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Title: Tolstoy's interpretation of money and property
Author: Milivoy Stoyan Stanoyevich
Release Date: October 15, 2021 [eBook #66544]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOLSTOY'S INTERPRETATION OF MONEY
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TOLSTOY’S INTERPRETATION
OF MONEY AND PROPERTY
By
MILIVOY S. STANOYEVICH, M.L.
(_University of California_)
Reprinted from “Liberty”, December, 1916.
Liberty Publishing Co.
Oakland, Cal.
TOLSTOY’S INTERPRETATION OF MONEY AND PROPERTY
A. Interpretation of Money.
I
Assuming that our society may exist without positive laws it could
also exist without money. The Russian reformer, Leo N. Tolstoy, is
consistent with his doctrine of social reform[1]. According to him
enacted law is violence, private property is evil, and subsequently
“money as a centre around which economic science clusters”[2] cannot be
anything else, but a medium of oppression[3]. Describing the economic
nature and offices performed by money, he dissents widely from the
politico-economists and disapproves of their teachings on the same
subject-matter.
At the outset of the seventeenth chapter of his notable work, _What
Shall We Do Then_, Tolstoy inquires, What is money? And further on
he proceeds: “I have met educated people who asserted that money
represents the labor of him who possesses it. I must confess that
formerly I in some obscure manner shared this opinion. But I had
to go to the bottom of what money was, and so to find this out,
I turned to science. Science says that there is nothing unjust
and prejudicial about money, that money is a natural condition of
social life--necessary: 1. for convenience of exchange; 2. for
the establishment of measures of value; 3. for saving; and 4. for
payments”[4].
Are these theories true? According to the teaching of economics they
are; according to Tolstoy they are not. Many writers even those of
the earliest time argued that money is a medium of exchange[5].
The founders of classical economics, Smith[6], Ricardo[7], Mill[8],
Carey[9], socialist reformers, Lassalle[10], and Marx[11], all agree
in the main that money is an exchangeable commodity by means of which
people measure the value of other commodities. Professor Fisher
shortly and precisely defines money as _What is generally acceptable
in exchange for goods_[12]. More acute determination of the nature of
money is given by Prof. Kinley in his elaborate study on _Money_[13].
According to this author no definition of medium of exchange can be
framed on the basis of the material of which it is made but on the
basis of its services, and its essential services are three fold:
First, money is sometimes used to describe all media of exchange--gold,
silver, paper, checks, bank drafts or the deposits which they
represent, commercial bills of exchange, and even corporation stocks.
These things all effect exchanges; in a way they all relieve the
difficulties of barter. But this definition, however, is too inclusive,
Prof. Kinley contends. It is inclusive because all mentioned articles
do not attain the character of media of exchange because there is a
demand for them for that purpose primarily. The medium of exchange
includes money but its content is greater than that of money. All money
can be a medium of exchange but all medium of exchange is not money[14].
Second, at the other extreme is a set of definitions which would
restrict money to what may be called commodity money. Those who hold
this view insist that money is an article of direct utility with
specific value based on its direct services for consumption. They hold
that it must have value due to a demand for other than a monetary
system. The implication is that in the absence of this other demand
the article would not have any value and therefore could not properly
serve as a measure of value. This view of the nature of money is
definite and clear-cut, but it is not correct because the article has
value if there is a demand for it, whatever the reason for that demand.
Third, between these two extremes fluctuates the view that all media of
exchange and payment, whose acceptance the law requires in discharge
of debts, may properly be called money. This definition confines to
standard money, or inconvertible paper, if it were legal tender. Both
kinds of money circulate without reference to the possibility of
recovering their value from the payer if they should fail to pass,
and their value as money depends entirely on the fact that they are
generally acceptable in exchange[15].
Taking now in view these three standpoints of the nature of money, we
could define it in these words: Legal tender, inconvertible paper, and
all commodities which are used as general circulating and paying media,
are properly called money.
This is one of the most typical definitions including nearly all others
supported by current political economy. Tolstoy as always disagrees
with the teaching of economics and he simply says that money is a new
and terrible form of slavery[16]. His full definition is as follows:
Money is a conventional token which gives the right, or more correctly,
the possibility, to exploit the labor of other people[17]. To explain
this inadequate definition of money more appropriately and in its
fuller extent, it is necessary to turn our attention to the functions
of money as they are enunciated by Leo Tolstoy.
