A SYSTEMATIC SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
VOLUME I
A
SYSTEMATIC SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
EDITED BY PITIRIM A. SOROKIN
Professor of Sociology Harvard University
CARLE C. ZIMMERMAN
Associate Professor of Sociology University of Minnesota
AND
CHARLES }. G A Lf> I 1^
Chief of the Division of Farm Populatjjo&>aad Rural Life U. S, Department of Agriculture
MINNEAPOLIS
THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS
1930
COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY THE
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AT THE LUND PRESS, INC., MINNEAPOLIS
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY
OF
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
WHO IN APPOINTING THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION
DECLARED, "THE GREAT RURAL INTERESTS ARE HUMAN
INTERESTS AND GOOD CROPS ARE OF LITTLE VALUE TO THE
FARMER UNLESS THEY OPEN THE DOOR TO A GOOD
KIND OF LIFE ON THE FARM."
DEDICATED ALSO
TO
SIR HORACE PLUNKETT
WHO GAVE TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC FORMULA, "BETTER FARMING, BETTER BUSINESS, BETTER
LIVING," A DICTUM THAT SUMMARIZES THE BASES OF THE
COUNTRY LIFE MOVEMENT IN THE
UNITED STATES.
DEDICATED ALSO TO
LIBERTY HYDE BAILEY
CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION, WHOSE
DEEP INSIGHT INTO THE LIFE OF THE AMERICAN FARMER
SHAPED THE REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION
INTO A DOCUMENT OF PRINCIPLES OUT OF WHICH HAS
DEVELOPED RURAL SOCIOLOGY IN THE
UNITED STATES.
PREFACE
IN THE main these volumes are self -explanatory and therefore need no preface. However, the editors' plan of the Source Bool{ was influenced to such an extent by several considerations that they deem it wise to acquaint their readers with some of the per- sonal motives that lie behind the work. The editors have been moved by the following considerations: Human society through- out its history-— in its origins, forms, activities, processes, growth, evolution—- has been so largely under the pressure of agricultural and rural forces that up to the present sociology as a science of society has virtually been the sociology of rural life. A world view of the sociology of rural life is important for the develop- ment of the science. In order to balance the vogue of agricultural economics as an educational discipline and a guide to public action in America, major emphasis is now required upon a sound rural sociology. There is need that the content of rural sociology, whether presented in texts or lying in the popular mind, should contain facts of an indubitably sociological character. There is need in the textual organization of the facts of rural sociology for a resolutely scientific methodology. In the training of American rural sociologists there is need for a broad acquaintance with the rural sociological thought and theory of Europe and Asia. And, finally, in this era of American teaching, research, and extension of rural sociological facts and theory and in this period of experi- mental agrarian legislation, a systematic source book world-wide in scope is timely. Now let us discuss these points very briefly.
A glance at the bases of general sociology shows the importance of the rural world in the present development of human society. This importance is due, not to the well-known fact that the greater part of the human race is still agricultural and rural, but to the fact that the dominance of industrial forces and the prestige of the city are relatively a matter of yesterday and that rural habit is still the core of human behavior the world over.
Rural sociology in America has grown to large proportions, in a night as it were, on soil prepared by agricultural science. It is not to be marveled at that textbooks in rural sociology in America
[vii]
viii SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
are still quite provincial, not even being developed on the geo- graphic basis of the entire country. Agricultural sciences, such as soil chemistry, bacteriology, horticulture, and entomology, have the benefit of European experience. It is scarcely necessary to state that rural sociology needs to benefit from similar world experience.
The economics of agriculture, justly popular in colleges of agri- culture as an interpreter and guide among the agricultural sci- ences, has confined itself so largely to the operations of individual farmers, on the one hand, and to the physical operations and aspects of farmer groups, on the other, that the socio-psychic aspects and relations of the human factor in agriculture are in danger of eclipse. Public action also, in large matters of agricul- tural policy, is likely to be based unduly on purely economic formulas. To restore the proper balance to economic considera- tions in agricultural education and public policy, a sound presen- tation of the sociological elements in agricultural progress is greatly to be desired.
The demand for thoroughly trained sociologists to fill college and university positions in rural social science is now fairly in- sistent. It seems necessary, therefore, to furnish the material that will enable them to secure an acquaintance with European and Asiatic thought upon the rural social problem. The older nations and races have long struggled to understand the human factor in agriculture, and America's short experience will gain from the wisdom of older historic ideas.
The timeliness of a source book based upon European and Asiatic theory can scarcely be doubted when we reflect upon the prevalence of academic courses in rural sociology, the demand for sociological research made by the agricultural experiment sta- tions, and the opening phase of extension and adult education in all the states. The farmers' recent success in obtaining national agrarian legislation is an additional indication that the present is the psychological moment for the appearance of these volumes.
Now that the chief reasons for these volumes have been can- vassed, we may explain very briefly a few features in the plan of the work. The purpose of the Source Boo^ is to give a more or less exhaustive survey of the knowledge in the main fields of rural sociology. It is intended to be a complete encyclopedia, a refer-
PREFACE ix
ence work, and a substantial systematic treatise in the field. It aims to give the reader an adequate and up-to-date knowledge of present-day theories in European, Asiatic, and American scien- tific literature. This main objective makes the peculiarities of the publication comprehensible. Since it is not an attempt to popu- larize the science of rural sociology and since it is not intended as a text for beginners, popular and entertaining readings are not included. Since it is intended to be a systematic treatise, its intro- ductions give a systematic analysis of the problems, and the read- ings are arranged in such a way that they supplement what is briefly touched upon in the introductions. The introductions and the readings together attempt to give a well-rounded, coherent, and factually exhaustive picture of the phenomena in the various fields. Since it is planned as a reference work, it is heavily weighted with factual data and references. This abundance of figures and data may cause the inexperienced or casual reader to fail to grasp the systematic plan and logical consistency of the work, but the careful and competent reader should profit from it without losing the logically coherent system of rural sociology incorporated in the Source Boof(.
The first volume consists of two main divisions. Part One gives a concise summary of the history of rural sociological theory and outlines the main sociological characteristics of the rural world and the farmer-peasant class. The second part gives the details of the external and more formal characteristics of the sociological organization of rural life. The next two volumes will deal in detail with the inner, the institutional, the psychological, and the mental phases of rural organization and the demographic charac- teristics of rural and urban populations.
It was hoped that the major portion of the volumes could be made up of substantial excerpts from various foreign works, woven together with a minimum of exposition. It was found, however, that for the first volume especially many highly im- portant contributions resisted the method of excerpting continu- ous self-explanatory passages and forced us to present much material in the form of summaries and digests. This recourse per- mits the inclusion of a far greater range of reference material without severe loss of original statement.
x SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
No apology is offered for enriching the Source Boof^ with the more or less elaborate introductions, transitions, analyses, and dis- cussions that make the work in its entirety a systematic treatise on rural sociological thought and theory. The dignity of the subject, the seriousness of the purpose of the editors, and the needs of the hour seem to warrant such a procedure. It is regretted that the volumes could not have been further rounded out by the incorpo- ration of many worthy American studies, but this was quite out of the question. All the important ones, however, are mentioned in the introductions, and their data and conclusions are analyzed. Most of the important American studies, moreover, are already available to American students. Finally, most of the bibliogra- phies are given in the footnotes to the introductions and readings and in special editorial references made at the proper places. Additional bibliographies not mentioned in these notes are ap- pended to the introductions in each chapter.
These volumes have been made possible by the cooperation of several interested organizations: the Division of Farm Population and Rural Life, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, United States Department of Agriculture; the University of Minnesota Agri- cultural Experiment Station and the College of Agriculture; the Graduate School and the College of Science, Literature, and the Arts of the University of Minnesota; and the University of Min- nesota Press. Under the terms of the agreement, the editors are to receive no royalties from the sale of the volumes, so that the work may be presented to the public at as reasonable a price as possible.
It should be stated also that most of the introductions, selec- tions, and systematization of the material and, in general, the greater part of the work of the Source Boof( were done by Pro- fessor Pitirim Sorokin. Without the encyclopedic knowledge of the literature of rural thought and of sociological theory that he brought to this task and his indefatigable attention to the details of arrangement and interpretation, the Source Boof^ would not have been thought possible at this time.
Grateful acknowledgment is due the many American and foreign authors and publishing houses without whose cooperation the production of these volumes would have been exceedingly difficult. Among these should be mentioned the authors and pub- lishers of the readings given, all of whom gave their kind per-
PREFACE xi
mission to use excerpts in the Source Boo%. Their names are given in the proper places in the volumes. Among many other persons who helped in the work by furnishing data, material, advice, suggestions, bibliographies, and criticisms, and in many other ways, especial mention should be made of Guy Stanton Ford, Dean of the Graduate School of the University of Minne- sota; Walter C. Coffey, Dean and Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station and the College of Agriculture of the Uni- versity of Minnesota; Mrs. Margaret S. Harding, Editor of the University of Minnesota Press; Dr. D wight Sanderson of Cornell University; Dr. Migoishi Nunokawa of Tokio University; Dr. Vaclav Smetanka of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Agri- culture; Dr. Nikolai Kondratieff of the Moscow Agricultural Research Institute; Dr. Richard Thurnwald of the University of Berlin; Dr. Leopold von Wiese of the Koln Research Institute of Sociology; Dr. Gaston Richard and Dr. G. L. Duprat of the Inter- national Institute of Sociology; and Dr. Benoy K. Sarkar of Cal- cutta University and the India Institute for Economic Research. A word of thanks is due the staff of the library of the Uni- versity of Minnesota. Finally, many translators, for the most part graduate students in sociology at the University of Minnesota, should be given credit for their work.
P. A. S.
C. C. Z.
C. J. G.
CONTENTS
Part 1: Historical Introduction
CHAPTER I, HISTORY OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY: AN- CIENT SOURCES 3
A. INTRODUCTION 3
B. ANCIENT ORIENTAL SOURCES 6
I. Ancient Babylonian Sources 7
II. Ancient Egyptian Sources . 8
III. Fragmentary Allusions in the Bible 11
The Old Hebrew Testament 11
The New Testament 12
IV. Ancient Persian Texts 13
V. Texts of Ancient India 14
VI, Ancient Chinese and Japanese Records 17
C. ANCIENT GREEK SOURCES 24
I. Hesiod 26
II. Plato 29
III. Aristotle 33
IV. Xenophon 36
D. ANCIENT ROMAN SOURCES 39
I. Cato 40
II. Varro 40
III. Virgil 43
IV. Columella 45
V. Polybius 51
CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY:
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 53
A. ARABIAN RURAL-URBAN SOCIOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE AGES . , , 53
I. Ibn-Khaldun 54
B. THE EUROPEAN PEASANT DURING THE MIDDLE AGES 68
[ xiii ]
CONTENTS
Part I: Historical Introduction
CHAPTER I. HISTORY OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY: AN- CIENT SOURCES 3
A. INTRODUCTION 3
B. ANCIENT ORIENTAL SOURCES 6
I. Ancient Babylonian Sources 7
II. Ancient Egyptian Sources 8
III. Fragmentary Allusions in the Bible 11
The Old Hebrew Testament 11
The New Testament . 12
IV, Ancient Persian Texts 13
V. Texts of Ancient India 14
VI. Ancient Chinese and Japanese Records 17
C. ANCIENT GREEK SOURCES 24
I. Hesiod 26
II. Plato 29
III. Aristotle 33
IV. Xenophon , 36
D. ANCIENT ROMAN SOURCES 39
I. Cato 40
II Varro 40
III Virgil , 43
IV. Columella 45
V. Polybius 51
CHAPTER II HISTORY OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY:
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 53
A. ARABIAN RURAL-URBAN SOCIOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE AGES ... 53
I. Ibn-Khaldun 54
B. THE EUROPEAN PEASANT DURING THE MIDDLE AGES 68
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xiv SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
C. EUROPEAN THINKERS BEFORE THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . 72
I. John of Salisbury ... - 72
II. St. Thomas Aquinas .... 73
III. Sir Thomas More .74
IV. Niccolo Machiavelli . . . .... 75
V, Francis Bacon . • • 76
VI. Giovanni Botero 76
VII. Hugo Grotius . . 79
VIII. Thomas Hobbes ... , . 79
IX. J. B. Vico 79
D. THE PHYSIOCRATS 82
E. THE POLITICAL ARITHMETICIANS AND THE CAMERALISTS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 96
L John Graunt 97
II. William Petty ... 99
III. Gregory King 101
IV. Edmund Halley 102
V. Charles Davenant 103
VI. Richard Price 103
VII. Arthur Young . . 106
VIII. Antoine Deparcieux 107
IX. Johann Peter Siissmilch . . . 109
F. PROMINENT ENGLISH THINKERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 112
L James Harrington 112
II. David Hume 115
III. Sir James Steuart 116
IV. Political Essays concerning the Present State of the British Empire 117
V. Adam Smith 118
VI. John Millar 126
VII. Thomas R. Malthus 129
G. PROMINENT FRENCH THINKERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CEN- TURY 132
I. Voltaire 132
II. Montesquieu 133
III. Rousseau 134
CONTENTS xv
H. PROMINENT AMERICAN THINKERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CEN- TURY .. .138
I. Benjamin Franklin . . 139
II. Thomas Jefferson . .... 140
III. Alexander Hamilton . 141
I. CONCLUSION: A CENSUS OF OPINIONS 142
CHAPTER III. ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFEREN- TIATION 147
CHAPTER IV. FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES BE- TWEEN THE RURAL AND URBAN WORLDS . . 186
A. "SIMPLE" AND "COMPOUND" DEFINITIONS , 186
B. DIFFERENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS AND "COMPOUND" DEFINI- TION OF THE RURAL AND URBAN WORLDS . ... 187
I. Occupational Differences 187
II. Environmental Differences 188
III. Differences in Sizes of Communities . ... 190
IV. Differences in Density oÂŁ Population . .... 198 V. Differences in the Homogeneity and the Heterogeneity
of Populations , 203
VI. Differences in Social Differentiation, Stratification, and
Complexity 212
VII. Differences in Social Mobility 217
VIII. Differences in the Direction of Migration 230
IX. Differences in the System of Social Interaction 233
C. SUMMARY 239
Part H: Rural Social Organization in Its Ecological and Morphological Aspects
CHAPTER V, ECOLOGY OF THE RURAL HABITAT. . . 263
CHAPTER VI, DIFFERENTIATION OF THE RURAL POPULATION INTO CUMULATIVE COMMUNITIES AND FUNCTIONAL ASSOCIATIONS 305
xvi SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
CHAPTER VII. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION OF THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION 362
I. Fundamental Strata of the Agricultural Population 363
II. Present Tendencies in Land Concentration and Rural Stratifi- cation 370
III. Comparative Advantages and Disadvantages of Small-Family
and Large-Scale Capitalistic Types of Farming 387
CHAPTER VIII. MOBILITY OF THE RURAL POPULA- TION 501 I, Forms of Social Mobility of Cultivators; Mobile and Immo- bile Types of Rural Aggregates 501 II. Effects of Mobility on Rural Population and Rural Organi- zation 503
CHAPTER IX. FUNDAMENTAL TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES. EVOLUTION OF THE FORMS OF LANDOWNERSHIP AND LAND POSSESSION . 558 I. Individual-Private and Collective-Public Landowner ship and Land Possession 558
II. Types of Rural Aggregates from the Standpoints of Social Differentiation, Stratification, Mobility, and Landownership 559
III. Evolution of the Forms of Landownership and Land Pos- session 568
READINGS
PAGE
1. HESIOD: THE GOOD HUSBANDMAN . 27
2. PLATO'S CHARACTERIZATION OF THE RURAL-URBAN PEOPLES 30
3. ARISTOTLE: THE ART OF AGRICULTURE , . 34
4. ARISTOTLE: DEMOCRACY AND THE HUSBANDMEN 34
5. XENOPHON: COMPARISON OF HUSBANDMEN WITH ARTISANS . 36
6. XENOPHON: EULOGY OF AGRICULTURE 37
7. CATO: OF THE DIGNITY OF THE FARMER . 40
8. VARRO: ON FARMING ... ,41
9. VIRGIL: PICTURE OF RUSTIC LIFE . , . 44
10. COLUMELLA: ANALYSIS OF RURAL LIFE . . 46
11. POLYBIUS: URBANIZATION AND DEPOPULATION , . . 51
12. IBN-KHALDUN: COMPARISON OF RURAL AND URBAN PEOPLE . 55
13. IBN-KHALDUN: URBANIZATION AND DECAY , 65
14. MEISSNER: THE PEASANT IN MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LITERATURE , , 69
15. QUESNAY: CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL CLASSES . . 83
16. QUESNAY: REAL AND FICTITIOUS PRODUCTION OF WEALTH. , . 84
17. QUESNAY: FARMERS AND THE CITY .... 87
18. DE LA RIVIERE: COSMOPOLITANISM OF THE COMMERCIAL AND AGRI- CULTURAL CLASSES , , , , 90
19. MIRABEAU: ESTIMATE OF AGRICULTURE 93
20. GRAUNT: RURAL-URBAN VITAL PROCESSES 97
21. PRICE: RURAL-URBAN DEMOGRAPHY AND MIGRATION 103
22. DEPARCIEUX: RURAL-URBAN MORTALITY 108
23. HARRINGTON: RURAL-URBAN RELATIONSHIPS 113
24. ADAM SMITH: AGRICULTURE AMONG THE OTHER. OCCUPATIONS. . , 120
25. ADAM SMITH: PSYCHO-SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FARMER CLASS 123
[ xvii ]
xviii SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
PAGE
26. MILLAR: AGRICULTURE AND THE EVOLUTION OF WOMEN'S STATUS 127
27. ROUSSEAU: CITIES, THE SOURCE OF PERDITION 135
28. MAUNIER: DEFINITION OF A CITY 153
29. MAUNIER: FORMATION OF THE CITY BY TEMPORARY CONCENTRA- TION OF A COMPLEX SOCIETY 159
30. PETRIE: ORIGIN OF THE CITIES AND THE CITY-STATES IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ITS FACTORS . . .... 162
31. FUSTEL DE COULANGES: ORIGIN OF THE ClTY IN ANCIENT GREECE
AND ROME 165
32. KLUCHEVSK.Y: ORIGIN OF THE CITIES AMONG EASTERN SLAVS ... 167
33. SOMBART: DEFINITION OF A CITY IN THE ECONOMIC SENSE 170
34. SOMBART: GENESIS OF THE CITY . . 171
35. SOMBART: THE COMPOSITION OF THE MEDIEVAL CITIES 174
36. SOMBART: THE ECONOMIC POLICY OF THE CITY 181
37. PIRENNE: ORIGIN OF THE MEDIEVAL CITIES 184
38. SIMMEL: LARGE CITIES AND MENTAL LIFE 242
39. SPENGLER: THE SOUL OF THE CITY 248
40. DEMANGEON: GEOGRAPHY OF RURAL HABITAT 266
41. MORET AND DAVY: EGYPTIAN CUMULATIVE RURAL COMMUNITIES 335
42. LEE, ASAK.AWA, Tsu, KULP: CHINESE AND JAPANESE RURAL CUMU- LATIVE COMMUNITIES 336
43. MAUNIER: VILLAGE CUMULATIVE COMMUNITY OF THE KABYLES (BERBERS) 340
44. MAINE AND KRAUS: HINDU CUMULATIVE VILLAGE COMMUNITY . 341
45. KROPOTKIN: THE RURAL CUMULATIVE COMMUNITIES IN EUROPE
AND ASIA 343
46. KOVALEVSKY: OLD SLAVIC RURAL CUMULATIVE COMMUNITY 345
47. HOLECEK: OLD SLAVONIC VILLAGE 346
48. RIEHL: GERMAN CUMULATIVE RURAL COMMUNITY 348
49. LE PLAY: THE AGRICULTURISTS: GENERAL TRAITS OF THEIR OR- GANIZATION 350
READINGS xix
PAGE
50. RUSSEL: THE VILLAGE NEIGHBORHOOD IN GERMANY (RECENT, PAST, AND PRESENT SITUATION) . 353
51. PEAKE: THE ENGLISH VILLAGE OF TODAY . . 358
52. SIEGFRIED: THE INFLUENCE OF THE REGIME OF LANDED PROPERTY
ON THE FORMATION OF POLITICAL OPINION . 402
53. KAWADA: THE TENANTRY SYSTEM AND MOVEMENT IN JAPAN 408
54. POLJAKOW: FORMS OF TENANCY IN CHINA . . 413
55. SEE: AGRARIAN REGIMES IN EUROPE IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINE- TEENTH CENTURIES 419
56. SCHIFF: THE LEGISLATIVE AGRARIAN REFORMS IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE WORLD WAR . 424
57. SOMBART: PEASANT ECONOMY 445
58. TUGAN-BARANOVSKY: SMALL AND LARGE ENTERPRISES IN t AGRICUL- TURE 456
59. HAINISCH: CRITICISM OF DR. LAUR'S THEORIES . 466
60. LENIN: CAPITALISM AND AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES 477
61. SCHAFIR: CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGRARIAN PROGRAM OF THE SOCIALIST PARTIES OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL 488
62. HEBERLE: MOBILITY OF THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES 508
63. SPILLMAN: THE AGRICULTURAL LADDER 523
64. ASHBY AND JONES: THE SOCIAL ORIGIN OF WELSH FARMERS . . 528
65. ASHBY AND DAVIES: THE AGRICULTURAL LADDER AND THE AGE OF FARMERS , , . , 535
66. KAVRAISKI AND NUSINOFF: DYNAMIC CHANGES WITHIN PEASANT ENTERPRISES 548
67. TSCHUPROW: CONCEPT AND FORMS OF THE LAND COMMUNITY (Feldgemeinscha'ft) 578
68. WEBER: THE GERMAN, SCOTCH, AND CELTIC VILLAGE COMMUNITY
OF THE PAST 581
69. BADEN-POWELL: VILLAGE LAND SYSTEMS IN INDIA 584
70. KULP: LANDOWNERSHIP AND LAND POSSESSION IN A CHINESE VIL- LAGE (PHENIX VILLAGE) 592
xx SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
PAGE
71. PREOBRAJENSKY: A CASTLE MANOR OF BOHEMIA IN THE FIF- TEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES . . . 593
72. BREASTED: THE STATE MANAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN ANCIENT EGYPT .. . .... . 599
73. ROSTOVTZEFF: THE STATE MANAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN PTOLEMAIC EGYPT ... . , 599
74. BAUDIN: AGRARIAN COMMUNITIES IN PRE-COLUMBIAN PERU 602
75. WALTZING: STATE MANAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY
IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 607
76. MAK.LAKOV: THE PEASANT QUESTION AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLU- TION . 609
77. PROKOPOVITCH: THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT AND THE PEASANTS 615
78. SOROKIN: SUBSEQUENT CHANGES IN SOVIET AGRICULTURAL POLICY AND THE NEW AGRARIAN REVOLUTION . . 621
79. MANNICHE: THE RISE OF THE DANISH PEASANTRY , 634
80. ST. LEWINSKY: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF FORMS OF LAND- OWNERSHIP AND LAND POSSESSION 636
PARTI HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
HISTORY OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY: ANCIENT SOURCES A. INTRODUCTION
In the history of social evolution, the agricultural stage was one of the earliest. The elements of agriculture, in the form of the collection of the free gifts of nature— fruits, edible plants, etc.— were present in the earliest stage, hunting and fishing. The pas- toral stage followed for some tribes, while other groups and tribes passed directly from the stage of hunting and collecting to that of the primitive cultivation of land. Both of these new ways of subsistence belong to agricultural activities. For this reason the pastoral stage, as well as that of primitive cultivation, may be regarded as an agricultural stage. Since that time agriculture in its various forms has been one of the fundamental ways of pro- curing the means of subsistence and one of the basic industries of mankind.
The antiquity of agriculture and its vital importance to the ex- istence and welfare of human societies made man, a thinking ani- mal, meditate upon it and the many phenomena connected with rural life. This thinking was directed, on the one hand, towards the purely technical aspects of the art of agriculture; and on the other, towards its economic, moral, biological, social, and psycho- logical aspects. The first problem does not concern us here; tech- nical agronomy is not the subject of this work. The aspects of the second category (rural human relations) will be dealt with in these volumes.
How did the thinkers of the past view agriculture and how did they evaluate it in comparison with the other industries pursued by human beings? What were their opinions concerning the peo- ple who were engaged in agricultural activities? What position among other social groups did they assign to the class composed of the tillers of the soil and the breeders of cattle ? What were, in their opinion, the effects of the agricultural industry upon the health and vitality, mind and morality, mores and manners,
[3J
4 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
character, conduct, and relationships of the people engaged in it? Correspondingly, what, in their opinion, were the bodily, vital, moral, social, and psychological traits of the cultivator class that were due to their agricultural activities ? In what ways did agri- culture affect the social organization, social processes, historical destinies, and economic and social welfare of societies? What fundamental differences did they find between the agricultural and nonagricultural classes and societies and between the rural and the urban social worlds? Such are the fundamental prob- lems with which rural sociology deals. And these are the prob- lems about which we plan to consult the opinions of the promi- nent thinkers of the past.
Such a study is interesting in itself. In addition, it may reveal a conspicuous uniformity among the views and theories. Such a uniformity may be symptomatic: if the great thinkers of various times and of various countries were unanimous in their opinion on many important problems, this unanimity would suggest that there might be some scientific truth in their beliefs. These opin- ions may be of assistance to contemporary investigators busy with the same problems.
Even the most primitive agricultural tribes thought a great deal about some of these problems. The existence of various magi- cal and religious rites, on the one hand, and of various beliefs connected with agriculture, on the other, is evidence of this. These beliefs and opinions, however, are omitted from this chapter, partly because of their undeveloped and bizarre character, partly because they are poorly recorded, partly because they are men- tioned in other chapters, and finally, because they do not touch many of the problems discussed directly in this chapter. Some of these problems — for instance, the differences between the agri- cultural and nonagricultural peoples, the rural and urban cul- tures, the social effects of agriculture as distinct from those of other industries — could appear only after the differentiation be- tween the country and the city took place. As many primitive agricultural and pastoral peoples lived in a pre-urban stage, it is natural that the above problems did not exist for them. Therefore they could not think over them nor construct theories about them. This is the reason why our survey begins with the theories
ANCIENT SOURCES 5
and opinions created in the societies that have known at least the beginnings of city growth and rural-urban differentiation.
We shall begin with the ancient Oriental societies; after that we shall pass to ancient Greece and Rome; and from these countries to medieval and modern Europe. In passing, some theories devel- oped in Arabia will receive attention. Our survey will close with the end of the eighteenth century. Later theories will be analyzed in other sections of the work.
Before giving the most important parts of the theories dis- cussed, it is necessary to add a few remarks. First, we do not give all but only the most important theories. The importance of a theory is determined by its character and development, by its rec- ognized authority as manifested either by its incorporation intc the religious or juridical codes of a society, or by its coming from an author whose opinions were regarded as authoritative by the society of which he was a member. Second, we give the theories as they are; that is, in this part of the work we do not question either their validity or adequacy, nor the motives, prejudices, and reasons that lay behind them. Third, it is unreasonable, therefore, to take the theories presented here as an accurate reflection of reality— they may or may not be. For instance, many writers, espe- cially among Greek and Roman thinkers, who lived in the period of high urbanization and decay of their societies, depicted the former agricultural stage in the most idyllic and attractive ways. Such pictures may be due, at least in some degree, to an idealiza- tion of the past in contrast to the present— an idealization quite natural under the circumstances. Fourth, it is necessary to keep in mind that almost all theories given here have in mind the free husbandman. We know that in almost all societies of the past the work of cultivation was done to some degree with the help of slaves or serfs. These are not always mentioned or conceived of as separate from the free cultivators or from the masters of slaves who were engaged in agriculture. As a rule, the positive character- istics given to the cultivators by these theories do not have in view these slaves and serfs; they usually concern either free farmers, or peasants who are personally working their own or their family lands, or free landowners who, not being absentee owners, man- age their agricultural enterprises with the help of slaves, serfs, or free laborers. The qualities given to this upper or free class of
6 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
agriculturists are not to be ascribed entirely to the unf ree tillers of the soil.
Finally, in these first chapters we give the theories, as such, without the social background in which they were conceived and which they, accurately or inaccurately, attempted to reflect. De- scription and analysis of the backgrounds of this section would make an exceedingly long work, surpassing the total limits of our entire study. Readers who are interested in the correlation of a given theory with the conditions in which it originated and with the peculiarities of the personality of its author must make these comparisons for themselves. Besides, it is to be noted, as will be shown at the end of chapter ii, that, in spite of the enormous differences of the social conditions calling forth the theories, the ideologies show a remarkable similarity. This probably means that they have some elements of truth or they would not have shown such a similarity. For that reason the knowledge of them is useful, regardless of the backgrounds. After these remarks we can proceed to give the theories and opinions themselves.
B. ANCIENT ORIENTAL SOURCES
From these ancient oriental sources we give quotations from the ancient sacred and semisacred books of Assyro-Babylonia, Egypt, Palestine, Persia, India, and China (including Japan).
The religious and juridical character of these sacred books is evidence that the opinions given in them were considered authori- tative by the respective societies in the past. The opinions incor- porated in these books are very old. As a rule, they reflect ideas as they existed centuries before the beginning of the Christian era. If these countries are still agricultural in the essentials of their culture and occupation, they were much more agricultural in the past during the period when the statements given in the sacred books were formulated or created. As to the character of the statements, they are fragmentary. They are scattered throughout many volumes of the sacred books and merely touch some of the problems mentioned above haphazardly and very laconically. Nevertheless, they throw some light on a few, at least, of these problems. These excerpts give the ancient evaluation of agricul- ture as being a means of group subsistence as compared with other occupations; they reflect the society's view as to the relative
ANCIENT SOURCES 7
rank of the cultivators in the social order; they depict ancient opinions concerning agriculture as an economic basis for the moral and social well-being of a society, as well as several similar points. In addition, they depict in detail various laws concerning agriculture, much of the technique of ancient agriculture, the forms of ownership and possession of land, and, finally, the nu- merous rites and ceremonies connected with agriculture. These last points, however, will be considered in other sections of the work. After these preliminary remarks some selected extracts follow.
