The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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28o THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. trade has produced an entirely new industrial law. In the same way, modifications of the law produce modifications in the processes \ so that Signor Minghetti could say with truth that every great period of economic progress rests on a corre sponding juridical system. In a profound study on Liberty and Property, Professor Wagner shows the decisive influence exercised on the produc tion of wealth, and to a still greater degree on its distribution by the different forms with which history has successively clothed these two rights. We may thus see the intimate relations which bind Political Economy to law, especially in the details of the different agrarian systems in operation in different countries and at different periods. Professor Wagner here brings out an essential truth, too often forgotten, namely, that property is not a right presenting always identical, and, so to speak, necessary characteristics. It has varied at all times, according to the social surroundings in the midst of which it is recognized, according to the processes of labour in vogue, and even accord- ing to the objects to which it is applied.* So long as men live on the produce of the chase or their flocks, and even so long as agriculture is essentially “extensive,” the soil belongs in common to the whole tribe. In proportion as methods of cultivation improve, become more “ intensive,” and consequently require the employment of more capital, and as, at the same time, cattle occupy a smaller place in the rural economy and meat in food, private property successively extends until it swallows up altogether the communal property of the villages, both pasture and forest, and thus leaves nothing for the collective use. The benefice, the fief, the mensal lands of the Church, the domain of the convents, the holdings of the coloni, the possessions subject to mortmain, property under all its forms, in the feudal system, had a precarious character, either for life or at least in some way limited, which radically distinguishes it from * I have m^elf endeavoured to demonstrate this fact in my book, La Propriété et ses formes primitives, Adolf Samter, a banker of Königsberg, who found time to write some excellent books, expounds similar ideas m a work recently published under the title Privai-Eigenthum und gesell schaftliches Eigenthum (“ Private Property and Social Property”).

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