*
[1] Franz Oppenheimer, Theorie der Reinen und Politischen Œkonomie. Berlin, 1912.—Translator.
[2] “History is unable to demonstrate any one people, wherein the first traces of division of labor and of agriculture do not coincide with such agricultural exploitations, wherein the efforts of labor were not apportioned to one and the fruits of labor were not appropriated by some one else, wherein, in other words, the division of labor had not developed itself as the subjection of one set under the others.”—Robertus-Jagetzow, Illumination on the social question, second edition. Berlin, 1890, p. 124. (Cf. Immigration and Labor. The economic aspects of European Immigration to the United States, by Dr. Isaac A. Hourwich. Putnam’s, N. Y., 1912.—Translator.)
[3] Achelis, Die Ekstase in ihrer kulturellen Bedeutung, vol. 1 of Kulturprobleme der Gegenwart, Berlin, 1902.
[4] Grosse, Formen der Familie. Freiburg and Leipzig, 1896, p. 39.
[5] Ratzel, Völkerkunde. Second Edition. Leipzig and Wien, 1894-5, II, p. 372.
[6] Die Soziale Verfassung des Inkareichs. Stuttgart, 1896, p. 51.
[7] This psychological contradiction, though often expressly stated, is not the absolute rule, Grosse, Forms of the Family, says (page 137): “Some historians of civilization place the peasant in opposition to the warlike nomads, claiming that the peasants are peace-loving peoples. In fact one can not state that their economic life leads them to wars, or educates them for it, as can be said of stock raisers. Nevertheless, one finds within the scope of this form of cultivation a mass of the most warlike and cruel peoples to be found anywhere. The wild cannibals of the Bismarck archipelago, the blood-lusting Vitians, the butchers of men of Dahome and Ashanti—they all cultivate the ‘peaceable’ acres; and if other peasants are not quite as bad, it seems that the kindly disposition of the vast mass appears to be, at least, questionable.”
[8] Siedlung und Agrarwesen der Westgermanen, etc. Berlin, 1895, I, p. 273.
[9] l. c. I, p. 138.
[10] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 702.
[11] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 555.
[12] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 555.
[13] For example with the Ovambo according to Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 214, who in part “seem to be found in slavelike status,” and according to Laveleye among the ancient Irish (Fuidhirs).
[14] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 648.
[15] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 99.
[16] Lippert, Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit. Stuttgart, 1886, II, p. 302.
[17] This statement of Lippert is not quite correct. The higher developed domiciled huntsmen and fishermen of Northwest America have both nobles and slaves.
[18] Lippert, l. c. II, p. 522.
[19] Römische Geschichte. Sixth Edition. Berlin, 1874, I, p. 17.
[20] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 518.
[21] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 425.
[22] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 545.
[23] Ratzel, l. c. II, pp. 390-1.
[24] Ratzel, l. c. II, pp. 390-1.
[25] Lippert, l. c. I, p. 471.
[26] Kulischer, “The history of the development of interest from capital.” Jahrbücher für National Œkonomie. III series, vol. 18, p. 318, Jena, 1899: (Says Strabo: “Plunderers and from the scant supplies of their native land covetous of the lands of others.”)
[27] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 123.
[28] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 591.
[29] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 370.
[30] Ratzel, l. c. II, pp. 390-1.
[31] Ratzel, l. c. II, pp. 388-9.
[32] Ratzel, l. c. II, pp. 103-04.
[33] Thurnwald, Staat und Wirtschaft im altem Ægypten. Zeitschrift für Soz. Wissenchaft, vol. 4 1901, pp. 700-01.
[34] Ratzel, l. c. II, pp. 404-05. (Gumplowicz, Rassenkampf, p. 264: “Egypt, rich and self-sufficient, says Ranke, invited the avarice of neighboring tribes, who served other gods. Under the name of the Shepherd peoples, foreign dynasts and foreign tribes ruled Egypt for centuries. “Truly, the summary of universal history could not be begun with more characteristic words than those of Ranke. For in the words applied to Egypt the quintessence of the whole history of mankind is summed up.”—Translator.)
[35] Ratzel, l. c. II, page 393, in speaking of the Arabs says: “The difficulty of nourishing slaves makes it impossible to keep them. Vast populations are kept in subjection and deprived of everything beyond the necessaries for maintaining life. They turn entire oases into demesne lands, visited at the harvest time in order to rob the inhabitants; a domination characteristic of the desert.”