I. ANCIENT BABYLONIAN SOURCES
The existing sources concerning ancient Babylon, and among them the Code of Hammurabi (2250 B.C.), contain a great deal of material concerning the juridical regulation of the relations connected with possession of land, tenancy, the conditions of agricultural work, the removal of landmarks, the destruction of crops, the interference with water channels, etc.,1 but they give very few sociological generalizations in the field under considera- tion. The general spirit of the Code is the glorification of the city. This can be understood if we bear in mind that the cities of ancient Babylonia were city-states — vast walled territories. In the suburban parts of these, agriculture was carried on, and many city dwellers engaged in it. (Hammurabi styles himself a demigod who "made the fame of Babylon great, who filled the city of Ur with plenty; who gave life to the city of Uruk; who made the city of Borsippa beautiful; the lordly city king," etc.) (Prologue.)
In other sources, particularly in the legend of the birth of Sargon of Agade and in other legends connected with this great and popular king (who reigned about 2637-2582 B.C.), his peasant origin is stressed with a feeling of pride.2 Again, in the famous epic, Gilgamesh, the violence of this demigod king and the heavy corvee imposed by him upon the people was stopped only by the hero, Enkidu, who was a savage living amidst the animals (cows and other beasts) and who was pictured as a great hunter, shep-
irThe Code of Hammurabi, trans, by R. F. Harper, Chicago, 1904, Art. 36 fi.
2 See Rawlinson's translation in the Athenaeum, September 7, 1867; G. Smith's text in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, I, 46 ÂŁ.; E. A. Wallis Budge, "Babylonian Life and History, 2d ed,, pp. 23-25.
8 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
herd, and ruler of the beasts.3 He, only, could become the equal of the demigod, Gilgamesh. Further, in the Babylonian story of the flood it is mentioned that "the city of Shuruppak was destroyed because of the wickedness of its people, which brought down upon them the wrath of Bel, the god of middle heaven." 4
Finally, as to the position of the cultivators among the other social classes of Babylonian society, we find the landowners among the upper class (the Amelum) or the nobility, and we find the agricultural workers in the free middle class (the Mush- %inu) and in the class of slaves (the Wardum)?
II. ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SOURCES
The landholding population of ancient Egypt was composed of three large classes: the priests, the soldiers, and the husband- men. Although serfs and slaves were used in agriculture as well as in other occupations, the class of husbandmen proper was free. "The third class, definitely called husbandmen, must have had a different tenure from that of the serfs under the other classes. They must have been free farmers, yeomen, only subject to tax- ation."6
Egyptian literature, in so far as it is known, does not contain a general philosophy of rural life or an enumeration of the charac- teristics of the husbandmen as contrasted with those of the other social classes. Nevertheless, here and there in various literary works are scattered casual remarks concerning these phenomena. In the first place, in the literary works written by the class of scribes, it is only natural that the position of this official class should be regarded as the best of all the occupations, including agriculture. In several exhortations to the school children, the admonitions to be diligent and to be good pupils are repeated, again and again. Otherwise they could not become scribes and magistrates but must become something else — soldiers, barbers, sculptors, artisans, masons, priests, bricklayers, or husbandmen — positions much lower than that of a scribe. And the authors point out the hardships and other negative characteristics of all of these occupations. In the part concerning husbandmen the exhortations are as follows:
*See A. Ungnad and H. Gressman, Das Gilgamesch-epos, Tafel I, Gottingen, 1911. 4 Budge, of. cit., p. 8.
BSee Budge, of, cit., pp. 160 ff.; Harper, The Code of Hammurabi, Introduction. *W. M. Flinders Petrie, Social Life in Ancient Egyft, Boston, 1923, p. 14.
ANCIENT SOURCES 9
I am told, thou [a pupil] dost forsake writing, thou givest thyself up to pleasures; thou settest thy mind on work in the field, and turnest thy back on God's words [hieroglyphic writings and the ancient texts]. Dost thou not bethink thee how it fareth with the husband- man, when the harvest is registered [i.e., the taxes deducted from it] ? The worm hath taken half of the corn, the hippopotamus hath de- voured the rest. The mice abound in the field, and the locust hath descended. The cattle devour, and the sparrows steal. Woe to the hus- bandman! The remainder that lieth upon the threshing floor, the thieves make an end of that. . . . The pair of horses dieth at the threshing and ploughing. And now the scribe landeth on the embank- ment and will register the harvest. The porters [the minor officials] carry sticks, and the negroes [as police], palm-ribs. They say: "Give corn." "There is none there." He is stretched out and beaten; he is bound and thrown into the canal. . . . His wife is bound in his pres- ence, his children are put in fetters. . . . His neighbors leave them, they take to flight, and look after their corn. . . . But the scribe, he directeth the work of all people. For him there are no taxes, for he payeth tribute in writing, and there are no dues for him. Prithee, know that." 7
It is to be noted that the disadvantages of almost all other occu- pations, as compared with that of a scribe, are depicted as being less than those of a husbandman.8
In other works we meet the following characteristics of the husbandmen. In "The Tale of the Two Brothers," both of whom are husbandmen, the brothers (especially the younger, Bata) are depicted as being very industrious, exceedingly strong and hand- some, highly moral and honest, greatly attached to one another, and very^ stoical. It is further related how the younger brother is harmed by the city officials and the sovereign (who takes every- thing from him, including the wife given to him by the gods) ; how through his wife, he is, in various forms, killed several times, each time reviving in the form of a bull, tree, etc., and is trans- formed eventually into a ruler and punishes the wrongdoers.9
In brief, the tale depicts the semimythical Bata in the most at- tractive way. In another story, "The Complaints of the Peasant," the robbing of the peasant by the smaller officials (in other ver- sions the workingmen) and the tenacious attempts of the former
7 A. Erman, The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians, trans, by A. M. Blackman, Lon- don, 1927, pp. 67-72, 193.
8 Ibid., pp. 67-72, 193-198. 'Ibid., pp. 150-161.
10 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
to obtain justice are again stressed. Despite his being beaten and otherwise tortured he makes his petition to the highest authority at least nine times; his language is eloquent and far from servile; he showers upon the official who does not deal justly various invectives such as: "Rob not an humble man of his pos- sessions. . . . Thou wast appointed to hear pleas, to judge be- tween the suitors, to repress the robber. But lo, it is the upholder of the thief that thou wouldst be. Men put their trust in thee, and thou art become a transgressor or, ... a cheat for the whole land. . . . Thou art rapacious. . . ." In his pleas the peasant sets forth many highly moral ideas; he reminds the officials of their social duties. Finally he triumphs over the oppressors, is amply remunerated by the pharaoh, and receives the possessions of his aggressor.10
In other literary monuments we find allusions to the tillers' stubbornness (they plow the field amidst the civil war and an- archy),11 to their laboriousness, to their hardships, and to their ruin in the time of revolution.12 It is to be noted, also, that in a series of the works that describe the horrors of revolution and catastrophes and the depravity of men, the husbandmen are not mentioned as being among those who perform unjust actions, while the city people are so mentioned. Again, in some compari- sons we have an allusion to the depravity of the city, "Lo, my name is abhorred more than that of a city, (than) that of a rebel whose back is seen." 13
At the same time, in many places, the work of the tiller of soil is depicted as being very hard; so much so, that the nobility over- thrown by a revolution were made (as their punishment) "field laborers" and were "yoked together." 14 Finally, in so far as the hierarchy of gods may reflect the importance of one occupation among others, Osiris, a god of vegetation and son of the earth god, Keb, was the most popular of all Egyptian gods and was styled "the king of gods." 15 And the Nile upon which the agri- culture, and through it the economic welfare of Egypt, depended was given the most enthusiastic praise. It was depicted as the nourisher of the country and the principal source of national existence.16
10 Ibid., pp. 116-131. M Ibid., p. 96.
11 Ibid,, p. 94, IB Ibid., pp. 140 ff.
12 Ibid, pp. 94-96, 103. le Ibid., pp. 146 ff. n Ibid., p. 89.
ANCIENT SOURCES 11
III. FRAGMENTARY ALLUSIONS IN THE BIBLE
THE OLD HEBREW TESTAMENT
1. All in all, the attitude expressed in the Old Hebrew Testa- ment seems to be more sympathetic to the pastoral life than to agriculture, and especially to urban life. "And the Lord God took the man [Adam], and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it." After the Fall "the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life" (Gen. 2: 15; 3: 23; 3: 17). "And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground" (Gen. 4:2-3). After Abel was slaughtered, Cain "builded a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch" (Gen. 4: 17). In a similar way a negative attitude toward the city was manifested in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah: "Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grievous," they were destroyed (Gen. 18: 20-23). Jehovah did not approve the attempt of the descendants of Noah to "build a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven" and "scat- tered them abroad and they left off building the city [of Babel]" (Gen. 11:1-8).
2. Of the particular characteristics of the city the Bible notes several: the cities are sources of sinfulness and depravity (Gen. 18) ; the cities are the places of refuge for the criminals (Num. 35) ; the cities are the places of habitation for the clergy (Levites) predominantly (Num. 35) ; the cities are the places of refuge for strangers (Num. 14) ; the cities are the fortified places, the centers for the accumulation of wealth (Gen. 41; II Chron. 8: 6-7; 9: 25) ; they are the centers of luxury, magnificence, and beauty (Ezek. 27: 1 ff.); they are places that must be guarded by God in order that they should not perish (Psalms 107:4); they are places whose streets are morally dangerous (Prov. 7); they are places where wisdom and folly live side by side (Prov. 8:9); and they are places whose population has a short memory (Eccles. 9: 15). The Bible further indicates that before the building of the city of Babel by the descendants of Noah "the whole earth was of one language and of one speech." Following the attempt to build the city there came the confounding of the language, and the people
12 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
could not understand one another's speech (Gen. 11). This is an allusion to a correlation between heterogeneity and cities. In the same story the city is identified with "brick, stone, and mortar" as its material substance. In addition, the Bible depicts the city as an inseparable element in the social organization of Israel as given to the Levites by the command of God. The city is itself depicted in the typical form of the ancient cities of the East: a vast abode surrounded by a wall, with a large suburban area where agriculture and cattle-breeding were carried on to supply the needs of the city dwellers (Num. 35).
3. As to the agricultural people and their manner of living, the Book of Ruth gives a picture of the people leading a hard life in the years of famine, but a rather wholesome and happy life in the years of plenty. The mores of the rural people were marked by devotion, patriarchal attachment, justice, honesty, and mutual care of the families and relatives.
4. The laws concerning land and agriculture show considerable care for husbandry and the husbandmen. Land is regarded as the property of Jehovah, which is only temporally given as a pos- session to his children. Several measures, such as regulation of the boundaries of the fields, the utilization of the fruits, the canceling and redemption of debts, restitution of the land to its cultivator in the sabbatical year, manifest a continuous control of the land problem and the attempt to prevent concentration of the land in the hands of a few (Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers).17
THE NEW TESTAMENT
The attitude of the New Testament is shown almost entirely in the comparisons and parables used in it. The following are sam- ples : "I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman," says Jesus of himself (John 15). "Be patient until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it. ... Be ye also patient" (Jas. 5: 7-8). To the believers it is said, "You are God's husbandry" (I Cor. 3:9). "The husbandman that labor eth must be the first to partake of the fruits" (II Tim. 2:6). In several places (Matt. 21:33-42; Mark 12; Luke 20) husbandmen are depicted as murderers who killed the son of the master in order to keep from paying a share
17 See H. Schaeffer, Hebrew Rural Economy and the Jubilee, Leipzig, 1922,
ANCIENT SOURCES 13
of the fruits and to appropriate the vineyard of their landlord. But, in general, the attributing of positive religious and social values to husbandry and husbandmen predominates in the New Testament,
IV. ANCIENT PERSIAN TEXTS 18
1. There are five places where the earth feels most happy. — First is the altar, the place where the religious ceremonies are per- formed; second is the home with its plenty of cattle; the third place is "where one of the faithful cultivates most corn, grass, and fruit, O Spitama Zarathustra! where he waters ground that is dry or dries ground that is too wet"; the fourth is "where (there) is most increase of flocks and herds"; and the fifth is "where flocks and herds yield most dung."
2. There are five types of persons who "rejoice the earth with the greatest joy!' — The first three are those who clean the earth from the corpses of dogs and men, and give sorrow to Angra Mainyu [the evil principle of the Zend-Avesta]. The fourth is he who cultivates most corn, grass, and fruit, who waters ground that is dry. . . . "Unhappy is the land that has long lain unsown with the seed of the sower and wants a good husbandman, like a well-shapen maiden who has long gone childless and wants a good husband," Who tills the land with both hands will be happy, who does not, will be a beggar. "The food that fills the law of Mazda [the good principle of the Zend-Avesta] ... is sowing corn again and again, O Spitama Zarathustra. . . . He who sows corn, sows holiness: he makes the law of Mazda grow higher and higher; he makes the law of Mazda as fat as he can with a hundred acts of adoration, a thousand oblations, ten thousand sacrifices. . . . When barley and wheat is coming forth Daevas [evil forces and spirits] are destroyed. In that house they can no longer stay, from that house they are beaten away. It is as though red hot iron were turned about in their throat, when there is plenty of corn." The fifth is he who gives alms to one of the faithful (IV, 21-31).
3. The importance of agriculture and agriculturists. — The prac-
18 Excerpts are taken from the Zend-Avesta and the Pahlavi texts, which compose the principal texts of the Zoroastrian religion. Though these texts were written after the beginning of our era, their content is old and goes back several centuries before our era. The texts quoted for Persia, India, and China, are taken from the English translation published in F. Max Mutter's collection, The Sacred Books of the East (SEE}. The Roman numerals in the references give the number of the volume in this collection; the Arabic numerals indicate the pages in the volume.
14 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
tice of agriculture is like performing the ceremonial of the sacred beings, and it is necessary to maintain much respect for agricul- turists; it is also necessary to keep trouble and strife far from them (XXIV, 27-28, 281-282; XXXVII, 154).
4. The ran\ of the agriculturists among the social classes. — To the first social rank belong kings, judges, men of great knowl- edge, and men learned in religion; to the second, the superintend- ents and governors of the cities and the annihilators of the en- emy; to the third, writers, cultivators, and professional men from the cities; to the fourth, tradesmen, artisans, market dealers, and taxgatherers (XXXVII, 179, 424-425, 443).
From these fragments, which are repeated many times with slight variations, we see that agriculture and the agriculturists were evaluated very highly by ancient Zoroastrian thought; that agriculture was regarded as the basis of mankind's existence, and, speaking in modern terminology, as the primary factor of the moral, religious, social, and psychological welfare of society; that the social, religious, and moral value of agricultural work was estimated as highly as the value of religious activities (prayers, oblations, sacrifices); and, finally, that the social rank of the agriculturists was the third rank— below that of the upper strata of the rulers, scholars, judges, and religious authorities, but above all those engaged in business, the trades or handicrafts, small offi- cials, and the nonagricultural laboring classes.
V. TEXTS OF ANCIENT INDIA19
The outstanding trait of India's social organization, religion, and law has been the so-called caste system. The principle of caste, therefore, is the key to the understanding of the Hindu's estima- tion of agriculture and agriculturists. Therefore, we shall give at the beginning the classical Hindu theory of the four castes and their respective ranks, which depicts the relative rank of the agri- culturists (Vaisya) among other principal castes.
1. The social ran^ of the agriculturists among the castes and sub- castes of India. — In order to protect this universe he, the most re- splendent one, assigned separate duties and occupations to those who
10 Quotations are taken from the ancient religious and juridical texts of India, such as the Upanishads, Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, the Laws of Manu, BaudhSyana, Gau- tama, Apastamba, Narada, Brihaspati, the Institutes of Vishnu, all translated and pub- lished in the collection, The Sacred Books of the East.
ANCIENT SOURCES 15
sprang from his mouth, arms, thighs, and feet. To Brahmanas he assigned teaching and studying the Veda, sacrificing for their own benefits and for others, giving and accepting alms. The Kshatriya he commanded to protect the people, to bestow gifts, to offer sacrifices, to study the Veda, and to abstain from attaching himself to sensual pleasures. The Vaisya to tend cattle, to bestow gifts, to offer sacrifices, to study the Veda, to trade, to lend money, and to cultivate land. One occupation only the Lord prescribed to the Sudra, to serve meekly even these other three castes (XXV, 24; cf. II, 1-2; VII, chap, ii, §§ 1-17).
Among the free hired servants, in contrast to the bonded serfs and slaves, "soldiers constitute the highest class, agriculturists, the middle class; porters, the lowest class" (XXXIII, 344-345).
2. Importance of agriculture. — A householder's house and his field are considered as the two fundamentals of his existence. Therefore let not the king upset either of them; for that is the root of household- ers. . . . When his people are flourishing, the religious merit and the treasure of a king are sure to be in a flourishing state as well. When (the people) cease to prosper, (his merit and his treasure) are sure to abate as well. Therefore he must never lose sight of (that) cause of prosperity (XXXIII, 164). (The plaintiff) is not permitted to put under restraint [arrest] a person engaged in study; nor one about to marry; nor one sick. . . nor a soldier at the time of battle; nor a hus- bandman at the time of harvest (XXXIII, 288).
Among the ten modes of subsistence — learning, the mechanical arts, work for wages, service, traffic, agriculture, raising cattle, contentment with little, alms, and receiving interest on money — agriculture is regarded as more noble than any of these modes with the exception of learning and receiving alms. Agriculture is superior to commerce and other occupations of Vaisya. Further- more, it is permissible for a Brahmana in time of distress to fol- low this occupation, in the form of landowning or gleaning corn. This type of agriculture is permitted to the highest caste, the Brahmanas, as contrasted with trade, money-lending, service, and so on, which are styled as "a mixture of truth and falsehood" and "a dog's mode of life" (XXV, 427, 128-129; II, 225-227; XIV, 176, 236).
This importance of agriculture and cultivators seems to have been appreciated still more in a later period in the history of In- dia, in the time of the great Maurya Empire founded by Chan- dragupta (accession to the throne in 321 B.C.). In the sources
16 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
of that time, the Nitisastras 20 and the Kautilya Arthasastra/1 there are allusions to this. Greek and other ancient writers, begin- ning with Megasthenes, followed by Diodorus, Strabo, Pliny, and Arrian, are also unanimous in emphasizing the importance of agriculture and cultivators. Here is Diodorus' epitome of Megas- thenes' statements:
The whole population of India is divided into seven castes, of which the first is formed by the collective body of the philosophers which, in point of number, is inferior to the other classes, but in point of dignity pre-eminent over all. . . . The second caste consists of the husband- men, who appear to be far more numerous than the others. Being, moreover, exempted from fighting and other public services, they de- vote the whole of their time to tillage; nor would an enemy coming upon a husbandman at work on his land do him harm, for men of this class, being regarded as public benefactors, are protected from an injury. . . . The land, thus remaining unravaged, and producing heavy crops, supplies the inhabitants with all that is requisite to make life very enjoyable. The husbandmen themselves, with their wives and children, live in the country and entirely avoid going into town. They pay a land-tribute to the king, because all India is the property of the crown, and no private person is permitted to own land. Besides the land tribute, they pay into the royal treasury a fourth part of the produce of the soil.
Strabo repeats this description and adds that the husbandmen "are in disposition most mild and gentle." 22
The hardship of agricultural wor\ and its endless character (in Buddhist literature).— By the roadside Buddha beheld the ploughmen plodding along the furrows and the writhing worms, his heart again was moved with piteous feeling. ... To see those laborers at their toil struggling with painful work, their bodies bent, their hair dishev- elled, the dripping sweat upon their faces, their persons fouled with mud and dust [grieved Buddha very much] (XIX, 48). . . . Agricul- tural work is never over. . . . When harvest is done you have to do just the same next year, and the same all over again the year after year. One sees not the end of one's labors. Even when our fathers and fore- fathers had completed their time, even then was their work unfinished (XX, 225-226) ,23
20 English translation by B. K. Sarkar, Allahabad, 1924.
21 See J. J. Meyer, Das altindische Buck vom Welt-Staatsleben, Leipzig, 1926.
22 See the translation of the statements of Diodorus, Strabo, Arnan, and Pliny in F. J. Monahan, The Early History of Bengal, Oxford, 1925, pp. 141 ft.
23 See also SEE, Sukra, III, 552-554, 533-534, 364-367; IV, iii, 37; iv, 54. Benoy Ku- mar Sarkar, The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology, Allahabad, 1914, pp. ISOff.
ANCIENT SOURCES 17
These fragments give some idea of the general opinions of the ancient Hindu society concerning the importance and the rank of agriculture and agriculturists in relation to other occupations and social classes of their society. Like Zoroastrianism, Hinduism ranked the cultivators below the classes of priests and rulers (Brahmins and Kshatriyas) but above the occupational groups of traders, artisans, business men, and so on, and above the class of nonagricultural labor generally.
VI. ANCIENT CHINESE AND JAPANESE RECORDS
According tq the Chinese records the inventor of agriculture was Shonnung (2737 B.C.), which means "divine farmer." He was a ruler, who "cleared the fields, taught the universe [the Chi- nese people] the sowing of crops and the planting of melons, and saved the people from the hardships of the chase." Now "the roaming tribes" became a sedentary people and "began to have sufficient food and drink, getting provisions from grains." As a rule, the subsequent emperors of China were in the first place "expert farmers" and the rule was that "the emperor himself must plow so as to have food for sacrifice and the empress herself must raise silkworms to get clothes." The best emperors of the classical period (2737-207 B.C.) were, according to the records, the hus- bandmen. The promotion and improvement of agriculture be- came the most important function of the government. A large department of agricultural experts and a developed system of agricultural control by these governmental experts, led by the emperor, a series of ceremonies, odes, and similar things, together with corresponding laws, were created to promote agriculture and to give to it supreme dignity.24 This explains the high esteem in which agriculture is held by the Chinese and their positive consideration of its importance and effects. The subsequent quo- tations give an idea of this and some other general items con- nected with agriculture.
1. A sample of the enforcement of agricultural tuor\ during the Chow Dynasty (1122-256 B.C.) .—Only people who produce may en- joy the fruits of labor. People who do not raise animals cannot have animals for sacrifice; those who do not farm cannot have grain for sacri- fice. Those who do not plant trees cannot have coffins; those who do
J* See the history of Chinese agriculture in Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, The 'Economic His- tory of China, pp. 33 ff, and passim.
18 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
not raise silkworms cannot wear silk; and those who do not spin can- not wear linen in mourning (p. 45).
2. The personal participation of the emperor in agricultural activities. — "The son of Heaven on the first day \hsin\ prays to God for a good year; and afterwards . . . with the handle and share of the plough in the carriage [accompanied by the princes and ministers] opens the season ploughing." And princes and ministers do the same "all with their own hands to plough the field of God. . . . The son of Heaven himself ploughs the ground for the rice with which to fill the vessels., and the black millet." 25 The emperor's and the court's conduct is quite different during the years of plenty and in the years of scarcity. "If the year were not good and fruitful, the son of Heaven wore less expensive clothes, rode in the plain and unadorned carriage, and had no music at his meals" and "did not have full meals." Correspond- ingly, the expenses of the court and the empire were also re- duced (XXVIII, 2-4).
In a certain month "the husbandmen present their grain. The son of Heaven tastes it while still new, first offering some in the apartment at the back of the ancestral temple" (XXVII, 285). Practically every phase of agricultural work was participated in and supervised by the emperor and his government (XXVII, 210 ff., 431 ff.; Ill, 323, 331 ff ; XXVIII, 167, 338, 265).
3. Importance of agriculture and its social, economic, and moral effects. — In the old records agriculture is usually styled as "the root," the "fundamental," "the principal occupation," while trades and commerce are styled as "branches" or the "branch occupa- tions." 26
The Duke Wen of Kuo (827 B.C.) makes the following state- ment:
The greatest business of the people is agriculture. From agriculture the millet which is used for the sacrifice to God is produced; the den- sity of population grows; the expense of the business is supplied; so- cial harmony and peace arise; the multiplication of wealth begins; and the characters of honesty, great-mindedness, integrity and solidity be- come a general habit of the people.27
25 SEE, Li-Ki., XXVII, 255; XXVIII, 338.
26 See Lee, op, at,, Part II, for translations from the Chinese Encyclopedia.
27 All the sources quoted were composed several centuries before our era. According to their content they were originated before Confucius. "Narrative of Nations," Bk. I, trans, by Chen Huan-Chang, in his The Economic Principles of Confucius and His School, New York, 1911, p. 381.
ANCIENT SOURCES 19
Of the eight objects of government the first is food. ... It is on the basis of agriculture that the eight objects of government (food, wealth, and articles of convenience, sacrifices, business, education and instruc- tion, justice, the observances to be paid to guests, the army) can be attained.28
The duke of Kau said, "Oh, the superior man rests in this, that he will indulge in no luxurious ease. He first understands how the painful toil of sowing and reaping conducts to ease, and thus he understands how the lower people depend on this toil (for their support)." The duke of Kau indicates further that the best kings of ancient China, such as Kung Zung (1637-1563 B.C.) or Kao Zung (13244266 B.C.) or Zu-Kia (12584226 B.C.), before becoming kings, "toiled at first away from the court and were among the lower people. . . ." When they "came to the throne, they knew on what they must depend for their support, and were able to exercise a protecting kindness towards their masses, and did not dare to treat with contempt the wifeless men and widows. . . . Thus it was that they were grave, humble, reverential, and timorously cautious, . . . measured themselves with reference to the decree of Heaven, and cherished a reverent apprehension in governing the people, not daring to indulge in useless ease." As a result, their ruling was the most beneficial and the first of them "enjoyed the throne seventy and five years"; the second, fifty and nine years; the third, thirty and three years. "The kings that arose after these, from their birth enjoyed ease. Enjoying ease from their birth, they did not know the painful toil of sowing and reap- ing, and had not heard of the hard labors of the lower people. They sought for nothing but excessive pleasure; and so not one of them had long life. They reigned for ten years, for seven or eight, for five or six, or perhaps only for three or four." 20
4. The ran\ of farmers among the social classes. — Ku-liang's
^SBE, The SM King, III, 142; Chang, op. cit., p. 381.
99 SBE, The Shu King, III, 201-203. These maxims were also common among the Japanese people. "Agriculture is the basis of all things and the treasure of the world. It is the peasant's honor to be engaged in it." Many centuries before the Physiocrats, the Chinese and the Japanese thinkers regarded the peasantry as "the only productive class oÂŁ people," and correspondingly stated that "of the four classes of people (i.e., gentle- men, peasants, artisans, and merchants), the peasants are the foundation of the state. . . . From the emperor down to the common people, men's lives depend upon food and clothing. That food and clothes are fruits of the peasant's labor is self-evident." "Notes on Penal Law," compiled by Ono Hiroki. Manuscript trans, by K, Asakawa in his "Notes on Village Government in Japan," The Journal of the American Oriental So- ciety, XXXI, 172.
20 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
commentary says: "In the ancient time there were four groups of people: there was a group of people called students; there was a group of people called merchants; there was a group of people called farmers; and there was a group of people called artisans," Confucianism interpreted this, that all these classes were equal and no group was higher than the others. However, "in the Chi- nese language the order of these four groups is usually this: the first, student; the second, farmer; the third, artisan; and the fourth, merchant." 30
5. The hardships of the farmers and their exploitation by the cities and rich people (period of the Emperor Wen-ti, 179457 B.C.).— The time was near to the period of Warring States and the people all got away from the roots (agriculture) and desired to work on the branches (trades and commerce). Chia Yi (a scholar and statesman of the time) said: "Now we ought to make people go back to the farms and put emphasis on the principal things, so that everyone will live by his own work; and all kinds of laborers and wandering professionals or practitioners will go back to the farms. Then the savings (stores) will be plenty and everyone satisfied and happy." The emperor was moved by his sayings and began to open the imperial field and work upon it himself in order to encourage the people.
Chao Chor (also a statesman of the period) said: "Now all within the seas has become one empire; the number of the people and the area of the territory are no less than under Yu and Tang. Besides there are no famines, floods, or droughts; but the saving is not as much as it used to be. Why? ... If one does not work on a farm, one does not wish to stay in one place all the time . . . and will not mind leav- ing his native village and home. Such people move about like birds and animals. Even though you have high city walls and deep ditches, strict laws, and heavy punishments, you cannot prevent them from wandering. . . . Therefore if you make the people put emphasis on farm and mulberry, lighten the taxation and increase the saving (by buying crops), then the official storehouses will be full thus preparing for flood and drought. In this way the people will always have plenty.
