When, during the middle ages, nobility and princes robbed the communal property, they did so on the legal ground of “the common welfare,” and in what manner they disposed of the communal property and the property of the helpless peasants, the history of the middle ages, down to recent times, has amply shown. The agrarian history of the past thousand years is a history of uninterrupted robbery of communal and peasant property, practiced by the nobility and the Church in all civilized states of Europe. When the great French Revolution then proceeded to expropriate the property of the nobility and the Church, it did so “in behalf of the common welfare,” and the greater part of the eight million of property holders who form the chief stay of Bourgeois France, owe their existence to this expropriation. In behalf of the “common welfare,” Spain took possession of much Church property, and Italy confiscated it entirely, applauded by the most ardent defenders of “sacred property.” The English nobility for centuries robbed the Irish and English nations of their property, and from 1804 to 1832 legally presented itself—“in behalf of the common welfare”—with no less than 3,511,710 acres of communal property. When, after the great North American civil war, millions of slaves were emancipated, who had been the lawfully acquired property of their masters, without reimbursing the latter, this was done “in behalf of the common welfare.” Our entire bourgeois development is an uninterrupted process of expropriation and confiscation. In this process the mechanic is expropriated by the manufacturer, the peasant by the great landowner, the small dealer by the large merchant, and, finally, one capitalist by another. To judge by the declamations of our bourgeoisie, all this is being done to serve “the common welfare,” in the “interest of society.” On the 18 Brumaire and December 2, the followers of Napoleon “saved” “society” and “society” congratulated them. When society will save itself by taking back the property it has created, it will perform the most noteworthy deed. For then its actions will not purpose to suppress one to the advantage of another, but to obtain equality of opportunity for all and to enable each and every one to lead an existence worthy of a human being. It will be the grandest measure, morally, ever enacted by society.
In what forms this great process of social expropriation will be consummated and under what conditions, is of course quite impossible to predict.
In his fourth social letter to v. Kirchmann, entitled “Capital,”[211] Rodbertus says: “A confiscation of all private property in land, is not a chimera, but quite possible from the standpoint of political economy. It would also be the most radical help for society. For society suffers from the increase of rent in land and capital. With the abolition of private property in land, traffic and the progress of national wealth would not be interrupted for one moment.” What do the Agrarians say to this opinion of one who was formerly a member of their party?
The further course of events, after such a measure has been resorted to, cannot be definitely laid down. No human being is able to foresee how coming generations will shape the details of their social organizations, and in what manner they will best succeed in satisfying their requirements. In society, as in nature, there is constant change. One thing appears while another disappears; what is old and wasted is replaced by what is new and full of vitality. Inventions and discoveries along varied lines are made whose significance cannot be foreseen, and when applied, such inventions and discoveries may revolutionize human life and the entire social organization.
In the following, therefore, we can only discuss the development of general principles. They may be laid down as a logical outcome of the prior explanations, and to some extent it is possible to overlook in what manner they will be carried out. Even heretofore society could not be guided and directed by single individuals, although it sometimes appeared so. But appearances are deceiving; presuming to direct, we are being directed. Even heretofore society has been an organism that developed in accordance with definite, inherent laws. In the future the guidance and direction, according to the will of individuals, will be entirely out of the question. Society will then be a democracy that will have unravelled the secrets of its nature. It will have discovered the laws of its development and will consciously apply them to its further growth.
[211] Berlin, 1884.