One of many other functions which money performes, according to
Tolstoy, is the representation of labor. There exists a common opinion
that money represents wealth, but money is the product of labor, and
so money represents labor[18]. This opinion, says Tolstoy sneeringly,
is as correct as that other opinion that every political organization
is the result of a pact (_contrat social_). Yes, money represents
labor[19], there is no doubt about that, but whose, labor of the owner
of the money, or of the other people? In that rude stage of society,
Tolstoy goes on, when people voluntarily bartered the fruits of their
products, or exchanged them through the medium of money, substantially
money represented their individual labor. That is incontestably true,
and this was only so long as in society where this exchange took place,
has not appeared the violence of one man over another in any form: war,
slavery, of defence of one’s labor against others. But as soon as any
violence was exerted in society, the money at once lost for the owner
its significance as a representative of labor, and assumed the meaning
of a right which is not based on labor, but on violence[20]. This is
one of the functions of the medium of exchange in the pages of Tolstoy.
The second function of money is the representation of the standard
value. “Catallactics” admits this function of money. Tolstoy himself
should recognize it in an ideal state of society, in a society where
extortion has not made its appearance[21]. If people exchanged directly
commodity for commodity; if they themselves determined the standards
of values by sheep, furs, hides, and shells[22], then one could speak
of money as an instrument of exchange, as an ideal standard of value
in an ideal state of society. But in such a society there would be no
money as such, as a common standard of values, as it has not existed
and cannot exist[23]. The standard value of money is determined by law
and government, and these institutions are based chiefly on deceit[24],
or represent the organized force[25]. What in recent time receives a
value is not what is more convenient for exchange, but what is demanded
by government. If gold is demanded gold will be a common denominator,
if knuckle-bones are demanded, knuckle-bones will have value[26]. If
this were not so why has the issue of this medium of exchange always
been the prerogative of the government? In such a state of society in
which we live, the standard of values ceases to have any significance,
because the standard of value of all articles depends on the arbitrary
will of the oppressor[27]. By this reason we could speak only on
arbitrary and conventional value of money, not of its intrinsic, nor of
its standard value.
Passing now to the third function of money, enumerated by Tolstoy,
we see that he attributes to it a new contingent service which is
not mentioned as such in any political economy. In modern civilised
society, he says, all the governments are in extreme need for money,
and always in insolvable debt[28]. Wherefore they issue monetary
tokens in the different countries[29]. These tokens: legal tender,
inconvertible paper, coin, bills, and other governmental fiats,
are distributed among the people, in order that later they could
be collected as direct, indirect, and land taxes[30]. The debts of
the present monetary state grow from year to year in a terrifying
progression. Even so grow the budgets[31]. A state which should not
levy taxes, for a comparatively short time would go to bankruptcy. The
taxes and imposts required from people may be paid in form of cattle,
corn, furs, skins, and other natural products, but this “natural
economy” never practices in a civilised state. Governments force people
to pay those taxes usually in “hard” or “soft” cash, because this kind
of money best suits the purposes of rewarding the military and civil
officials, of maintaining the clergy, the courts, the construction of
prisons, fortresses, cannon[32], and supporting those men who aid in
the seizure of the money from the people[33]. So we have the third
function of money as the third method of enslavement[34], by means of
tribute and taxes[35]. In modern times, since the discovery of America
and the development of trade and the influx of gold, which is accepted
as the universal money standard, the monetary tribute becomes, with
the enforcement of the political power, the chief instrument of the
enslavement of men[36], and upon it all the economic relation of men
are based[37].
II
Discussing money, Tolstoy cannot separate the economic question from
the political. To him it appears inevitable that money performes a
social service equivalent to the instrument of extortion. He does not
take into consideration those inumerable utilities which circulating
medium renders to the community and particularly to the commercial
world, facilitating the transfer as well as aggregation of capital.
“Chremmatistics” teaches us that money is the most general form of
capital, capital in the fluid state, so that it can be immediately
turned to new enterprises and transfered for investment to distant
places. On the other hand, capital in the form of money is the most
convenient vehicle of production and distribution of wealth. Tolstoy,
as a medieval canonist, regards capital and wealth to be shameful
and criminal things. He absolutely repudiates the theory that in all
production only three factors take part: land, capital and labor.
His disconcerting controversy in these matters contains nothing
fundamentally new in political economy, but it is an odd manner in
which he couches the notion of money in relation to production.
It seems strange, Tolstoy’s theory runs, that economists do not
recognize the natural objects in production of wealth. The power of
the sun, water, food, air, and social security, are the requisites of
production as much as the land or capital. Education, knowledge, and
ability to speak are certain agents of production. I could fill a
whole volume, says Tolstoy, with such omitted factors, and put them at
the basis of science[38]. The division into three factors of production
is not proper to men. It is improper, arbitrary, and senseless. It does
not lie in the essence of things themselves.
