4 per cent.,*^ while in the cities the
exact opposite was the case. For in the self-governing
cities 45.5 per cent, of the population were found to have
been born where enumerated, but in the other (smaller)
towns 56.8 per cent. Mayr accordingly sets up the prop-
osition that in the cities the proportion of persons born where
residing decreases with the sice of the place, while in the
rural municipalities, on the contrary, it increases}*

There is a very natural explanation for this condition
of affairs in the country. Where the peasant, on account
of the small population of his place of residence, is
much restricted in his local choice of help, adjoining com-
munities must supplement one another. In like man-
ner the inhabitants of small places will intermarry more
frequently than the inhabitants of larger places where
there is a greater choice among the native population.
Here we have the occasion for very numerous migrations
to places not far removed. Such migrations, however, only
mean a local exchange of socially allied elements.

This is again clearly shown by the "work, already fre-
quently referred to, on the native-born population of
Oldenburg. In it the foreign-born population of Wadde-
warden, Holle and Cappeln, three communities chosen at

"Die bayer. Bevolkerung nack d. Gebiirtigkeit. Introduction, p. 15.

"This proposition has been corroborated by the Austrian census of
1890. According to the excellent treatise on it by H. Rauchberg, Die
Bevolkerung Oesterreichs auf Grutid d. Ergebnisse d. Volkss. v. 31. Des.
iS<)0 (Vienna, 1895), p. 105, of every 100 persons bom where enumer-
ated there were in places:

Of less than 500 inhabitants 65.7%

SCO to 2,000 " 735%

2,000 to s.ooo " 69.9%

5,000 to 10,000 " SS-6%

10,000 to 20,000 " 46.4%

over 20.000 inhabitants 43-1%

362

INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

Holle.

CappelD

1298

1423

445

388

267

324

60.1

83.5

178

39-9

16.5

544

387

490

33a

90.0

85.9

10.

14 I

random, is arrar.ged according to zones of distance from
the place of birth. The figures are as follows: *'

Waddewardea,

Total population 861

From other places 270

Of these latter there j ^^^^.^^^ „^^t,„ g

come from places upj p„ „„, ^5.6

to 9 miles distant ( "

_ • J- . i Absolute number 12
From greater distances j pg^ cent 4.4

Migrated to other places 400

Of those up to a dis- ( Absolute number 332

tance of 9 miles ( Per cent 83.0

Migrated to a greater j Absolute number 68

distance \ Percent 17.0

How entirely different are conditions in this regard
in the capital, Oldenburg, which with its 20,575 inhabi-
tants is after all to be looked upon as only a small city.
Of its total foreign-born population (13,364 persons, or
64.9 per cent.) there come:

From a Distance of— Persons. Per cent.

Less than 9 miles 2916 31.8

From 9-4S " 5625 42.1

Over 45 " 4823 36.1

Here the greater part of the influx of population is from
a distance; the entry of the stranger-born into a new
community means at the same time an entry into new
social and economical conditions; and this urban com-
munity does not give as many of its native inhabitants
to other districts as it receives from them.*® On the
contrary, it absorbs from a wide region round about the
surplus of emigration over immigration, and repays it
only in very small part.

^^ Stati.t. Niuh.ichtai iibcr d. Grossh. Oldenburg, p. 65 [i Germati mile
is taken — 4.5 Ln^lish miles, although actually = 4.6. — EdI.

"The city of Oldenburg in the year 1880 received from other munici-
palities of the Grand Duchy 8,725 inhabitants, and gave up to them only
1,925. See, as above, p. 212.

CROIVTH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. . 363

This is the characteristic of modem cities. If in our
consideration of this problem we pay particular attention
to this urban characteristic and to a like feature of the
factory districts — ^where the conditions as to internal mi-
grations are almost similar — we shall be amply repaid
by the discovery that in such settlements the result
of internal shiftings of population receives its clearest
expression. Here, where the immigrant elements are
most numerous, there develops between them and the
native population a social struggle, — a struggle for the
best conditions of earning a livelihood or, if you will, for
existence, which ends with the adaptation of one part to
the other, or perhaps with the final subjugation of the
one by the other. Thus, according to Schliemann,*" the
city of Smyrna had in the year 1846 a population of 80,000
Turks and 8,000 Greeks; in the year 1881, on the con-
trary, there were 23,000 Turks and 76,000 Greeks. Tlie
Turkish portion of the population had thus in 35 years
decreased by 71 per cent., while the Greeks had increased
nine-fold.

Not everywhere, to be sure, do those struggles take the
form of such a general process of displacement; but in
individual cases it will occur with endless frequency within
a country that the stronger and better equipped element
will overcome the weaker and less well equipped.

In the year 1871, for instance, there were, in round
numbers, 86,000 Bavarians living in Munich not born
in the city; and at the same time some 18,000 na-
tives of Munich were to be found in other places in
Bavaria. In the year 1890 55.3 per cent, of the popula-
tion of the twenty-six largest cities of Germany was found
to have been born in other places, while 22.3 per cent, of

" Reiit in d, Troas im Mai 1881,

pp. 29

aoff.

ill' I '

V 1 1

364 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

their native population was living in other parts of the
empire.*^ Still more striking is the fact shown by the
English census of 188 1, that there were living in England
and Wales (outside of the metropolis) just about half as
many persons native to London as England and Wales
had supplied to that city.*"

Thus we have here a case similar to that occurring so fre-
quently in nature; on the same terrain where a more
highly organized plant or animal has no longer room
for subsistence, others less exacting in their demands take
up their position and flourish. The coming of the new
is in fact not infrequently the cause of the disappearance
of those already there and of their withdrawal to more
favourable surroundings.

This process need not, however, in the world of human
society necessarily be a process of displacement, a con-
sequence of the imperfect equipment of the native ele-
ments and of the superiority of the foreign ones.

The reverse will perhaps occur quite as frequently, and
in the examples cited is probably the rule. On account
of the endless differentiation of labour in modern national

"Comp. von Mayr, Statistik u. GeseUschaftslekre, II, pp. 122 flF.

"London had in i88i, 3,816,483 inhabitants. Of these there were

born:

D.—™.. P«' cent, of the

Penou. Population.

In London 2,401,955 62.9

In the immediate neighbourhood.. 384,871 lai

Elsewhere in England and Wales . . 787,699 ao.6

In Scotland 49-554 1.3

In Ireland 80,778 3.1

In other countries 111,626 a.9

On the other hand, 584,700 natives of London were counted in other
parts of England and Wales. For every 100 persons from these terri-
tories who had settled in London, 51 natives of London had left the
metropolis. — According to the Ztschr. des preuss. statist. Bureaus,
XXVI (j886), Statist. Correspondens, p, xviii.

GROIVTH OF TOfVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 3^5

economy it is the skilled labourers who experience most
trouble in finding suitable employment and compensation
for their labour where they live and have received their
training, because it is there that the competition is keen-
est. They emigrate and seek more favourable surround-
ings, better conditions of competition, while at these
points less highly qualified labour may at the same time
be in demand, which demand must be met by importation
of labour from outside places. This less skilled labour
may, on the other hand, however, form the stronger, bet-
ter equipped element in its own locality; and though it
may lack here the opportunity for a profitable utilization
of its skill, its departure may, nevertheless, leave a void
that it is impossible to fill.