[36] There is apparently in the case of the Fulbe, a transition stage between the first three stages and the fourth, in which dominion is exercised half internationally and half intranationally. According to Ratzel (l. c. II, page 419): “Like a cuttle-fish, the conquering race stretches numerous arms hither and thither among the terrified aborigines, whose lack of cohesion affords plenty of gaps. Thus the Fulbe are slowly flowing into the Benue countries and quite gradually permeating them. Later observers have thus quite rightly abstained from assigning definite boundaries. There are many scattered Fulbe localities which look to a particular place as their center and as the center of their power. Thus Muri is the capital of the numerous Fulbe settlements scattered about the Middle Benue, and the position of Gola is similar in the Adamawa district. As yet there are no proper kingdoms with defined frontiers against each other and against independent tribes. Even these capitals are in other respects still far from being firmly settled.”
[37] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 165.
[38] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 485.
[39] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 480.
[40] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 165.
[41] Buhl, Soziale Verhältnisse der Israeliten, p. 13.
[42] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 455.
[43] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 628.
[44] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 625.
[45] Cieza de Leon, “Seg. parte de la crónica del Peru.” P. 75, cit. by Cunow, Inkareich (p. 62, note 1).
[46] Cunow, l. c. p. 61.
[47] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 346.
[48] Ratzel, l. c. II, pp. 36-7.
[49] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 221. (Cf. remarks by Hon. A. J. Sabath, M. C., Sociological Argument on Workman’s Compensation Bill, p. 498, Senate Document 338, Sixty-second Congress, Second Session, Volume I. See also Congressional Record for March 1, 1913, Sixty-second Congress, Third Session, pp. 4503, 4529, et seq.—Translator.)
[50] Rittergutsbesitz is the ultimate molecule of the German feudal system, a non-urban territory, approximating the concept of knight’s fee in the Angevin fiscal legislation; in modern Germanic law, the possession of an acreage, alienable only as an entity, and by recent legislation, alienable to non-nobles, but subject to and capable of certain exceptions in law not inhering in other forms of real estate.—Translator.
[51] “Among the Wahuma women occupy a higher position than among the negroes, and are watched carefully by their men. This makes mixed marriages difficult. The mass of the Waganda even to-day would not have remained a genuine negro tribe ‘of dark chocolate colored skin and short wool hair’ were it not that the two peoples are strictly opposed to one another as peasants and herdsmen, rulers and subjects, as despised and honored, in spite of the relations entered into among the upper classes. In this peculiar position, they represent a typical phenomenon, which is found repeated at many other points.”—Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 177.
[52] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 178.
[53] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 198.
[54] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 476.
[55] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 453.
[56] Compare this with the prevalent justification of “honest graft” in municipal or political contracts.—Translator.
[57] Kopp, Griechische Staatsaltertümer, 2, Aufl. Berlin, 1893, p. 23.
[58] Uhland, Alte hoch und niederdeutsche Volkslieder I (1844), p. 339 cited by Sombart: Der moderne Kapitalismus, Leipzig, 1902, I, pp. 384-5.
[59] Inama-Sternegg, Deutsche Wirtsch.-Gesch. I, Leipzig, 1879, p. 59.
[60] Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, London, 1891, p. 368.
[61] Similarly there are North Asiatic tribes of huntsmen, where women are definitely forbidden to touch the hunting gear or to cross a hunting trail.—Ratzel I, page 650.
[62] Cf. Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 81.
[63] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 156.
[64] Ratzel, l. c. I, pp. 259-60.
[65] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 434.
[66] Besides, it seems that the rigidity of the Indian caste-system is not so harsh in practise. The guild seems as often to break through the barriers of caste as the converse.—Ratzel II, page 596.
[67] Had we the space, a detailed exposition of this exceptional development of a feudal state would be tempting. China would be well worth a more detailed discussion, since, in many aspects it has approached the condition of “free citizenship” more closely than any people of Western Europe. China has overcome the consequences of the feudal system more thoroughly than we Europeans have; and has made, early in its development, the great property interests in the land harmless, so that their bastard offspring, capitalism, hardly came into being; while in addition, it has worked out to a considerable degree the problems of coöperative production and of coöperative distribution.
[68] I. Kulischer, l. c., p. 317, where other examples may be found.
[69] Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 400, which contains a number of ethnographical examples.
[70] Westermarck, l. c., p. 546.
[71] Cf. Ratzel, l. c. I, pp. 318, 540.
[72] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 335.
[73] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 346.
[74] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 347.
[75] Buecher, Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft, Second Edition, Tübingen, 1898, p. 301.
[76] In this category must be reckoned the salutation, still in use in some parts, “Peace Be With You.” It is expressive of the perversity of Tolstoi’s later years that he misapprehends this characteristic mark of a time when war was the normal state of affairs, as the remnant of a golden age of peace. The Importance of the Russian Revolution (German translation by A. Hess, p. 17).
[77] German Translation by L. Katscher. Leipzig, 1907.
[78] This may account for the use made of old women as heralds. They are doubly available for that purpose, since they are worthless for warfare, and are supposed to be endowed with specific powers of sorcery (Westermarck), even more than old men, who also are treated cautiously, since they may soon become “ghosts.”