Now at the present time take the case of farmers with families of five mouths, the working members not less than two, The land which can be cultivated is not more than 100 mows, and the return of this land is not much more than 100 loads. Plowing in the spring, cutting weeds in the summer, harvesting in the fall, and saving in the winter, cutting wood for fuel, doing service for the government. In the spring they must not mind wind or dust, in summer they must endure hot
80 Chen Huan-Chang, op, cit., pp. 367-368.
ANCIENT SOURCES 21
weather, in the fall, dark rains, in winter, frost and cold. So in all four seasons there is not a day of rest. Besides they have to entertain guests, provide for deaths and sickness, and the raising of orphans and chil- dren. Hence the toil. Moreover they may have to suffer flood or drought, bad government and the collection of taxes at inconvenient times, with orders issued in the morning and changed in the evening. When the farmers have a harvest they have to sell it at half-price. When they do not have a harvest they have to borrow crops at double interest. Therefore some of them are forced to sell their houses and farms, their sons and grandsons to pay their debts. On the other hand the big merchants accumulate the crops and double the interest; while the small merchant buys here, retailing there, using his wonderful skill in profit making (speculation), traveling in cities and markets daily. On account of the urgent demand, the selling prices are multiplied. Therefore such men do not have to cultivate the fields and the women need not raise silk worms or spin. But their clothes are always beauti- ful and artistic; and their food is always rice (meat and millet) ; thus they need not suffer the hardships of the farmer but they receive re- turns a hundred and thousand fold because, being wealthy, they are able to make friends with the dukes and princes— their influence being higher than that of officers; and they use their wealth as a means to overcome the people. So they travel thousands of lis, conspicuous by their numbers and equipage, riding in conveyances, riding horseback, wearing footwear and clothes of silk. Therefore this is the way the merchants eat up (accumulate the property of) the farmers. The farmers become wanderers. ... So the emperor issued an edict reduc- ing taxation to one-half for that year. And for the following year he removed it entirely.31
Throughout the long history of China situations similar to the above often prevail. The farmer's fortunes rise and fall many times. The small owner-operator farm is replaced many times by the concentration of the land in the hands of the rich and influ- ential, and as a result we see the exodus from the farms, the in- crease of crowds of wanderers, and their influx into "the branch occupations." This is usually followed by a series of measures by which the government attempts to remedy the situation, such as the reduction of taxes, the limitation of property, the confiscation of the land of the rich, the redistribution of the land among the farmers, and so on. The subsequent quotations illustrate these evils and the corresponding measures by the government.
81 Lee, op. at., pp, 157-159.
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Emperor Hsuan Chung's edict (713-755 A.D.),— I (emperor) have heard that some of the princes, dukes, officials, and influential and rich people have frequently established great sections of fields. They have been eating up the poor at their will without any fear of the govern- ment regulations. . , . The result is that the poor have no place to live, having to drift around to strange doors, and have been doing work on other people's fields. It means that some people have been robbed of their occupation and properties, and the defects and evils are plainly obvious. ... So if we do not correct the same, the condition will be still more aggravated. . . . From now on, all the perpetual property and mouth shares, no matter when and where they were transferred, must be returned to the original owners [farmers], if such owners still come to receive them: and the government will pay the price to the holder of such property for the poor people. Hereafter no one is allowed to sell or buy the perpetual property and mouth shares against the government regulations.32
Hsieh Fong San, imperial teacher and imperial censor, reported to the emperor [Li Chung, 1225-1264 A.D.] as follows:
The evils of "eating up" by the influential and strong people has reached its climax today. So we must limit the land holding of the people; and it is one of the possible means by which we might save the situation. ... As we all know, the life of millions of our people depends upon the grains (rice and millet), and the production of grain depends exclusively on the land. But at present all the fertile fields are in possession of the families of influence and nobility. . . . On the other hand, the small number of people with 100 mows of land, are suffering the burden of public service every year. ... As a result, the land of the poor people becomes less and less every day, and yet they have to be subject to forced labor just the same. On the other hand, the land of the great officials becomes multiplied all the time, yet the service of forced labor never reaches them. . . . Consequently the poor have no possible way to make their living. ... At such a critical mo- ment it must be admitted that it would be much better for the rich to contribute some money to help the country and relieve the present and immediate pressure, rather than for them to keep tight in their hands their tremendous wealth and huge landholdings, when they know that they cannot enjoy these for long anyway for if the govern- ment falls they cannot continue to enjoy their holdings. ... So, I re- quest the government to take the advice of some officers in regard to the limitation policy, in order to regulate field boundaries, to stop the process of eating up, to maintain the dignity of administration, and to strengthen the financial position of the country. I further request
82 md., p. 240.
ANCIENT SOURCES 23
that your majesty shall not be influenced by court favorites and that the ministers shall not be afraid of making enemies (among the rich) by carrying out the best policy of the time. Then it will be for the best fortune of the whole empire.
The emperor acted on his advice and adopted the system of land limitation.33
The entire history of agriculture in China is filled with proc- esses and policies similar to the foregoing. There is scarcely any plan or reconstruction of agricultural policy directed toward help- ing farmers and peasants at the present moment which was not tried in China many centuries ago. These policies will be pre- sented in other sections of this work. Meanwhile, the quotations given show that the importance of agriculture in China was fully appreciated and that a prosperous agriculture was regarded as the fundamental factor of the economic, as well as the social, psy- chological, and moral well-being of the country. The excerpts also show that prosperous farming was regarded as the most efficient means of preventing migration from the farms, wandering, crim- inality, and similar evils; that the farmers in China were often dispossessed and exploited by other predominantly urban lords; and that China is a country with the widest and most varied ex- perience and experiments in the field of governmental control of agriculture.
6. Japanese records. — Somewhat similar was the policy and the ancient thought of Japan in the field discussed. In addition, it is to be mentioned that the governmental officials, in their paternal- istic attitude toward the peasants, often gave some statements that depict additional traits of this class, viewed from "the official standpoint." The following excerpts indicate the "official social psychology of the peasant class."
Peasants are innocent and thoughtless: they should be led with both mercy and severity. ... It was said of old that peasants were easy to employ but difficult to govern. If they were well cared for by the offi- cials, they would likewise care for the latter. ... If you go to them with your mind filled with the desire to improve their welfare . . . they will never turn angry faces at you. . . . Nothing can be enforced against the peasant nature. The peasant nature is the genuine human nature. ... If you ran counter to it, the peasants would not submit, and all the forces of the world would be unable to bend them. . . . *#«/, pp. 315-317.
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Having little sense of duty the peasants are unable to control their feelings, but think only of their convenience. Hence it is said that no order contrary to this simple nature could be executed. Although they have a fear of punishment, they are nevertheless apt to violate a law which causes them present inconvenience. No government has ever endured against the peasant nature. It is, therefore, essential that the officials should learn to like what the people like, dislike what they dislike, and care for them with the same tenderness and wisdom as the parents bestow on their children.34
C. ANCIENT GREEK SOURCES
Since the time of Homer and Hesiod, a number of Greek poets, writers, and thinkers have made various statements concerning farmers and agriculture. The most important of these statements — made by Hesiod, Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon — are given subsequently. Here we shall but briefly survey the character of the statements, often quite casual, made by other writers of the period and related to our topic. In Homer's Iliad and Odyssey we find some pictures contrasting the city and the country. As contrasted with the rural people, the city Ilion is styled as the abode "of many-languaged men" (Iliad, Bk. xx, Alexander Pope's transla- tion), referring to the greater heterogeneity of the city popu- lation. Further, in the description of the shield of Achilles, the city is depicted as an abode of tumult, contention, noise, and war. "There in the Forum swarm a numerous train; the subject of de- bate, a townsman slain . . . there Tumult, there Contention stood confessed." Meanwhile, the country is pictured as a peaceful idyll, where "the shining shares full many ploughmen guide and turn their crooked yokes on every side," with the children who help the elders; "where march a train with baskets on their heads (fair maids and blooming youths), that smiling bear the purple product of the autumnal year"; and where "the rustic monarch of the field descries, with silent glee, the heaps around him rise." (Bk. xviii.) Hesiod's Wor\s and Days is much richer in material for our purposes. The most important fragments of his work are given later.
In the works of the great tragedians, .Sschylus (died 456 B.C.), Sophocles, and Euripides (both died 406 B.C.), we find little for
** Quoted from the official orders and memoirs, K. Asakawa, op. cit., pp. 184-185.
ANCIENT SOURCES 25
our purposes; but what we do find depicts them as being the sym- pathizers of the husbandmen and believers in the healthful effects of agriculture upon a society. The free farmer in Euripides5 Orestes is described as "not of graceful mien, but a manly fellow, one who seldom visits the city and the market place, a toiler with his hands, of the class on whom alone the safety of the country depends; but intelligent and prepared to face the conflict of de- bate, a guileless being of blameless life." In the comedies of Aris- tophanes (approximately 448-380 B.C.) several characters are de- picted as farmers. In his Ecclesiazusce, farmers together with the rich classes are voting against a communistic scheme and a mobili- zation of the fleet which would increase their taxes. In his Achar- nians and Peace, farmers are depicted as partisans of the termina- tion of a useless war. One of their leaders characterizes himself as a man who "with my eyes ever turned to my farm, a lover of peace, detesting the city and hankering after my own deme, that never yet bade me buy charcoal or rough wine or olive oil." An- other calls himself a "skilled vine-dresser, one who is no informer or fomenter of troubles [lawsuits]." They are passionately at- tached to their land, hard-working, sturdy, old-fashioned, reli- gious, intelligent, rough in manners, and ready to fight for their country, if the fighting is justified, and suspicious of city people as being cheaters and exploiters of the country people. Similar characteristics are given to the farmers by Menander, another writer of comedies. His rustics, again, are hard workers and al- though farm life is characterized as being bitter, "the bitter of agriculture has a touch of sweet in it," the "farm is for all men a trainer in virtue and a freeman's life," and "farms that yield but a poor living make brave men."
The opinions of Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon are given in subse- quent passages. They, and like them, other composers of ideal constitutions— for instance, Hippodamus of Miletus and Phaleas of Chalcedon — view the farmer class favorably, as being the foundation of social order and stability, a law-abiding, hard-work- ing, vigorous, healthy, moral, patriotic, religious, sturdy, brave, and old-fashioned group. Farm life is regarded as the best school for physical training, for developing the best soldiers, and for producing honest and industrious citizens. But at the same time, the majority of these authors put this class below the classes of
26 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
full-fledged urban citizens, exclude them from citizenship (Aris- totle, Phaleas, Plato), and make them unarmed citizens, which, under Greek conditions, according to Aristotle's remark, would make them the slaves of the military class of the city. This incon- sistency in the attitudes toward farmers is to be noted. It looks as if everyone praises the farmer, and, at the same time, no urbanite wants to become a farmer, or even to place him on an equal level with the full-fledged citizens of the city. Subsequent writers, such as Demosthenes, again praise farmer citizens and put them, to- gether with merchants and business men, above the city mob and the corrupt city politicians. The writers of a later period regard them in a very similar manner. "Apart from slavery, rustic life is regarded as favorable to good morals: honest labor, frugal habits, freedom from urban temptations." It is commended "to fathers who desire to preserve their sons from corrupting debauchery." 35 In all these statements, made partly by country-born writers and partly by urban persons, there prevails a remarkable unanim- ity of opinion as to the positive characteristics of the farmer- peasant class. Such a unanimity — applied, however, only to free farmers and not to the slaves working in agriculture — suggests that, in addition to an idealization and moralization of this class, it must have had some of these positive traits in order to produce this unanimity. We can and ought to discount a great deal of what is said by these writers about the idyllic, bucolic, moral, and social virtues of the farmers, but to declare that these virtues never existed at all and that all these writers merely imagined them would scarcely be justified or accurate. The subsequent passages from the works of Hesiod, Aristotle, and Xenophon give in a developed form the predominant Greek opinions about the free farmer class.
I. HESIOD
Hesiod's Wor\s and Days— One of the earliest works depicting several socio-psychological and moral aspects of country and city life and of the respective classes of the population is Hesiod's Wor\s and Days. In addition to giving a good picture of the agri- cultural life of the period, the work is interesting to us for several reasons. Written probably at the time of the origin and growth of the cities of Greece, it bears traces of complaint both of the
85 W. E. Heitland, Agricola, Cambridge, 1921, p. 124. For details see also pp. 16-131.
ANCIENT SOURCES 27
crookedness of the city and of the city's oppression of the country. Side by side with this, in its moral advices, it gives a very typical characterization of the good husbandman, his psychology, his morals, and other specific traits. The period of transition from the purely rural life to the urban was generally painful. It led to a disintegration of the morals, religion, family, and other social and traditional values of the simple agricultural and pastoral peoples. It was followed by a series of revolts, disorders, revolutions, and oppressions. This may be one of the factors of Hesiod's regressive theory of the historical process, a theory that we find among many ancient peoples (for example, the story of the Fall in the Bible; a similar one in Hindu literature; and Confucius' theory of the three stages, etc.). According to Hesiod's theory he was living in the period of "the race of iron," which had been pre- ceded by four other stages: the ages of the gold race, silver race, bronze race, and the hero race. The earliest or the golden age was the best; subsequent ages were worse, but better than the race of iron in which Hesiod lived. The characterization of Hesiod's contemporaries as a race of iron has reference to the city life and its crookedness. These introductory remarks are sufficient to un- derstand the subsequent passages from Hesiod's Worlds and Days. The exact time when Hesiod lived is unknown. By various specialists it is placed somewhere between the eleventh and the eighth centuries B.C. Some say that the poem was written before the Homeric poems; some claim it was produced about the same time or shortly after. The authority of Hesiod among the later Greek thinkers and writers was so great that the majority of them refer to Hesiod as the highest authority in many social, moral, religious, philosophical, and other problems.
1. HESIOD: THE GOOD HUSBANDMAN*
The Race of Iron (Complaints about the City and Its Demorali- zation)
Now verily is a race of iron. Neither by day shall they ever cease from weariness and woe, neither in the night from wasting, and sore cares shall the gods give them. But this race also of mortal men shall Zeus destroy when they shall have hoary temples at their birth. Father shall not be like to his children . . . neither shall guest to host, nor
* The following quotations are from the English translation by A. W. Mair, Oxford,
28 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
friend to friend, nor brother to brother be dear as aforetime: and they shall give no honor to their swiftly ageing parents, and shall chide them with words of bitter speech, sinful men, knowing not the fear of gods. Might shall be right, and one shall sack the other's city. Neither shall there be any respect of the oath abiding or of the just or of the good; rather shall they honor the doer of evil and the man of inso- lence. Right shall lie in might of hand, and Reverence shall be no more: the bad shall wrong the better man, speaking crooked words and abetting them with oath. Envy, brawling, rejoicing in evil, of hateful countenance, shall follow all men to their sorrow. . . . There is the noise of the haling of Justice wheresoever bribe-devouring men hale her, adjudging dooms with crooked judgments. [However], Justice followeth weeping . . . into the city and the homes of men who drive her forth and deal with her crookedly. [Where Justice is respected there reigns peace, abundance, prosperity, fertility. Where, as in the city, it is discarded] oftentimes a whole city reapeth the recom- pense of the evil men [in form of war, pestilence, sterility, etc.] (pp. 5-9).
Moral Code and Characteristics of a Good Husbandman
Wor^. — At him are gods and men wroth, whoso liveth in idleness. Be it thy choice to order the works which are meet, that thy barns may be full of seasonable livelihood. By works do men wax rich in flocks and gear; yea, and by work shall thou be far dearer to immortals and mortals. Work is no reproach: the reproach is idleness. . . . And what- ever be thy lot, work is best. ... If thy heart is set on wealth, do thou thus and work one work upon another.
Be honest, thrifty, and sternly just. — Wealth is not seized violently; god-given wealth is better far. For if a man do seize great wealth by violence of hand, or steal itgby craft of tongue . . . lightly the gods abase him and make that man's house decay, and weal attendeth him but for a little while. . . . Get no ill gains; ill gains are even as dis- asters. [Further he advises not to wrong a suppliant, a guest, brother, fatherless children, and so on.] Love him that lovest thee and visit him that visiteth thee. And give to him that giveth and give not to him that giveth not. ... A gift is good, but theft is evil, a giver of death. . . . Don't make thy friend as a brother. Sin not against him first, neither lie for the pleasure of the tongue. Yet if he first sins against thee, remember thou to repay him twofold. . . . Call to meat him that loveth thee, but leave thine enemy alone (pp. 11-13, 25-26).
Carefully choose thy neighbor. — An ill neighbor is a bane, even as a good neighbor is a great blessing. He who findeth a good neighbor findeth a precious thing.
ANCIENT SOURCES 29
In proper time marry and carefully choose thy wife. — In the flower of thine age lead thou home thy bride (the best time of marriage for a man is about thirty, for a bride the fifth year past puberty) . Marry a maiden that thou mayest teach her good ways. Marry a neighbor, best of all, with care and circumspection, lest thy marriage be a joy to thy neighbors. For no better spoil doth a man win than a good wife, even as than a bad woman he winneth no worse — a gluttonous woman, that roasteth her husband without a brand, and giveth him over to un- timely age (pp. 25-26).
Do your agricultural wor\ in time, properly, and carefully. — Get a house first and woman and plowing ox, a slave woman (not wife), who might also follow the oxen. . . . Keep thou all things well in mind nor fail to mark either the coming of grey spring or seasonable rain. [A long series of the kinds of agricultural work, at what time (day, week, or month), and how it is to be done, follows.]
Get up early. — The morning taketh the third part of man's business. Morning advanceth a man upon his journey and advanceth him also in his work.
Don't hope vainly. — The idle man who waiteth on empty hope for lack of livelihood garnered many sorrows for his soul. Hope is a poor companion for a man in need (p. 18).
Observe thou measure. — Due measure is ever best (p. 17).
Be taciturn. — The best treasure among men is the treasure of a sparing tongue (p. 26) .
Be religious. Don't do anything without proper prayers. — Pray thou unto Zeus the Lord of Earth and unto Demeter that the holy grain of Demeter be full and heavy. . . . Never pour libation of the sparkling wine to Zeus after dawn with hands unwashed. [A long series of reli- gious prescriptions follows.]
General eulogy of agriculture and agricultural rest. — Good hus- bandry is best for mortal and bad husbandry is worst. . . . [After work] let me have the shadow of a rock, and Bibline wine, and a milk cake, and milk of goats drained dry, and flesh of a pastured heifer that hath not yet borne a calf, and flesh of firstling kids, with ruddy wine to wash it down withal, while I sit in the shade, heart- satisfied with food, turning my face toward the fresh west wind, and let me from an unmuddied everflowing spring . . . pour three meas- ures of water and the fourth of wine (p. 22). [Such are the essential characteristics of a good husbandman and his social and moral con- duct, according to Hesiod.]
II. PLATO
Plato (427-347 B.C.) in his Utopia, Republic, in the realiza- tion of which on this planet he himself did not believe, sets forth
30 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
as the best form of political organization the government of ex- perts (the guardians). Since farmers are to be trained in farming and not in governing they are logically to be excluded from any governmental functions. Their situation generally is dealt with but very little in this Utopian work. However, in his Laws?* which represent a later and less fantastic model of an ideal soci- ety (Laws, Bk. v, 742 ff.), all citizens are to be landowners (though the agricultural slaves are excluded from the citizen- ship), and agriculture is recognized as the primary business of the state. On the other hand, commerce, trade, money-lending, and similar occupations are excluded as unnecessary and undesirable. Plato regarded agriculture as being more necessary and desirable than the occupations of "ship-owners and merchants and retailers and inn-keepers and tax-collectors and mines and money-lending and compound interest and innumerable other things, and bid- ding goodbye to these, the legislator gives laws to husbandmen and shepherds and bee-keepers, and the guardians and superin- tendents of their implements. Let us first of all, then, have a class of laws which shall be called the laws of husbandmen." (Laws, Bk. viii, 842 ff.) Further, Plato pays considerable attention to various regulations of the boundaries of land, forms of its pos- session, cultivation, and so on, but very little is said about the sociological aspects of the farm population and farm life.
However, in various places in the Republic and the Laws, Plato makes some remarks that have a sociological bearing. In the first place he gives a detailed sketch of the social and moral conditions of the people living in the pre-urban stage. These people were, at the same time, hunters, shepherds^ and in part, simple agricul- tural people. For this reason their description by Plato gives his views about many aspects of the social life of these peoples. The significant passages follow:
2. PLATO'S CHARACTERIZATION OF THE RURAL-URBAN PEOPLES*
Pre-urban people. — The desolation of these primitive men would create in them a feeling of affection and friendship towards one an- other; and they would have no occasion to fight for their subsistence, for they would have pasture in abundance; on this pasture land they
39 Plato, Laws, trans, by B. Jowett * Plato, Laws and Republic*
ANCIENT SOURCES 31
would mostly support life in that primitive age, having plenty of milk and flesh. . . . They would also have abundance of clothing and bed- ding, and dwellings. . . . Hence in those days there was no great pov- erty; nor was poverty a cause of difference among men; and rich they could not be, if they had no gold and silver, and such at that time was their condition. And the community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles; there is no insolence or injustice, nor, again, are there any contentions or envying among them. And therefore they were good, and also because of what would be termed the' simplicity of their natures; for what they heard of the nature of good and evil in their simplicity they believed to be true, and practiced. No one had the wit to suspect another of a falsehood, as men do now; but what they heard about gods and men they be- lieved to be true, and lived accordingly. . . . Would not many genera- tions living on in this way, although ruder, perhaps, and more igno- rant of the arts generally, . . . and likewise of other arts, termed in cities legal practices and party conflicts, and including all conceivable ways of hurting one another in word and deed; would they not, I say, be simpler and more manly, and also more temperate and in general more just? . . . They could hardly have wanted lawgivers as yet; they lived according to customs and the laws of their fathers. . . , They have neither councils nor judgments, . . . and everyone is the judge of his wife and children, and they do not trouble themselves about one another. . . . And among them the eldest rule because government originated with them in the authority of a father and mother, whom, like a flock of birds, they followed, forming one troup under the patri- archal rule and sovereignty of their parents, which of all sovereignties is the most just (Laws, Bk. iii, pp. 679-682).
In the primeval world, and a long while before the cities came into being there is said to have been a blessed state and way of life, of which the best ordered of existing states is a copy (Laws, Bk. iv, P-713).
Importance of agriculture and distribution of land in an ideal city- state. — Let them at once distribute their land and houses, and not till the land in common, since this sort of constitution goes beyond their proposed origin, and nurture, and education. But in making the dis- tribution, let the several possessors feel that their particular lots also belong to the whole city; and as the land is the parent, let them tend this more carefully than children do their mother, For she is a goddess and their queen, and they are her mortal subjects. Such also are the feelings which they ought to entertain to the gods and demi-gods of the country (Laws, Bk. v, p. 740).
32 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Beneficial effects of shepherdship and agriculture. — Discussing the greatness of the Persian king, Cyrus, and the talentless and vicious governing which his children did, Plato explains the dif- ference through the agricultural education of the former and the luxurious and effeminate education which the children received in the city palaces.
Their father [Cyrus] had possessions of cattle and sheep, and many herds of men and other animals; but he did not consider that those to whom he was about to make them over, were not trained in his own calling, which was Persian; for the Persians are shepherds-sons of a rugged land, which was a stera mother, and well fitted to produce a sturdy race, able to live in the open air and watch, and to fight also, if fighting was required. . . . His sons were trained differently, being educated in the corrupt Median fashion by women and eunuchs which led to their becoming such as people do become when they are brought up unreproved. And so, after the death of Cyrus, his sons, in the full- ness of luxury and license, took the kingdom, and first one slew the other; and afterwards he himself, mad with wine and brutality, lost his kingdom (Laws, Bk. iii, p. 695) .
Class struggle, stratification, and lac\ of solidarity in the city. — For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two [parts], one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another; and in either there are many smaller divisions, and you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all as a single state (Republic, Bk. iv, pp. 422-423; Bk. viii, p. 551).
Cities as the abode of the greatest vice and virtue. — Following the pre-urban stage there appeared "cities and governments, and arts and laws, and a great deal of vice and a great deal of virtue"
Demoralizing influence of the city poets, and the contrast between the primitive moral arts and the refined arts of the city. — Under the ancient laws . . . music was early divided into certain kinds and man- ners. One sort consisted of prayers to the gods, which were called hymns; and there was another and opposite sort called lamentations and another termed paeans, and another called dithyrambs. ... All these and others were duly distinguished, nor were they allowed to intermingle one sort of music with another. And the authority which determined and gave judgment, and punished the disobedient, was not expressed in a hiss, nor in the most unmusical "sweet voices" of the multitude, as in our days; nor in applause and clapping of the hands. The spectators had to listen in silence to the end. . . . And then, as
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time went on, the poets themselves introduced the reign of ignorance and misrule. They were men of genius, but they had no knowledge of what is just and lawful in music. . . . Ignorantly affirming that music has no truth, and, whether good or bad, can only be judged of rightly by pleasure of the hearer; and by composing such licentious poems, they have inspired the multitude with lawlessness and boldness, and made them fancy that they can judge for themselves about melody and song. And in this way, the theaters from being mute have become vocal, as though they had understanding of good and bad in music and poetry; and instead of an aristocracy, an evil sort of "theatrocracy" has grown up. ... Consequent upon this freedom comes the other freedom of disobedience to rulers; and then the attempt to escape the control and exhortation of father, mother, elders, and when near the end, the control of the laws also; and at the very end there is the con- tempt of oaths and pledges, and no regard at all for the gods; and Thus they . . . lead an evil life, and there is no cessation of ills (Laws, Bk. iii, p. 701; Republic, Bk. ii, p. 377; Bk. iii, pp. 391-392, 408; Bk. x, pp. 595 if.). III. ARISTOTLE
The subsequent quotations from the Politic a and Oeconomica of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) give the essentials of his views con- cerning the agricultural population and life. Two remarks only is it necessary to add. First, as with almost all ancient writers, his positive characterizations concern the free cultivator, farmer, or peasant who works his farm alone or with the help of a few slaves; they do not concern the unfree agricultural population, slaves and serfs, who, like all other slaves, were supposed to be different from the free farmers. Second, in spite of his very posi- tive characterization of the agricultural class, he, in his outline of the ideal city-state, excluded it from citizenship. The reason for this is not so much the inferiority of farmers as their lack of train- ing for highly responsible governmental functions, together with their lack of leisure for discharging the functions of citizens. Be- lieving that the best government is that by highly trained and selected experts who should give all their energy and time to this vocation, Aristotle thought that these requirements could not be met by the farm population, who were busy with work and who often lived outside of the cities. Hence this exclusion of farmers from citizenship in his ideal city-state. However, surveying the existing facts as they were, and not as they ought to be in the
34 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
ideal state (conjectured in the conditions of Greece as they were in time of Aristotle), "the king of philosophers" emphatically stressed the positive characteristics of the class studied and its su- periority— physical, military, moral, political, and social—over the city rabble and the bulk of the city population. The same high position among occupations is given to the pursuit of agriculture.
3. ARISTOTLE: THE ART OF AGRICULTURE*
Now in the course of nature the art of agriculture is prior, and next come those arts which extract the products of the earth, mining and the like. Agriculture ranks first because of its justice; for it does not take anything away from men, either with their consent, as do retail trading and the mercenary arts, or against their will, as do the warlike arts. Further, agriculture is natural; for by nature all derive their sus- tenance from their mother, and so men derive it from the earth. In addition to this it also conduces greatly to bravery; for it does not make men's bodies unserviceable, as do the liberal arts, but it renders them able to lead an open air life and work hard; furthermore it makes them adventurous against the foe, for husbandmen are the only citizens whose property lies outside the fortifications (Vol. X, Bk. i, 1343).
4. ARISTOTLE: DEMOCRACY AND THE HUSBANDMEN!
Of the four kinds of democracy, as was said in the previous discus- sion, the best is that which comes first in order; it is also the oldest of them all. I am speaking of them according to the natural classification of their inhabitants. For the best material of democracy is an agricul- tural population; there is no difficulty in forming a democracy where the mass of the people live by agriculture or tending of cattle. Being poor, they have no leisure, and therefore do not often attend the assem- bly, and not having the necessaries of life they are always at work, and do not covet the property of others. Indeed, they find their employ- ment pleasanter than the cares of government or office where no great gains can be made out of them, for the many are more desirous of gain than of honor. A proof is that even the ancient tyrannies were patiently endured by them, as they still endure oligarchies, if they are allowed to work and are not deprived of their property; for some of them grow quickly rich and the others are well enough off. Moreover, they have the power of electing the magistrates and calling them to account; their ambition, if they have any, is thus satisfied. . . .
* Aristotle, Oeconomica, in The Works of Aristotle, trans, by W. D. Ross, Oxford, 1921,
Aristotle, Politico, in The Wor\s of Aristotle, trans, by W. D. Ross, Oxford, 1921
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Hence it is both expedient and customary in the afore-mentioned type oÂŁ democracy that all should elect to offices, and conduct scruti- nies, and sit in the law courts, but that the great offices should be filled up by election and from persons having a qualification; the greater re- quiring a greater qualification, or, if there be no offices for which a qualification is required, then those who are marked out by special ability should be appointed. Under such a form of government the citizens are sure to be governed well (for the offices will always be held by the best persons; the people are willing enough to elect them and are not jealous of the good).
The good and the notables will then be satisfied, for they will not be governed by men who are their inferiors, and the persons elected will rule justly, because others will call them to account. Every man should be responsible to others, nor should anyone be allowed to do just as he, pleases; for where absolute freedom is allowed there is nothing to restrain the evil which is inherent in every man.
But the principle of responsibility secures that which is the greatest good in states; the right persons rule and are prevented from doing wrong, and the people have their due. It is evident that this is the best kind of democracy, and why? Because the people are drawn from a certain class. Some of the ancient laws of most states were, all of them, useful with a view to making the people husbandmen. They provided either that no one should possess more than a certain quantity of land, or that, if he di'd, the land should not be within a certain distance from the town or the acropolis. Formerly in many states there was a law forbidding anyone to sell his original allotment of land. There is a similar law attributed to Oxylus, which is to the effect that there should be a certain portion of every man's land on which he could not borrow money. A useful corrective to the evil of which I am speaking would be the law of the Aphytasans, who, although they are numerous, and do not possess much land, are all of them husbandmen. For their properties are reckoned in the census, not entire, but only in such small portions that even the poor may have more than the amount required.