Thus the emigration of more highly trained technical
labour from the cities was perhaps never greater than in
the period of the so-called industrial boom of the seventies.
At the same time, however, those same cities received an
immense influx of labouring population from the country;
and the departure of the latter again caused in the dis-
tricts of great landed estates a serious dearth of agricul-
tural labourers, an advance in wages, and in some places
a lamentable condition of agriculture. Here, in every case,
it was the relatively stronger that had emigrated, the rela-
tively weaker that had remained; there could be no ques-
tion at all of mutual displacement.

Still less is there ground for such a view with regard to
those internal migrations that have their origin not in
the effort to find a better place for carrying on work, but
in the search for more favourable conditions of living. The
pensioned civil servant or military man who leaves the
expensive metropolitan city for the country or a cheaper
rural town; the speculator who has become suddenly rich
and exchanged his fluctuating stocks for a solid country

i H

\' t

4 )

366 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

estate; the Parisian shopkeeper who enjoys his more la-
boriously earned income in the quietude of his modest
country cottage; and also, on the other hand, the Jewish
cattle-dealer who has become wealthy and seeks the city
in order to speculate on the exchange; Fritz Reuter's ex-
cellently portrayed Mechlenburg " Fctthammcl " or rich
farmer, who after disposing of his farm will enjoy the
pleasures of city life; the poor clergyman's widow who
moves into the city in order to give her children a better
education and supplement her scant pension by keeping
boarders; — none of these in their new places of residence
enters into dangerous competition with the native labour-
ing population.

And yet at the objective points of the migration, even
where the danger of displacement cannot enter into the
question, there are innumerable struggles and endless fric-
tion, all originating in the process of social amalgamation
which is here always going on between the native popu-
lation and the new-comers. The stranger has to adapt
himself to his environment, to the peculiar local economic
methods, to customs, speech and the political, religious
and social institutions of his new abode. And the inhabi-
tants of the latter place again, however settled in char-
acter and peculiar in type cannot altogether escape
the influences that rush in upon them from without.
Though these influences often mean for them an increase
of working energy, an expansion of the horizon, a breeze
bringing freshness into corrupt local conditions, yet per-
haps much more frequently they result in a loss of good
old customs, of solid business qjalities, of interest in the
common weal, and, above all, of social characteristics.

Now there can be no doubt that these struggles for
mutual adaptation will take a vastly different form and
course when waged between similar and between diver-

GROIVTH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 367

gent elements. For this verj' reason the division used in
municipal statistics for marking the distinction between
native and resident population does not suffice for more
exact socio-statistical investigations.

For if, for example, it has been ascertained that the
native-born inhabitants of the city of Munich in 1890
amounted to 36 per cent, of the whole, while in Hamburg
they consiituted 47.5 per cent., the mere fact that in the
former city there are 11.5 per cent, more citizens of extra-
mural birth is far from proving that the population of
Munich is to this extent more heterogeneous than that of
Hamburg, and that in the former the process of mutual
social adaptation is attended with more violent friction
and struggles than in the latter. In like manner the
fact that two cities — for example, Dresden and Frankfurt-
on-Main — show the same proportion of non-native to na-
tive-born citizens does not mean that this process takes
the same course in both. It is easy to conceive that the
strangers in one city may show a greater homogeneity of
customs and speech, economic energy and social habits
amongst themselves and with the native population on
account of coming from a neighbourhood more nearly
akin, while in the other city heterogeneous elements from
more distant localities are mingled together.

The final result of the mutual adaptation of non-native
and native population will be altogether different in each
of these cases. While in the former individuals and groups
of persons of approximately like economic equipment and
similar social character enjoy peacefully together the ex-
isting conditions for business, in the latter perhaps the
more robust, energetic, easily contented race will vanquish
the decrepit, weaker and more pretentious in its ancient
home, or at least eject it from the most favourable fields
of industry. Especially is it true that a lower standard

1 l(

368 INTERN/tL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

of living can give the incomers a superiority over the na-
tive labour in the competitive struggle, which involves
the latter in the most deplorable consequences. The im-
migration of the Polish labourers into the provinces on
their west, of the Italians into Switzerland and south Ger-
many, and of the Chinese into the cities of the North
American Union are well-known examples of this.

But even when the economic and social assimilation
takes place without severe struggles there may persist be-
tween incomers and natives differences that simply can-
not be removed, invading and disturbing the original
homogeneity of the population. We have especially
in mind differences of creed, of language and of political
allegiance. The two largest cities of Switzerland, Geneva
and Basel, both of which we are accustomed to look upon
as strongholds of Protestantism, have to-day, in conse-
quence of inKax from without, a population which over
a third is foreign. In Geneva about 20 per cent, of the
population have a mother tongue other than French.
Finally, since 1837 the Roman Catholics have increased in
Basel from 15 up to 30 per cent, of the population, while
in Geneva they have reached 42 per cent. Even he who
has no detailed knowledge of the internal history of these
small municipalities will be obliged to admit that such
differences are not void of danger.

If these considerations show that by no means the ma-
jority of internal migrations find their objective point in
the cities, they at the s;ame time prove that the trend
towards the great centres of population can in itself be
looked upon as having an extensive social and economic
importance. It produces an alteration in the distribution
of population throughout the State; and at its originating
and objective points it gives rise to difficulties which legis-
lative and executive authority have hitherto laboured.

■*!!

CROIVTH OF TOU^NS CONSIDERED HlSTORlC/iLLY. 369

usually with but very moderate success to overcome. It
transfers large numbers of persons almost directly from a
sphere of life where barter predominates into one where
money and credit exchange prevail, thereby affecting the
social conditions of life and the social customs of the
manual labouring classes in a manner to fill the philan-
thropist with grave anxiety.

This mighty flow of the country population into the
cities and the universally rapid rise of the latter in volume
is looked upon by many as an entirely modern phenom-
enon. In a certain sense this is true. The eighteenth cen-
tury knew nothing of it, at least in Germany. The famous
founder of population statistics, J. P. Sussmilch, did not
succeed in discovering any regular law governing the
movement of population in cities. He is of the opinion
that they rise and fall in size according to the will of
God.2° J jj Q yQj^ Justi deems it hardly possible that a
city should increase unless special privileges be granted
to the incoming settlers.** This is in accord with such
population statistics as we have been able to collect for
individual cities from the second half of the seventeenth
century to about 1820;" these show retrogression and
growth in irregular alternation. In France, on the other
hand, the modern movement seems to have begun about
one hundred and fifty years earlier; and men already spoke

" " Thus does the mighty ruler of the universe impart to states and
cities m ght, riches, and glory. He takes from them again and gives
to others according to his good will. He pulleth down the mighty
from their seat and exalteth them of low degree."— Co«/«cAe Ordnung,
II, § 546 (2d ed., pp. 477. 478).

" Grunds'dtst d. Polieeiwiss., 1 54. Comp. also Gesammelle polit. u.
Finansschriftcn, III, pp. 449^-

'" Much material relating to the subject has been collected by Inama-
Sternegg in the Handwort. d. Staatsw., II, pp. 433 ff.