By its division of the factors of production, proceeds our author,
science affirms that the natural condition of the laborer is that
unnatural condition in which he is; just as in the ancient world
they affirmed, in dividing people into citizens and slaves, that
the unnatural condition of the slaves is a natural property of man.
This division, which is accepted by science only in order to justify
the existing evil, which is placed by it at the basis of all its
investigations, has had this effect, that science tries in vain to
give explanations of existing phenomena, and denying the clearest and
simplest answers to questions that present them, it gives answers which
are devoid of content. The question of economic science is as follows:
What is the cause of this, that some men, who have land and capital,
are able to enslave those who have not land, and no capital? The answer
which presents itself to common sense is this, that it is due to the
money, which has the power of enslaving people. This is not due to the
property of money, but because some have land and capital, and others
have not. We ask, why people who have land and capital enslave those
who have none, and we are told: because they have land and capital.
But that is precisely what we want to know. The privation of the land
and of the tools of labor is that very enslavement. The answer is like
this: _Facit dormire quia habet virtutem dormitiva_. To simple people
it is indubitable that the nearest cause of the enslavement of one
class of men by another is money[39]. They know that it is possible to
cause more trouble with a rouble than with a club; it is only political
economy that does not want to know it[40].
These theories on money respecting production do not appear of such
nature that they could be applied in the other countries besides
Russia. The Russian enlightened feudalism of the nineteenth century
gave Tolstoy excellent material and a good reason to attack it with
all his strength, and he was right. But his assault on political
economy for its “omission” to treat the natural objects in production
of wealth, are not justifiable, and could not be admitted. In the first
place, any better political economy does not consider these objects at
length, because nobody lays claims on them, as Tolstoy himself avowed
this fact[41]. The gifts of nature cannot be appropriated by any one.
They are inexhaustible and unlimited as compared with the wants of men.
Therefore they never have a direct value to be taken as factors of
productions[42].
In modern industrial society the essential factors of production, among
the others, are money and wealth. Wealth is usually regarded as the
object of consumption, and as an agent of production[43]. The idea
of wealth, however, is often confounded with the idea of money. John
S. Mill has justly remarked that most people regard money as wealth,
because by that means they provide almost all their necessities. In
the same sense is the assertion of the French economist Charles Gide,
when he noted that in all times and in all places except among savages,
money has occupied an exceptional place in the thoughts and desires of
men. People regard it, if not as the only wealth, at any rate, as by
far the most important form of wealth. They appear to measure the value
of all other wealth by the quantity of money that can be obtained in
exchange for it. _Etre riche, c’est avoir soit de l’argent, soit les
moyens de s’en procurer[44]._
Tolstoy of course has no clear distinction either of wealth, or of
money. He also confuses these notions, as many authors before and
after him. To define wealth exactly is verily a difficult task; and to
dwell upon it impartially is perhaps still more difficult. There are
two theories in “Plutology” regarding the definition of wealth: first,
that wealth is all exchangeable and valuable commodities and second,
that it is power. Representatives of the first theory are Henry Fawcet
and John S. Mill, of the second, Hobbes and Carey. Tolstoy is nearer
to those theorizers who teach that wealth is power, than to those
who define it as commodity. Yet, we should err gravely if we assumed
that between Tolstoy’s interpretation of wealth and that of other
economists exists any conformity. For instance Carey defines wealth
as the power to command nature. Tolstoy defines it as the power to
command other people who have neither wealth nor “the signs” of wealth.
“Only in the Pentateuch, wealth is the highest good and reward”[45]. In
everyday life wealth is evil, deception and cause of enslavement. To
be honest and at the same time to work for Mammon, is something quite
impossible[46]. This ethical principle may be true. But our theorist
forgets that questions of what people ought to do, and questions
of what it will profit men and nations to do, belong to different
categories of sciences. He forgets that ethical ideas should not be
read into the conceptions of wealth and money when they are employed in
their everyday sense. Prof. S. Chapman[47] justly says “If our aim is
to indicate what people ought to want instead of what they do want, we
had better speak of ethical wealth and ethical value”.
Tolstoy was very near to those reform writers who taught that political
economy must be regarded as a part of moral philosophy. But he was
not the first social reformer who has introduced the moral elements
into the study of economic phenomena. As it is known Aristotle’s
interpretations of money are written in the _Nichomachean Ethics_.
The political economy of Plato and Xenophon rests on moral bases[48].
Medieval scholastics and theologians raised many problems which were in
connection with the searching inquire as to what constitutes a _just
price_, and this inquiry belonged to the ethics of political economy.