Next best to an agricultural, and in ma^ny respects similar, are a pas- toral people, who live by their flocks; they are the best trained of any for war, robust in body and able to camp out. The people of whom other democracies consist are far inferior to them, for their life is inferior; there is no room for moral excellence in any of their em- ployments, whether they be mechanics or traders or laborers. Besides, people of this class can readily come to the assembly, because they are continually moving about in the city and in the agora; whereas husbandmen are scattered over the country and do not meet, or
36 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
equally feel the want of assembling together. Where the territory also happens to extend to a distance from the city, there is no diffi- culty in making an excellent democracy or constitutional government; for the people are compelled to settle in the country, and even if there is a town population the assembly ought not to meet in democracies, when the country people cannot come. We have thus explained how the first and best form of democracy should be constituted; it is clear that the other or inferior sorts will deviate in a regular order, and the population which is excluded will at each stage be of a lower kind (Vol. X, Bk. vi, 1318-1319).
IV. XENOPHON
There is scarcely any prominent Greek thinker who so enthusi- astically, and in such detailed form, stressed the positive charac- teristics of free agricultural population and the beneficial effects of agriculture as Xenophon (born about 431 or 444; died 354 B.C.), the famous pupil of Socrates. The subsequent passage gives the essentials of his views upon these subjects.
5. XENOPHON: COMPARISON OF HUSBANDMEN WITH ARTISANS*
SOCRATES. A good suggestion, Critobulus, for the base mechanic arts, so-called, have got a bad name; and what is more, are held in ill repute by civilized communities, and not unreasonably; seeing they are the ruin of the bodies of all concerned in them, workers and overseers alike, who are forced to remain in sitting postures and to hug the gloom, or else to crouch whole days confronting a furnace. Hand in hand with physical enervation follows apace enfeeblement of soul, while the demand which these base mechanic arts make on the time of those employed in them leaves them no leisure to devote to the claims of friendship and the state. How can such folk be other than sorry friends and ill defenders of the fatherland? So much so that in some states, especially those reputed to be warlike, no citizen is allowed to exercise any mechanical craft at all.
The clearest proof of this, we said, could be discovered if, on the occasion of a hostile inroad, one were to seat the husbandmen and the artisans apart in two divisions, and then proceed to put this question to each group in turn : "Do you think it better to defend our country districts or to retire from the fields and guard the walls?" And we anticipated that those concerned with the soil would vote to defend the soil; while the artisans would vote not to fight, but, in docile
* Xenophon, The Economist, in The Wor^s of Xenophon, trans, by H. G. Dakyns, London, 1897.
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obedience to their training, to sit with folded hands, neither expending toil nor venturing their lives . . . (Ill, 213, 223).
6. XENOPHON: EULOGY OF AGRICULTURE*
All this I relate to you (continued Socrates) to show you that quite high and mighty people find it hard to hold aloof from agriculture, devotion to which art would seem to be thrice blest, combining as it does a certain sense of luxury with the satisfaction of an improved estate, and such a training of physical energies as shall fit a man to play a free man's part. Earth, in the first place, freely offers to those that labor all things necessary to the life of man; and, as if that were not enough, makes further contribution of a thousand luxuries. It is she supplies with sweetest scent and fairest show all things where- with to adorn the altars and statues of the gods, or deck man's person. It is to her we owe our many delicacies of flesh or fowl or vegetable growth; since with the tillage of the soil is closely linked the art of breeding sheep and cattle, whereby we mortals may offer sacrifices well pleasing to the gods, and satisfy our personal needs withal.
And albeit she, good cateress, pours out her blessings upon us in abundance, yet she suffers not her gifts to be received effeminately, but inures her pensioners to suffer gladly summer's heat and winter's cold. Those that labor with their hands, the actual delvers of the soil, she trains in a wrestling school of her own, adding strength to strength; whilst those others whose devotion is confined to the over- seeing eye and to studious thought, she makes more manly, rousing them with cockcrow, and compelling them to be up and doing in many a long day's march. Since, whether in city or afield, with the shifting seasons each necessary labor has its hour of performance.
Or to turn to another side. Suppose it to be a man's ambition to aid his city as a trooper mounted on a charger of his own: why not com- bine the rearing of horses with other stock? It is the farmer's chance. Or would your citizen serve on foot? It is husbandry that shall give him robustness of body. Or if we turn to the toil-loving fascination of the chase, here once more earth adds incitement, as well by furnish- ing facility of sustenance for the dogs as by nurturing a foster brood of wild animals. And if horses and dogs derive benefit from this art of husbandry, they in turn requite the boon through service rendered to the farm. The horse carries his best of friends, the careful master, betimes to the scene of labor and devotion, and enables him to leave it late. The dog keeps off the depredations of wild animals from fruits and flocks, and creates security in the solitary place.
*Xenophon, op. cit.
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Earth, too, adds stimulus in wartime to earth's tillers; she pricks them on to aid the country under arms, and this she does by fostering her fruits in open field, the prize of valor for the mightiest. For this also is the art athletic, this of husbandry; as thereby men are fitted to run, and hurl the spear, and leap with the best.
This, too, is that kindliest of arts which makes requital tenfold in kind for every work of the laborer. For where else, save in some happy rural seat of her devising shall a man more cheerily cherish content in winter, with bubbling bath and blazing fire? or where, save afield, in summer rest more sweetly, lulled by babbling streams, soft airs, and tender shades?
For myself, I marvel greatly if it has ever fallen to the lot of free- born man to own a choicer possession, or to discover an occupation more seductive, or of wider usefulness in life than this.
But, furthermore, earth of her own will gives lessons in justice and uprightness to all who can understand her meaning, since the nobler the service of devotion rendered, the ampler the riches of her recom- pense. One day, perchance, these pupils of hers, whose conversation in past times was in husbandry, shall, by reason of the multitude of invading armies, be ousted from their labors. The work of their hands may indeed be snatched from them, but they were brought up in stout and manly fashion. They stand, each one of them, in body and soul equipped; and, save God himself shall hinder them, they will march into the territory of those their human hinderers, and take from them the wherewithal to support their lives. Since often enough in war it is surer and safer to quest for food with sword and buckler than with all the instruments of husbandry.
But there is yet another lesson to be learnt in the public school of husbandry — the lesson of mutual assistance. "Shoulder to shoulder" must we march to meet the invader; "shoulder to shoulder" stand to compass the tillage of the soil. Therefore it is that the husbandman who means to win in his avocation, must see that he creates enthusiasm in his workpeople and a spirit of ready obedience; which is just what a general attacking an enemy will scheme to bring about, when he deals out gifts to the brave and castigation to those who are disorderly.
It was an excellent saying of his who named husbandry "the mother and nurse of all the arts," for while agriculture prospers all other arts alike are vigorous and strong, but where the land is forced to remain desert, the spring that feeds the other arts is dried up; they dwindle, I had almost said, one and all, by land and sea.
Furthermore, other craftsmen (the race, I mean in general of artists) are each and all disposed to keep the most important features of their several arts concealed; with husbandry it is different. Here the
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man who has most skill in planting will take most pleasure in being watched by others; and so too the most skilful sower. Ask any ques- tion you may choose about results thus beautifully wrought, and not one feature in the whole performance will the doer of it seek to keep concealed. To such height of nobleness does husbandry appear, like some fair mistress, to conform the soul and disposition of those con- cerned with it (III, 218-221, 265).
D, ANCIENT ROMAN SOURCES
Rome's foundation and its expansion during the early period was due to the Roman farmers who, at the same time, were Ro- man soldiers. The Roman army of that period was an army of farmers and what was taken by the force of arms was firmly con- solidated by the power of the plough of the Roman farmer- soldier colonist. Stability of the social order, simplicity of life, stern virtue, and a successful expansion of the empire, all these left un- forgettable and fascinating impressions upon subsequent genera- tions; this applies especially to those who lived during the social instability, disorder, increased complexity, and difficulties of the later highly urbanized Roman Empire. It is not surprising, there- fore, that practically all prominent Roman writers who discussed the problems of the sociological aspects of the farm population and agriculture were unanimous in their views on the important aspects of those problems.
The majority of the writers whose works have reached us lived in this period of increased difficulties in the Roman Empire; some of them lived in the period of great disorganization and at the beginning of the decay. This facilitated still more a positive and idealized interpretation of the early period of Roman history and its farmer-soldier population. This explains the conspicuous simi- larity of the opinions of the prominent Roman writers in this field. From Varro's work we learn that the number of writers about agricultural problems in Rome was great. But many works were lost. Of the ones surviving, those of Cato, Varro, Cicero, Sal- lust, Virgil, Horace, Columella, Palladius, Seneca, Lucan, Muso- nius, Pliny, Tacitus, Dion Chrysostom, Martial, Juvenal, Apule- ius, Libanius, and a few others have some bearing upon our problems. Although varying in many respects, they have in common a very high estimation of the class of free farmers and
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of the effects of agricultural occupations upon the body and mind of the individual and upon the social order and social life of so- ciety. Side by side with this, some of them try to establish a series of correlations between "the agricultural variables" and several classes of social phenomena. From these works there follow the most important passages from Cato, Virgil, Varro, Columella, and Polybius.37
I. CATO
The De Re Rustica of Marcus Porcius Cato (234449 B.C.) is a treatise in practical farm management. Although valuable in this respect, the work contains only a few short remarks that have a sociological bearing,
7. CATO: OF THE DIGNITY OF THE FARMER*
The pursuits of commerce would be as admirable as they are profit- able if they were not subject to so great risks; and so, likewise, of banking, if it was always honestly conducted. For our ancestors con- sidered, and so ordained in their laws, that, while the thief should be cast in double damages, the usurer should make four-fold restitution. From this we may judge how much less desirable a citizen they esteemed the banker than the thief. When they sought to commend an honest man, they termed him good husbandman, good farmer. This they rated the superlative of praise. Personally, I think highly of a man actively and diligently engaged in commerce, who seeks thereby to make his fortune, yet, as I have said, his career is full of risks and pitfalls. But it is from the tillers of the soil that spring the best citizens, the staunchest soldiers; and theirs are the enduring re- wards which are most grateful and least envied. Such as devote them- selves to that pursuit are least of all men given to evil counsels (pp. 19-20).
II. VARRO
Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27? B.C.) is regarded as the most learned scholar of Rome. He wrote 490 books, among them The Antiquities Human and Divine, which possibly would be of the greatest value for a social scientist. This work, however, like almost all the other works of Varro, is lost. Only his Rerum Rus- ticarum Libri Tres remains. The subsequent passages give all the
87 Cf. Heitland's work quoted.
* Taken from Roman Farm Management: the Treatises of Cato and Varro, trans, by a Virginia farmer, New York, 1913.
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most important sociological passages from this treatise on farm management.
8. VARRO: ON FARMING*
Stages of social evolution. — Human life must have come down from the highest antiquity to our time, stage by stage, and the re- motest stage must have been the state of Nature when man lived on those things which the virgin earth produced spontaneously. Then from this mode of life they must have descended to the second mode, the pastoral, in which by plucking from wild and woodland trees and shrubs, acorns, arbutus berries, and mulberries, they made a store of fruit for subsequent use, and in the same way and for the same end captured such wild animals as they could and shut them up and tamed them. There is reason to believe that among these animals sheep were the first adopted, on account of their usefulness and gentle nature, for they are by nature extremely gentle and especially fitted for associa- tion with man's life, for through them milk and cheese were added to his food, and for his body they furnished clothing in the shape of skins. . . . Finally, with the third stage, they reached, from the pas- toral mode of life, the agricultural, retaining in it much of the two former stages, and went on long in the stage which they had reached before they could attain our present civilization (Bk. ii, chap. i).
Agriculture as an art. — In the first place, agriculture is not only an art, but an art as important as it is necessary; it teaches us what crops are to be sown and what methods adopted on each and every soil, and what kind of land yields continuously the greatest increase (Bk. i, chap. Hi).
Rural and urban modes of life.— -In the history of mankind we find two modes of life, that of the country and that of the town, and it is obvious that these two differ not only as to place, but as to time when they began to be. The country life is much the more ancient of the two, seeing that there was once a time when men lived in the country and had no town at all. For the oldest Greek town known to history is the Boetian Thebes, which was built by King Ogygos; the oldest town in Roman territory, Rome, which King Romulus built. . . . Well, Thebes, which was founded it is said before the Ogygian deluge, has yet not existed for more than 2,100 years. And if you consider those years with reference to that far-off time when fields began to be culti- vated, and man lived in huts and hovels nor knew what a wall or a gate was, you will see that farmers are more ancient than the dwellers in towns by an astounding number of years; and small won-
* Varro on Farming, trans, by Lloyd Storr-Best, London, 1912.
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der, for divine nature made the country, but man's skill, the towns, and all the arts were discovered in Greece, 'tis said, within the space of a thousand years; but there was never a time when there were in the world no fields which could be cultivated.
And not only is farming more ancient, it is also better; wherefore our ancestors with good reason sent their citizens from the town back to the land, for in peace they were fed by the rustic Romans and in war were defended by them. With good reason, too, did they call the same land by the name of "Mother" and "Ceres," and believed that they who cultivated her lived a holy and useful life, and were all that remained of the race of good King Saturn. . . . The first farmers were unable, owing to their poverty, to distinguish in practice between different kinds of farming, and, being the children of shepherds, both sowed and grazed the same land . . . (Bk. iii, chap. i).
Comparative health of the country and the city people. — Good rea- son had our great ancestors for setting the Romans of the country above those of the town. For, just as in the country those who live and work inside the farmhouse are of slacker fibre than those who work on the land, so those who led the sedentary life of a town were accounted by our ancestors a feebler folk than those who tilled the fields. Accordingly, in dividing their year they arranged for the trans- action of the city business every ninth day only, giving the remaining seven days of each "week" to the cultivation of the fields. And as long as they maintained this custom two ends were achieved: by culti- vation they made and kept their lands most productive, while they themselves enjoyed a lustier health, and might dispense with the town gymnasia of the Greek. Whereas nowadays men are hardly satisfied with one gymnasium apiece, and do not consider that they possess a country house unless it is dignified by a lot of Greek names which they give to its separate parts. . . . And now that nearly all heads of fami- lies have deserted scythe and plough, and sneaked within the city walls, preferring to keep their hands astir in theater and circus rather than amidst corn crops and vineyards, we contract with [foreign] people to bring us the corn, whereby we may grow fat, from Africa and Sardinia, and get in the vintage by ship from the islands of Cos or Chios. And so in that country where the city's founders were shepherds and taught agriculture to their descendants, these descend- ants have reversed the process, and, through covetousness and in de- spite of laws, have turned corn land into meadows, not knowing the difference between agriculture and grazing . . . (Bk. ii, Introduction) .
Among the shepherds and cattle-breeders in Liburnia [Croatia] you saw their Liburnian housewives carrying logs, and at the same
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time children, whom they were suckling; thus proving how feeble and contemptible are our modern newly delivered mothers, who he for days inside mosquito nets. ... In Illyricum it often happens that a pregnant woman when the time of delivery has come, retires a little distance from the scene of her work, is there delivered, and comes back with a child whom you would think she has found, not brought into the world (Bk. ii, chap, x) .
Like Greek thinkers, practically all Roman writers testify to the better health and vitality of the rural population compared with the urban. "The strongest soldiers come from the rough country, while the lazy ones come from the city," says Seneca (Epilogue 51:1041). This is commonly supported by all great writers of Rome, Greece, and of the Middle Ages.
III. VIRGIL
Like Cato, Varro, and others, Publius Virgilius Maro (70-19 B.C.), the greatest Roman poet, held that the welfare of Italy de- pended upon agriculture. Like them, he knew country life well, sympathized with it, and correspondingly made it the subject of his Georgics and Eclogues. If the Eclogues are too bucolic, the Georgics are realistic to a considerable degree. They describe in detail the many and complex operations of agricultural work, the care, the intelligence, the hardships, and the delights of it, and give a very vivid picture of Roman farming and Roman farm life. In the first place he points out that farmers are "a tribe as hard as stone," and mentions "the farmer's toil of which there is no end." He also laments the destruction of farming in time of war or urbanization, and the exploitation of the farmers by the cities. In his time (a period of civil war and urbanization) "no honor due is given the sacred plough; our fields and farms, their masters taken, rankly lie unfilled." And his farmer says that "although sleek cattle of my fold were sold for sacrifice, and from my presses cheese, cheese of the best, went to the thankless town, still I came always empty-handed home" (Eclogues, I, 126). Nev- ertheless farm life has its own delights and blessings.38 The subse- quent passage gives a striking picture of these positive aspects of it as contrasted with the unKoly city life.
88 Quotations are from The Georgics and Eclogues of Virgil, trans, by Theodore Chickering Williams, Cambridge, 1915.
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9. VIRGIL: PICTURE OF RUSTIC LIFE*
Yet happy he
Who knows a shepherd's gods, protecting Pan, Sylvan of hoary head, and sisterhoods Of nymphs in wave and tree. He lives unmoved By public honors or the purple pall Of kingly power, or impious strife that stirs 'Twixt brothers breaking faith. . . .
he need not weep
For pity of the poor, nor lustful-eyed View great possessions. He plucks mellow fruit From his own orchard trees and gathers in The proffered harvest of obedient fields. Of ruthless laws, the forum's frenzied will, Of public scrolls of deed and archive sealed, He nothing knows. Let strangers to such peace Trouble with oars the boundless seas or fly To wars, and plunder the palaces of kings; Make desolate whole cities. ... A man here hoards His riches, dreaming of his buried gold; Another on the rostrum's flattered pride Stares awe-struck. Him th' applause of multitudes, People and senators, . . .
quite enslaves.
With civil slaughter and fraternal blood One day such reek exultant, on the next Lose evermore the long-loved hearth and home. Meanwhile the husbandman upturns the glebe With well-curved share, inaugurating so The whole year's fruitful toil, by which he feeds His native land, his children's children too, His flocks and herds and cattle worth his care. Ever the gifts flow on. . . .
The livelong year
His gathered children to his kisses cling. His honest house lives chastely; full of milk Is all his herd, and on his meadows fair The lusty he-goats lock their butting horns Such master keeps full well each festal day. Couched on green turf around the central fire, The revellers with garlands wreath the bowl
* Virgil, op. ctt.
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Pouring to thee, Lenaeus, with due prayer. . . . Such way of life the ancient Sabines knew, And Remus with his twin; thus waxed the power Of the Etrurian cities; thus rose Rome The world's chief jewel. . . .
Yea, ... ere impious man Began on murdered flocks to feast his kind, Such life on earth did golden Saturn show. None heard the trumpet's blast, nor direful clang Of smitten anvils loud with shaping swords.
— Georgics, II, 66-68 IV. COLUMELLA
The DC Re Rustica 39 of L. Junius Moderatus Columella (first century A.D.) is possibly the fullest of all the Roman treatises on agriculture that have come down to us. In various parts of this work there are scattered many sociological remarks and state- ments. The majority of them are given in the fragments from the work which follow. Of other statements of Columella which have sociological bearing we can note the following ones. First, the nature of agricultural work requires people more robust in health, endurance, character, industry, morality, and circumspection than the majority of urban trades (Bk. i, chap. ix). Second, the rural neighborhood is much more integrated, and the quality of the neighbors in a rural environment is much more important than in the cities (Bk. i, chap. iii). Third, agricultural work and land tie an individual to the place of his work and make him less mobile or shifting than many other occupations (Bk. i, chap. vii). Fourth, urban slaves are more demoralized and worse than rural slaves (Bk. i, chap. ix). Fifth, in the preceding agricultural stage, the happiness, the standard of living, and the food of the poor classes were more satisfactory and healthful than in Columella's time, a period of urbanization (Bk. x, preface). Sixth, the family and the relationship of husband and wife and the estimation of women were much better and harmonious in agricultural Rome than in urbanized Rome.
Both among the Greeks and afterwards among the Romans, even down to the memory of our fathers, the matron took all the domestic labor upon herself (in accordance with the nature of women); the
30 L. Junius Moderatus Columella, De Re Rustica, Bks. i to xii, with illustrations from Pliny, Cato, Varro, Palladius, and other ancient and modern authors, London, 1745,
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masters of families, when they laid aside all care of public affairs, and business without door, retiring into their own houses, as into a place of rest : for the highest reverence and regard were mixed with concord and diligence, and the beautifullest woman did burn with emulation to excel in diligence, studying, by her care, to make better the affairs and circumstances of her husband. There was no separate or divided interest seen in the house, nothing that either the husband or the wife would properly call their own; but they both conspired together for their common and mutual advantage. . . . But now-a-days, when most part of wives are so dissolved in luxury and idleness that they do not, indeed, vouchsafe to take upon themselves the care of manufacturing wool for their own clothes, but disdain clothes made at home, and with a perverse desire, by fair words, obtain from their husbands others that are more costly . . . and cost almost the whole yearly in- come of their estates; it is no wonder at all, that these same ladies think themselves mightily burdened with the care of rural affairs, and of the implements of husbandry, and esteem it a most sordid and mean business, to stay a few days in their country houses (Bk. xii, Preface).
Other views of Columella are given in the subsequent excerpts. 10. COLUMELLA: ANALYSIS OF RURAL LIFE*
To Publius Silvinus: I frequently hear the principal men of our city blaming, sometimes the unfruitfulness of the ground, at other times the intemperateness of the weather, as hurtful to the fruits of the earth for many ages now past : some also I hear mitigating, in some measure, as it were, the foresaid complaints, because they are of opinion that the ground, being, by its overmuch fruitfulness during the former part of its duration, become barren, and worn out of heart, is not now able, with its wonted bounty, to afford sustenance to mortals. Which causes, Publius Silvinus, I am full persuaded, are very remote from the truth; because it is neither lawful to think, that the nature of the ground, which that original Farmer and Father of the universe endowed with perpetual fecundity, is affected with barrenness, as with a certain disease; nor does it become a wise man to believe, that the earth, which, having a divine and everlasting youth bestowed upon it, is called the common parent of all things, because it has always brought forth, and will henceforth bring forth, all things whatsoever, is grown old, like a woman.
Nor, after all, do I think that these things befall us from the dis-
* Columella, op. cit.
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temperature of the weather; but rather from our own fault, who com- mit our husbandry to the very worst of our servants, as a criminal to a public executioner, which all the best of our ancestors were wont to treat with the greatest gentleness: and I cannot enough wonder why they, who desire to learn eloquence, are so nice in their choice of an orator, whose eloquence they may imitate; and they, who search after the knowledge of surveying or mensuration, and of numbers, look out for a master of the art they delight in; and they, who are desirous of some skill in dancing and music, are exceeding scrupulous in their choice of one to modulate their voice, and teach them to sing agree- ably; . . . but husbandry alone, which, without all doubt, is next to, and, as it were, near akin to wisdom, is in want of both masters and scholars. For hitherto I have not only heard, that there are, but I myself have seen, schools of professors of rhetoric, and, as I have already said, of geometry, and of music; . . . but, of agriculture, I have never known any that professed themselves either teachers or students. For, even suppose the city should want professors of the foresaid arts, nevertheless the commonwealth might be in a very flourishing condition, as in ancient times; for, of old, cities were happy enough, and will hereafter still be so, without ludicrous arts, yea, even without advocates also: but without husbandmen, it is manifest, that mortals can neither subsist, nor be maintained. For which reason, what is come to pass, is the more like a prodigy, that a thing so necessary and convenient for our bodies, and the advantages of life, should, to this very time, of all things whatsoever, have had the least consummation; and that this perfectly innocent way of enlarging and preserving one's patrimony should be despised. For those other different, and, as it were repugnant ways of doing this, are contrary and disagreeable to justice; unless we think it more agreeable to equity to have acquired booty by a military profession, which brings us nothing without blood and slaughter, and the ruin and destruction of others. Or, to such as hate war, can the hazard, uncertainty, and danger of the sea, and of trade, be more desirable? That man, a terrestrial animal, breaking through the boundary and law of nature, and exposing himself to the rage of the winds and sea, shbuld dare to commit himself to the waves, and, after the manner of the fowls of the air, always a stranger upon a far distant and foreign shore, wander over the unknown world ? Or is usury, which is odious, even to those whom it seems to relieve, more to be approved? Or is, forsooth, that canine study and employment, as the ancients called it, of snarling, and barking at, and slanderously accusing every man of the greatest substance; and that open robbery of pleading against the innocent, and for the guilty, which was neg- lected and despised by our ancestors, but even permitted and allowed
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of by us within the walls, and in the very Forum itself, more excellent and honorable? Or, should I reckon more honest and honorable, the most deceitful, lying, and beggarly hawking of a mercenary levee- haunter, who is constantly flying about from the threshold of one great man in power to that of another, and guessing, by the report of others, whether his patron is awake, or not? Nor, indeed, do the servants vouchsafe to answer him, when he asks what is a doing within-doors: or, should I think it more fortunate, after having met with a repulse from the porter with his chains upon him, to loiter and hang about the ungrateful and hateful doors, oft-times till it be late at night, and, by a most mean and pitiful servitude and attendance, pur- chase with disgrace the honor of the fasces, or a government, or a com- mand in the army or navy, and, after all, squander away one's own patrimony? For honor is not bestowed, as a reward, upon disinter- ested service and attendance, but upon such as make presents, and give bribes.
Now, if all good men ought to avoid these very things, and others like to them, there is still remaining, as I said, one way of increasing one's substance, worthy of a freeman, and a gentleman; which arises from husbandry, of which if the precepts were put in practice, suppose it were but imprudently, by such as have not been instructed in it, provided nevertheless they were possessors and proprietors of the lands which they cultivate, as was the ancient custom, rural affairs would suffer less damage; for the industry and diligence of the masters, would, in many things, compensate the loss occasioned by ignorance; and they, whose own interest lay at stake, would not appear to be all their lifetime willingly ignorant of their own business; but thereby becoming more desirous of learning, would attain to a thorough knowledge of husbandry.
Now we disdain, and think it below us, to live upon, and cultivate our own lands ourselves, and look upon it as a matter of no moment, to make choice of a man of the best sense and skill we can find, for our Bailiff; or, if he be ignorant, at least of a man of vigor, vigilance, and activity, that he may learn the more speedily what he is ignorant of. But, whether he be a rich man that purchases a piece of ground, he picks, out of his crew of footmen and chairmen, one that is the feeblest, and the most worn out with years, and banishes him into the country: whereas that business requires, not only knowledge, but green age, and strength of body, to bear labor and fatigue: or if he be a master of a middling estate, he commands one of his hirelings, who now refuses to pay that daily tribute of service required of him, and cannot thereby increase his income, to be director and overseer, who is ignorant of the business he is to have the oversight of. Which
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things when I observe, frequently considering and revolving in my mind, with how base and shameful an agreement and consent rural discipline is deserted, and worn out of use, I am in dread, lest it should be accounted villainous, and, in some measure, shameful and dishon- orable, for freeborn men. But when, by the records and writings of many authors, I am put in mind, that our worthy ancestors looked upon it as their glory, to take care of their rural affairs, and to employ themselves in husbandry, from which Quintus Cincinnatus came, and rescued the besieged Consul and his army, being called from the plough to the dictatorship; and again, having laid down the fasces, which, when a conqueror, he more hastily surrendered, than he had assumed them when he was made general, he returned to the same steers, and his small manor of four jugera of land, left him by his ancestors; and Caius Fabricius also, and Curius Dentatus; the one, after having driven Pyrrhus out of the confines of Italy; and the other, after he had subdued the Sabines, did no less industriously cultivate, than they had bravely gained with their swords, their dividend of seven jugera of land a man, which they received of the land they had taken from the enemy.
And that I may not now unseasonably make mention of them one by one, when I behold so many other renowned and memorable Captains of the Roman nation, who were always in great reputation for this two-fold study; either of defending, or of cultivating, their paternal or acquired estates; I perceive, that the ancient custom, manners, and manly life of our ancestors, are disagreeable to our luxury, and volup- tuous delicacy. For (as Marcus Varro formerly complained in our grandfathers' times) all we, who are masters of families, having aban- doned the pruning-hook, and the plough, have, in a sneaking manner, crept within the walls; rather move our hands in the circus and thea- ters, than in our cornfields and vineyards: and with astonishment we admire the postures of effeminate wretches; because, by their woman-like motions, they counterfeit a sex which nature has denied to men; and deceive the eyes of the spectators. Then, presently after, that we may come in good plight to public places of riot and de- bauchery, we consume and dry up our daily crudities in bagnio's; and, by sweating out the moisture of our bodies, we endeavor to procure an appetite for drinking; and spend the nights in libidinous gratifications and drunkenness, and the days in gaming, or sleeping; and account ourselves happy, because we neither see the rising nor the setting of the sun. Therefore the consequence of this idle and slothful way of living is bad health: for thus the bodies of young men are so unbraced, relaxed, and enfeebled, that death will not seem to make any altera- tion or change in them.
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But, verily, that true and genuine progeny of Romulus, being con- stantly exercised in, and inured to hunting, and no less to country business and labor, excelled in, and were highly esteemed for their exceeding great strength and firmness of body; and, when the service of their country required it, in time of war, they easily supported the fatigues of a military life, being hardened by their laborious exercises in times of peace; and they always preferred the country commonalty, to that of the city. For, as they, who still kept within the inclosures of the manor-house, were accounted more slothful and faint-hearted, than those who labored the ground without doors; so they who saun- tered, and spent their time idly within the walls, under the shade of the city, w^re looked upon as more lazy and unactive, than those who cultivated the fields, and managed business relating to husbandry. It is also evident, that their ninth-day fairs or markets, where they assem- bled themselves together, were established, and kept up, for this very purpose, that city affairs might be transacted every ninth day only, and rural affairs on the other days. For, in those times, as we said before, the people of quality, and principal men of the city, lived in the coun- try, upon their own lands; and when their advice about public affairs was wanted, they were sent for from their villas, to attend the Senate; from which thing, they who were sent to summon them were called viatores\ and while this custom was observed, and kept up, by a most persevering desire of cultivating their lands, those ancient Sabines, who became citizens of Rome; and our old Roman ancestors, though exposed on every hand to fire and sword, and to have their corns, and other fruits of the ground, wasted by hostile incursions, notwithstand- ing, laid up greater store of them, than we, who, by the permission of a long continued peace, have had it in our power to enlarge and improve our husbandry.