370 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

in the eighteenth century, according to familiar phrase-
ology, of the " depopulation of the open country." "

If on the other hand we go farther back into the history
of man in Europe we find two periods showing the same
phenomenon on a grand scale: ancient times, especially
the era of the Roman Empire; the later Middle Ages, in
particular, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Between
them lie great epochs of quiescence, if not of retrogression
ar d decay.

How are these earlier periods of migration tc he cities
to be regarded from the standpoint of the history of their
evolution? Are they premature starts toward a goal
whose attainment was reserved for our own time and its
perfected means of communication? Or are they the out-
flow of other impulses than those behind the correspond-
ing movement of the present, and did they on that ac-
count also lead to other results? Above all, was their
influence upon population and their economic character
the same?

As concerns ancient times it would seem as if we must
assume, in spite of the uncertainty of the population record
handed down to us, that a consequence of the inHux of the
rural population was the inordinate growth of the cities.'*
But it must not be overlooked that only a part of that
population migrated of its own free will, namely, the free-
men. The remaining and much larger portion, the slaves,
were collected by their masters in the cities, or brought
thither by the slave trade.

" Evidence collected by LeRoyt, Du progrh des agglonUralions ur-
baines et r^migration rurale (Marseilles, 1870), pp. 8 flf,

" On what here follows compare particularly R. Polilmann. Die
Veberviilkerung d. antiken Grossstiidte im Zusammt'iange mil d. Gesamt-
entwick. stddlischer Civilisation (Leipzig, 1884); also Roscher, System
d. Volksw., III. Introduction, and Biicher, Die Aufstdnde d. unfrei. Ar-
beiter 143-1^9 ''• Chr.

GROIVTH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 371

Where freemen moved in from the country they
usually came not because a better prospect of economic
advance in the cities beckoned them, but because they
were deprived of their lands through the growth of the
great slave estates. In the cities, it is true, they found
all the lucrative branches of tr^ '.e in the hands of slaves
and freedmen ; but they were here in less danger of starva-
tion, inasmuch as the proletarian masses of the cities in
whose midst they settled were supported by public and
private largesses.

The large cities of antiquity are essentially communities
for consumption. They owe their size to the political cen-
tralization which collected the surplus products of the ex-
tensive areas cultivated by individual husbandry at one
point where the governing class was domiciled. They are
imperial, or at least provincial, capitals. Accordingly they
first arise in the time of the successors of Alexander
and reach their height under the Roman Empire. The
capital, Rome, itself depends for its food-supply upon the
taxes in kind from the provinces; and the same is later on
true of Constantinople.^" It is a communistic and im-
perialistic system of provisioning, such as the world has
not seen a second time. The extortions of the ofiicials,
the farming of the revenues, the usurious practices, the
great estates of wealthy individuals worked by slaves, the
state-recognised obligation to supply largesses of bread,
meat and wino to the masses — all these placed the pro-
ductive labour of half a world at the service of the capital
city and left open to the private activity of its inhabitants

" Krakauer, Das I'erffiegungstvesen d. Stndt Rom i» d. sfiiter. Kaiser-
stit (Leipzig, 18-4). and E. Gebhardt, Studicn iiber d. I'ert^HcRungs-
wcsen von Rom u. Konstantinopel in d. spdter. Kaiserseit (Dorpit, i88i).
Also Rodbertus, Zur Gesch d. nm. Trtbutsteucrn in the Jhrb. f. N.-Oek.
Oek. u. SUt.. VIII, especially pp. 400 fT.

!N'

372 INTERNytL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

nothing but the sphere of personal services. From what
we know of the larger provincial cities we may conclude
that in them similar conditions prevail.''®

A favourable market for free labour, a place for the
skilled production of goods on a large scale for export,
the ancient metropolitan city was not." Anything resem-
bling factory work rests, as does the extensive agricultural
production, upon slave labour. Accordingly among the
motives mentioned by the ancient writers as impelling the
free rural population toward the cities the very one that
is commonest to-day— the prospect of higher wages-
plays no part. " Consider this body of people," writes
Seneca" to his mother; "the houses of the immense
city are scarcely sufficient for them. From municipia and
colonies, in short from the world over, have they come
together. Some have been drawn hither by ambition,
some have come on public business, others as envoys,
others again have been attracted by luxurious tastes seek-
ing an apt and ample field for indulgence, others by fond-
ness for liberal studies, others by the shows; some have
been led by friendship, others by enterprise, which here
finds extended fields for displaying personal merit;"
some have brought their personal beauty for sale, others
their eloquence. There is no class of people which has
not streamed to the city, where the prizes are great for
virtue and vice alike."

"E. Kuhn. Die siddtische u. biirgcrliche Verfassung d. Rom. Reichs,
I. pp. 46 (T.. points lo an organization of the cura annona similar to that
in the capital.

" Frat.cotti-, i: Industrie dans la Crice ancicnne, I, esp. pp. 14Q-IS8.
has now established this fur the Greek cities.

"• Ad Hchiam. 6. ...

"Quosdam industria lalam ostendcndce virtuli ttacta matenam. It is
competition that is meant, not " industry." as Pohlmann, cited above,
p. 17, translates it.

CROIVTH OF TOH^NS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 373

Quite different was it with the town-ward flow of popu-
lation in the Middle Ages. Taken as a whole, it is per-
haps not less voluminous than that at the time of the
Roman Empire. It did not result, however, in the forma-
tion of a few central points of consumption, but in the con-
struction of a large number of fortified places distributed
pretty evenly throughout the country, uniting within
their walls all the organized industrial activity of the na-
tion which was not attached to the soil. The mediaeval
towns are originally mere places of refuge for the sur-
rounding rural population;^*' their permanent inhabi-
tants are the burghers, or people of the burg. Everything
else — the market, the prosecution of trade, monetary
dealings, the personal freedom of the town inhabitants
and their special privileges before the law — is only a later
consequence of this extra-mural military relationship. The
defensive union became in course of time a territorially
circumscribed economic union, for which the town or city
was the trade centre and the seat of all specialized labour.

The mediaeval cities'* accordingly bear a great simi-
larity to each other in the social and economic organiza-
tion of their population, and differ, as far as we can see,
only slightly in the number of their inhabitants. At their
original founding the influx of the rural population
seems often to have been far from voluntary. Later on
the chief factor determining their growth was the greater
security of person and property and the more varied op-
portunities for earning a livelihood which they afforded

" Comp. above, pp. 1 16 flf.

" That is, so far as they really deserve the name. It is a peculiar in-
consistency to attempt to-day to demonstrate the character of the
mediaeval city by taking as examples places which never arrived at a
true city status and which can bring forward no better claim to the
name of city than that they were endowed with city privileges.

■ I

374 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

landless freemen and serfs. Their whole development,
economically and numerically, came t -n ^nd, however,
the moment all the handicrafts that the limited extent of
the city-market areas was capable of sustaining were rep-
resented and supplied with a sufficient number of master-
workmen. Up to this point the cities oflfered complete
freedom of movement and almost unimpeded access to
guild privileges and burgess rights, while the rural land-
owners, on the other hand, sought through limitations of
the right of removal to secure themselves against the loss
of their serfs. When, however, the cities were able to sup-
ply all branches of trade from the internal growth of their
population, they also exhibited a willingness to check ac-
cessions from without, and hence brought about those
numerous obstacles to settlement and to entry upon a
trade which have persisted into modern times. There arose
a sharp division between city and country. Migration to
and fro naturally continued to a certain extent, but it was
confined in the main to an exchange of labourers among
the cities themselves. City development had fallen, as it
were, into a condition of numbness from which it could be
roused only through transition to a new economic order.