Adam Smith and John S. Mill adopted the double role to be economists
and at the same time ethical teachers[49]. French economists Rossi, De
Laveley, and Le Play, introduced ethical principle in the science of
wealth as well.
There are several such examples of “ethical interpretation” of
economics among the most illustrious thinkers. They may be exculpated
for their disagreements only on the ground that they lived in times
when social science was in incumbent stage, when scientific ideas
were intermingled from one sphere of science into another. Good,
gentle Tolstoy, may also be pardoned for his “blunders of expression”
because he made them in his fanatic love of truth, and truth although
it is truth, does not always seem true, says a French proverb. To
treat the delicate and intricate complexity of money and wealth, and
never mislead, one should be a higher-man, a superman. But supermen
are not yet born in this sordid earth as fitly objected a well-known
philosopher.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “If Tolstoy’s teaching is not systematic, two facts may be urged in
extenuation: his doctrines, so far as he expounds them, are consistent
in themselves”--says T. S. Knowlson in his biographical and critical
study on _Leo Tolstoy_, ch. VII, p. 143. [London, 1904].
[2] See J. W. Harper, _Money and Social Problem_, ch. V, sec. I, p. 98.
[3] _What Shall We Do Then_, ch. XIX, p. 127. [Wiener’s ed. 1904].
[4] _Loc. cit._, ch. XVII, p. 100.
[5] Cf. for instance, Plato, _Laws_, ch. XI, and Aristotle’s
_Politics_, bk. I, ch. 9; _Nicomachean Ethics_, by Aristotle, bk. V,
ch. 5.--Roman authors defined money as a “just medium and measure
of commutable things” _Moneta est justum medium, et mensura rerum
commutabilium_, quoted in H. C. Black, _Dictionary of Law_, p. 785.
[1891].
[6] _Wealth of Nations_, bk. II, ch. II.
[7] _Principles of Political Economy and Taxation_, ch. XXI.
[8] _Principles of Political Economy_, bk. III, ch. VII.
[9] _Principles of Social Science_, vol. II, ch. XXX, 1.
[10] _Die Philosophie Heracleitos des Dunkeln_, vol. I, p. 22. [1845].
[11] _Capital_, English ed. part I, ch. III.
[12] _The Purchasing Power of Money_, ch. II, ces. 1. [New York, 1911].
[13] D. Kinley, _Money_, a Study of the Theory of the Medium of
Exchange, ch. V, 6. [New York, 1913].
[14] Some excellent hints as to the money-commodity, compare H. White,
_Money and Banking_, bk. I, ch. I. [New York, 1908].
[15] Valuable suggestions on standard money, see W. A. Scott, _Money
and Banking_, ch. I, sec. I.--J. L. Laughlin, _The Principles of
Money_, ch. III.--J. B. Clark, _The Ultimate Standard of Value_,
in _Yale Review_, Nov. 1892, vol. 1, p. 258-74.--The same subject
is well treated by C. Manger in an article entitled “Geld” in the
_Handwoerterbuch der Staatswissenschaften_, bd. IV. [1900], and
L. Nasse, “Das Geld und Muenzwesen” in Schoenberg, _Handbuch der
Politischen Oekonomie_, bd. I. [1896].
[16] _What Shall We Do Then_, ch. XXI, p. 164. [Wiener’s ed.]
[17] _Id. Ibid._ ch. XXII, p. 161.
[18] _What Shall We Do Then_, ch. XXI, p. 158.
[19] _Op. cit._, p. 160.
[20] _Loc. cit._ ch. XXI, p. 159.
[21] _Id. Ib._ ch. XIX, p. 126.
[22] _Op. cit._ ch. XVIII, p. 122.
[23] _Id. ib._ ch. XIX, p. 126.
[24] _Patriotism and Government._ Complete Works, vol. XXIII, p. 538.
[Wiener’s ed. 1904].
[25] _The Slavery of Our Times._ Comp. Works, vol. XXIV, p. 128.
[26] _What Shall We Do Then_, ch. XVIII, p. 122.
[27] _Id. Ibid._ ch. XIX, p. 127.
[28] _Loc. cit._ ch. XVIII, p. 121.
[29] _Op. cit._ ch. XX, p. 145.
[30] _Loc. cit._ ch. XX, p. 145.
[31] _Id. Ibid._ ch. XVIII, p. 121.
[32] _The Kingdom of God is Within You_, ch. IX, p. 237.
[33] _The Slavery of Our Times_, ch. X, p. 41.
[34] The first method of the enslavement of men is by means of personal
violence, according to Tolstoy, and second is by depriving people of
their land. [Cf. _What Shall We Do Then_, ch. XX, p. 142-43].
[35] _What Shall We Do Then_, ch. XX. p. 144.