[79] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 81.
[80] Ratzel, l. c. I, pp. 478-9.
[81] A. Vierkandt, Die wirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse der Naturvölker. Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft, II, pp. 177-8.
[82] Kulischer, l. c. pp. 320-1.
[83] Lippert, l. c. I, p. 266, et seq.
[84] Cf. Westermarck, History of Human Marriage.
[85] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 27.
[86] Herodotus IV, 23, cited by Lippert, l. c. I, p. 459.
[87] Lippert, l. c. II, p. 170.
[88] Mommsen, l. c. I, p. 139.
[89] Whether the Etruscans were immigrants into Italy by land who took up piracy after having made war successfully on land, or whether as sea nomads they had already settled the country along the sea named after them, has not been determined.
[90] Similar conditions may be observed among the islanders near India. Here the Malays are vikings. “Colonization is an important factor, as conquest and settlement oversea ... reminding one of the great rôle played in ancient Hellas by the roving tribes.... Every strip of coast line shows foreign elements, who enter uncalled for and in most instances spreading damage among the natives. The right of conquest was granted by the rulers of Tornate to noble dynasts, who later on became semi-sovereign viceroys on the islands of Buru, Serang, etc.”
[91] Mommsen, l. c. I, p. 132.
[92] Mommsen, l. c. I, p. 134.
[93] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 160.
[94] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 558.
[95] Buhl, l. c., p. 48.
[96] Buhl, l. c., pp. 78-79.
[97] Mommsen, l. c. II, p. 406.
[98] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 191; cf. also pp. 207-8.
[99] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 363.
[100] Mommsen, l. c., p. 46.
[101] Both cited by Kulischer, l. c., p. 319, from: Buechsenschuetz, Besitz und Erwerb im grieschischen Altertum; and Goldschmidt, History of the Law of Commerce.
[102] How characteristic of these relations it is that Great Britain, the only “maritime state” of Europe, even at this present day will not surrender the right to arm privateers.
[103] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 263.
[104] F. Oppenheimer’s Grossgrundeigentum und soziale Frage. Book Two, Chapter I. Berlin, 1898.
[105] Nomadism is exceptionally characterized by the facility with which, from patriarchal conditions, despotic functions are developed with most far-reaching powers. Ratzel, l. c. Vol. II, pp. 388-9.
[106] “The rule of the many is not a good thing, over the many there should be one king.”
[107] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 408.
[108] In Egypt we find a similar state of affairs, beside the bigoted Amenhotep IV., the Majordomus of the palace Haremheb, who “managed to unite in his hands the highest military and administrative functions of the empire, until he exercised the powers of a regent of the state.” Schneider, Civilization and Thought of the Ancient Egyptians. Leipzig, 1907, page 22.
[109] Cunow, l. c. pp. 66-7. Similarly among the inhabitants of the Malay Islands numerous examples are found in Radak (Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 267).
[110] Cf. Acta Imperii, or Huillard-Breholles, H. D. Fred. II.—Translator.
[111] Buhl, l. c., p. 17.
[112] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 66.
[113] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 118.
[114] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 167.
[115] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 218.
[116] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 125.
[117] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 124.
[118] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 118.
[119] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 125.
[120] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 346.
[121] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 245.
[122] Ratzel, l. c. I. pp. 267-8.
[123] Mommsen, l. c. III, pp. 234-5.
[124] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 167.
[125] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 229.
[126] Ratzel, l. c. I, p. 128.
[127] Weber’s Weltgeschichte, III, p. 163.
[128] Thurnwald, l. c., pp. 702-3.
[129] Maspero says, New Light on Ancient Egypt, pp. 218-9: “Until then, in fact, the high priest had been chosen and nominated by the king; from the time of Rameses III. he was always chosen from the same family, and the son succeeded his father on the pontifical throne. From that time events marched quickly. The Theban mortmain was doubled with a veritable seigniorial fief, which its masters increased by marriages with the heirs of neighboring fiefs, by continual bequests from one branch of the family to the other, and by the placing of cadets of each generation at the head of the clergy of certain secondary towns. The official protocol of the offices filled by their wives shows that a century or a century and a half after Rameses III., almost the whole of the Thebaid, about a third of the Egyptian territory was in the hands of the High Priest of Ammon and of his family.”—Translator’s Note (and italics).
[130] Thurnwald, l. c., p. 712; cf. Schneider, Kultur und Denken der alten ÆEgypter, Leipzig, 1907, p. 38.
[131] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 599.
[132] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 362.
[133] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 344.
[134] Meitzen, l. c. II, p. 633.
[135] Inama-Sternegg, l. c. I, pp. 140-1.
[136] Mommsen, l. c. V, p. 84.