We are in a position to prove statistically for a few
locaIit=-« Hie statement just made. There have been in-
stitii :haustive investigations into the origin of the

medi.-eval population of Frankfurt-on-Main,^^ a^j fg.
cently also regarding certain sections of the population
of Cologne." From these it appears that the majority
of the persons received by these two cities as burghers

« Biichcr, Beiolkcrung von Fr.. pp. 163 flf., 304 flF., 4" ff-. S2> A- SQi ff .

627 fi.
"A. Dorcn, Unlcrstichwigen :. Cesch. d. Kaufmannsguden d Mttlciiltcts

(in Schmoller's Forschungen, XII. 2), Appendix 1; and now aho H.

Bunfecr's Beitriige s. mittelalt. Topograph., Rechtsgeschich. u. Sozialstatishk.

d. Stadi Koln (Leipzig, 1896), Sec. 3.

GROIVTH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 375

during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries migrated
from the country. Of every loo new burghers there
came to:

In the Period. From Cities. ''™'",S»i" ""*

Cologne 1356- 1479 37-4 62.6

Frankfurt 1311-1400 28.2 71.8

" 1401-1500 43.9 56.1

We see from this that in the last two centuries of the
Middle Ages the movement of population from the coun-
try to the cities, though it continued, was on the wane,
while the admixture of town elements among the new
burghers increased. Thus as early as the fifteenth century
certain strata of the population of Frankfurt received their
chief increment through emigration from other cities. Of
the incoming Jews, for example, 90 per cent., and of the
members of a fraternity of journeymen metal-workers 79.3
per cent., came from cities. The material from which the
last percentage is deduced also covers, it should be said,
the first quarter of the sixteenth century.

Unfortunately, further figures regarding the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries are not available. But for the
period from the beginning of the eighteenth till after the
middle of the nineteenth century we can offer some fig-
ures which serve to show that thee was an epoch when
the urban handicrafts received their workers almost ex-
clusively from other towns. The Frankfurt municipal
archives contain a number of books regarding the lodg-
ing-places of the bookbinders, in which are recorded the
names and places of origin ot all the journeymen of this
craft who came to Frankfurt between 1712 and 1867
(14,342 persons in all). Some years ago we worked over
this extremely valuable statistical material and found that
of every 100 incoming journeymen bookbinders there
came:

« Ijif \

i 4*!-

376 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

Periods. From Cities. ^™"h^i|S! "^

1712-1750 97.5 2.5

1751-1800 94-3 5-7

1801-1835 89.2 10.8

1836-1850 36.0 14.0

1851-1867 81.3 18.8

We see here how, in a trade of a specifically urban char-
acter, within a period of rather more than a century and
a half, the proportion of workers drawn from the country
has continuously increased. Had it been possible to con-
tinue the investigation for the period from 1867 down to
the present time, we should undoubtedly have found that
the balance h^s inclined more and more in favour of the
journeymen from rural localities.

In the contemporary migrations to the cities a fusion
of town and country strongly resembling that established
by us for the fifteenth century seems to have set in.'*
Of every 100 of the inhabitants born in other places there
were in:

Year. Of City Birth. Of Country Birth.

Leipzig 188s 50.6 49.4

Basel 1888 23.5 76.S

As in the Middle Ages, the city element relatively in-
creas* s ^nd the country element decreases according to
the distance of place of birth from place of settlement. The
various classes of the population show but slight differ-
ences in this regard. Generally speaking those occupa-
tions that demand a special training have a stronger ad-

" Only the simplest results of these investigations can be given here.
Details may be found in my Beviilkerung d. Kantons Basel-Stadt am i,
Dez. 1888, pp. 62 flF. We may also refer to Hasse's Ergebnisse d.
Volkssdhlmg vom 1. Dez. 1885 in der Stadt Leipsig, Pt. II, pp. 7(T. The
higher figures in the rural accessions for Basel are explained by the
fact that in the above work the city limits are made to include only
3,000 inhabitants.

CROl^TH OF TOMANS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 377

mixture o' city elements than the spheres of simple manual

labour.

It is greatly to be regretted that similar statistical in-
vestigations have not been carried out for a larger number
of modern cities. From the evidence at present to hand
we are apparently driven to conclude that the number
of incomers of city origin is relatively greater in the large
cities than in the medium-sized and smaller ones.^' The
explanation of this phenomenon is a simple one. A large
city exercises upon the population of the smaller cities the
same power of attraction that the latter have for the pop-
ulation of the country. In this way the transitions from
one social and economic sphere to another are rendered
less violent. ThUs a gradual elevation of the migrating
masses takes place, as also from generation to genera-
tion a continuous preparation for the demands of life in a
great city, which must render less violent the conflicts
inevitable to the process of mutual adaptation within the

new sphere.

But if the cities of to-day exhibit a process of redis-
tribution of population similar to that of their mediaeval
prototypes, the resemblance is only superficial. In the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we have to do with the
last stages of an evolution whose ultimate result was the
formation of numerous small autonomous spheres of
economic activity, each of which exactly resembled the
other in its harmonious development of production; in
the nineteenth rentury we have to deal with an increas-
ing differentiation of the individual centres of population,

•* Besides the work on Leipsig already mentioned, a later exhaustive
treatise on the accessions to, and losses of, population in Frankfurt-on-
Main in the year 1891, published by Dr. Bleicher in the Beitr. 2.
Stalislik d. SI. Frkf., II, pp. 29 ff., gives interesting information re-
garding this point.

378 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

in accord with the designs of a greater whole, namely, of
a state-regulated national economy.

This process begins with the development of the mod-
ern State and modern national administration. Hitherto
each city had developed within itself all the branches
of city life not forbidden by local conditions; now one
city bee* mes a permanent royal residence, others be-
come seats of district and provincial administrations, of
prisons, of higher educational institutions and of all kinds
of special branches of administration, while still others
become garrison cities, border fortresses, fair-towns,
watering-places, junction-points of commercial routes,
etc. They take over definite functions for the whole coun-
try and for all other places, though these functions are
not always specifically urban. The cities may also form
alliances with rural residence centres. This process has
been especially prominent since the fuller development
of city industry on a large scale and the extraordi-
nary increase and perfection of the means of communica-
tion. In this new national era the total national produc-
tion endeavours so to distribute itself over the territory
controlled by it that each of its branches may find the
location best suited to it. Factory and house-industry
districts arise, and separate valleys and whole regions take
on a semi-urban character. Certain cities develop special
branches of industry and trade reaching out far beyond
the local, and often even the national, demand. In others,
again, all industry and business life decline; they sink
down to the level of villages, so that the historical rights
of burgess that still attach +0 their name appear in striking
contrast with their position as places of trade and with
the number of their inhabitants. The distinctions between
city and country are blotted out. This happens in the
neighbourhood of rising industrial cities through the

CROiyTH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 379

planting of factories and workmen's dwellings in the sub-
urbs and beyond; in the neighbourhood of the declining
" rural cities " through the approach of the latter to the
condition of surrounding country places, and through the
rise of populous industrial towns. On the whole, how-
ever, the number of centres of population and of objective
points for internal migrations is to-day relatively much
smaller than in the second half of the Middle Ages.^®