Therefore things are now come to such a pass, that in this Latium and country where Saturn lived, where the gods taught their own children the art of cultivating the ground; even there we let, by public auction, the importation of corn from our provinces beyond sea, that we may not be exposed to a famine; and we lay in our stores of fruits and wines from the Cyclad islands, and from the regions of Baetica and Gaul. Nor is it any wonder, seeing the vulgar opinion is now publicly entertained and established, that husbandry is a sordid em- ployment; and that it is a business which does not want the instruc- tion of a master. But as for myself, when I consider and review, either the greatness of the whole thing, resembling some vastly extended body; or the number of its parts, as so many members in particular; I am afraid, lest my last day should surprise me, before I can acquaint myself with the whole of rural discipline.
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For he that would profess himself to be perfect in this science, must be exceedingly well acquainted with the nature of things; must not be ignorant of the several latitudes of the world; that he may be sure of what is agreeable, or what is repugnant, to every climate; that he may perfectly remember the time of the rising and setting of the stars, that he may not begin his works when winds and rains are coming upon him, and so frustrate his labor. Let him consider the temperature and constitution of the weather, and of the present year; for neither do they, as it were by a settled law, always wear the same dress; nor does the summer or winter come every year with the same countenance: nor is the spring always rainy, nor the autumn moist: which I cannot believe any man can know beforehand, without an enlightened mind, and without the most excellent arts and sciences.
Now very few have the talent to discern the great variety itself of the ground, and the nature and disposition of every soil, what each of them may promise or deny us. Yea, when has any one man whatso- ever had the opportunity to contemplate all the parts of this art, so as thoroughly to understand the use, advantage, and management of all sorts of corns, and of tillage, and the various and different sorts of earth, most unlike to one another ? of which, some deceive us by their color, some by their quality: and, in some countries, the black earth, which they call brown, or dusky, deserves to be commended; in others, that which is fat, and red-colored, answers better . . . And who is it that thoroughly \nows everything that is requisite in planting and preserving trees and vineyards, of which there are innumerable kinds; and in purchasing, breeding, and keeping all sorts of cattle; since we have also taken in this as a part of husbandry; whereas the grazier's knowledge and skill is distinct and separate from the art of husban* dry (pp. 1-10).
V. POLYBIUS
Of several generalizations of Polybius (205-123 B.C.), the Greek historian of Rome, two concern the growing depravity of the pop- ulation of the luxurious urban environment and the falling birth rate of such a population.
11. POLYBIUS: URBANIZATION AND DEPOPULATION*
When a commonwealth has arrived at a high pitch of prosperity and undisputed power, it is evident that, by the lengthened continuance of great wealth within it, the manner of life of its citizens will become more extravagant. . . . And as this state of things goes on more and
*The Histories of Polybius, trans, by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, London, 1889.
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more, the desire for office and the shame of losing reputation, as well as the ostentation and extravagance of living, will prove the beginning of deterioration. ... In their passionate resentment and acting under the dictates oÂŁ anger, they will refuse to obey any longer, or to be con- tent with having equal powers with their leaders, but will demand to have all or far the greatest themselves. And when that comes to pass the constitution will receive a new name, which sounds better than any other in the world, liberty or democracy; but, in fact, it will be- come that worst of all governments, mob-rule (I, 507).
In our time all Greece was visited by a dearth of children and gener- ally a decay of population, owing to which the cities were denuded of inhabitants, and a failure of productiveness resulted, though there were no long-continued wars or serious pestilences among us. ... This evil grew upon us rapidly, and without attracting attention, by our men becoming perverted to a passion for show and money and the pleasures of an idle life, and accordingly either not marrying at all, or, if they did marry, refusing to rear the children that were born or at most one or two out of a great number, for the sake of leaving them well off or bringing them up in extravagant luxury. For when there are only one or two sons, it is evident that, if war or pestilence carries off one, the houses must be left heirless: and, like swarms of bees, little by little the cities become sparsely inhabited and weak (II, 510).
CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY: FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES
A. ARABIAN RURAL-URBAN SOCIOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE AGES
In Europe the first twelve centuries of the Middle Ages left relatively few works in which our problems are treated, even in a general way. There are a few sources in which some concrete pictures and characteristics of the class of the peasants, unfree and free laborers, as well as of the landlords, are given, but they do not tend to generalize the situation. Although valuable for a his- torian of the agricultural classes, for our purposes they are useless.1 Only since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Europe do we begin to find a few casual remarks; as we continue, they in- crease more and more in number and in generality. However, up to the seventeenth century we do not find in Europe any substan- tial principles and theories of rural-urban sociology. Only since that century have such theories begun to appear and to grow. The best samples of these theories in their fragmentary, as well as developed, form are given later on.
Meanwhile, before we pass to them, we must make a trip to Arabia. We know that the centuries from the fifth to the twelfth were marked by a great awakening of the Arabian people, by the appearance and marvelous growth of Mohammedanism, by the brilliant victories of the Arabs over many peoples and countries; and by a rapid growth of the Arabian caliphates, cities, and com- plex societies. All this was followed by the extraordinary progress of the Arabians in science, arts, literature, and civilization. During several of these centuries the Arabian countries led their con-
1 Contrasted with the scarcity of sociological analysis of rural life and people, the lit- erature devoted to the purely agronomical side oÂŁ agriculture and profitableness of this or that method of farming and farm management was rather well developed and rich from ^ the fourteenth century on. However, this literature is outside our field and there- fore is entirely omitted. A good summary of it for England is given in R.R. E.Pro- thero's English Farming, Past and Present, London, 1912; see also N. S, B. Gras, A His- tory of Agriculture, New York, 1925.
[53]
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temporary European societies in all these respects. This leadership manifested itself also in the field of social science, and especially in the field of sociology, particularly rural-urban sociology. The most important treatise in this field is that of Ibn-Khaldun. There- fore, before passing to Europe we must give the essentials of the rural-urban sociology of Ibn-Khaldun. I. IBN-KHALDUN
Ibn-Khaldun (1332-1406), the great Arabian historian, states- man, and sociologist is, as much as any one man, entitled to be called the "founder of sociology," and possibly more than any- body else is he entitled to be regarded as "the founder of rural- urban sociology." His Prolegomenes to his famous Universal History — a work of many volumes of which the Prolegomenes makes up three large volumes — represents, possibly, the earliest systematic treatise both in sociology and in rural-urban sociology. Living in an age when the rapid transformation of the nomadic Arabian tribes into the victorious complex societies was still re- cent; when the transition of the Arabs from the simple nomadic desert and simple rural life to the voluptuous and luxurious — pre- dominantly consumptive, commercial, and administrative — city life was still going on before his eyes, this scholar and genius could observe, analyze, and study this process directly. The results of his study are incorporated in his voluminous and outstanding work. Throughout all its volumes are scattered many sociological generalizations; 2 but his essentially rural-urban sociology is given in the second section of the Prolegomenes, which is devoted en- tirely to this topic. The most essential parts of it are given later. Reading them, one must keep in mind that Ibn-Khaldun's con- frontations concern, on the one hand, the nomadic and rural life; on the other, the sedentary and urban life. Some of the most im- portant generalizations of the author may be summarized thus: first, according to Ibn-Khaldun, nomadic and rural life preceded the sedentary and urban life; second, nomadic and rural people are more healthy, more sound, more brave, more resourceful, more self-reliant, more independent, and more stern, less immoral, less degenerate, than the urban people; third, the family life is cleaner and the familism is stronger in the rural districts than in the cities; fourth, V esprit de corps is again more necessary and incom-
2 See for instance the second book of his Histoire des Berberes, Paris, 1925, I, 2 ff.
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parably more alive in the rural than in the urban population; fifth, consequently sociality and mutual aid are developed more in the desert and country than in the city; sixth, the position of women and older people is better and they are more re- spected and valued in the country than in the city; seventh, the city population is incessantly replenished by the migration of the people from the country; eighth, the migrants to the cities are recruited chiefly from the well-to-do families of the country; ninth, owing to unhealthy conditions, luxury, vice, indulgences, and other mollifying conditions, city life leads to the degeneration of the people and in this way to the decay of the entire society. The climax of the growth of the city and the development of city arts, sciences, and commerce is the beginning of the decay and de- generation of the city and the whole society. This degeneration is inevitable and the average length of the curve of the rising and degenerating of the urban people is the span of four generations. Besides these there are many other generalizations in the works of Ibn-Khaldun. The subsequent quotations develop some of these generalizations.
12. IBN-KHALDUN: COMPARISON OF RURAL AND URBAN PEOPLE*
Nomadic life and sedentary life both are comformable with nature. — The differences that one notes in the customs and institutions of diverse peoples depend upon the means by which each of them pro- vides for its subsistence. Men join themselves together into a society only in order to obtain the means of life. They first seek the simple necessities; after which they strive to satisfy artificial needs; then they aspire to live in abundance. Some devote themselves to agriculture, planting and sowing; others occupy themselves with producing cer- tain animals such as sheep, cattle, goats, bees, silkworms, etc., for the purpose of causing these to multiply and thus to obtain profit. People of these two classes are obliged to inhabit the country; for the cities do not offer them any land to sow, any fields to cultivate, nor any pas- tures for their flocks. Constrained by circumstances to live in the country, they form themselves into a society in order to aid each other and to procure for themselves only those things that their manner of life and their degree of civilization render indispensable. Nourishment, sufficient shelter, means of keeping warm: these are all that are neces-
* Ibn-Khaldun, "Prolegomen.es historiques," in Notices et extraits des manuscripts de la Bibliotfoque Impend, Vols. XIX and XX, Paris, 1862.
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sary for them, but only enough to maintain their existence. They are at first incapable of obtaining more from these surroundings. Later, when they find themselves in better circumstances and when their possessions put them beyond bare need, they begin to enjoy tran- quility and comfort. Again combining their efforts, they strive to obtain more than simple necessities; one observes them amass goods, seek fine clothes, erect large houses, found villages and cities in order to give themselves shelter from hostile attacks. Ease and abundance introduce habits of luxury, which develop vigorously and which reflect themselves in methods of preparing food, in the improvement of the cuisine, in the custom of using clothes of silk, brocade, and other fine fabrics, etc. Houses and palaces acquire great height, are constructed solidly and embellished in style. They indicate how the disposition for art passes from the potential to the actual and becomes perfected. Some persons construct castles and houses whose interiors are orna- mented with fountains; they construct beautiful edifices decorated with extreme care. Many persons are occupied in rivalry to improve the objects of everyday use such as clothes, beds, dishes, and kitchen utensils. Of such a nature are men who have become townsmen (hader). Among these, some engage in crafts for a living; some de- vote their efforts to commerce, and by virtue of the great profits which they make at this, they surpass the people of the country in wealth and comforts. Delivered from the drudgery of poverty, they live in a manner befitting their means. One sees by this that the life of the country and that of the cities are two states, each subject to natural laws (XIX, 254-255).
The various ways of earning a living: agriculture. — Agriculture has an intrinsic superiority over the other means of earning a living be- cause it is easy, natural, and conforms to the innate disposition of men; it requires neither learning nor science, and for that reason people attribute its invention to Adam, the father of the human species. "It was he," they say, "who first taught and practiced it." By these words they wish to imply that it is the most natural and the most ancient means of procuring subsistence. The arts come in the second place and follow agriculture, because, being complicated, before being learned they require the use of reflection and concentration. That is why they ordinarily flourish only in sedentary life, a mode of existence which is preceded by nomadic life. It was for the same reason that the invention of the arts was attributed to Enoch, the second father of mortals, who, directed by divine inspiration, had invented them for the use of his posterity. Commerce, considered as a means of earning a living, conforms to nature; although in most of its operations it uses tricks to establish a difference between the purchase price and
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 57
the sale price from which to obtain a profit. The law permits the use of these tricks although they fall in the category of contingencies, because they do not aim to take the goods of others without giving something in return. "But God knows better than we what they are" (XX, 325).
Life in the country preceded that in the city. It was the cradle of civilization. Cities are indebted to the country for their origin and their population. — We have said that the inhabitants of the country are lim- ited to strict necessities in everything which concerns them and that they have not the means to transcend necessity, while the people of the cities are occupied in satisfying needs created by luxury and in perfect- ing everything which has to do with their habits and manner of living. There is no doubt that one must necessarily think of necessities before he concerns himself with artificial needs or seeks for ease. Necessity is, so to speak, the root out of which luxury grows. Rural life must pre- cede that in cities; in fact, man thinks first of necessities, and he must procure these for himself before aspiring to a life of ease. The rugged- ness of life in the country preceded the refinements of settled life; we also note that civilization, born in the fields or country, terminates in the establishment of towns and has a definite tendency towards this end. As soon as the people of the country come to that stage of well- being which makes them disposed to luxury, they seek the comforts of life and adopt a sedentary mode of living. This is what has hap- pened to all nomadic tribes. The resident of the town, on the contrary, does not desire to live in the country unless he is forced to do so nor does he desire to be deprived of the ease which is enjoyed in the towns. Another fact also demonstrates that nomadic life preceded a settled mode of living and gave birth to it. If we take the statements of the inhabitants of any city on this point, we will find that the most of them are descended from families which have lived m the villages of that vicinity or in the neighboring rural districts. Their ancestors ac- quired wealth and settled in the town in order to enjoy peace and the comforts which the town afforded. This example shows that sedentary life has followed the life of a nomad or countryman and that it has grown out of the latter as a branch from the stump of a tree. The reader is asked to note the importance of this principle. We can add further that all city populations are not alike in their manner of living, as is also true with rural peoples. Certain peoples and certain tribes are more powerful than others, and there are some cities which surpass the rest in greatness or in population.
On the basis of these observations one realizes that rural life existed before life in towns, and that the former gave birth to the latter. One would also agree that the ease and habits of luxury which one enjoys
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in cities, whether great or small, have appeared later than those cus- toms which result from the necessity of providing the basic needs of life (XIX, 257-259),
Lf esprit de corps and purity of blood in the city and the country.— In the large and small cities the reciprocal enmity of the inhabitants has no grave consequences; the government, in the persons of the mag- istrates, prevents violence and maintains order among the people. The physical force and authority of the sultan suffices to restrain evil im- pulses, always with the exception of tyranny on the part of the ruler. If the city has external enemies it has a circle of walls to protect it, either in case the inhabitants abandon themselves to sleep at night or are too weak to resist during the day. They also have a body of sol- diers to defend them which is maintained by the government and is always ready to fight. Among the tribes of tie desert, hostilities cease at the voice of the elders and of their rulers, to whom everyone shows the greatest respect. In order to protect their camps against external enemies they each have a select troup composed of their best warriors and young men who are most distinguished for their bravery. But that band would never be strong enough to repulse attacks unless all its members belonged to the same family and were animated by the same esprit de corps. It is precisely this fact which renders the troops composed of desert Arabs so strong and formidable; each combatant has only a single thought, that is to protect his tribe and his family. Affection for parents and devotion for those to whom one is linked by blood are part of the qualities that God has implanted in the hearts of men. Under the influence of these sentiments, these persons sustain each other; they lend mutual assistance and thus make themselves an affliction for their enemies. . . .
People without / 'esprit de corps would scarcely inhabit the desert, for they would become the prey of any peoples who might wish to attack them. In order to dwell together in the desert it is necessary to have a means of self-defense. When one realizes this fact, he will rec- ognize that such should also be the case with men who present them- selves as prophets, and with those who undertake to found an empire or to establish a religious sect. In order to attain their aim such leaders must employ the force of arms in order to conquer that spirit of oppo- sition which forms one of the characteristics of the human race. In order to engage in battle it is necessary to have partisans who are ani- mated with the same esprit de corps. This is a rule of which the reader will see the application in what is to follow. Let God aid us in this task. . . .
L 'esprit de corps is known only among people linked by blood or similar ties. The ties of blood have an influence which most men rec-
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 59
ognize by a natural sentiment. The influence of these ties is shown when one is troubled over the condition of his parents or kin when they suffer an injustice or are in danger of losing their lives. The evil that someone has done to one of our parents, the outrages that oppress them, appear as injuries to ourselves; with the result that we would wish to protect them by interposing ourselves between them and the source of danger. Since men have existed, this sentiment has been in their hearts. When two persons extend mutual aid and are related closely enough to be united in heart and sentiment, it is due to the influence of ties of blood which are manifest in the conduct of these related persons. Ties of blood are quite sufficient to produce this re- sult. . . .
Purity of blood is found only among Arabs and other desert peoples who are semisavage. Purity of racial stock exists among nomadic peo- ples because they are exposed to want and privation and because they inhabit sterile and inhospitable regions, a type of life which fate has imposed upon them and necessity has forced them to adopt. In order to procure the means of existence they give themselves to the care of their camels; their only occupation is to find pasturage for their beasts and to make them multiply. They have had to adopt the unciv- ilized life of the desert because that region is the only one which pro- vides these animals with the shrubs adapted to their nourishment and the sandy places where they can put their small feet. Although the desert is a place of privation and hunger, these people came to inhabit it and raised a second generation for whom it was second nature tc support the young and to endure want. No person of another race has desired to share their lot or to adopt their manner of life. Moreover, these nomads change their state and position if occasion requires. Their isolation is thus a sure guarantee against the corruption of blood which results from unions contracted with strangers. Among nomadic peoples a race preserves its purity . . . (XIX, 268-272).
Rural people are less corrupted than urban people. — The inhabitants of the cities are usually occupied with their pleasures and they abandon themselves to. luxurious living; they seek the things of this transitory world and surrender completely to their passions. Among townspeople trie soul corrupts itself with the evil qualities which are acquired in great number; and the more it perverts itself, the more it strays from the path of virtue. It sometimes happens that the people even forget all the ordinary decencies in their conduct. We have frequently met persons who indulge in vulgar and rude expressions in their meetings and before their superiors; they did not abstain even in the presence of their women. Accustomed to the use of obscene words and to con-
60 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
ducting themselves in an indecent manner, the sentiment of modesty no longer has any power over them.
The people who live in the country also seek the good things of this world, but they desire only those which are absolutely necessary; they do not seek the pleasures procured by wealth, the means of satiating their lust, nor of increasing their pleasures. The principles which guide their conduct are as simple as their life. One can find many things to criticize in their acts and in their character; but these facts do not ap- pear grave if one also notes the behavior of people who live in towns. Compared with the latter they are much more closely related to nat- ural men, and their minds are less exposed to the reception of impres- sions resulting from bad habits. It is thus clear that one would have less difficulty in correcting the shortcomings and restoring the good habits of rural peoples than of the inhabitants of towns. Later we shall have occasion to demonstrate that settled life is the state in which civ- ilization comes to a halt and degenerates; it is in town life that evil attains its full force and the good can scarcely appear.
What has preceded suffices to show that the residents of the country are more inclined to virtue than the inhabitants of the cities. "God loves those who fear him" (Koran, IX, vs. 4) (XIX, 259-260).
The rural people are more brave than the urban. — The inhabitants of the cities, being devoted to ease and peace, immerse themselves in the pleasures offered by ease and comfort, and they relinquish the pro- tection of their lives and goods to their ruler or commander. Insured against danger by the presence of an army charged with their defense, surrounded with walls, protected by outworks, they are not alarmed at anything, and they do not seek to make war with their neighbors. Freed from care, living in entire security, they renounce the practice of arms and leave a posterity which resembles them in this respect. Similar to women and children who are subject to the authority of the head of the family, they live in a state of heedlessness which be- comes second nature for them.
Nomads, on the contrary, remain remote from the great centers of population. Accustomed to austere ways acquired in the vast plains of the desert, they shun the vicinity of the soldiers to whom the estab- lished governments confide the protection of their frontiers, and they disdainfully reject the suggestion to arbitrate behind walls and doors. Strong enough to protect themselves, they never confide in others the care of their defense; and, always under arms, they reveal an extreme vigilance in their expeditions. They never sleep except for short inter- vals during their assemblies at evening or while they travel mounted on their camels, but they are always alert to catch the slightest sign of danger. Secluded in the solitude of the desert and proud of their pow-
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er, they trust in themselves and show by their conduct that audacity and bravery have become second natures to them. At the first warning or cry of alarm, they throw themselves into the midst of perils, placing their dependence upon their courage. The townsmen who meet them in the desert [to trade] or in military expeditions are always depend- ent upon them, being incapable of doing anything of themselves, as one can see with his own eyes. They (townsmen) overlook the posi- tions of landmarks and of oases; they do not know the destinations of desert routes. This ignorance arises out of the fact that the nature of man depends upon customs and manners and not on nature or tem- perament. The things to which one is accustomed give rise to new abilities, a second nature, which replaces innate nature. Examine this principle, study men, and you will see that it is nearly always true. "God creates what He wishes; He is the Creator, the all-knowing Be- ing" (Koran, XV, 86). Further, submission to the authorities in the city hinders the development of bravery among urban people and takes from them the habit of self-protection. None are masters of their ac- tions except a small number of rulers who command other men. One is nearly always subject to a higher authority, which fact necessarily leads to one of two results. If the authority is marked by its modera- tion and justice, if it does not make its force and coercive power felt too frequently, those who are subject to it show a spirit of independ- ence which rules them according to the amount of their courage. Be- lieving themselves free of all control, they reveal a presumption which has become a second nature for them, and they know no other guide. If, on the contrary, the authority is based on force and violence, the subjects lose their energy and their spirit of resistance; for the oppres- sion dulls their spirits, as will be shown later (XIX, 263-265).
The art of medicine is necessary for sedentary peoples but useless for nomads. — Medicine is absolutely necessary in all towns because of its well-recognized utility. It conserves the health of those who are well and rids the sick of their infirmities by submitting these sick persons to a treatment which restores their health to them. . . .
Diseases are very numerous among sedentary peoples and inhabi- tants of cities because of the abundance in which they live and the variety of things which they eat. They rarely limit themselves to a single kind of food; they eat all kinds, exercising no precaution, and in culinary procedures they mix diverse substances together, at the same time adding condiments, vegetables, and fruits, thus combining foods some of which are by nature dry and some moist. They are not content with a single dishful nor even with several: I have counted in one of these menus more than forty types of vegetables and meats. All these substances when introduced in the stomach form a mixture
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which usually is neither suited to the body nor to the parts of which the mixture is composed.
Let us add that in the cities the air is usually tainted by a mixture of putrid exhalations from many kinds of filth. When the air is pure it excites the activity of animal spirits and thus strengthens the influence exercised by the warmth of the organs on the digestive process. Fur- thermore, the inhabitants do not take enough exercise; they are ordi- narily very sedentary and love repose. The little amount of exercise that they do get does not produce any effect and has no useful result. Besides, diseases are more common in cities, and the more common they are the greater the need of medicine.
The people of the desert ordinarily eat but little, and, as they do not have much wheat, they so frequently suffer from pangs of hunger that it becomes an habitual state for them. Their fortitude in enduring hunger is such that one would be disposed to regard it as an innate disposition. Condiments are rarely used or are entirely lacking among them. Luxurious conditions which would tend to give rise to the art of preparing foods with spices and fruits are totally unknown to them. Their foods, which they eat without mixing, are of a kind which greatly resembles and is well suited to the nature of the body itself. While they are in their tents, the air which they breathe contains few foul particles because of the lack of humid and foul substances; and when they are en route the air is constantly changing. They do not lack physical exercise for they are always moving: they mount their horses, join in the chase, search for needed things, and labor to pro- cure necessities. All these activities make the digestion normal and healthy. They do not overload their stomachs and they enjoy an excel- lent constitution which makes them little susceptible to disease. This means that they rarely have need of medical aid. One never finds doc- tors in the desert, for one does very well without them there. If they had been necessary they would have been established for the preserva- tion of life. "Such is the plan which God follows in regard to his creatures, and the ways of God are unchanging" (Koran) (XX, 386- 391).
Men of small importance and needy countrymen are the only per- sons who ma\e a living by agriculture. — These persons adopt agricul- ture because it is an art whose practice is most embedded in human nature and whose techniques are the most simple. One rarely sees townsmen or rich men . make a living in this way. Those who follow it are even regarded as degraded beings. The Prophet has said upon seeing a plowshare: "These things never enter into a house without degradation entering also therein." El-Bokhari has understood this statement as being directed against an excessive engrossment in agri-
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 63
culture; and for that reason he has inserted it in his book under the following title: Some consequences to be jeared if one occupies himself with farming implements and if one goes beyond the limits which one has been commanded to obey. This degradation arises, in my opinion, from the fact that the cultivation of a field carries the obligation to pay a tax which places the cultivator under the rule of arbitrary power and violence. From this results the debasement of the taxpayer who finally falls into wretchedness in consequence of the oppression and tyranny which come to harass him (XX, 347-348).
Agricultural peoples are subject to the authority of the cities. — The civilization of the countryman is inferior to that of the city man; all the objects of prime necessity are found among the latter and are often lacking for the former. The fields cannot furnish the many agricul- tural implements to the cultivators nor offer them all the means which facilitate the culture of the earth; the manual arts above all are lack- ing. One finds neither carpenters, nor tailors, nor blacksmiths in the country. None of the arts which contribute to the basic needs of life and furnish the most indispensable tools to agriculture exist outside of the cities. Countrymen have neither gold nor silver money, but they possess the equivalent of it in the products of their fields and flocks. Milk is not lacking, nor wool, nor hair of camel and goat, nor hides, nor other things of which town residents have need. They ex- change these goods for currency. We observe that the countryman has need of the city man when he wishes to procure important imple- ments, while the city man can dispense with the former in so far as he does not seek the things which to him are of secondary necessity or which can contribute to his well-being. A people which continues to inhabit the open country without founding an empire or conquer- ing the cities would scarcely depart from the vicinity of an urban population. The rural population must work for the city men and conform to the orders and the requisitions of their government. If the city is commanded by a king, the people of the country humiliate themselves before the power of the monarch. If it has no king, it must have a chief for a governor or some type of council formed of citizens possessing power, for a city without government could scarcely pros- per. This chief causes the countrymen to obey and to serve him. Their submission can be either voluntary or constrained. In the first case it is obtained by money and by the gift of some objects of first necessity which the city alone can furnish. A country people from whom one buys services does not cease to prosper. In the second case, the city chief, if he is powerful enough, employs the force of arms against the unsubdued tribes; or he may strive to sow seeds of dis- union among them and to use a part of them by the aid of which he
64 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
will be able to succeed in dominating all of them. They submit in order to avoid the destruction of their homesteads. If they should wish to abandon that region to occupy another they could scarcely effect their plan, for they usually discover that the desired land is already in the control of a nomadic people intent on guarding it. In the im- possibility of finding a sanctuary they must resign themselves to sub- mission to the authority of the city; they can only submit and obey. "God is the absolute ruler of His creatures, He is the only Lord, the sole Being to be worshipped" (Koran) (XIX, 316-317).
The sciences flourish only in those places where civilization and sedentary life are highly developed. — We have said that education is one of the arts and that the arts develop most strikingly in the great cities. The greater the population of a city and the more prominent the civilization and luxury, the more the arts develop and multiply. This occurs because the culture of the arts begins after the subsistence of the people is assured, When men who are established in a society have been able to procure by their labors more than is required for them to live, they direct their attentions to a more distant end, occupy themselves with matters such as sciences and arts, which pertain more intimately to human nature. If the native of a village or a city which is not a metropolis is motivated by a natural disposition to acquire scien- tific knowledge, he will not find the means of instruction; for educa- tion is itself an art and the arts do not exist among the people of the country, as we have already shown. Thus it is necessary to repair to a great city in order to learn. It is thus with all the arts.
Let the reader recall what we said concerning Bagdad, Cordova, Cairo, etc., when we were speaking of the great prosperity that these cities enjoyed in the early days of Islamism and of the civilization that prevailed in them. The ocean of the sciences was full to overflowing in these cities, the inhabitants had adopted many technological systems for the practice of teaching and of the other arts, many were occupied in solving scientific problems and in following the sciences in all their branches; and these cities and their people ended by excelling the ancients and even the moderns. But when these cities had declined from their prosperous state and their inhabitants were dispersed in all directions, the carpet of science that had been unrolled was rolled up and carried away with all that covered it. The sciences then disap- peared from these places, along with education, being transported to other Moslem cities (XX, 448-449).
The art of writing is natural to man, but it must be learned. — Writ- ing acquires a high degree of beauty in the cities in harmony with the progress which men have made in social life and civilization and with their zeal to approach the various types of perfection. Writing, in fact,
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is one of the arts, and we have previously stated one of the conditions of all the arts is that they follow the progress of civilization. We have also seen that most of the nomads do not know how to read or to write, and that if any of them possesses these talents, the writing is unpolished and the reading is defective.
In the great capitals where civilization reaches a high point, the teaching is more efficient, more free, and more methodical because the practice of this art is solidly established in these places (XX, 391-392).
13. IBN-KHALDUN: URBANIZATION AND DECAY*
A sedentary civilization mar\$ the highest attainable degree of prog- ress and is an omen of decay. — Reason and history both tell us that in the space of forty years the powers and the growth of man attain their maximal limit, that nature then suspends her action for a time, and that decadence follows. It is the same with the civilization of sedentary life; it is the point beyond which there is no more progress. A people that finds itself living in ease naturally turns toward the customs of sedentary life and promptly adopts them. In this mode of existence civilization consists, as has been said, in the introduction of all types of luxury, in the search for what is better, and in a zeal to cultivate the several arts: those, for example, which have been invented to improve the cuisine, objects of attire, fine edifices, carpets, dishes, and all the other things that have a role in household economy. In order to achieve a satisfying result in each of these realms the cooperation of many arts is necessary, arts for which there is no need in nomadic Hfe and which are not at all sought therein. When one has carried every- thing associated with the household to the final limit of elegance, one turns to the cultivation of his passions, and habits of luxury impart a variety of taints to the soul which prevent its maintaining itself in the path of religion and prejudice its happiness in the world.