[36] _Id. Ibid._ ch. XVIII, p. 111.
[37] For the sound discussion on function of money, which is avowedly
opposite to Tolstoy’s theory, see W. S. Jevons, _Money and the
Mechanism of Exchange_, ch. III.--J. L. Laughlin, _The Principles
of Money_, ch. I.--F. A. Walker, _Money_, ch. I. [1883].--E. B.
Bawerk, _Positive Theorie des Capitals_, bch. II, abt. II-III.
[1902].--C. Jannet, _Capital_, ch. II-III. For a different and
sounder interpretation of taxes and taxation, see the excellent book,
_Introduction to Public Finance_, by Prof. C. C. Plehn. N. York, 1896.
[38] _What Shall We Do Then_, ch. XVII, p. 102.
[39] _Loc. cit._ ch. XVII, p. 109.
[40] _Id. Ibid._ ch. XVIII, p. 124.
[41] _Op. cit._ ch. XVIII, p. 117.
[42] Cf. W. Roscher, _System der Volkswirtschaft_, bd. I, kap. I, 31.
[1906]. J. S. Mill, _Political Economy_, bk. I, ch. I, sec. 1.
[43] Cf. A. Marschal, _Principles of Economics_, bk. IV, ch. VII, sec.
1. p. 300. [London, 1898].
[44] _Cours d’Economie Politique_, p. 310. [Paris, 1911].
[45] Cp. _The Complete Works_, vol. XIV, p. 109. [Wiener’s ed. 1905].
[46] _Id. Ibid._ p. 288.
[47] _Political Economy_, ch. II, p. 60. [London, 1912].
[48] Cf. _Histoire de L’Economie Politique en Europe_, par J. A.
Blanqui, ch. III.--See also _Des Raports de L’Economie Politique et de
la Morale_, par M. H. Baudrillard, lec. II. [Paris, 1883].
[49] See J. N. Keynes, _The Scope and Method of Political Economy_, ch.
II, sec. 1, p. 62. [London, 1897].
B. Interpretation of Property.
I
When two Greek law-givers, Lycurgus and Solon, imposed their laws
upon the Greek nation, they both had the same purpose--to establish
the equal right of all men to the use of land and other properties.
Plutarch, speaking of Lycurgus, observes that at that time “some were
so poor that they had no inch of land, and others, of whom there were
but few, so wealthy that they possessed all”. Lycurgus persuaded the
citizens to restore the land to common use, and they did so. Solon had
no other end in giving laws to the Athenians but to set up justice
among all his fellow-citizens. He says that ambition of the rich
knows no bounds, that they respect neither sacred property nor public
treasure, plundering all in defiance of the holy laws of justice. “I
had commanded the wealthiest and most powerful to refrain from harming
the weak,” says he further, “I had protected great and humble with
a double buckler, equally strong both sides, without giving more to
one than to the other. My advice has been disdained. Today they are
punished for it”[50].
Taken as a whole this doctrine of Lycurgus and Solon is not in
accordance with Tolstoy’s teaching on laws and property. But
nevertheless it shows clearly that law and property are two indivisible
civil institutions which can not exist separately[51]. Tolstoy is in
opposition to both of them, law and property, because they offend
against humanity, especially against the commandment not to resist evil
by force.
Under the term of property here must be understood private or
individual property. The notion of property, however, is not clear
either in ancient or modern writers. In the course of human evolution
property has many times changed its form and its substance, its meaning
and its scope. In the societies that preceded ours, property embodied
itself in a form of oppression which has been definitely abolished
once for all. As it is known slavery was one of the forms of private
property[52]. In Greece and Rome there were public slaves, _i.e._
slaves of the city, and slaves of the state; but most of the slaves
were simply a part of the patrimony of the citizens. Masters had the
right to use them for cultivation of land, or to give them away as
presents, or to sell them, or to leave them to their heirs. They had
the legal right of imprisoning and fettering the slaves, or separating
them from their wives, or forbidding them to marry. The slaves were
part of the master’s private ownership, and he disposed of them as he
pleased. In the Roman laws, and also in the laws of Athens, we find
that a father could sell his son. This was because the father might
dispose of all the property of the family, and the son might be looked
upon as property, since his labor was a source of income[53]. The
best Greek and Roman philosophers saw nothing unlawful in that. Their
conceptions of the respective rights and duties of masters and slaves
would not clash in the least with the ideas even now in equatorial
Africa, and some other European colonies elsewhere.