But in still another respect does the redistribution of
population resulting from the internal migrations of the
present time differ from that witnessed by our ancestors
from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries. In consequence
of the greater certainty of a living and of far-reaching
measures for the health of the people the increase in pop-
ulation is to-day more rapid than in mediaeval times. It

•* The German Empire had in 1890 a total of 2,285 " cities." Of
these there were 26 with more than 100,000 inhabitants, 22 with from
50,000 to 100,000, 104 with from 20,000 to 50.000, and 169 with between
10,000 and 20,000. Besides these there were 56 villages and suburban
municipalities with from 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, 11 of them with
more than 20,000. — In Prussia there were in that year 46 " cities " with
less than 1,000 inhabitants, 14 of these being in the Province of Posen,
12 in Silesia, 10 in Hesse-Nassau. 3 in Brandenburg, 2 each in West
Prussia and Westphalia, i each in Saxony, Hanover and the Rhine-
land (Schleiden with 515 inhabitants). Alongside these dwarflike
cities there were 37 rural municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabi-
tants. — How far some of the old cities have declined is shown by the
following figures for the Grand Duchy of Baden. There the census
of 1885 gave 114 " cities," only 63 of these having a population of over
2,000, and 9 with over 10,000. Of the remaining 51 " cities " 42 had from
1,000 to 2,000 inhabitants, 4 had from 500 to 1,000, and 5 below 500
(among these last being Kleinlaufenburg with 441, Neufreistett with
427, Blumenfeld with 349, Fiirstenberg with 341, Hauenstein with 157).
For every city there were on an average 14 villages. On the other
hand, there were altogether 129 municipalities with over 2,000 inhabi-
tants, 66 of these being " villages." Of the old cities only 55 are thus
cities according to the modern idea, and of the villages four per cent
are from the point of view of population to be reckoned in with the
cities.

38o INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

is safe from those heavy reverses so frequently resulting
in those ages from harvest failure, feuds and plague.
On that account the modern migrations into the large
cities and industrial districts in many cases absorb only
a surplus population that would not find sufficient room
for earning a livelihood in the places of its origin.
At these points tney retard or completely check the con-
gestion of population; while on the other hand at the
points of agglomeration no economic obstacles bar the
way to a continuous and rapid increase.

In mediaeval times, on the contrary, the migratory ac-
cession of population was distributed among a multitude
of walled places scattered at fixed intervals over the
whole country. The increase in many cases continued
only until the city was full. When once it had as many
inhabitants as it needed to man its walls and towers and
supply all the branches of industry, there was no room for
more. Extensions of the city limits often did take place
in mediaeval times, it is true; they are the result of the
increasing formation and subdivision of special trades.
But the Middle Ages developed no large cities; the
mediaeval economic and commercial system forbade it.
The country was often deprived of the population neces-
sary for the cultivation of the soil; yet even with such
accessions the frequency of extensive losses kept the city
populations stationary.

From these remarks it will indeed remain uncertain
whether or not the internal migrations that accompanied
the development of the industrial life of the mediaeval town
were relatively more extensive than the corresponding
territorial movements and shiftings of population that
result to-day from the more national character of settle-
ments. On the other hand, it cannot be doubted that the
attraction of the great cities of modern times for the pop-

GROIVTH OF TOIVNS CONSIDERED HISTORIC/tLLY. 381

ulation of the smaller towns and the country is exerted
over greater expanses of territory than the mediaeval towns
held within the circle of their influence. One is not in a
position to say, however, that the recruiting territory for
the population of a city has expanded since the begin-
ning of modern times in direct ratio to the number of its
inhabitants. On the contrary, one is astonished to find
what a slight effect the perfecting of the means of com-
munication and the introduction of freedom of movement
have had upon the extent of the territory covered by the
regular internal migrations.

A few figures will make this clear. Of f.wtvy hundred
new settlers coming to Frankfurt, Oldenburg and Basel
the numbers according to distances are as f-^'' vs:

City.

Frankfurt .
II

Oldenburg.
Basel

Class of Population,

New citizens

II II

Metal workers

Citizens born in other
places

Journeymen craftsmen . .

Factory laborers

Period.

0-9
Miles.

9-45
Allies.

14th century

46.7

39-3

15th

23.1

52.7

iSthandi6th

centuries

2.7

45-0

1880

31.8

42.1

1888

16.7

50.2

1888

13.9

40.0

1888

17.1

59-6

Miles.

14.0

24. a

52.3

36.1

33.1
46.1
23-3

Of the three recruiting zones distinguished here the
outermost at present contributes more to the total popu-
lation and the inner less than in mediaeval times. The
reason probably is that to-day the population in the
more immediate neighbourhood of a city takes advantage
of the city's labour market without settling in the city
itself, whether it be that they go daily to their places of
work in the city by special workmen's trains or other con-
venient means of transportation, or that the great indus-
tries of the towns erect their workshops in neighbouring

382 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

places. The recruiting territory for journeymen has
rather contracted as compared with mediaeval times.
With this is linked the circumstance that at present three-
fourths of this class of workmen are drawn from the coun-
try, while at the close of the Middle Ages less than one-
quarter of them came from villages and hamlets. Of the
Frankfurt journeymen metal-workers in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries only 20.7 per cent, were born in the
country; of the Basel bakers and butchers in 1888, on the
contrary, 78.7 per cent, and of the journeymen of other
handicrafts 75.2 per cent, were of country birth. Even
to-day journeymen craftsmen still migrate in much larger
numbers and to greater distances than the typical work-
man class of the present, the factory hands. Of the
factory workingmen in Basel in 1888, 25.8 per cent, were
born in the city itself; of the handicraft journeymen, only
16.3 per cent. How many of them were bom and still
domiciled in the immediate neighbourhood the statistics
unfortunately do not show. But all modern industrial
development tends in the direction of producing a per-
manent labouring class, which through the custom of
early marriage is already much less mobile than the jour-
neymen of the early handicrafts, and which in future will
doubtless be as firmly attached to the factory as were the
servile labourers of the mediaeval manor to the glebe.^^
If this is not very noticeable at present it is because the
majority of large industries have not yet attained their
growth, and because it is net. -ssary Tor them, as long as
they extend their works, to meet the increased demand

" The construction of workingmen's dwellings by the great man-
ufacturing establishments, whether these pass over into the possession
of the labourers or arc rented to them, is even now begetting a sort of
factory bondage, which has an appalling resemblance to the old bond-
age to the soil. Comp. my article on the Belgian social legislation in
Braun's Archiv. f. soz. Gesetzg. u. Stat, IV, pp. 484, 485.

GROIVTH OF TOfVN^ CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 383

for labourers by drawing further upon the surplus popu-
lation of the rural districts.

These remarks point to the conclusion that we are not
justified in attributing a growing migratory character to
society as a result of the closer network of commercial
routes and the invention of perfected means of communi-
cation. Rather should we say that at present we are in
the midst of a transition period in which the yet un-
completed transformation of the town and territorial
economic structure into a national one involves a con-
tinuous displacement of the boundaries of division of
labour and ^''.e centres of the various branches of pro-
duction, and -.nsequently displacements of the labouring
population.

