Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"Engels, Friedrich
Philosophy
Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"
Engels, Friedrich
Dialectical materialism; Dühring, E. (Eugen), 1833-1921; Economics; Philosophy; Socialism
Let us give our attention again to our two men. Robinson "sword in
hand" makes Friday his slave. But to do this Robinson uses something
else besides his sword. A slave is not made by that means solely. In
order to be able to keep a slave one has to be superior to him in two
respects, one must first have control over the tools and objects of
labor of the slave and over his means of subsistence also. Therefore,
before slavery is possible, a certain point in production has to be
reached and a certain degree of inequality in distribution attained.
And when slave labor becomes the dominant mode of production of an
entire society a higher development of the powers of production, of
trade and of wealth, accumulation occurs. In early tribal communities
which had common ownership of the soil, slavery is either nonexistent
or its role is very subordinate. So it was at first in Rome, as a
state of farmers, but when Rome became the capital city of the world
and the soil of Italy came more and more to be owned by a numerically
small class of enormously wealthy property owners, the population of
farmers perished in front of the slave population. When at the time
of the Persian War, the number of slaves in Corinth was 460,000, and
in Aegina 470,000, and there were ten slaves to every freeman in the
population, the explanation must be sought in something other than
force; there were a highly developed art and handicraft and foreign
commerce. Slavery in the United States of America was much less due to
force than to the English cotton industry; where there was not cotton
grown or where slaves were not raised, as in the border states, for
the cotton producing states, it perished of its own accord and without
any employment of force simply because it did not pay.
When Herr Duehring therefore calls the property of the present day
property resting on force and designates it as "that form of
domination which does not merely signify the exclusion of one's fellow
beings from the use of the natural means of sustenance, but implies in
addition that the subjection of man has lain at the foundation of
human slavery" he puts the matter upside down. The subjection of
humanity to slavery in all its forms means the control by the master
of the means of labor by virtue of which alone he can employ his
slaves upon them and the disposal of the means of livelihood by which
he can keep his slaves alive. In all cases therefore it implies a
certain power of possession which transcends the ordinary? How did
this arise? Occasionally it is clear that it was seized and can
therefore be said to rest upon force but this is by no means
essential. It can be got by labor, be robbed, be obtained by trade, or
taken by fraud. It must be worked for generally before it can be
stolen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account