Between these old institutions of slavery and modern capitalistic
systems, Tolstoy was not able to find any great differences. To him the
institution of slavery existed even in his time only in other form than
it was in Greece, India, and Rome. And the reason why this slavery
existed lies in the institution of private property. If it be true,
Tolstoy suggests, that property has its origin only in labor, why so
many combats, revolutions, and wars? Why so many luxuries, robberies,
and debaucheries? Are these vices not originated in personal or
private property? Is it true that property and money represent labor?
By no means, answers our philosopher. Property may be represented by
money, and _vice versa_, but money has in our time completely lost
that desirable significance as a representative of labor; such a
significance it has only exceptionally, for as a general rule it has
become a right or a possibility for exploiting the labor of others.
Money is a new form of slavery, which differs from the old only in
being impersonal, and in freeing people from the human relations of the
slave[54].
In a revolutionary article, _To the Working People_, written in
1902, three years before the Russian Revolution, Tolstoy attempted
to open the eyes of the people stating that they were deprived of
the land which they formerly possessed and were forced to come to
the cities, as wage-workers, or practically, as slaves. The working
people in manufacturing cities are in complete slavish dependence on
their masters. These slaves may be liberated from the chains in which
they are fettered in no way, except by the abolition of private and
capitalistic property, that is, giving the land to the people who work,
and not to the people who live by the unearned increment. He adds
that rural laborers have nothing to do with socialistic doctrinaires
who propose the diminution of hours of work and raising of wages, by
strikes, unions, and childish processions with flags on the first of
May. They need not send into parliaments the representatives who fight
there “about words, with words, and for words”, as sometimes Lassalle
reproached the “bourgeois” representatives. The working men who leave
the land and live by factory labor must find some other means to rid
themselves of the slavery. They should ask and demand of their masters
and rulers the right to settle on the land, and to work there. In
demanding this, they will not be demanding something not their own, not
belonging to them, but the restitution of their most unquestionable and
inalienable right, which is inherent in every living being, to live on
the land and get their sustenance from it, without asking permission
from anyone else to do so. To be sure, masters and rulers will not give
the people the land which they demand. Governments are in power to
prevent this claim. But governments have no power without police and
army, and who are the constituents of this army and police? People,
workingmen. When these laborers refuse to serve the unchristian and
brutal commands of the governments, then people can divide and take as
much land as they need for cultivation and their living.
Should it not be robbery to take the possessions of people who
accumulated them for hundreds and thousands of years? Yes, but how
did these upper classes accumulate their property and riches? Tolstoy
replies on this question together with his teacher Proudhon: They
heaped up their properties by theft from other people. _La propriété
c’est le vol_, said Proudhon[55]. _Sobstvenost est koren zla_ (Property
is the root of evil), continues his disciple, by the same axiomatic
language as the master[56].
Is this statement categorical? From the standpoint of Proudhon and
Tolstoy it is, but from the point of view of economists this doctrine
is at fault. The Russian iconoclast, Tolstoy, like the American
advocate of Single Tax, George, maintains that the land question may
be solved simply by restoration of the land to the people who work on
it. This is, undoubtedly, the best, the easiest, and quickest way to
make private property common and equitable, but what do history and
economics say of this _quaestio vexata_.
II
It is not needful here to go with historians and jurists far beyond the
Greek and Roman lawyers in this inquiry. Let us begin the discussion
with Plato and Aristotle. We know already that Plato in his _Republic_
is a communist. He permits no citizen to have any property of his own
beyond what is absolutely necessary. The land is divided into equal
parts among all the citizens, in order that all may be interested in
the defence of the country[57]. This communism of Plato was vigorously
combated by Aristotle in a brief passage of _The Politics_, which
contains many of the best arguments since used on that side of the
controversy[58]. However, Aristotle was not an exclusive individualist.
He wants in a state, _Private property and common use_. In Plato’s
judgment, the state should be governed in the reverse way, _Common
property and private use_. In Greek history we find a constant struggle
about these questions of inequality among people and private dominion
of land. But the ideas of communism and social possessions among
ancient nations are prevalent. The learned historian, Theo. Mommsen, in
his _Roemische Geschichte_ stated that in the earliest times the arable
land was cultivated in common, and it was not till later that land
came to be distributed among the burgesses as their own property[59].
Mommsen’s thesis is based on the quotations of Cicero[60], Dionysius
of Halicarnassus, and Plutarch. In later time it is supported by the
historian, P. Viollet[61], economist E. de Laveley[62], sociologists
Ch. Letourneau[63], Sir Henry Main[64], and almost all socialist
writers[65].
During the Middle Ages the idea of common ownership was theoretically
maintained by church Fathers and their followers, on the basis of
Christ’s teaching which perpetually sympathized with the poor. St.