After a period of economic and social ossification ex-
tending over centuries, in which all sorts of limitations
upon migration and settlement held the population fast
to the original ancestral seats, it is not surprising that
many view with anxiety the great movements of popu-
lation which to-day extend over whole territories. It
seems almost as if the early times of universal migration
were returning. But in this they forget that it is only a
part — the rural part — of the population that has become
more migratory; that up to the early year:, of last
century a great number of these were bound to the soil.
The merchant, the craftsman and the scholar are to-day
much less mobile than, for instance, in the time of the
Reformation; and the industrial labourers move relatively
less often and to shorter distances than they did even a
century ago. Only their number has become much greater
and is still steadily increasing. This growth of in-
dustry displaces a part of the rural labouring population
from their usual places of abode, to which nothing now
holds them but the interests of those who profit by their

IK.

384 INTERNAL MIGRATIONS OF POPULATION AND THE

helplessness. The further progress of this movement will
probably show, even in a few decades, that the human
race in the course of its evolution has on the whole be-
come more stationary.

We may thus say in conclusion: In this general influx
to the cities and their suburbs we are to-day undergoing
what our ancestors experienced in the second half
of the Middle Ages, the transition to a new economic
and social order and a fresh distribution of population.
At that time the movement inaugurated the period of
town economy and of sharp separation of town and
country; the movement in the midst of which we now
live is the outward sign that we have entered upon a new
period of development,— the period of organic distribu-
tion of population, the period of national division of
labour and of national satisfaction of wants, in which the
distinctions between city and country as places of abode
are being obliterated by numerous transitional forma-
tions. This fact has long since been recognised by statis-
ticians who have dropped the historico-juridical concep-
tion of city and substituted a statistical one in which
places are distinguished according t i the number of their
inhabitants.

Every transitional epoch has its inconveniences and its
suffering. But the modern movement of population, in
so far as it is expressed in the influx into the cities, will,
like that of mediaeval times, reach its goal and then sub-
side. This goal can be none other than to assign to
every individual capacity and to every local group of per-
sons that place and that role in the great national life
in which its endowments and the altered technical con-
ditions of economic activity best fit it to contribute to
the general welfare.

Thus from a consideration of internal migrations, de-

GROH^TH OF TOl^NS CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 385

spite the fact that the conditions accompanying them
are often far from pleasant to contemplate, we may gain
the assurance that _they too mean, from the wider stand-
point, an advance towards higher and better forms of
social existence, both for the individual and for the race.

INDEX.

Aboriginal man, no longer exist-
ing, 3
Acta diurna populi Roman!, aio,

220

Acta senatus, 219, aio
Adoption, 15

Advertising Bureaux, 240
Aged, exposure of the, 16
Agriculture, 4S, 255; savage .igri-

cuUuralists, 43
V. Ailzing, 236
Andree, 23, 26, 28. 37, 67, 73, 77,

266
Andrews, Alex., 232, 234
Animal sortD'ogy, 2 note.
Annuities, 133
Appun, 18
Art, 28, 29 note.
Artel, gs
Artifiters, 98
" Artistic Work," return t j, 208

Bank, evolution of, 138

BannrnfiU, 123

de Barthilemy, 233

.Ussier, 34, 264

Rastian. 24, 78

Battenberg. Frani Joseph von, 158

Peati fossidentts, philosophy of,

34a

Below, 126

lleti, 79

Ftunittn, 105

Hey, Fmin, 36

Itiilcicn Labour. Str Labour.

Hlcirhcr, 377

ni'ick, 283'

Itlmn, 157

noas, 28

Backcl, 266

Bos, 43

Botcher, botcher-hunt, 169

Bottiger, loi

Baun , 158

Btlcher, works cited, 19, 22, a8, 53,
87, 94, 96, 108, 130, 132, 154, 163,
171, 207, J54. »56. »63. sW), 267,
269, 273, 274. 298. 30'. 318. 334.
370, 374. 376. 382

Buchner, 24, 6$, 79, 93, iii

Buffalo herds, extermination of, 18

Buhl, l6i

Hunger, 374

Burg, 116, 373

Burgess rights, 116 119, 374. 37^

Burgher, 116, 119, 13J, 373-375

Burner, 181

Hurton, 13, 21, 35. 263

Musiness Undertakers, 308

Cxsar, 218, 219

Camelots, 100

CamfagHt, 352

Capital, 112, 128, 129, 137, 143, 162,

173. >76. 309. 3«o. 333

Capitalists, 308

Cappeln, 361, 362

Casalis, 38, 78, 277

Casati, 72

Caste system, 343

Cattle-raising, 11, 45, 51

Cauwii, 250

Cecchi, 69

Census: Bavarian, 358 (T.; English,
364; Oldenburg, 359 ff. Sft Oc-
cupations, census of.

Cicero, loa, 219

Circulation of goods, ta8, 305

Cities: characteristic of modern,
363; in German Empire, 379 note;
in Middle Ages, 380. Set Towns.

Classes: rise of, 127; vocational,
334; labeurlnf, 38a

de Clercq, 28

S«7

388

INDEX.

Colbert, 136. M^ ; Clbcrtism, 137
Columella, 300
Commerce, 303, 309
Commercial contrivances, 76, 145
Commission Work (Syr.tcm), 154.

171. 173. O'). 257
Common-houses of savages, 37-

.Vic Houses.
Common, Labour in. See Labour.
Communities: partial, 94; labour, 95
Community for I'rofiuction and

Consumption, 305, 3o<J. 3io. 372
Comprar, to sit down, 63
Conceptions of value of primitive

man
Consumption, 29. 192
Covetousness of the savage
<lc Coulanges, Fustel, 92
Couriers, 77
Cranz, 13
Credit, 129, 137. 145; Crc.lit-bal-

ances, 207
Crop-rotation, 47

Currency, national, 131. .SVf Money.
Custom-production, 170
Customs Duty, 80

Dampicr, 13

Defence, arrangements for, 14''>
I).-m.ind, conccniratinn of, 192
niensliiiiel, 33° "o'c-
Dipui'iK stick, 7, 11
Diinilruff, 345

Division of Labour. See Labour;
of Troduction. See Production.
Division of Use 'with tools\ 301
Domestic animals, laming of, 22,

27
Dorcn, 374
Drum, use of, 7S
Druzina, 95
Dualism in household. 55

F.conomic tivity, 2
F.conomic nature of man, I, 2, 3
" Kconomic piinriplr," the, I
r.conomic method, 14^; stai;c-<, R5.

See Stages.
Economy, 25, C). 3"'. 3'); m--^;I<M led

bv cthnogr.iiilu . n
" Economy ' 1 IKvi.l'-l I.;ibotir "

Fconomy. n.Tii' ■' ;!, "■ ■■ " , 3^ v •' '■■
Stages.