[137] Cf. the detailed exposition of this in F. Oppenheimer’s Grossgrundeigentum und die soziale Frage, Book II, Chap. 3.
[138] Mommsen, l. c. III, pp. 234-5.
[139] Thurnwald, l. c., p. 771.
[140] Meitzen, l. c. I, pp. 362f.
[141] Inama-Sternegg, l. c. I, pp. 373, 386.
[142] Cf. F. Oppenheimer’s Grossgrundeigentum, p. 272.
[143] One of the most notable instances may be found in the case of Markward of Annweiler, Marquis of Ancona and Duke of Ravenna, seneschal of Henry VI., who after the death of the Emperor Henry VI. disputed the power of the Regent Constance acting for her son, Frederick II. (See Boehmer-Ficker, Regesta Imperii, V, vol. 1, No. 511. v. ad. annum 1197.)—Translator.
[144] Thurnwald, l. c., p. 706.
[145] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 503.
[146] Ratzel, l. c. II, p. 518.
[147] Meitzen, l. c. I, p. 579: “At the time of the compilation of the Lex Salica, the ancient racial nobility had been reduced to common freemen or else had been annihilated. The officials, on the other hand, are rated at threefold wergeld, 600 solidi, and if one be ‘puer regis’ 300 solidi.”
[148] Thurnwald, l. c. p. 712.
[149] Thurnwald, l. c., p. 705.
[150] “The larger camps of the army of the Rhine obtained their municipal annexes partly through army suttlers and camp followers, and particularly through the veterans, who after the completion of their services remained in their accustomed quarters. Thus there arose distinct from the military quarters proper, a distinct town of cabins (Canabæ). In all parts of the Empire, and especially in the various Germanias, there arose in the course of time, from these camps of the legionaries, and particularly from the headquarter stations, cities in the modern sense.”—Mommsen, l. c. V, p. 153.
[151] “Every place of worship gathers about it dwellings of the priests, schools, and rest-houses for pilgrims.”—Ratzel, l. c. II., p. 575.
[152] See reference as to the meaning of Rittergutsbesitz, ante, page 84.—Translator.
[153] Eisenhardt, Gesch. der National Oekonomie, p. 9: “Aided by the new and more liquid means of payment in cash, it became possible to call into being a new and more independent establishment of soldiers and of officials. As they were paid only periodically it became impossible for them to make themselves independent (as the feudatories had done) and then to turn on their paymaster.”
[154] Thurnwald, l. c., p. 773.
[155] Thurnwald, l. c., p. 699.
[156] Thurnwald, l. c., p. 709.
[157] Thurnwald, l. c., p. 711.
[158] This paragraph beginning “The external reason” probably should be “The internal reason” - Editor.
[159] In mediæval Germany the peasants pay tribute in many cases not only to the landlord and to the territorial prince, but also to the provost and to the bailiff.
[160] Cf. with this F. Oppenheimer’s Grossgrundeigentum etc., Book II, Chap. 3.
[161] “Tendency, i. e., a law, whose absolute execution is checked by countervailing circumstances, or is by them retarded, or weakened.” Marx, Kapital, vol. III, p. 215.
[162] Cf. the excellent work of Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid in its Development.
[163] Cf. F. Oppenheimer, Die Siedlungsgenossenschaft etc., Berlin, 1896, and his Grossgrundeigentum und soziale Frage, Berlin, 1898.
[164] Cf. F. Oppenheimer, Bevölkerungsgesetz des T. R. Malthus. Darstellung and Kritik, Berlin-Bern, 1901.
[165] Cf. F. Oppenheimer, Grundgesetz der Marxschen Gesellschaftslehre, Darstellung und Kritik, Berlin, 1903.
[166] Cf. F. Oppenheimer, Grundgesetz der Marxschen Gesellschaftslehre, Part IV., particularly, the twelfth chapter: “Tendency of the Capitalistic Development.”
[167] Cf. F. Oppenheimer, Grossgrundeigentum und soziale Frage, Berlin, 1898. Book I, Chapter 2, Section 3, “Philosophy of the Social Body,” pp. 57 et seq.
[168] Cf. F. Oppenheimer, Grossgrundeigentum, Book II, Chap. 2, Sec. 3, p. 322.
[169] Cf. F. Oppenheimer, Grossgrundeigentum, Book II, Chap. 3, Sec. 4, especially pp. 423 et seq.
[170] Cf. F. Oppenheimer, “Die Utopie als Tatsache,” Zeitschrift für Sozial-Wissenschaft, 1899, Vol. II, pp. 190 et seq.
[171] Cf. F. Oppenheimer, Siedlungsgenossenschaft, pp. 477 et seq.
[172] Cf. André Siegfried, La démocratie en Nouvelle Zelande, Paris, 1904.