These customs regarded from the religious point of view take away the refinement of the soul and leave upon it some blemishes which are only with difficulty removed. Regarded from the point of view of the mundane world, they create so many needs and impose so many de- mands that one cannot gain enough by work to satisfy them. In order to make this clearer, let us observe that the great variety of arts which .are born in the civilization of great cities involves the inhabitants in great expense. The degree of that civilization varies with the size of the population; the greater the population the more complete the civili- zation. We have already said that all cities comprising a numerous population are distinguished by the high prices of the foods displayed
* Ibn-Khaldun, op. ctt.
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in the markets and of all objects that supply the needs of life. The duties imposed by the government on this merchandise contribute to the high prices. These taxes are very considerable, for the civilization attains its high development only in the period when the government has arrived at its highest degree of power, an epoch during which the administration is always establishing new imposts because it has great expenses at this time, as we have shown. These taxes have the effect of increasing the cost of everything that is sold . . . and obligate the in- habitants of the city to spend much and to depart from the limits of moderation, to throw themselves into prodigality. They could scarcely do otherwise, for they have become the slaves of their luxurious habits. They spend all they earn and allow themselves to be involved, one after another, in poverty and destitution. When the majority of them have been reduced to poverty, the number of purchasers decreases, commerce languishes, and the prosperity of the city suffers. All this is caused by civilization carried to the extreme and luxury that has gone beyond all limits.
These are the causes that do harm in a general way to a city because they injure its commerce and its population. Those that do harm to the city by acting on the individuals are: first, the fatigue and weari- ness which they experience in trying to satisfy habits of luxury which have become necessities for them, and second, the demoralizing im- pressions experienced by the soul in seeking to satisfy the requirements of vicious habits. The evil done by this process to the soul constantly increases because each blemish that it receives is followed by another. Depravity, wickedness, dishonesty, and the inclination to help them- selves by all possible means, good or bad, are augmented in these indi- viduals. The soul turns from virtue to reflect on these matters in order to become absorbed with their study and to devise some tricks by means of which it can accomplish its designs. One also sees these men boldly resort to lies, deceit, fraud, theft, and perjury in the sale of their goods. One will further note that their striking tendency to satis- fy their passions and to enjoy the pleasures introduced by luxury has rendered them familiar with all types of vice and with immorality in all its forms. They make an open display of indecency, and throwing aside all reserve they indulge in immodest conversations without being re- strained by the presence of their parents or their women. In this re- spect it is quite different in nomadic life, where the respect one bears toward women prevents one's speaking any obscene words before them. One will also recognize that in the cities there are people who are most skillful in the use of ruses and of tricks in order to avoid the forces of justice when it is about to catch them and to prevent the punishment which they know to be due them on account of their
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misdeeds. That has even become a habit and second nature for all of them except those whom God has preserved from sin. The city teems with a population of the lowest type, with a crowd of men with vile inclinations whose rivals in wrongdoing are some young men belong- ing to the great families, some sons of good birth left to themselves, excluded by the government from the group of officials. These men, despite their noble origin and the respectability of their families, have allowed themselves to be involved in vice by associating with bad com- pany. That fact is understood when one remembers that vice lowers all men to a common level. One must also remember that in order to distinguish himself and to maintain himself in the public esteem and to be known by his honorable character, it is necessary for one to strive to grow in merit and to avoid all that is vile. One who has contracted, no matter in what way, a strong taint of depravity and who has lost the sentiment of virtue will avail nothing by being able to claim mem- bership in a noble family or a pure race. That is why so many persons who come from noble families, illustrious and of high rank, are re- jected from society, relegated to the crowd, and obliged because of their corrupted morals to follow the most vile occupations in order to obtain a living. When there are many of these people in a city or a na- tion, it is the sign by which God announces the decay and the ruin of this people.
One will now understand the meaning of these words of God: "And when we wished to destroy a city, we addressed ourselves to those who live in luxury therein, and they hastened to commit some abomi- nations; thus our sentence was found justified, and we destroyed the city from top to bottom" (Koran, XVII, vs. 17). This is how de- moralization occurs: when one does not gain the things to supply his needs, to satisfy the numerous habits that one has built up, or to main- tain the ardor with which the soul seeks its pleasures, the fortunes become disordered; and when that comes successively to many per- sons in the city, everything becomes chaos and the city falls into ruin. . . .
Another cause oÂŁ the corruption of morals in the city or a sedentary civilization is the zeal with which, amidst pronounced luxury, one loosens the bridle of his passions, in order to plunge himself in de- bauchery. Then one invents, for the sake of his stomach, the most savory foods and agreeable beverages. One subsequently alters the be- havior to humor the carnal desires. . . .
The reader who will have understood and appreciated what we have just said will recognize that civilization is sedentary life and lux- ury, that it indicates the last stage of the progress of a society, and that, from this time on, the nation commences to decline, to become cor-
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rupted, and to fall into a state of decrepitude—a process which occurs in the natural life of all animals. We will even go so far as to state that the character of men formed under the influence of sedentary life and luxury is in itself the personification of evil. A man is not a man un- less he is able to procure by his own efforts that which will be useful to him and is able to reject that which would be harmful; it is for this purpose that he has received such a perfectly organized body. The resident of the city is incapable of providing his prime needs. Slothful- ness contracted from living in ease hinders him in this attempt; or it may even be the pride resulting from an education acquired in the midst of well-being and luxury. These two are equally at fault. The inhabitants of the cities, whose youth has been passed under the con- trol of preceptors charged with teaching them and punishing them, and who live thereafter in luxury, lose all their courage, have no longer enough energy to defend themselves against what would do them harm, and become a burden to the government which is obliged to protect them. That disposition is also harmful from the religious point of view because of the blemish of evil which the bad habits to which they are slaves have imprinted on their souls. That is a princi- ple which we have already established and which admits few excep- tions. When a man has lost the force of acting according to his good qualities and his piety, he has lost the character of a man and falls to the level of the beasts. When one views civilization in this way, one understands why those of the sultan's troops who have been reared in the harsh conditions of nomadic life are more effective and more use- ful than those who have spent their lives amidst the customs of seden- tary life. This fact is noted in all empires. It is thus evident that civili- zation marks the point of arrest in the development of a people or o£ an empire. "God is the only One, the all-powerful One" (Koran) (XX, 300-307).
B. THE EUROPEAN PEASANT DURING THE MIDDLE AGES
European writers of the Middle Ages, as has been mentioned, touched the problems here discussed only casually. Diverse re- marks and statements are scattered here and there in various political and philosophical treatises, in historical narratives, in literature, and in poetry, but they do not add a great deal to our discussion. Before we begin a survey of the most important of these statements, let us glance at the character of the stories and the poetry that depict rural life. The characteristics of the peasants as they appear in literature are exemplified in the subsequent
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 69
fragments from Paul Meissner's Der Bauer in der enghschen Literatur. What Meissner says of the medieval English stories, poems, and fiction may be said of the medieval literature of Eu- rope generally.
14. MEISSNER: THE PEASANT IN MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LITERATURE*
The literature of the Middle Ages is not favorable to the peasants, for it has decidedly aristocratic forms, and the peasant is too much an everyday matter to seem at all worthy of artistic consideration. f Where we meet the peasant, he is first of all depicted as the coarse and clumsy yokel about whom one laughs. When we investigate this in the corresponding works, we meet first of all the figure of Cain in the Totvneley Plays of the fourteenth century. To be sure, judgment must be somewhat restrained at this point. It is true, the peasant is "de- cidedly clumsy and coarse and, in addition, brutal; the comedy which he represents also corresponds entirely to his rustic manner, comedy that is of the very lowest type, quite in the spirit of the Middle Ages. It is expressed chiefly in the most obscene language, as well as in oaths and cuffs, which he bestows generously on his laborer." (Cf. Eckhardt, Die lustige Person im "dlteren englischen Drama, p. 30.)
But Cain is not merely the comical peasant. Even Eckhardt grants him a strong realistic trait, when he says: "Cain carries here clearly the characteristics of a north-English peasant of the fourteenth century. He is depicted as such with considerable fidelity and vivacity." This should have been emphasized even more, for already Cain appears clearly as the type of the niggardly peasant. The scene in which we see this peasant haggling with God really displays an extraordinarily keen power of observation. He has never demanded anything of God; how then can He at all demand that Cain should bring him a sacri- fice? And further, when he finally does condescend to give up part of his wealth, we detect a trace of this peasant cunning, which believes that it can nevertheless outwit God. Each sheaf of grain and each head of cattle is counted double, so that finally he is giving up only half of the amount due. These are clear beginnings of a psychological con- ception of the peasant.
This same double character is found in John the Reeve (ed. Laing, p. 43) from the fourteenth century. John is a rich peasant who pos- sesses a fine estate in a distant forest region. With true peasant arro-
* Paul Meissner, Der Bauer in der englischen Litcrcttur, Peter Hanitein, Bonn., 1922, pp. 17-25. Translated and printed with the permission of the publisher.
t EDITORS' NOTE. — This is generally true of the writings of the Middle Ages, with the exception of the writings of several prominent thinkers. See G. von Below, Problemc der Wirtschajtsgfschichte, Tubingen, 1926, p. 94.
70 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
gance he looks down upon the activity of his estate, though again he is conceived as a clumsy yokel. "With gentlemen I have nothing to doe," is his declaration when the lost king asks him for hospitality. Yet finally he is persuaded to admit the lost king to his home. The meal there is extraordinarily simple, but that is merely a trick of the crafty peasant, for he fears for his possessions should the king discover the extent of his wealth. Actually, however, as he declares with boastful peasant pride, although he "goes in a russet gowne" he can afford just as good wine as the king. The guest now promises to remain silent, and immediately a splendid meal, to which all do justice, is served.
Typically comical in the medieval sense is Vice Mischief in Man- 'kj-nd, a morality play of the time of Henry VI. He appears as a farm laborer in the first scene and indulges in obscenities. The same is true of Horestes, a tragedy by John Pikeryng, which originated about the middle of the sixteenth century. Two peasants appear in this, Hodge (the typical peasant abbreviation for Roger) and Rusticus, who are beaten by Vice. He then sets them by the ears until they, to his great pleasure, pummel each other lustily.
Besides the above, however, there existed during the Middle Ages a purely didactic, ethical conception of the peasant. He appears there as the representative of a class that is held up to all others as a model. That is in keeping with the customary reversal of current evaluations by the moralists and occasionally also by an outstanding poet such as Chaucer.
First mention is to be made of William Langland in his allegorical vision, Piers the Ploughman, which becomes significant for us from the moment that the peasant, Piers, comes into the foreground and at- tempts to show the road to Truth, to the seven deadly sins— the alle- gorical figures which are in conflict with Reason (Passus VI). He wants to become the leader, but declares previously:
bi Peter the Apostel,
I have an half aker, to herie bi the heije weye. Weore he well i-eried, thenne with ou wolde I wende, And wissen on the rihte weye, til je founden treuthe,
(Passus VII, 4 iff.)
We see that the labor of the peasant plays a certain role here. And this impression is strengthened by what follows, for the road to Truth leads only through Labor. Therefore the peasant assigns difficult tasks to all who would follow, and he who refuses is threatened with the specter of hunger. So in this poem there is already a faint indication oÂŁ something noble in the peasant. To be sure, we do not find in the poem anything of that which seems most important to us, namely,
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peasant activity and peasant life. It has already been mentioned that this was of no interest to the poet of the Middle Ages.
The poetical productions linked with Langland's poems, "Piers Plowman's Crede" (1394) and "The Plowman's Tale" (1395), are to be evaluated in exactly the same manner and therefore will merely be mentioned here. Especial emphasis may be placed on "God Spede the Plough," which is immediately related to the "Crede." The poet ques- tions the peasant regarding his activity, and receives the answer,
For all the Yere we labour with the lande
With many a comberous clot of claye.
Here we detect something of an understanding of the hard labor of the peasant, on whom, in addition, the heaviest taxes are often im- posed. The poem closes entirely in the spirit of Burns:
God give them grace such life to lede
That in there conscience maye be mercy enough,
And haven blisse to be their mede
And ever I praye: "God spede the plough."
Here we must also mention "How the Plowman Learned his Pater Noster." This is the story of the peasant who could not recite the Lord's Prayer. When the priest discovered that in confession, he or- dered him to learn it quickly if he wished to go to heaven. But "I wolde threshe, sayd the Plowman, yeres ten, rather than I it wolde leren," and he promises the cleric ten bushels of wheat and forty shillings if he will teach him the prayer. The matter is finally solved thus: the peasant is ordered to feed forty poor persons and ask each for his name; the names of the recipients are one or more words of the prayer, which the peasant learns in this manner. These are all, as one sees, more or less clearly didactic poems, which do not yield much for an actual understanding of the peasant.
The same thing is true of Skelton's "Colin Clout." Here, also, the peasant is the representative of the poor, religiously needy people, who complain about the fact that high ecclesiastical positions can be pur- chased, about the love of splendor among the clerics, and the negli- gence of the administration, in short, about everything that would have seemed vulnerable to a political, satirical pamphleteer under the system of Wolsey.
The traits which Chaucer attributes to his peasants in the Canter- bury Tales are perhaps a bit more personal. There is the Plowman, "That hadde y-lad of dong full many a fother" (Prologue, 530). He seems very likable. Unfortunately the figure is not sufficiently deline- ated to give a well-rounded picture, but in the few lines we find simi- larities to Burns. Of him also it is said that "he was Livinge in pees
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and parfit charitee" (532) . Praise is also bestowed upon his piety and his love for his neighbor which goes so far that
He wolde threshe, and therto dyke and delve,
For Cristes sake, for every poure wight,
Withouten hyre, if it lay in his might.
(536 ff.)
The Yeoman appearing in the Prologue also appeals to us, but he is conceived more as a forester and attendant on his lord than as a peasant. The type of the well-situated peasant is also indicated in Chaucer, for example by the Frankelyn (Prologue, 331 if.). He loved his wine even in the morning.
To liven in delyt was ever his wone.
He is decidedly an Epicurean, whose cellar and storerooms burst with supplies. He eats and drinks, but not without preferences:
After the sundry seasons of the year So changed he his mete and his soper.
In summary, we might say that during the Middle Ages a certain interest arises in the ethical side of the peasant, as well as in the merely comical one — an interest born out of the religious and social criticism of that time.
C. EUROPEAN THINKERS BEFORE THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
After this outline of the character of medieval fiction and stories about the peasants and rural life, let us pass to a brief sur- vey of the opinions of prominent medieval thinkers in the field. These opinions are also somewhat casual. But as we proceed to the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, the theories become more and more developed and detailed. I. JOHN OF SALISBURY
In the Policraticus, John of Salisbury (1120-1180), like Vegetius Renatus and almost all writers of antiquity and the Middle Ages, claims that the best soldiers are "country-folk who have been brought up under the open sky and in habits of work, trained to endure the sun's heat, caring nothing for the shade, ignorant of pleasures of the bath and other luxuries, simple-minded, con- tent with little food, their limbs hardened to endure all manner of toil, and with whom it was a habit from the country life to wield a sword, dig a ditch, and carry a load," a statement which
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 73
later on is repeated by Machiavelli, almost literally, although without reference to his sources.
It is, of course, not to be denied that from the foundation of Rome it was from the city that the Romans always went forth to their wars; but then it was a city where there was no indulgence in luxuries. The soldier and the husbandman were one and the same man; he only changed the character of his implements, which was true to the point even that the dictatorship was offered to Quintus Cincinnatus while he was plowing; and "his flurried wife clothed him with the dictator's robes while the cattle looked on, and a lictor drove home his plow." From the fields and farms, then, the strength of the army is to be chiefly recruited.3
On the other hand, the author satirizes the youth of the cities, depicts the pernicious effects of the town's comforts and luxury, such as softening, effeminacy, licentiousness, lack of vigor, cour- age, and determination, etc.4
Another point in the work is the comparison of the social status of the husbandmen with that of other social orders. While, in the Policraticui organic analogy, the prince is compared with the head of the social organism, the senate with the heart, the officials with the belly, the governors of the provinces with the eyes, ears, and tongues, the army with the armed hands, the small officials with the unarmed hands, the husbandmen and artisans are com- pared with the feet of a social organism. Among this last class the husbandmen are first mentioned.5 Translating this into our ter- minology, the class of husbandmen was placed by the Policraticus below that of professionals, clergy, nobility, and officials, but not below any other class of medieval society. This ranking, in its essence, is identical with that of the Hindu, Zoroastrian, Chinese, -and, in part, the Greek and Roman sources. II. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
In sharp contradiction to the opinions of the majority of the great social thinkers stands St. Thomas Aquinas' (1225-1274) estimation of the peasant class. It is given by him in his Com- mentaries to Aristotle's Politics. Though the work seems not to have been written entirely by him, nevertheless it expresses his
8 The Statesman's Book, of John Salisbury, in the Policraticus, trans, by J. Dickinson, New York, 1927, pp. 181-183. 4 Ibid., 193, 221 passim. *lbid.. p. 243.
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ideas. Like Aristotle he regards the state as the most perfect and highest form of socio-political organization. But, contrary to Aris- totle, he interprets the state as a city composed of many houses and divided into many streets, every one of which is the location for a certain occupational group whose totality makes the city self-sufficient. Dwelling in such a city he regards as a natural state of man, and dwelling outside of it as an unnatural state. For this reason, the peasants who live outside of the city do it, not because they would not like to dwell in the city, but because of their pov- erty, lack of ability, and inferiority; they are in the same position as a man with one arm or one eye, who is thus hampered, not because he would not like to have two arms or two eyes but be- cause he cannot have them. That such an interpretation of St. Thomas' statements is correct is shown by his definite statements that, though his self-sufficient city must have its own lands and agricultural population to provide agricultural products, yet this class of the population is the lowest among all the classes in the city.6 These comments about the Politics of Aristotle who, as we saw, estimated husbandmen much higher than city artisans and workers, show quite clearly that St. Thomas did not care to fol- low Aristotle on this point and that he deliberately deviated from his opinions.7 III. SIR THOMAS MORE
Writers such as Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) and Sir John Fortescue expressed opinions similar to those of John of Salis- bury. Fortescue regarded the rural masses of his day as the best soldiers and the most healthy people. More in his Utopia made
fl "It is impossible that all the citizens (the inhabitants of the city) should cultivate the city's land; it is appropriate that the superiors take care of the business while the inferiors take care of agriculture: and it is appropriate that the superiors who work less in agriculture should receive more from its products." Other statements of St. Thomas cast still less pleasant invectives upon the husbandmen, so much so that Max Weber only slightly exaggerates the situation by saying: "Thomas Aquinas, in discussing the dif- ferent social classes and their relative worth, speaks with extreme contempt of the peasant." (Max Weber, General Economic History, p. 317.) See the details of this point in Max Maurenbrecher, Thomas von Aquino's Stellung zum Wtrtschajtsleben seiner Zeit, pp. 40-41, 70 ff.; see there other literature. Explaining this attitude of St. Thomas, Maurenbrecher is not far from the truth in saying that it was probably due to the great poverty of the peasants in Italy. They were in almost complete dependency upon the cities in the thirteenth century. St. Thomas, also being an urbanite and knowing little, if anything, about peasant life, simply reflected the existing social situation as it appeared to an urbanite. Ibid,, pp. 73-74.
T See St. Thomas Aquinas, Vlll libros poltticorum sett de rebus civilibus, ed. Farm., XXI, 364-716.
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agriculture an occupation which, for a period of two years, was obligatory upon all persons of his ideal society, regardless of whether they were born in the city or the country.
They have in the country in all parts of the shire houses or farms builded, well appointed and furnished with all sorts of instruments and tools belonging to husbandry. These houses be inhabited of the citizens, which come thither to dwell by course. No household or farm in the country hath fewer than forty persons, men, and women. . . . Out of every one of these families or farms cometh every year into the city twenty persons which have continued two years before in the country. In their place so many fresh be sent thither out of the city. . . . This manner and fashion of yearly changing and renewing the occupiers of husbandry, though it be solemn and customably used, to the intent that no man shall be constrained against his will to con- tinue long in that hard and sharp kind of life, yet many of them have such a pleasure and delight in husbandry, that they obtain a longer space of years.8
IV. NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) made but casual remarks on these subjects. He stressed many times the facts that the city easily breeds tumult, disorder, luxury, vice, and licentiousness, and that class struggle very often and very successfully originates and de- velops in the cities. In this way the city is often a factor in social disorganization and demoralization. However, he does not regard these concomitants of city life as absolutely inevitable and un- avoidable.9 He also gives a sound theory of the origin of the cities.10 Of the specific characteristics of the rural people he em- phasizes particularly their endurance, physical fitness, industrious- ness, lack of maliciousness and deceit, and their possession of other qualities which are necessary for good soldiers:
Those that have written of such matters (whether to chuse the sol- diers from the city or the country people) , doe all agree, that it is best to chuse them out of the countrie, being men accustomed to no ease, nurished in labours, used to stonde in the sunne, to flie the shadow, knowing how to occupy the spade, to make a diche, to carrie a burden, and to bee without any deceite, and without malisiousness.11
8 Sir Thomas More, The Utopia, London, G. Routledge & Sons, pp. 84-85.
°See N. Machiavelli, The Florentine History (Tudor Translations), London, 1905, pp. 130-177 and passim; "Discorsi sopra la prima dcca di Tito Livio" in Opere com- plete di N. Machiavelli, Florence, 1843, pp. 279 ff. and passim; The Prince (Tudor Translations), London, 1905, pp. 293-294.
10 N. Machiavelli, "Discorsi" in Opere complete di N, Machiavelli, pp. 2560.
11 The Arte of Warre (Tudor Translations), pp. 44, 49-50, 70.
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Finally in his sketch, "La Mente di un uomo di stato3/ he stresses that agriculture, together with commerce, is the foundation of prosperity; and that "the possession of land is more stable and firm wealth than the wealth based on mercantile industry." 12
V. FRANCIS BACON
The casual remarks of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) show that he viewed agriculture and husbandmen rather favorably. In his essay "Of Riches," which discusses the best ways to increase riches, he awards the first place to agriculture.
The improvement of the ground is the most natural obtaining of riches; for it is our great mother's blessing, the earth's; but it is slow; and yet, where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multi- plieth riches exceedingly. . . . The gains of ordinary trades and voca- tions are honest. . . . Usury is the certainest means of gain, though one of the worst. . . ,13
VI. GIOVANNI BOTERO
Of the social thinkers of the sixteenth century Giovanni Botero (1540-1617) deserves especial mention. His treatise Delia ragion di stato, libri died. Con tre libri delle cause della grandezza e rnagnificenza della citta^ (1590) represents, in the first part, a remarkable treatise upon the causes of the growth and the ag- grandizement of the state and the causes of its decay; while, in the second part, it gives a still more interesting analysis of the causes of the aggrandizement and decay of cities. Like the majority of ancient and medieval thinkers, Botero is a partisan of a cyclical theory of the historical process: states and cities appear, grow, reach their climax, and decay, by virtue of the "intrinsic" causes (sedition, revolt, incompetence of the rulers, vice, licentiousness, loss of virility, energy, etc.) or "the extrinsic" (calamity, war, pestilence, etc.) (pp. 3-5, 328-334). In so far as the growth of a state manifests itself in the growth of cities and their splendor, wealth, and luxury, the development of urbanized states is but a prelude to a decay because
with the grandeur of the state (or the city) wealth grows; with it, vice, luxury, pride, licentiousness, avarice, the root of all evils; and the states whom frugality led to growth are now disorganized through opulence;
12 N. Machiavelli, Opere complete, pp. 1163-1164.
"Francis Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, Oxford, 1911, pp. 112-113. 14 See the first edition: "In Ferrara. MDXC. Appresso Vittono Baldini stampator ) con licenza de i Superiori."
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 77
in addition, grandeur leads to overconfidence in the state's force and security; overconfidence leads to negligence, to arrogance, and to contempt for the people and for enemies. . . . Valor, developed through difficulties, leads to the grandeur of the state; but valor, re- maining in peaceful and luxurious conditions, degenerates into crimi- nality and becomes mortified by voluptuousness; under such circum- stances there appear a lack of generous ideas, excellent plans, and honorable enterprises; instead of them the ostentation, arrogance, am- bition, and avarice of the magistrates grow; the crowd becomes im- pertinent, the military leaders transform themselves into buffoons; the soldiers become babblers; the truth is replaced by adulation; respect for virtue, by that for wealth; justice, by bribery; simplicity, by decep- tion; and goodness, by malice (pp. 6-8).
Among the factors that are necessary for the progress of a so- ciety, or a city, Botero particularly stresses the importance of agri- culture.
Agriculture is the foundation for the growth of population. By agri- culture we mean every industry dealing with the soil or prevailed over by it in whatever form. ... It was the principal care of the great and most diligent first kings of Rome. . . . Dionysius, the king of Portu- gal, called the cultivators the nerves of the state; Isabel, the queen of Castile, often said that in order for Spain to have an abundance of everything it would be advisable to follow the example of the Fathers of St. Benedict because they miraculously cured their land (p. 178) .
Following this, Botero gives many cases to illustrate the primary importance, from many standpoints, of agriculture and the agri- cultural population: it is the foundation of all other industries; it is the basis of the economic prosperity of a country; it is miracu- lously healthful; and so on (pp. 178-181).
Other generalizations of Botero worthy to be mentioned are: that the fertility of the people is higher in the country and their mortality is lower than in the city (pp. 186 ff., 328-333) ; that city people are more inclined to disorders than are country people (p. 326) ; that the principal factors in the growth of the city popu- lation is not solely, nor so much, a natural increase as it is an in- flux of people who have been attracted to the city from other parts of the country and from other countries (pp. 268 S .) ; that principal factors in the growth and aggrandizement of a city are: a favorable location, fertility of its lands, the conveniency of the traffic ways to and from the city, security in the city, rights and privileges for the people in the city, presence and abundance of
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the means of recreation, prestige as a religious center, the presence of institutions for arts and sciences, the efficient organization of justice, the development of industry and commerce, immunity for its citizens, location of the central government in it, and the dwelling of the nobility in the city. The city itself is defined by Botero as follows:
A city is an aggregation of men brought together in order to live happily. The grandeur of the city is manifest not in the extension of its abode, nor of the girth of its wall, but in the multitude of its inhabi- tants and their power. Men are brought together here either by the command of the authority, by force, by pleasure, or by the utility which comes from it (p. 268).
Finally, discussing the problem of why all cities have a limit to their growth beyond which they cannot go, Botero indicates that it is neither due to a decrease of the potential fertility of the city population, to the will of Providence, nor to other causes, but is principally due to the increasing difficulty in maintaining social order and proper mores in an ever increasing population. Particu- larly is it due to the progressive increase of the difficulties in pro- curing supplies for an enormous urban population. The greater the city, the greater becomes the distance that supplies must be transported. With the increase of distance between the city and the areas from which its supplies are brought, the security, regu- larity, and ease of importation from such places rapidly decreases. The difficulty increases; the chances for failure caused by a storm, the destruction of the roads, brigands, an enemy, and so on, rap- idly increase. Sooner or later there appears a discrepancy between the amount of supplies necessary for the population of the city and the amount that can be brought in. The result is shortage and famine; disease and epidemics increase; disorders appear which still more aggravate the situation. It is only relieved by an enor- mous emigration from the city to other, more fortunate places. These considerations are sufficient to explain why any city, ac- cording to Botero, has a limit to its growth (pp. 328-334) .15
15 Though little attention was given to rural life and people by the prominent thinkers of the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries there was produced a series of works which are devoted especially to agriculture. Though these works deal mainly with the technical side of agriculture and farm management, they contain some general views concerning the importance of agriculture from economic, political, moral, and social standpoints. The opinions are somewhat similar to those of ancient — predominantly Roman — writers, like Varro and Cato. A sample of such works is given by the Czech treatise Hospodar
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VII. HUGO GROTIUS
In the famous treatise by Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), husband- men are mentioned only in connection with war and its laws. Grotius indicates that all of the authorities instruct the belligerent parties to spare children, women, clergy, merchants, and hus- bandman "whom also the Canons include." Diodorus, praising the Indians, says that in their wars, the warriors fight, but they leave the cultivators unmolested, as the common bene- factors of both sides. So Plutarch, of the old Corynthians and Megar-
eans. So Cyrus proposed to the king of Assyria. So Belisarius acted
It is best that agriculture should be secured even in the contested re- gions. . . . Not only that cultivators should be out of danger of war, but animals for the plough, and the seed for sowing. . . . There should be peace with the cultivator, war with the soldiers. . . . The divine law forbids the cutting down of fruit-trees for warlike uses . . . and adds the reason that "the tree of the field is man's life" and they cannot war against men, as man can.16
VIII. THOMAS HOBBES
In his discussion "Of those things that weaken a common- wealth" Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) also touches incidentally on the rural-urban problem. Among the factors which cause the dis- solution of a commonwealth he stresses the excessive growth of the cities and their satellites.
Another infirmity of a commonwealth is the immoderate greatness of a Town. ... As also the great number of Corporations . . . the lib- erty of disputing against absolute Power, by the pretenders to Political Prudence. ... As also the Lethargy of Ease, and Consumption of Riot and Vain Expense. ... As also the reading of the books of Pol- icy.17
IX. J. B. VICO
In The First New Science and The Second New Science by J. B. Vico (1668-1744) there are several good typological charac- terizations of the natures of men, language, mores, laws, ethics, psychology, religion, authority, and the government of the hu- man society at "the Divine, the Heroic, and the Human" stages.