Editorship, 240

Education, 146

Egoism of savage, 14, 21

Ehrenreich, 9. 11. 16, 23,28,32, 51,

61, 264
Ellis, loi
Embassies, 77
Endemann, 270, 277
Enfeoffment, 132
Engels, 4

Entrepreneur, 172, 17S, 308, 312
Erman, no, 263, 321 ,

Exchange, genesis of, to; primi-
tive, 59, 65. 9". >c'6. I"?. •"/
system of direct, 114. and divi-
sion of labour, 295, 301
Exner. 157, 158
Extra-mural jurisdiction, 124

171; districts, 37S; hands,
172,

Factory

3''2
Factory Work (SystenO, 154

173. 'i7f>
Fair Reports, 236
Fomilia tusti<a, 99; urbatta, 99,

300
Family, primitive, 10, 48, t5'r. of

Negritos, 8 note; Roman. 97
Fiiuihaber, 231
FebtfySy 38
Fcliit, 329
Felkin, 270

Ferguson, Adam, 2«3, 2S5, 326
Finsch, 5. 47. 67. if-. 79. 263. 269
Fire, use of, 3. '<• 26, 79
Fire-cabin, 38
Fishing, 49, 77

Food, separate preparation of. 32 -
38; procuring of, 42, 4». AuUse
Stage of Individual Search for.
Fof^li dCiivvisi, 226
Foresight, lack of by savage, 12, Si
Forester, I57
Forestry, 255
Francotte, 160, 372
"Freedom of luilerprisc," 334;

free choice of vocation, 340
Itil'ch, 9, 10. II, I'', -o, 21, ?.t. ""^
3^'. 49

Gallon, 329

Gang. 27S
Ganphofer, 337
Garve, 322

INDEX.

389

Gazetta (Gazette), 225; C^z.itanti,

327
Gebhardt, 371
Geiger, 4, 72
Gerland, 277
Gifts. See Presents.
Gioja, 250
Gorbunoff, 267
Gramich, 122
Grandke, 186
Grasshoif, 222, 224
Groos, 27

Grosse, 7, 28, 30, g2
Guilds, 168, 171, i32, igo, 374

Haberland, 62
Hack or Hoe System, 4*"'. 4S
Hahii. 43, 45

Handicraft (!land-work), 121, 150,
152, 168, 169, 171, 176. 1S2. 185.
311; displaceinent of, 192; sup-
planting, curtailment, incorpora-
tion, impoverishment, etc., of,
197-207
Handicraftsman (Craftsman),

modern, 151
Hansa. The. 138
Hansjakob, 163
Harar, 277

Hardness of heart of snv.ige, 14
Hasse, 376

Hatin, 221, 226, 232, 234
Haupt, 266
f/ausjieisz, 155
HeckcwL-lder, 17, nj, 23. 33. ''''■

264
Heiiize. 2x3
Helmolt. 2S5
ileredity, 326. 335, 336
Hermann, 131, 250
Herodotus, 16
Heusler, t2g, 130
Higher primitive peoples, 29, 31)
Hildebrand, 86
Historical School, 84, 86
Hofsihulie, l?7
Holle, 361, 302
Holub, 80
Homer, 62

Home-work, ifi3. '''5. 'f>7. ''^7
llcirinutiii , 2(17
Hose, CIi.uIps, 32, 269
llospitaliiy, lilies of, (i2
Household, nt(;lccted by cthnoK
raphy, 39

House Industry (see Commission
Work), 154. i/i. 257. 2f'7

Houses, public social, 36 note, 205

Housework, 154. I55; i" Buko-
wina 153, 176

Houssaye, 327

Howitt, 63

HUbner, 218

Hudson, 234

HUgel, 64

Hume, 321

" Hunger-strap," il

Hunting, 49

Hwof, 67

Imitating, by savages, 27

Immermann, 157

Improvidence of savage, 17

Im Thurm, 64

Inama-Sternegg, 103, 369

Income, 112 note, 113, 131, 143

Individual econc my, 32

Individual Search for Food, staj c

of, 26, 27, 30, 39
Industrial Organizaliun. 54, 3'=.

peoples, 73
Industry, 52. 57. 5*. 144. i5f>- 255:

systems of, 154
Infanticide, 14, 15

Influx to the titles. 357

Insurance, 133

Interest, 132

Intermediaries, nlfici.il. 124

Iron smelting, 22, working. 159

Itinerancy, 162, lo-*

Itinerant, 162. i(.5-i69

Iwantschofl. 158

/?('(;;/:.;. 3O note.

Jacobsen, 79, 263
James, 329

Icllin,t;haus, 24
jentsch, 255

loest, 23

Jones, F. F:UHiy, 232

Jung, 21

Junker, 19, 72. '^lA

V. Justi, 369

K-iufiriann. 1 17
Klenim. 5
Kleinw.ichter, 245
Krakauer, 371
krejcsi, ir,S

39°

INDEX.

Kubary. 34. 34. 38. 69. 107. «65. 269
Kuhn, 37a

Labour. 142. 3'°: aggregation. 2O2.
368. 371-273: bidden. 94. 2o3-
273; companionship. 262; conca-
tenation. 273; in common. 49. 93.
352. (extent) 259. 262. 280. 3«».
322; communities. 94. 95. 280;
displacement of. 390-394, 333;
distribution between sexes. 30-
37. 44. S4. 353: division of. (in-
terlocal) 71. 93. >44. «7t. 350-353.
284. 386, (defined) 389. 295. (so-
cial) 112. 128, 295. 299. (conse-
quences of) 302, 305. 310. 333.
331. 332; fraternal. 363. 318; in-
corporation of. 311; joint. 362,
378; social, 245; subdivision of,
286, 394, 333; union (combina-
tion) of, 344. 251. 253. 280, 317;
with a.iernate and with concur-
rent tfmfo, 274

Lamprecht, 103. 105. iii

Land in autonomous economy, 90

Landlord, landlady, 30

Landor, 66, 365

Latifundia. 98, 331

Laveliye. 93. 105

Laziness of savage, 30

" Least sacrifice, • principle of, I

Leber. 332

Leclerc, 3i8

Legoyt, 370

Leni, 67. 73

V. Leoprechting, 366

Liberalism, modern, 139

LieberkUbn. 3i8

Lindau. 327

Lippert. 4. 9. ". 14. «6. 18
List, 86, 346, 347. 250
Livingstone, 19. 24, 35. 3°. 37. 47.

48. 5«. 7». 79
Loaning. 61
Loria. 330
Lotmar. 333
Lduvois, 14s
'• Lower nomads," 9, 36
Lubbock. 3. 4. «3. '5. '7 49
Luther, 333, 343

Machines. I75. 29»; small power.

209
Mangold, 240

MangolJt. 2i4

Manor. 102 «., 126, 137. 383

Manufactory, 171

M -.rket-law. 120

Markets. 59, 66. 115, 373

Marquardt, 322

Martius. 10. 15. 16, 47. 49. 5i. 67.

78, 79
Marx Karl. 70
Material foresight and cultural

progress. 12
Maternal love. 10. 15. I7
Maurer, 103

V. Mayr, 354. 355. 359. 360. 364
Melancthon. 323. 324. 325
Meinecke, 3v6
Meitzen, 38o

Mercantile system, 136, 140
Meyer, 63, 98
Migration, 345; economic and

social results of, 356 ff., 377;

goal of modern, 384; kinds of,

349. 352. 353; periods of, 370,

373 , .