Fathers regarded community of goods as the ideal order of society,
private property as a necessary evil, trade as an occupation hardly
compatible with the character of a devout Christian, and the receipt
of interest for the use of money as altogether sinful. They said that
individual property is contrary to the Divine Law, therefore _Omnia
debent esse communia_. These principles could never be applied with
logical severity. Ecclesiastics theoretically preached equality of men,
and in practice they were the wealthiest class among other classes.
Roderigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, was one of the richest men of
his time[66]. The luxury, immorality and privileged wealth of clergy
caused the Reformation, but the Reformation could not restrain the
clergy from acquiring immense private possessions. Communism of the
Middle Ages was then a pure utopia, as it is today.
In the philosophy of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries the institution
of private property was justified by many jurisconsults, reformers,
and philosophers who, based their teachings on human nature. Among
these are significant theories of Grotius, Locke, Hobbes, Thiers[67],
and Coulanges[68]. In opposition to these writers we find, throughout
the French Revolution and later on, the writers who assailed private
property as pernicious. Rousseau expressed himself with all his fervid
eloquence upon this theme, and he found a large public to sympathize
with his declamations. Rousseau was the inspirer of those revolutionary
writers, inferior in genius but equally daring, who helped to diffuse
his doctrines. Mirabeau and Robespierre were also Rousseau’s adherents.
Even the socialists, though they have dropped some of his first
principles and have adopted some of the conclusions of modern science,
have inherited no small portion of his spirit[69].
In America we find many of Rousseau’s followers who were inspired
by philosophers of the French Revolution. Among these followers is
Henry George[70], and in Russia, Tolstoy. The difference between these
two reformers is that George would put the rent of real property
in the hand of government for better and more righteous taxation
than is now the case. Tolstoy, meanwhile, is against all taxation,
because it can only be collected by force, and all force is forbidden
by Christ. George is for nationalization of land, Tolstoy for full
communalization, against all government and all state ownership[71].
Tolstoy is, indubitably, influenced by Rousseau, Proudhon, and
anarcho-communistic writers of the nineteenth century. His teaching
of property has many elements of chimerical schemes, sometimes
confounded with mediaeval communism and Christian primitive utopias,
sometimes with anarchistic principles which reject both private and
social property. The labor question is solved by Tolstoy simply in the
destruction of private ownership and in the distribution of land to
the people who work manually. Mental labor and intellectual production
are ignored and disdained. In many books printed during Tolstoy’s life
we find “no rights reserved”. Literary property, accordingly, is the
common property of mankind. Ideas and facts are free to all men. There
are no patents and copyrights of mental exertions _cum privilegio_.
The author of a work has no right of property in the book he has made;
he took the common stock and worked it over, and one man has just as
good a right to it as another. If the author is allowed to be the owner
of his works, the public are deprived of their rights. The immaterial
property in writing is in the same degree a robbery as it is material.
Finally, literary labor does not belong to this question. According to
Tolstoy’s interpretation, inventions, arts, literature, and science,
are privileged only to the higher classes. The class of people
exclusively occupied with physical labor nowhere read books, neither
have the masses learned from books to plough, to make _kvas_, to weave,
to make shoes, to build huts, to sing songs, or even to pray.
Of this Tolstoy’s criticism of literature, science, and private
property, were cogent objections. He was called an utopian, a sophist,
an inconsistent author who speaks one thing and works something else.
Some called him charlatan, destroyer of sacred institutions, and a
man who did not know what he was preaching. These epithets remind one
of that which Jean Bodin gave to Machiavelli calling him a “butt of
invective”, and “wretched man”, or of those names which Voltaire gave
Rousseau honoring him as a “Punchinello of letters”, “the fanfaron
of ink”, “arch-madman”, “scoundrel”, “mountebank”, and other choice
epithets.
Such criticism might be valuable and apropos to a certain sort of
newspapers, but not to serious investigators and critics. Throwing
this kind of adjectives at an author, does not mean that he is really
wrong. Indeed, Tolstoy’s doctrine of abolishing individual ownership
constitutes no valid grounds for criticism of the historic right of
private property in land. Most of his great expectations would not
be realized. The problems of wealth distribution, land, and money,
are much deeper and more complex than he presumed. They cannot be
explained solely by a theory, nor solved by refusing to serve in
military and state obligations. They are the inheritance of the present
generation from a long past, the resultant of a complex of forces,
material and spiritual, political, economic, moral, and social. They
can only be unraveled by a most minute and careful study of historical
records, interpreted by the aid of the best results of the thought
of economists, sociologists, and politicians. And yet, in many ways,
Tolstoy aided the solution of these problems. He helped to accelerate
it by the example he set of earnestness, altruism, and intense devotion
to ideals which he made the creed of future society.