(Farmer} printed in 1587 by Veleslavin, in Prague. The first eighteen pages of this work contain the above general "philosophy of agriculture.'* Similar works were pub- lished in England, Germany, and other European countries.
16 Hugonts Grotii de jure belli et pads libri tres, accompanied by a translation of W. Whewell, Cambridge University Press, Bk. Ill, chap, xi, p. 11; chap, xii, pp. 2-4.
"Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Everyman's Library, 1924, Part II, chap, xxix, pp. 174, 177.
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However, Vico does not definitely correlate any of these stages with the rural or the urban stages, nor with rural or urban condi- tions. For this reason it would be somewhat incorrect to ascribe the characteristics of one of these stages to the rural or to the urban people. One thing, however, it seems possible to say justi- fiably: that Vico's "divine stage" and, in part, his "heroic stage" of each society correspond to the pre-urban or slightly urban con- ditions, while his "human stage" presupposes a developed urban life.18
In so far as it is possible to interpret Vico's characterization of each of these stages as a transition from a pre-urban and predomi- nantly agricultural stage to a stage of greater urbanization, the principal contrasts between the less and the more urbanized stages of a society may be summed up as follows. As we pass from the former (the divine and the heroic stages) to the latter (the human stage), we have the following changes in the specified fields of social organization, social processes, and the cultural, psychological, and vital characteristics of the people living in each stage.
1. In the field of the nature of men: there is a gradual transi- tion during these changes in stages from men who are strong, virile, stern, somewhat ferocious and impulsive, men weak in ab- stract thinking, but strong in imagination and capable of creative poetical thinking, men whose violent emotions and proclivities are checked by a profound fear of the gods and by unquestioned belief — from such men there is a change to men less virile, less stern and much more human, men less imaginative, less poetical, and less impulsive, but more capable of abstract thinking, men whose behavior is controlled in a much less degree by the fear of gods, religion, and belief in supernatural powers, but whose behavior is guided more by human reason and considerations of utility and by the recognition of social duties of a purely social and utilitarian character. The supreme wisdom of the men of the pre-urban stages is incorporated in poetry, symbols, and images, while among the men of the urban stage it is in abstract thinking, philosophy, and science.
2. In the field of mores: a transition from the mores of piety,
18 J. B. Vico, Principes de la philosophic de I'histoire, tr adults de la Scienza nuova by J. Michelet (French translation of the Seconda scienza nuova} , Bruxelles, 1835, pp. 77-81 ff.
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religion, and honor to those motivated and controlled by purely human social duties required in the name of social welfare.
3. In the field of natural laws: from the natural laws regarded as the absolute and mysterious commands of gods, manifested by the priesthood or by the strongest leader-heroes, to the natural laws dictated purely by human reason and free from any reli- gious or mysterious sanction.
4. In the field of the types of government: a transition from theocratic government incarnated in the sages, oracles, and poets (priesthood) or in the strongest and ablest heroes whose authori- ty is based on the will of the gods and supported by wisdom, heroic actions, and force, to government — monarchial or republi- can— democratic in its nature and based on the principles of equality, will of the majority, identical laws for all, and the gen- eral standardization of the opportunities for promotion to the governmental positions.
5. In the field of the family: The less urban stages are marked by patriarchal familism and in them the paterfamilias is the head of the family, the priest, the legislator, the hero, the ruler, the mouthpiece of the gods, and the dispenser of supernatural and natural wisdom; and vice versa, the ruler, the legislator, or the king is but a paterfamilias. As a consequence the family is a sacred and indissoluble social unit. As we pass to the more urban- ized human stage, familism weakens; the paterfamilias loses more and more of his absolute power and authority. He is no longer accepted as the mouthpiece of the gods, as a hero, as a ruler, or as the incarnation of wisdom and heroism. And the family itself, stripped of its religious,' sacred, and mystical foun- dations becomes less integrated, less stable, and less indissoluble; it tends to become a mere human institution whose destinies are decided by considerations of a purely utilitarian character.
6. In the field of language: a transition from the mute lan- guage of the sacred and symbolical gestures and ceremonies and signs which are regarded as having a mystical significance, to the articulated, oral or written (hieroglyphics and coats of arms) vul- gar language known and interpreted by everyone. This is a great contrast to the previous stages where the mute language of signs and gestures could be interpreted only by the sages and heroes.
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And these symbolical signs and gestures were regarded as the manifestation of the will of the gods and supernatural powers.
7. In the fields of law, social authority, mind, and culture: a transition took place from a culture in which any law, any au- thority, any decision of the court, any institution (particularly the institution of private property), any art, any belief, any custom was based upon divine authority, had a sacred foundation, and was carried on by the oracles, the sages, or the heroes — men who were supposed to be the mouthpieces of the divine power and will — to a culture where everything was stripped of this divine, mysterious, and supernatural foundation, where everything tended to be motivated by purely positive human reason — limited and weak — and by the very relative considerations of human comfort and convenience.
This more urbanized "human" stage is regarded by Vico as the beginning of the decay of a society, as the precursor of coming disorganization, degeneration, and anarchy. In the process of this unavoidable anarchy such a society is doomed to disintegrate and to fall into the most primitive bestial conditions and here either to perish or to evolve again from it into the stage of the "gods" with all the typical traits of this divine stage; after that such a society passes again to the stage of heroes and finally to that of men, and the cycle is repeated again. Such are the principal gen- eralizations of this great thinker.19
D. THE PHYSIOCRATS
The Physiocratic School is characterized by a harmonious and inwardly coherent system of social and economic philosophy. Among the principles of the school, the following directly con- cern our problem: first, that the only source of real wealth is the earth and its creative forces; second, that only the agricultural class is a productive class in the proper sense of the word (all the other classes are unproductive, although useful to a society); third, that the excessive growth of cities, manufacturing, and com-
19 Vico, op. cit., pp. 21 Iff., 317-334, 375 ÂŁE.; Vico, Principi di una scienzct nnovat secondo la terza impression? del MDCCX, Milano, 1854, pp. 39 ff., 464 E, and Bk. V. The usual interpretation of Vice's theory as a theory of a spiral progress is wrong. His Seconda scienza nuova does not give the slightest basis for the assumption that Vico believed in a theory of spiral progress nor any progress, generally; his ricorsi were regarded by him as eternal, varying only in their secondary concrete details. See par- ticularly Bk. V of the Seconda scienza nuova.
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merce, with luxury and other accompaniments, is rather danger- ous and, at any rate, is less enriching and profitable than the de- velopment of agriculture. Side by side with these principles they stressed many other rural-urban uniformities such as : rural-urban health and vitality, soundness of mores and morals, cosmopolitan- ism and nationalism, the character of rural-urban migration and relationships, and many others. All in all, the Physiocratic School has been, possibly, the most pro-rural current of thought known, not alone in its doctrines but in its practices. The subsequent fragments taken from the works of the founder of the school, F. Quesnay (1694-1774) ; from the work of Mercier de la Riviere (1720-1793 or 1794), justly regarded as the most systematic formu- lation of the Physiocratic social and economic philosophy; and from the Rural Philosophy of Mirabeau the elder (I' ami des hommes), father of the famous Mirabeau, the leader of the great French Revolution, substantiate the above principles of the Phy- siocratic School. In addition, it is to be noted that many of these opinions were shared by other economists and social thinkers of that time, even though they did not properly belong to the Physi- ocratic School. An example of this is given by Condillac's "Le commerce et le gouvernment" (1776). In it he praises agriculture as the first and the most important art, the simple, but sound, virtuous, and happy life of the simple agricultural societies. He indicates the increase of corruption, unhappiness, and disorders with the complication of societies, growth of cities, and develop- ment of commerce and luxury.20 This attitude, common to many of the thinkers of that time (for instance to Morelli, the author of the famous communistic Code de la nature (1775), and to the Abbot Mably, the author of De la legislation (1776), and others, found its most conspicuous expression in J. J. Rousseau, whose theories are given later.
15. QUESNAY: CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL CLASSES*
The nation may be divided into three classes of citizens: the produc- tive class, the class of proprietors, and the sterile class. The productive class is the one which reproduces annually the wealth
20 See Condillac, "Le commerce et le gouvernment," chaps, xxvi-xxvii, in the Collec- tion des principaux economists*, Paris, 1847, XIV, 347, 353-354.
* F. Quesnay, "Analyse du tableau e"conomique," in Collection des principattx econo- mistes, Paris, 1846, II, Part I, p. 58,
84 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
of the nation by cultivating the land, which pays in advance for th< expense involved in the work of agriculture, and which pays annualb the revenues of the proprietors. There is included in the dependena of this class all the work and all the expense entailed by it up to th< first sale of the products: it is by this sale that the value of the annua reproduction of the wealth of the nation is determined.1
The class of proprietors comprises the sovereign, the land owners and the tithe-owners. This class subsists by the revenue or net produce of cultivation, which is paid to it annually by the productive class, aftei the latter has deducted for its annual reproduction the necessary amount of wealth to reimburse itself for its annual advances and foi maintaining its wealth by improvement.
The sterile class is formed of all the citizens occupied in work othei than that of agriculture; and whose expenses are paid by the produc tive class and by the proprietor class, who in turn take their revenue; from the productive class.
16. QUESNAY: REAL AND FICTITIOUS PRODUCTION OF WEALTH*
M. N. The idea of production, or regeneration, which forms here the basis for the distinction between general classes of citizens, is con- fined within physical limits reduced so rigorously in reality, that they are no longer conformable to the vague expressions used in ordinary language. But it is not for the natural order to conform itself to a language which expresses only confused and equivocal ideas; it is for the expressions to conform themselves to the exact understanding of the natural order, in the rigorous distinctions subjected to reality.
I perceive that the distinctions of productive class and sterile class seem to you not to permit us to put any other class between them; for it seems that there is no middle ground between the affirmative and the negative, between a productive class and a nonproductive class. This is true in the cases which exclude all other relations, but it is easy to perceive: (1) that the proprietors, who do not advance expense money and do not do the work of cultivation, which does not
1 [Footnote of the editor of Quesnay's work.] We see that, in this system, the term quoted is given only to the raw products of nature in the three kingdoms, animal, vege- table, and mineral. Consequently, Quesnay, conceiving work under three distinct aspects, according to how it produces, distributes, or conserves wealth, called productive labor that oÂŁ agriculture in all its branches, such as the exploitation of fisheries, mines, and quarries; distributive labor that which procures occasional and temporary services, useful or pleasant, or which has to do with the manufacture of ahmental commodities, the consumption of which is to take place instantaneously; conservative labor that which has as its object keeping provisions from spoiling and satisfying the needs for clothing, housing, defending, educating, and amusing man, by the creation of materials, houses, furniture, arms, machines, books, jewelry, pictures, statues, etc.
* F, Quesnay, "Dialogue sur les travaux des artisans," op. at., II, Part I, 186-191.
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permit of ranking them in the productive class, have begun neverthe- less by making the original advances for putting the land in a state ready for cultivation, and remain still charged with the upkeep of their patrimony, which no longer permits us to confuse them with the sterile class; (2) that there is a communication continually maintained between the two extreme classes, by the receipts and expenditures of an intermediary class. The order of society supposes essentially, then, this third class of citizens, preparers and guardians of cultivation, and proprietary dispensers of the net proceeds. It is under this last aspect that we must consider in particular this mixed class, with reference to the two others: their communication between each other is an outcome of the communication that the class itself has with these classes. The distinction of the class of proprietors is, then, from the first inevitable, to follow clearly and without interruption the progress of communica- tions between the different parts of the order of society.
M. H. That could be, if I were, like you, limiting production to only the wealth that comes from the soil; but I cannot conceal from you that I see always a real production in the work of the artisans, in spite of all the dissertations that have been published for some time, with the object of making this production disappear.
M. N. We have not undertaken to make the production of work made by the labor of artisans disappear, for it is the production of this same work that you see. But you ought to have perceived in the disser- tations of which you speak, that it is not a question of such a produc- tion; but of a production of real worth: I say real, because I do not wish to deny that there may be a certain value to the raw material of the work made by the artisans, since work increases the value of the raw material of their work.
M. H. I confess to you, however, that I do not see where this devel- opment can lead you. . . .
M. N, Well, would you not tell me that a shoemaker who has made a pair of shoes has produced an increase in wealth, since the mercenary value of this pair of shoes surpasses by a great deal that of the leather that the shoemaker has used? Now, it is the mercenary value which gives to productions the quality of wealth; and you think you can de- rive from that an impregnable argument in favor of the production from the work of the shoemaker, in favor, I say, of the reality of a true production of wealth?
M. H. According to your very principles, would not such an argu- ment be decisive?
M. N. We must distinguish an addition of collected wealth from a production of wealth; that is, an increase through the assembling of raw materials, and of expenses in consumption of things which existed
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before this sort of increase, from a generation or creation of wealth, forming a renewal and real increase of wealth.
Those who do not distinguish this true and that false increase oi wealth fall without realizing it into continual contradictions when they reason on the so-called production of wealth resulting from the work of artisans. They admit that the more one can, without prejudice, save expense or costly labor in the manufacturing of the work of arti- sans, the more this economy is profitable by the diminution of the price of this work. At the same time, they believe that the production of wealth resulting from the work of artisans consists in the increase of the mercenary value of their work: these contradictory ideas exist in the same head and thwart each other continually without the dis- sensions being perceived.
The cosdy labor of the lace-maker adds an increase in mercenary value to the thread which is the raw material of lace. Then, we con- clude, the making of the lace has produced an increase of wealth. We may think the same of the labor of painters who make pictures for large prices; for, the more dearly the work of artists and artisans is paid for, the more it seems f reductive.
This drinking glass only costs a sou, the raw material that is used in making it is worth a Hard : the work of the glass maker quadrupled the value of this material. It is then a production of wealth which has procured a threefold increase: it would be, then, very advantageous according to you, to find a way of making a similar glass which would employ two workers for a year, or even better four workers for two years; consequently you would tell us also that it would be very disad- vantageous to invent a machine which would make without cost, or with little expense, beautiful laces and fine pictures. In fact, the inven- tion of printing brought forth some very serious arguments on the diminution of the work of writers; nevertheless, as we know, printing was fully adopted. Thus, my dear fellow, bring your ideas into har- mony, if you can, with all these contradictions; if not, the object of the so-called production of wealth by the work of artisans appears no longer of any moment, . . .
It is evident that there is only a circulation without increase of wealth, a circulation regulated by the extent of the annual expenditures of the nation, an amount which is equal to that of the wealth being annually reproduced from the land. The work of artists and artisans, then, cannot be extended beyond the portion of expense that the nation can use there, by reason oÂŁ the total amount of wealth that it can spend annually.
This work cannot, then, increase the wealth that the nation spends annually, since it is itself limited in proportion to this wealth, which
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cannot increase except by the work of agriculture, and not by expendi- tures for the work of artisans. Thus the origin, the source of all expen- diture and all wealth, is the fertility of the land, the products of which we can multiply only by its own products. It is that which furnishes the advances to the cultivator who fertilizes it to make it produce more. The artisan can contribute to it only by making instruments necessary for digging up the soil and which, if there were no artisan, the culti- vator would make himself. What does it matter who may be the worker, the earth must have produced in advance what he has con- sumed for his subsistence: it is not then his work which has produced this subsistence. The consumption of subsistence has not produced any- thing either, since this consumption is only a destruction of wealth produced in advance by the soil. In vain the worker would strive to augment his work, to increase his salary or his consumption, for he cannot extend them beyond the productions which actually exist for his consumption and for that of all the other men who compose the nation.
You must, then, notice that it is not the demands of the artisans, who would know only how to pay with the salary that they have re- ceived, which regulate the price of production; but it is the needs and the quantity of production itself which decide mercenary values.
17. QUESNAY: FARMERS AND THE CITY*
The farmers are those who farm and improve the country and who procure the most essential wealth and resources for supporting the state; thus the occupation of the farmer is a very important object in the kingdom and merits great attention on the part of the government. ... In the provinces where cultivation is done with oxen, the agricul- turist is poor; cultivation alone cannot keep the peasant busy. Their food, which scarcely sustains life, ruins the body, makes a part of the men perish in infancy; those who resist such nourishment, who keep their health and strength, and who have intelligence, free themselves from this unhappy state by taking refuge in the cities. The most debili- tated and most inept remain in the country, where they are as useless to the state as they are burdensome to themselves.
In the rich provinces where agriculture is maintained, the peasants have many resources. They sow some acres of land in wheat and other grains; it is the farmers for whom they work and do the ploughing, and it is the wife and children who receive the products of it. The little
*F. Quesnay, "Fermiers," op. at., II, Part I, 219, 245-251,
EDITORS' NOTE. — The term "farmer," as distinguished from that of "peasant," is used here in the sense of a relatively large-scale entrepreneur and manager of land either belonging to him or rented from the nobility.
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crops which give them a part of their nourishment produce for them provender and fertilizer. They cultivate flax, hemp, potherbs, and vegetables of all kinds; they have cattle and poultry, which furnish good food for them and on which they make some profit; they procure for themselves by their work grains for the remainder of the year; they are always busy with field work; they live without constraint and without restlessness; they scorn the servitude of domestics, valets — slaves of other men; they do not envy the fate of the people of the lower classes who live in the cities, who dwell at the tops of houses, and who are limited by earnings scarcely sufficient for their needs of the moment, and who, being obliged to live without any forethought of the needs to come, are continually exposed to languishing in indi- gence.
The peasants do not fall into misery and do not abandon the prov- ince except when they are too disturbed by the vexations to which they are exposed, or when there are no farmers procuring work for them, or when the country is cultivated by the poor small farmers limited to a small cultivation that they execute very imperfectly themselves. The portion that the small farmers derive from their little harvest, which is divided with the proprietor, suffices only for their own needs; they cannot repair or improve the property.
These poor cultivators, so useless to the state, do not represent the true husbandman — the rich farmer who governs, cultivates on a large scale, commands, and multiplies expenses in order to increase the prof- its; who, not neglecting any means, any particular advantage, does general good; who employs usefully the people living in the country; who can choose and wait for favorable times for the sale of his grain and for the purchase and sale of his cattle. It is the rich farmers who fertilize the land, who multiply cattle, who attract, who settle the country with people, and who make the strength and prosperity of the nation.
Manufacturing and commerce, maintained by the disorders of lux- ury, accumulate men and wealth in the great cities, oppose the im- provement of property, devastate the country, inspire disrespect for agriculture, augment the expenses of individuals, hinder the main- tenance of families, oppose the propagation of man, and weaken the state.
The decadence of empires has often closely followed a flourishing commerce. When a nation spends on luxury what it earns by com- merce, there results only a movement of money without real increase of wealth: it is the sale of the surplus produce of agriculture that en- riches the subjects and the sovereign. The productions of our lands must be the raw materials for manufacturing and the object of com-
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merce; any commerce which is not established on these foundations is not secure. The more it shines out in a kingdom, the more it excites the emulation of neighboring nations, and the more it becomes divided. A kingdom rich in fertile lands cannot be imitated in agriculture by another which has not the same advantage. But in order to profit from it we must remove the causes which make people abandon the coun- try, which make them gather together and retain wealth in the cities. All the lords, all the rich people, all those who have rents or sufficient pensions to live comfortably, fix their residence in Paris or in some other large city, where they spend almost all the revenues of the funds of the kingdom. These expenditures attract a multitude of merchants, artisans, domestics, and laborers. This bad distribution of men and wealth is inevitable, but it extends much too far; we perhaps contrib- uted a great deal to it at first by protecting the urbanites more than the people in the country. Men are attracted to the cities by interest and by tranquility. Were we to procure these advantages for the country, it would not be less peopled in proportion than the cities. All the in- habitants of the cities are not rich, or in easy circumstances. The coun- try has its wealth and its charms; we do not abandon it except to evade the vexations to which we are exposed; but the government can rem- edy these inconveniences. Commerce appears flourishing in the cities because they are filled with rich merchants. But what does it result in if not that almost all the money of the kingdom is used in a commerce which does not increase the wealth of the nation? Locke compares it with the game where, after the gain and loss of the players, the sum of money remains the same as it was before. Interior com- merce is necessary for procuring needs, for maintaining luxury, and for facilitating consumption; but it contributes little to the strength and prosperity of the state. If a part of the immense wealth which it retains, and whose use produces so little for the kingdom, were dis- tributed to agriculture it would procure revenues much more real and much more considerable. Agriculture is the patrimony oÂŁ the sover- eign; all its productions are visible; we can subject them to taxes; pe- cuniary wealth escapes taxation and the government can take it there only by means expensive to the state.
Meanwhile, the just imposition of taxes on the husbandman also presents great difficulties. The arbitrary taxes are too frightful and too unjust not to be always powerfully opposed to the revival of agricul- ture.
If the people in the country were freed from the arbitrary imposition of the tax, they could live in the same security as those in the large cities; many proprietors would themselves go to improve their proper- ties; no longer would the country be abandoned; wealth and popu-
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lation would be reestablished there. Thus in removing all the other causes detrimental to the progress of agriculture, the strength of the kingdom would gradually be repaired by the augmentation of men and the increase of the revenues of the state.
18. M. DE LA RIVIERE: COSMOPOLITANISM OF THE COMMERCIAL AND AGRICULTURAL CLASSES*
That which has been called a state is a political body composed of different parties united by a common interest which does not permit them to detach themselves without suffering. This definition shows us that the state resides essentially only in the sovereign who is its head, in the owners of the land and agricultural property, and in the agricul- tural entrepreneurs. Their profession is local and they cannot decide to go to another country because each country can sustain only a cer- tain number of cultivators, who are already in possession of the land. In addition, their movable goods are not as easily transported as money, and they cannot convert them into money without losing something thereby.
This is not the case with a business man considered as such without regard to the real property which he may possess. In each commercial nation in which he wishes to locate, he will find a place for himself and for his business. His emigration is made easier because he is not a stranger in any of the places where his commercial interests are found, and frequently his fortune is greater outside than within his country.
The merchant in his quality of a subject to trade, a man devoted to the service of business, does not belong exclusively to any particular country. He is necessarily a cosmopolitan because it is impossible for one in his occupation to be otherwise. . . .
When a merchant buys or sells he does not ask from what country the men come who sell to him and buy from him. He is and ought to be concerned with only two objects, the prices at which he buys, ex- penses included, and the prices at which he resells his goods. All the buyers and sellers are and ought to be equal in his eyes, from what- ever nation they come; they are and should be treated in the same manner by the business profession. Thus, none of them is, in relation to him as a merchant, either more or less of a stranger than others. As a merchant he is thus a cosmopolitan, a man to whom no nation is strange and who is a stranger to no nation. . . .
We have previously seen that the net produce from land is the sole
*Mercier de la Riviere, "L'ordre naturel et essentiel des societes politiques," op. cit,, II, Part II, 561-568.
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accumulated wealth in a nation; it is to the common interest of the sovereign and the nation to have as great an accumulation as possihle. They can obtain this surplus only by deriving the greatest possible profit from their production. The merchant, on the contrary, although he is a citizen of the country, has entirely opposite interests, for he makes a profit by reduction of this price, and thus a reduction of the surplus which forms the unique wealth of the ruler and of the nation.
The merchant when considered in relation to the nature of his wealth is thus a cosmopolitan by virtue of his profession. This term "cosmopolitan" should not be regarded as an insult; I speak here of things and not of persons, of the business profession and not of those who practice it. Among these merchants are often found excellent pa- triots, of whom this country has some examples, as I have sometimes witnessed, while among the men attached to the soil by direct or indi- rect property rights or by occupation alone are often found those of an opposite nature. The medley of sentiments, of purely moral affec- tions, ought not to be of any consideration. We are part of the physical order, and we view men only in respect to the physical relations be- tween them, because these relations are the only ones which are evi- dent, are invariable, and the only ones that can be calculated with certainty.
The title of cosmopolitan which I here give to the merchants ought to apply equally to a soldier considered only as a soldier, to a scientist regarded as scientist, to any man whose profession can be exercised everywhere. The occupation of merchants differs from the others only in the fact that it is impossible for them to serve one nation without serving another at the same time and that their operations are natu- rally and necessarily established in foreign as well as in their own na- tions.
Let no one then impute to me any desire to disparage the merchants; not only do I believe all professions useful but I even honor theirs in particular. It is perhaps the only one in which one can find transac- tions based on trust and good faith; a dependence which is seldom be- trayed, a confidence so respectable that it makes the word alone a con- tract, takes the place of a bond or security, and which, by the facility it conveys to negotiations, increases our pleasures. . . .
Such is the idea that we must form of true merchants, but at the same time that I render that profession the homage which is due them, I must perform a duty to that profession of not misconstruing its inter- ests, of not forcing them out of the position where that immutable order which is essential to societies has placed them. To do this would be to render them ill service; in place oÂŁ being the friends and the associates of other men, they would become their enemies. Thus I say
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that, despite their utility, in the general society they form only a class of men who are salaried by the rest of society and serve all nations and all cultivators and proprietors of land impartially. In that position it is evident that the particular interests of the merchants of the nation are not the major interest of commerce. The latter consists principally of the common interest of these proprietors of land, the only ones in the nation who form essentially the body politic of the state, because all the advantages of their social existence are related to the conserva- tion of the state and of the bonds which bind them to the state. . . .
Let no one longer say to the landed powers in the agricultural and productive nations: See such and such a people; see how they become wealthy by trade; let us learn from their example that the interest of commerce is in the interest of merchants. We can in the future reply to them as follows: It is natural that among a people which is com- posed only of merchants the interest of commerce will be seen only in the special interests of these same merchants. Since these people have as other sources of income only the salaries that are paid them by the nations whom they serve commercially, all their politics and all their views ought to turn toward the increase of these salaries. But among the agricultural and producing nations the interest of commerce is the interest of agricultural production, for it is for production and by means of production that commerce is begun. It is from this same source that are taken the salaries or incomes of the merchants; reduc- tion of these salaries is what should be proposed because that decrease serves to increase the wealth of the producing classes.
The mercantile peoples differ from the landed powers in that they do not form a true political body, whereas these landed nations have a physical bond, the foundations of which nothing can shake. In fact, among these peoples a merchant is held to the state by no tie that he cannot easily break. He can be a merchant equally well anywhere, en- gage in the same operations and reap the same profits. This is not true of men who are truly national; their interests hold them securely to the soil, so that they would suffer if they expatriated themselves. Besides, a nation of merchants can exist only by trade in products of foreign nations; and this trade may be taken away tomorrow by some other nation. Its political existence depends on certain privileges which it may lose at any moment; thus the characteristic of a nation of this type is the liability of being destroyed without resistence and not unjustly.
Thus it is only the agricultural and productive nations which, by virtue of their territory, can establish a great power, a stable nation. In such a nation the wealth of each part is not a profit made at the expense of some other part of the same nation or of a foreign nation. Such a country grows only by virtue of a great abundance of produc-
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tion or by a greater financial value of its products. . . . The commer- cial interest for such a nation is that of cultivation; it is the sole and real object that it should propose in its foreign trade if it wishes to make the latter serve the growth of wealth and of population.
19. MIRABEAU: ESTIMATE OF AGRICULTURE*
Population is recognized as one of the most important values of so- ciety; therefore, we must inquire what is its source. In proportion as we cultivate the land, and as we use it to produce the essential food of man, the species increases in number; in proportion as we let it lie fallow or as we use it in inutilities, the species diminishes. Whence it follows that consumption of superfluities is a crime against society and facilitates murder and homicide.
Men multiply like rats in a barn, if they have the means of subsist- ence. In this sense, the expression of the Prince a Senef, "one night of Paris will replace that," might be a wise axiom well reasoned out. In fact, unless there arises some new augmentation of subsistence in the State, it could not raise one plant more, unless another make a place for it.
"The measure of subsistence is that of population" is an adequate principle. Augmentation of subsistence leads to increase of population. Agriculture, which alone can multiply the means of subsistence, is for that very reason the first of the arts, because of the beauty of its inven- tion, since it discovers, overtakes, and imitates the secret of nature, the secret of Providence itself, and the most wonderful and surprising effects by which it deigns to manifest itself to our eyes. The more you make the earth yield, the more you people it.
Agriculture, however, this art par excellence, which can surpass all others, while none of them can exist without it, is still in its infancy; and if authority would try to protect and to promote it, it would find quite a new prospect for its development. Of all the arts, agriculture is not only the most wonderful and most necessary in the primitive state of society; it is, moreover, in the most complicated form that this same society can receive, the most profitable and the most productive. It is of all forms the most social, and the most innocent.
Dangers of prosperity and pernicious effects of urbanization^ — Prosperity is to states what ripeness is to the fruits of the earth; it fore- tells, it almost necessitates putrefaction. The more a society extends itself, the more tranquil it is within, the more it is stimulated by sev- eral kinds of industry, the more the game of chance has liberty there,
*V. de R. Mirabeau, L'ami des homines, Avignon, 1756, III, 460-464. tMirabeau, op. cit., Ill, 468-481.
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From that time great fortunes become giants, and large patrimonies absorb the little ones. There is an enormous difference between the fertility of a little field which feeds the master who cultivates it and that of a vast domain given over to the agents of a great proprietor.
The increase of the needs of the treasury is still one of the results of prosperity. These charges subdivided among a number of little proprie- tors accustomed to living on next to nothing, although more burden- some to the people, are less so to the soil, but joined under the manage- ment of a great proprietor already devoured by all the subordinates of luxury and idleness, they carry off all that remains to him of the pro- duction, and from then on, he is more prompted to neglect a property which gives him only trouble.