Migratory character of society,

383
Moha, 95
Mobility of society, query as to.

349
Momnistn, aiS
Money, 67ff., ii'-. 13. 143- ^"

also Currency.
Montesquieu. 233
Mciser. 186, 256
Mundt-Lautf. 4

Nachtigal, 5. 19. 35. 263,270
National economy (see Economy)

era, 134. 378
Nationality, principle of, 140
Natural peoples, 41, 43 note.
Nepotism. 341
News, communication of. 77". P"""

licatiun of, i39
News-letters. 232, 233
Newspaper, 3i6. 221
Ni-^buhr. 344
Nl .ad life, 16, 345, ^^i>
iVouvellauti, 217
,\ouvtlUs <\ lit main, 233, 233
A\uvtllist(s, 232, 233

Occupations, German census of.
1 181. 260, 324

INDEX.

39»

OHin husbandry, 97

One page prints, 235

Opel. 228, 231. 237

Ordinari ("ordinary messen-
gers), 222, 229; Ord. ZtitUHgtn,
230

Orth, 237

Ottino, 222

Paget, 158

Panckow, 23, 42, 47

Parkinson. 24. 33. 47. 69. 79. 93. »9

Pasz, 278

Pattrfamilias, 97

Paulitschke, 35. 270. 277

Peschel, 3, 4. 5. ". »3. ai

Petri, 158

Petronius, 98

V. Philippovich, 244, 289

Physiocrats, 87, I39

Piece-work, collective, 279

Play, 27, 28

Pliny, lie

Pogge, 10, 18, 24, 35, 47. Ji. «>5. 75.
77, 80, loi, 270

Pogio, 91

POhlmann, 370. 37»

Polygamy, 55. ^54

Popma, 98, 99

Population, Hutive, 359

Post, 15. 49. 79. 270. aSo

Postreuter, 236

Pottery, invention of, 22

Presents (gifts), 61. 6a note, 79. 81

Price-work, 169

Primitive man, 12 ff., 41 " ; Peo-
ples, classification of, 42

Printing, invention of, 234

Production, 196; division of. 280,

294, 331, 33' ,

Productive powers, harmony ot,

347
Property, immaterial, 131
Pruti, 222, 227. 336, 237
Public administration, 76, 79, 140

Quetelet, 351
Quippus, 73

Rambangs, 265

Ratiel. 5. U. »5. 34. 47. 49. 51

Rau, 2S0

Raucbberg, 3^1

Ready-made goods, 19S
Recruiting territory for city, 381
Rtlationes semestraUs, 236
Rent, 112; purchases, 331
Repair trade, 198
Reuter, Fritr, 366
Ricardo, 83

Riedel, 269

Riegl, 157

Riehl, 327. 337. 341

Rodbertus, 96, 148. 33«. 37i

Rohlfs, 78

Romstorfer, 158

Roscher. 187. 245. 246. 37o

Rosegger, 163

Potu, 278

Sachau, 64

Sale-shop, 198

Salomon, Ludwig, 2i8

Sapper. 37, 58

Sarasin, 9

Schadenberg, 4. 8. 24. 38. 269, 277

Schaffle. 337. 338

Scheurl, 230

Schliemann, 363

Schloss, 279

Schmaler, 266

Schmeller, 278

Schmeltz, 28

Schmidt. A., 218

Schmoller, 87. 123. 136. 189. 289,
303. 328, 329. 330. 336-338. 342

Schiinberg, I3«

Schumann, 357 ,

Schur'i, 23. 3*^. 58. 66. 67. 75. 76,
270

Schwarzkopf. 234. 237

Schweinfurth, 28. 37. 38, 47. 5J. 72.

'9 , .
Schweinitz, 263

Schwicker, 158

Seebohm, 280

Semon, 23, 76. 263

Seneca, 372

Serfdom, 95. 167. 280, 305, 322

Settegast, 272

Sexes, distribution of labour De-

tween, 30-37. 44. 54, 253
Shortland, 63
Sibree, 271
Sick, exposure of, by savages, 16

Sickel, 230

Sidenbladh, I57

Slavery, 55. 95. 280, 305. 3«7

I't

39*

INDEX.

Smith. Adam. 87, 139. 151. 245-248,

282-290. 295-O, 303
Smiths, 72
Social differentiation {see Labour,

social). 290, 295, 329; rank, 334
Society, organization of. 7. 213,

3^(>. 333
Spedalhation, 287, 294, 305

Spencer, 13, 20

Spinning-rooms. 265-267

Spoken paper, 233

Stage of Individual Search for
Food (see Individual); of Inde-
pendent Household Economy.
89. 114. 142. 313; of Town Econ-
omy, 89, 114. 126, 313. 384; of
National Economy, 89, 134, I37i

141.313.383. „ ,. _

Stages, not universally applicable,

Stanley. 34, 7Q, '^3

Staple, law of. 123

Starcke. 38

State, absolutist. 138; modern, 378.

See Economy, National.
Staudinger. 64
Steam, as motive power, 175
V. d. Steinen. 9, 23. 28. 31. 32, 5'.

61, 263
Steinhausen. 222, 229
Stellmacher, 267
Stieda, 123, 130
Stieve. 236
Stock, L., 212

Struggles for adaptation. 366 ff.
Sundt, IS7
SUssmilch, 3(19
Sweat-work, 197
Swetjolka, 267

Tacitus, 112, 220
Tarajanz, 158. 165. 166
Tax on land, 114; on general prop-
erty, 133
Teale, 4

".Team-work," 279
Technical skill, development of. 28
Technique. 53
Telephonic contrivances, 78
Thaer. 272
Throwing-stick, 7
ThOnen, 88
Tiebe, 9I
Time, use of. 19
Tindall, 81

Town: constitution of, 126; simi-
larity of. 273; supremacy of, 133,
373. See Cities.

Trade, 59. 124. 125. 145, 206, 257,

309. 331. 373
Trades: division of. 287; formation

of. 290, 294
Trading peoples. 73
Trade-mark. 76
Transmission of knowledge among

savages. 22
Transportation, 77
Tree-dwelling, 4
Tscheta, 93
Turgot, 87

Uniformity, tendency towards,

194, 310
Usury, prohibition of, 113
Uten, no

Vadhmal, 109. 161

Valentinelli. 226

Valerius Maximus, 342

Value, conceptions of. among sav-
ages, 21

Verdinglichung, 91

Vierkandt, 42

Villenage. 91

Vocations: rise of, 127; free choice
of. 340

Vocational class. 334

Waddewarden. 361. 362

Wages. 132; of management, 132,

167
Wage-work, 154. 162, i63, 176
Wage-workers, class of, 332
Wagner, Adolf. 3
Waitz, 5, 16, 33. 37. 45. 59. 77. 78,

Si
Wallon, 160
v. Waltershausen, 61
Waterways, 77
Wealth, 131, 143
Weber, 96, 99

Weekly (newspaper). 236-238
Weiske, 120
Welsmann. 329
W Her. 235
We'sers. 230
Wiglitzsky, 158
Winckler. 322, 233

INDEX.

393

Wissmann, lo, i8, 35. S^, 38. 47. SL

72. 74. 75. 77, 79. 80

Witzlebcn, 231

Wolf. 35 , ^.,. .

Work: principle of stability and

coniinuiiy of, 249; subdivision

of, 175. 3«7

Wiilkcr, 221
Wundl, KJ

Zadru^v!, 03. 105

Zell, 218
Zwingli -23