[Illustration: Line]
FOOTNOTES:
[50] See these quotations on Solon and Lycurgus in _Property_, by Ch.
Letourneau, ch. XIV, sec. V, 6.
[51] That property was created by law it is proved by Montesquieu and
Bentham. In the _Spirit of Laws_, Montesquieu argues that civil law
is Paladium of property, and as the people acquired by political laws
liberty, so they acquired by the civil laws property. [_The Spirit of
Laws_, book XXVI, ch. 15].--In _The Principles of Civil Code_, by J.
Bentham, we find the same idea expressed in these words: “Property is
entirely the creature of law.... Property and law are born and must die
together. Before the laws, there was no property; take away the laws,
all property ceases”. [_The Principles of the Civil Code_, pt. I, ch.
VIII].
[52] _Cf._ Ch. Letourneau, _Property_, ch. XIV and XV. See also
Aristotle’s _Politics_, bk. I, ch. VIII.
[53] _Cf._ F. de Coulange, _Cité Antique_, English by W. Small, 1901,
book II, ch. VIII, p. 120.
[54] _What Shall We Do Then_, ch. XXI. p. 163.
[55] _Cf._ _Qu’est ce que la Propriété_, 1840, English translation by
B. Tucker, 1876, First Memoir, ch. I.
[56] _What Shall We Do Then_, ch. 39. Wiener’s ed. p. 318.
[57] Plato’s view on property is expressed in _The Republic_, bk.
III, IV, V and VIII. Then in _The Laws_, bk. III, where he speaks of
distribution of land and equalizing of property. In the same work, he
further on says that property does not belong to the individual but to
the whole family, and property and family alike belong to the State,
_The Laws_, b. XI.
[58] “I do not think”, says Aristotle, “that property ought to be
common”. [_The Politics_, bk. VII, ch. 10]. On the other place he
argues that there are two things which principally inspire mankind
with care and affection, namely, the sense of what is one’s own, and
exclusive possession. [_The Politics_, bk. II, ch. IV]
[59] In aeltester Zeit das Ackerland gemeinschaftlich, wahrscheinlich
nach den einzelnen Geschlechtsgenossenschaften bestellt und erst
der Ertrag unter die einzelnen dem Geschlecht angehoerigen Haeuser
vertheilt ward ... erst spaeter das Land unter die Buerger zu
Sondereigenthum aufgetheilt ward. [_Roemische Geschichte_, 2te Auflage,
1856, bd. I, st. 171-72.]
[60] Tum [zur Zeit des Romulus] erat res in pecore et locorum
possessionibus, ex quo pecuniosi et locupletos vocabantur.--[Numa]
primum agros, quos bello Romulus ceperat, divisit viritim civibus.
[Cited by Mommsen from _De Republica_, 2, 9, 14.]
[61] _Du Caractere Collectif des Premieres Propriétés Immobilieres_,
1872.
[62] _De la Propriété et de ses Formese Primitives_, 1874. [English tr.
1878].
[63] _L’Evolution de la Propriété_, 1888. [English translation, 1892].
[64] _Ancient Law_, ch. VIII. London, 1861.
[65] Especially P. Lafargue, _The Evolution of Property_, 1908.
[66] On this Pope, Professor P. Villari says: “One of his strongest
passions was an insatiable greed for gold ... he accumulated the
immense fortune that served to raise him to the papacy”.... See _Storia
di Girolamo Savonarola e de’ suvi tempi_, 1859. English by Ll. Villari,
1909, ch. IX, 152.
[67] _The Rights of Property_, by A. Thiers, London, 1848.
[68] _The Origin of Property in Land_, by F. de Coulanges. English
translation, London, 1891.
[69] On the private property during the French Revolution see _Le
Socialisme et la Revolution Francaise_, par Dr. A. Lichtenberg, Paris,
1899, ch. VII, 1. Another valuable book on this subject is _The French
Revolution and Modern French Socialism_, by Dr. J. B. Peixotto, New
York, 1901, ch. I, 4; ch. III, 3; and ch. VI, 2.
[70] See _Progress and Property_, by H. George, 1879, bk. VII-VIII.
Tolstoy mentioned George in several of his political articles, and
wrote _Two Letters on Henry George_, 1893. In Wiener’s translations of
the Complete Works of Count Tolstoy, these _Two Letters_ are published
in volume XXIII, pp. 396-401.
[71] A parallel drawn between George’s and Tolstoy’s theory of property
may be found in C. B. Fillebrown, _The A B C of Taxation_, App. B. pp.
168-170. [New York, 1909].
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