False urbanity and the taste for the specious arts, the fruits and abuses of prosperity, make the country and the country people dis- dained. On the other hand, the administration of a great state inclines naturally toward vices of constitution which desolate the laborer. Of this kind would be, for example, arbitrary impositions in his assess- ment and constraint in the sale of his commodities. The prosperity of a state, rendering it opulent and making the necessities of life circulate more easily, facilitates a displacement of proprietors and attracts the most important of them to the capitol, already too surcharged, and through the abandonment of the provinces their oppression is born. The prosperity of a state establishes in its heart an infinity of indus- trial branches and different kinds of properties which all seem at first glance more commodious and more disposable than is the possession of land. It is generally believed that a man is poor, however rich he may be in land, if he has only this kind of property.
As a matter of fact, land is the only stable property; its possession gives a kind of jurisdiction over the agriculturists. If the landed prop- erty is regarded negatively, this is due to the city's pernicious influences and urban absentee owners. The living at the capitol with its pleasures and prejudices tends wholly to establish softness and distaste for work. City people disdain the dwellings of their fathers, where the pursuit of luxury has not penetrated. They give remote land over to dishonest and knavish agents. They devastate the fertile domains of those in their vicinity by projects of pure decoration; they consume the rest of their production by maintenance of inutilities. The peasants no longer know their absentee lord, and they naturally do not respect a new lord who often "consoles" them by burdensome taxes that they used to pay without a murmur to their former lords. All this makes the possession of land for such an absentee lord distasteful and troublesome. The high rate of interest on money is another reason for the discredit of land. Further, the prosperity of a state hinders agriculture, by establish-
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ing a perverse order of mores, a kind of magnificence and of embel- lishment which pushes agriculture back into the distance, exiles it, we might say. As a result of this we have a great amount of uncultivated land and a great many persons taken away from productive labor without any real profit to the state. The taste for gardens of pure deco- ration, terraces, parks, avenues, etc., which, since the last reign, has been so much increased, devastates by this fashion a part of the en- virons of the capitol and those of the principal cities.
The enormous width of the ever increasing number of roads, which all the administrators of the provinces today make their principal care without considering the proportions relative to the frequency and im- portance of communications, uses up a part of the territory of the state, and the lines often lay waste the most fertile lands, leaving, beside the fallow fields, many more suitable for the public way. From all these things and a thousand others is born the discredit of land and the absolute decadence of agriculture. Let us pass to the means of encour- aging it. ...
We have said that the prosperity of a state established great fortunes, which soon spread over all the territory. What may remedy that? "Love the Great, support the Mediocre, honor the Little." But what we must especially honor is agriculture and those who practice and en- courage it. The most skillful agriculturist and the most enlightened protector of agriculture are, all other things being equal, the two first men of society.
A stream flowing in an elevated land waters and fecundates its environs as far as its waters can spread themselves. A stream, how- ever, which rises in a hollow, makes only a swamp. I compare the proprietor of land to this stream. If he is at the head of production, of which he must naturally be the soul and in which no one has more interest than he, he animates and stimulates the whole district. If, on the contrary, he resides in the center of consumption (in a city) he be- comes the low and swampy stream, and contributes to the putting under water of a land already too spongy.
Let us constantly keep in mind that the people in whom the appear- ances of a deceitful prosperity have awakened would naturally shift from the country to the city. We pass from villages to boroughs, from boroughs to cities, from cities to the capitol, and that is the tendency of a nation if the government is not attentive to giving it a contrary propensity. This operation is not so difficult as one may believe. All men have a natural inclination toward liberty and the occupations of the country. Let the habitants be tranquil and protected, let them be animated and awakened by innocent diversions, of which the ancients have given us the example and which great princes have not disdained
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to establish among them, and they will soon see with fear the con- straint and slavery of the cities. Even if the protection of agriculture were to ask of the government a continual and encumbering care, what other object in the entire society can seem more worthy of its attention? Why should we be alarmed at giving so much care to the protection of agriculture, to the education of the agriculturists, to aiding them, to defending their liberties and immunities, when we protect the arts and professions which have so much harassed the gov- ernment and have charged the police with nuisances, formalities, and ordinances, the most part of which impede and stifle industry instead of strengthening it? It is appreciation of agriculture and persuasion of its necessity on the part of the government, which alone can give it the degree of attention necessary to assure and maintain its development and vivification. It is especially necessary to cast back on the country a kind of relative abundance, which is the mother of noble and ele- vated industry— agriculture. The greatest art has need, more than any other, to be urged to a certain degree of perfection of two pivots neces- sary to all arts, knowledge and experience, theory and practice. Why would our princes not furnish it with this aid? We have great kings in every genre whom it would be difficult to surpass. I know, how- ever, no better title to illustrate our future masters than King Shepherd. The number of habitants in a state depends on the means of sub- sistence, the means of subsistence depends on the use that is made of the land, and the use of the latter is determined by manners and cus- toms.
E. THE POLITICAL ARITHMETICIANS AND THE GAMER-
ALISTS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND
EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
We have seen that almost all of the preceding writers claim that city life is less healthful than country life and that the mor- tality of the city population is greater than that of country people. These assertions, however, are not followed by statistical data to prove their validity. Such statistical evidences were supplied by the so-called Political Arithmeticians and the Cameralists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The most prominent among them were: in England, John Graunt, William Petty, Gregory King, Edmund Halley, Richard Price, Arthur Young, and Jonas Hanway; in Germany, Johann Peter Sussmilch; in Austria, Jo- hann Heinrich Gottlib von Justi; in France, Antoine Deparcieux. These investigators threw a new light on the vital processes of the
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urban and rural populations., on the processes of the growth of the city, rural-urban migration, and rural-urban conditions from the standpoint of health, hygiene, indulgences, vice, etc. Although differing in several points, all of them agreed that the cities were less healthful than the country; that the city population was poor- er from the standpoint of vitality than the country population; and that the mortality rate of the city population was higher and the birth rate lower than that of the rural people — some excep- tions to this rule, stressed by Justi, Halley, and Deparcieux were, in their own opinions, not real exceptions, but mere results of migrational factors and differences in the age composition of the city and the country population. They all stressed that, without migration from the rural districts, the cities would be unable to grow and would be doomed to decrease in population and eventu- ally disappear, because of the excess of deaths over births. In con- nection with this, some of them discussed the age, sex, and other characteristics of the cityward migrants and the "export" of the babies from the city. Explaining these results, they gave several generalizations relating to the moral and other aspects of city and country life and people. The subsequent fragments from the works of these investigators and pioneers in statistics in general, and in vital statistics in particular, give the essentials of their con- clusions.
I. JOHN GRAUNT
20. GRAUNT: RURAL-URBAN VITAL PROCESSES*
Urban-rural mortality and its factors. — Little more than one in fifty [inhabitants] dies in the Country, whereas in London it seems mani- fest that about one in thirty-two dies, over and above what dies of the plague. ... It follows, therefore from hence, what I more faintly as- serted in the former chapter, that the Country is more healthful than the City; that is to say, although men die more regularly and less per saltum in London, than in the Country, yet, upon the whole matter, there die fewer per rata; so as the Fumes, Steams, and Stenches above mentioned, although they make the Air of London more equal, yet not more Healthful. . . . When I consider that in the Country seventy are Born for every fifty-eight Buried [while in London from 1603 to
* Excerpts from John Graunt's (1620-1674) Natural and Political Observations upon the Bills of Mortality (First edition, 1662), Quoted from its fifth edition, reprinted in The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, edited by Charles H. Hull, Cambridge, 1899, Vol. II.
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1644 there were 363,935 burials and only 330,747 christenings, that is, the number of the births was less than the number of the deaths] and that before the year 1600, the like happened in London, I con- sidered, whether a City, as it becomes more populous, doth not, for that very cause, become more unhealthful, and am inclined to believe that London now is more unhealthful than heretofore; partly for that it is more populous, but chiefly because I have heard, that sixty years ago few Sea-Coals were burnt in London, which are now universally used. . . . Many people cannot at all endure the smoak of London, not only for its unpleasantness, but for the suffocation it causes (chap, xii, pp. 393-394).
Urban-rural births and their factors. — In the Country the Christen- ings exceed the Burials, yet in London they do not. The general reason of this must be that in London the proportion of those subject to die, to those capable of breeding, is greater than in the country. That is, let there be an hundred Persons in London, and as many in the Country; we say, that, if there be sixty of them Breeders in London, there are more than sixty in the Country, or else we must say, that London is more unhealthful, or that it inclines Men and Women more to Bar- renness than the Country. . . . Now that the Breeders in London are proportionately fewer than those in the Country, arises from these rea- sons: viz., (1) All that have business to the Court of the King or to the Court of Justice, and all Countrymen coming up to ... the City do for the most part leave their Wives in the Country. (2) Persons coming to live in London out of curiosity and pleasure, as also such as would retire and live privately, do the same if they have any. (3) Such as come to be cured of Diseases do scarce use their Wives pro tempore. (4) That many Apprentices of London, who are bound seven or nine years from Marriage, do often stay longer voluntarily. (5) That many Seamen of London leave their Wives behind them. ... (6) As for unhealthiness, it may well be supposed that although seasoned Bodies may, and do live near as long in London as elsewhere, yet newcomers and Children do not, for the Smoaks, Stinks, and close Air are less healthful than that of the Country; otherwise why do sickly Persons remove into the Country- Air? And why are there more old men in Countries than in London, per rata ? . . . (7) As to the causes of Bar- renness in London, I say, that although there should be none extraor- dinary in the native Air of the place, yet the intemperance in feeding, and especially the Adulteries and Fornications, supposed more frequent in London than elsewhere, do certainly hinder Breeding. For a Woman, admitting ten Men, is so far from having ten times as many Children, that she hath none at all. (8) Add to this, that the minds of men of London are more thoughtful and full of business than in the Country where their work is corporal Labor and Exercises; All which
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 99
promote Breeding, whereas Anxieties of the mind hinder it (chap, vii, pp. 372-374).
Rural migration is the source of the growth of London population. — Since the number of the Burials in London was higher than that of Christenings it will follow that London should have decreased in its People, the contrary whereof we see by its daily increase of Buildings upon new Foundations, and by the turning of great Palacious Houses into small Tenements. It is therefore certain that London is supplied with People from out of the Country, whereby not only to supply the over-plus differences of Burials above mentioned, but likewise to in- crease its inhabitants according to the said increase of housing (chap, vii, p. 370).
Of other statements by John Graunt we may mention his claim that the amplitude of fluctuation of the mortality in the country is greater than in the city, a claim that was based, however, on examination of a relatively small number of cases; and that a greater number of male births and deaths occurred in the city, which, however, did not mean that the city population differed in this respect from the country population. II. WILLIAM PETTY
The conclusions of William Petty (1623-1685) in regard to the city-country vital processes were similar to those of John Graunt. He accepted Graunt's figures and conclusions.21 In addition, he gave other data for the cities of London and Dublin. In London the number of the births "is about Five eights parts of the Burials; [which] shews, that London would in time decrease quite away, were it not supplied out of the Country, where are about Five Births for Four Burials, the proportion of Breeders in the Country being greater than in the City. . . ." In Dublin "the proportion between Burials and Births are alike" to that of London (II, 482). Correspondingly, he indicates that the growth of London was due to the migration of the people from the rural parts; in the period from 1642 to 1682 the specific causes of migration to London of some groups were as follows: "From 1642 to 1650 Men came out of the Country to London, to shelter themselves from the Out- rages of the Civil War; from 1650 to 1660, the Royal Party came to London for their more private and inexpensive Living; from 1660 to 1670, the King's Friends and Party came to receive his Favours after his Happy Restoration; from 1670 to 1680, the frc-
31 See Petty's "Several Essays in Political Arithmetic/' in The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, II, 460 ÂŁE.
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quency of Plots and Parliaments might bring extraordinary Num- bers to the City." Besides these extraordinary causes of the migra- tion there were natural and permanent causes like "some Natural and Spontaneous Benefits and Advantages that Men find by liv- ing in great more than in small Societies."
Among other points in Petty's theories, his hypothetical estima- tion of the pluses and minuses of overurbanization is interesting. He forms hypothetical conjectures of cases, one in which Lon- don's population would be 4,690,000, while the population of the rest of England would be 2,710,000; and another in which the population of London would be only 96,000, while the population of the rest of England would be 7,304,000. He asks which of these two situations in England would be the more profitable for the entire country from the following standpoints: the defense of the kingdom against foreign powers; the prevention of intestine com- motions of parties and factions; peace and uniformity of religion; administration of justice; taxation; gain by foreign commerce; husbandry, manufactures, arts, and science; prevention of crime; increase of population; and the prevention of plagues and con- tagions, His answer is that in all these respects, with the exception of the last two, the more highly urbanized England would be in a position not worse, but rather better, than the less urbanized England. But such an over urbanized England would be doomed to decrease in population and so to disappear; for this simple and convincing reason all the other benefits of the overurbaniza- tion could not be realized. "If in the City of London there should be two Millions of People, then the Plague (killing one-fifth of them, namely, 400,000 once in twenty years) will destroy as many in one Year, as the whole Nation can re-furnish in twenty. And consequently the People of the Nation shall never increase. But if the People of London shall be above 4 Millions then the People of the whole Nation shall lessen above 20,000 per Annum. So as if People be worth 70 pounds per Head [such is Petty's estimate of the economic value of an individual] then the said greatness of the City will be a damage to itself and the whole Nation of 14 hun- dred thousand pounds per Annum, and so pro rata, for a greater or lesser Number" (II, 470-476). Finally, it is necessary to mention that, according to Petty, there are but two primary sources of wealth: "Labor is the Father and active principle of Wealth, as Lands are the Mother" (1, 68).
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III. GREGORY KING
The conclusions of John Graunt and William Petty were cor- roborated by the findings of Gregory King (16484712), published in 1696. Only in one respect, namely, in regard to the proportion of persons married in London and in the rural parts, did his con- clusion differ from those of Graunt and Petty. While they thought that the proportion was higher in the country than in London, King showed that it was higher in London than in the country. In spite of this, the fertility per marriage in London was lower than in the country; therefore King's conclusion about the bar- renness of the city corroborated the conclusions of his predeces- sors. The subsequent fragments give the essentials of King's findings.22
Taking 20,000 as the annual number of births in England and about 11,000 as the annual number of losses through mortality and emigration, he obtains about 9,000 as the net annual increase of the population.
That of the 20,000 souls, which would be the annual increase of the kingdom by procreation, were it not for the forementioned abatements:
The country increases annually by procreation 20,000
The cities and towns (exclusive of London) , 2,000
But London and the Bills ol Mortality decrease annually 2,000
So that London requires a supply of 2,000 annually to keep it from decreasing, besides a further supply of about 3,000 per annum for its increase at this time: in all 5,000, or a moiety of the kingdom's net increase (pp. 418 ff.). It appears that the proportion of marriages, births, and burials, is, according to the following scheme:
MARRIAGES " BIRTHS BURIALS
PLACE POPULATION ' PER
Per Annum Total MAR- Per Annum Total Per Annum Total
RIAGE
London 530,000 1 m 106 5,000 4.00 1 in 26.50 20,000 lin 14.10 22,000
Cities and
market
towns 870,000 1 in 128 6,800 4.50 lin 28.50 30,600 lin 30.40 28,600 Villages and
hamlets 4,110,000 1 in 141 29,200 4.80 1 in 29.40 139,400 1 in 3 4.40 119,400
Total or
average 5,500,000 1 in 134 41,000 4.64 1 in 28.85 190,000 1 in 32.35 170,000
22 Gregory King, Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Conditions of England, 1696. Reprinted in George Chalmers, An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain, London, 1802.
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Whereby we may observe, that in 1,000 coexisting persons there are 71 or 72 marriages in the country, producing 343 children; 78 marriages in, the towns, producing 352 children; 94 marriages in London, pro- ducing 376 children, Whereby it follows: (1) that though each mar- riage in London produceth fewer people than in the country, yet London, in general, having a greater proportion of breeders, is more prolific than the other great towns; and the great towns are more pro- lific than the country; (2) that if the people of London, of all ages, were as long-lived as those in the country, London would increase in people much faster, pro rata, than the country; (3) that the reason why each marriage in London produces fewer children than the coun- try marriages, seems to be: (a) from the more frequent fornications and adulteries; (b) from a greater luxury and intemperance; (c) from a greater intenseness to business; (d) from the unhealthfulness of the coal smoke; (e) from a greater inequality of age between the husbands and wives.
He further indicates a predominance of males in the country (100 males to 99 females) and the reverse situation in London (100 males to 130 females) and other cities (80 males to 90 females). IV. EDMUND HALLEY
The astronomer Edmund Halley (1656-1742), in his An Esti- mate of the Degrees of the Mortality of Mankind, Drawn from Curious Tables of the Births and Funerals at the City of Breslaw (1693),23 indicated that the cities of London and Dublin studied by Graunt and Petty were unrepresentative because "of the great and casual accession of strangers who die therein." To be repre- sentative a city must be such "that the people we treat of should not at all be changed, but die where they were born, without any adventitious increase from abroad, or decay by migration else- where." Taking the city of Breslau as such a standard city, he tried to show that the births were not more numerous than the deaths and that there were no conspicuous differences between the city of Breslau and the surrounding country in regard to vital processes.
By subsequent studies, however, this contention of Halley was given a meaning corroborating in essence the conclusion of his predecessors, in this sense: that the infusion of the immigrants to the city from rural parts was not to be regarded as a factor
28 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. XVII, for the year 1693, No. 196, pp. 596-610.
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which increased the mortality rate of the city but which decreased it. The data supplied by Richard Price, }. Stissmilch, Deparcieux, and partly by Justi established this point.
V. CHARLES DAVENANT
Charles Davenant ( 1656-1714) , in a series of works,24 also dis- cussed many of the problems of rural-urban vital statistics and the importance of agriculture and the agricultural class for the wel- fare of a society. His conclusions and analyses, however, failed to add anything essentially new to the problems and for this reason need not be extensively quoted. In contrast to some of these Polit- ical Arithmeticians, he regarded favorably not only agriculture but commerce, manufacturing, and other industries, and he did not deplore the cities and urban populations. Similar were the conclusions of Sir James Steuart (Denham).25
VI. RICHARD PRICE
Omitting the actual figures and life-expectation tables with which two volumes of Richard Price's Observations on Reversion- ary Payments (1st ed., 1769) are packed, we give only his general conclusions concerning comparative vitality and some other com- parisons between the city and the country and their populations:
21. PRICE: RURAL-URBAN DEMOGRAPHY AND MIGRATION*
"In London at least one in 20% of the inhabitants die annually. In Northampton, one in 261/z die annually. . . ." (In various country parts the corresponding figures are from 1 in 31 to 1 in 50 of the inhabi- tants who die annually. Similarly, the infant mortality is much higher in tHe city than in the country.) Having given these and many similar data Price continues: "In general, there seems reason to think that in towns the excess of the burials above the births, and the proportion of inhabitants dying annually are more or less as the towns are greater or smaller. In London itself, about 160 years ago, when it was scarcely
Zi See his Discourses on the Publicf{ "Revenues and on the Trade of England, 2 vols., esp. Discourse I, "Of Political Arithmetic!*:," in Vol. I, London, 1698; An Essay upon the Probable Methods of Making a People Gainers in the Balance of Trade, London, 1699, Sec I-III; and Essays upon Peace at Home and War Abroad, London, 1704.
25 See his "An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy" (1st ed., 1767), in The Wor^s of the Late Sir James Steuart of Coltness, Bart. (Denham), collected by Sir James Steuart, his son, London, 1805, I, 69 E, 98 flf., 125 ff. and passim.
* Richard Price, Observations, 6th ed., London, 1803, Vol. II. In this selection quota- tion marks are used to set off the exact words of the author from editorial interpo- lation.
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a fourth of its present bulk, the births were much nearer to the burials than they are now. But in country parishes and villages, the births almost always exceed the burials." He indicates further that neither a high proportion of the people of old age in the cities nor migration from the country to the city can be used as an argument which would make this greater mortality of the cities fictitious. On the contrary, without migration, the situation in the cities would be still worse. "The facts I have now taken notice of are so important that I think they deserve more attention than has hitherto been bestowed upon them. Everyone knows that the strength of a state consists in the number of people. The encouragement of population, therefore, ought to be one of the first objects of policy in every state, and some of the worst enemies of population are the luxury, the licentiousness, and the debil- ity produced and propagated by great towns. I have observed that Lon- don is now increasing. But it appears, that, in truth, this is an event more to be dreaded than desired. The more London increases, the more the rest of the kingdom must be deserted; the fewer hands must be left for agriculture; and consequently, the less must be the plenty, and the higher the price of all the means of subsistence. Moderate towns being seats of refinement, emulation, and arts, may be public advantages. But great towns, long before they grow to half the bulk of London, become checks on population of too hurtful a nature, nurs- eries of debauchery and voluptuousness; and in many respects, greater evils than can be compensated by any advantages" (II, 40, 47-49, 219 E).
"From this comparison of the expectation of life in the city and the country it appears with how much truth great cities have been called the graves of mankind. It must also convince all who will consider it (the table given) that it is by no means strictly proper to consider our diseases as the original intention of nature. They are ... our own creation. Were there a country where the inhabitants led lives entirely natural and virtuous, few of them would die without measuring out the whole period of the present existence allotted to them; pain and distempers would be unknown among them; and death would come upon them like a sleep, in consequence of no other cause than a grad- ual and unavoidable decay. . . . The reasons of the baleful influence of great towns, are plainly, first, the irregular modes of life, the luxu- ries, debaucheries, and pernicious customs, which prevail more in towns than in the country. Secondly, the fullness of the air in towns, occasioned by uncleanliness, the smoke, the perspiration and breath of the inhabitants, and putrid steams from drains, churchyards, ken- nels, and common sewers" (II, 220-221, 129-130).
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"In consequence of the easy communication, lately created, between the different parts of the kingdom, the London fashions and manners and pleasures, have been propagated everywhere; and almost every dis- tant town and village now vies with the capital in all kinds of expen- sive dissipation and amusement. This enervates and debilitates, and, together with our taxes, raises everywhere the price of means of sub- sistence, checks marriage, and brings poverty, dependence, and venali- ty" (II, 137 f.).
Price's general estimation of the agricultural and urban civilizations and the essentials of his politico-economical creed are expressed in the following quotation: "The first or the simple stages of civilization are those which favour most the increase and the happiness of mankind: for in these states, agriculture supplies plenty of the means of subsist- ence; the blessings of a natural and simple life are enjoyed; property is equally divided; the wants of men are few, and soon satisfied; and families are easily provided for. On the contrary, in the refined states of civilization property is engrossed, and the natural equality of men subverted; artificial necessaries without number are created; great towns propagate contagion and licentiousness; luxury and vice prevail; and, together with them, disease, poverty, venality, and oppression. And there is a limit at which, when the corruptions of civil society arrive, all liberty, virtue, and happiness must be lost, and complete ruin follow. Our American colonies are at present, for the most part, in the first and the happiest of the states I have described; and they afford a very striking proof of the effects of the different stages of civilization on population. ..." * Further Price especially stresses the necessity of preventing the concentration of the land in few hands and the benefi- cial results of a multitude of small proprietors for the promotion of the population and the general welfare of a society (II, 143 ff.) .
Concerning the role of the cityward migration from the country in the vital differences of the city and the country, Price says: "If migra- tions lessen the number of deaths (in the country, as it was contended by Halley and some others), they also lessen the number of inhabitants of the country; and it depends entirely on the ages at which the inhabitants remove from a place, whether the effect of their removal shall be lowering or raising the proportion of the annual deaths to the Dumber of inhabitants. In the present case the truth appears to be that the most common age of migration from the country is such as raises
*EDITORS' NOTE.— This extraordinarily high estimation of the happy, prosperous, moral, healthy, and good situation of the American colonies Is common in the writings of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Malthus, Adam Smith, ^ Edmund Burke, and many others are unanimous in their enthusiasm for the situation in the American colonies.
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this proportion in the country. The period of life in which persons remove from the country to settle in towns is chiefly the beginning of mature life, or from the age of 10 or 15 to 25 or 30. Towns, therefore, will be inhabited more by people in the firmest parts of life; and, on the other hand, the country will be inhabited more by people in the weakest parts of life; and the consequence of this is, that in the coun- try, the inhabitants must die faster in proportion to their number than they otherwise would, and that in towns they must die more slowly. In particular the number of the children (whose mortality is greater than that of other ages) is always much greater in the country than in towns. . . . This (and migration) ought to raise the proportion of annual deaths to inhabitants of the country, much above the same pro- portion in the town; but, instead of this, it is near one-half lower." From this and similar facts Price concludes that migration is not a factor heightening the mortality rate of the city and lowering the mortality rate of the country, but it is a factor which has quite the opposite effects. If there were no migration from the country to the city, the mortality rate of the city would be still higher and its birth rate still lower, while the country rates would be still more favorable. For these reasons he claims that the vital indices of the city are indeed poorer than those of the country (II, 221 ff.).
VII. ARTHUR YOUNG
In his The Farmer's Letters to the People of England (London, 1768), Arthur Young, like the preceding authors, maintains that "agriculture is the greatest of all manufactures" (p. 4) ; that it is more profitable to the state than any manufacture; that "popular riots, insurrections, and complaints are infinitely more common among the people engaged in manufactures than among those engaged in agriculture"; that "those employed in agriculture will find a more sure and regular dependence on their business than any manufacturer can" (p. 21); that the urban laborers are in- clined to extravagance: to "spending in one day the wages of three," while "the people employed in agriculture are equal in their earnings: their pay is small, but then it is constant" (p. 22). In the same work he analyzes carefully the comparative advan- tages and disadvantages of large and small farms (pp. 90-156) and comes to the following conclusions: "first, that small farms are detrimental to the occupier and to the public in the smallness of their produce; secondly, that middling farms yield a superior
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produce to the small ones, maintain more people, and have a more public value; thirdly, that large farms, in respect of produce, are more beneficial than any to population; fourthly, that very large farms do not in general produce equal to the last class, nor maintain an equality of hands either in number or value ; fifthly, that grass-farms are . . . infinitely less advantageous to popula- tion, in point of number of people, (than arable ones) but equal in respect of their value" (pp. 153-154). Furthermore, he extensively discusses the health, mortality, births, and moral status of the urban and rural populations. On the basis of the statistical data he shows that "infants die at the rate of only fourteen or sixteen in the hundred, in villages; but in London they die sixty or sev- enty in a hundred" (p. 335). Similarly "the inhabitants of great cities are by no means so prolific (as those of the country) and the debauched, unhealthy lives that are generally led in them, are terrible scourges to the human species" (p. 263). Accord- ingly he deplores a rapid growth of the cities, an increasing mi- gration from the country to the city— the sole source of the growth of the city population — and sharply criticizes the pro-urban state- ments of many writers (pp. 334-520).
VIII. DfiPARCIEUX
The conclusions in the field of rural-urban vital processes reached by the English Political Arithmeticians were corroborated in their essentials by the vital statisticians of other countries. Ex- amples of this, to mention only the most prominent names, are given in the investigations of Deparcieux (1703-1768) in France and Siissmilch in Germany. Deparcieux's data for Paris and some other French cities show that, in contrast to London, deaths in Paris did not exceed births in Paris and that the crude mortality rates in the large cities were even lower than in the country. How- ever, this did not mean that the cities' vital processes were better or as good as the vital processes of the country; it expressed only, according to the interpretation of Deparcieux, a result of a series of migrations and other phenomena which he indicated in his analysis. When the birth rates and death rates of the city and the country were standardized, the results were similar to the results obtained by the above English statisticians. The subsequent quo- tations clarify the situation.
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22. DEPARCIEUX: RURAL-URBAN MORTALITY*
In large cities, like Paris, Lyon, Rouen, Bordeaux, and other com- mercial centers, where there always is a great concurrence of the people of various countries and places, a smaller proportion of the population die; while in the small cities about one thirty-fifth part of the popula- tion dies. In large cities only about a fortieth part of the population dies. This is due to the two following reasons:
(1) Ini the large cities there always is a considerable number of the traveling persons, who remain there only for a certain period of time — some longer, some shorter — and afterwards return to their homes or go elsewhere. It is true that during their sojourn in the city death may come to them as well as to the native inhabitants of it; but we must bear in mind the fact that those who travel do their traveling usually at the ages when the mortality is the lowest: people usually do not travel at ages younger than fifteen or eighteen years and older than forty or fifty years; this means that the travelers or migrants go to the cities after they have passed the high mortality of childhood and before they reach the high mortality of old age; besides the migrants and travelers are usually people in good health.
(2) The highest mortality rate falling at the age of infancy, in the large French cities we have the infant mortality much lower than that which is to be expected. This is due to the fact that the babies born in the cities are usually sent for nursing to the rural parts — at a distance of four, six, or ten lieues from the city, whence they are taken back to the city only at the ages of two or three or even four years; that is, when more than half of the babies sent are already dead. . . . This number is replaced by approximately the same number of persons of both sexes who leave the country for the city, there to become laborers or domestics. They usually come to the city at the age of fifteen or eighteen years, that is, after they escaped in the country the mortality of childhood. This explains why the city population usually shows a lower proportion of the persons at the ages from birth to fifteen or eighteen years and a corresponding excess of other age groups. . . . [When, further, we compare the mortality of the babies born in the city and in the country we find that] the city-born babies have a great- er mortality than the babies born in rural parts or small cities. This is due partly to the fact that many of the city-born babies are artificially fed while the rural-born babies have natural breast-feeding; partly due to the fact that the women who do not feed their babies by breast be- come pregnant more often than the mothers who do it; this more fre-
*A. Deparcieux, Essat sur les probabilites de la duree de la vie humaine; d'ou I'on dedtiit la maniere de determiner les rentes viageres, tant simples qu'en tontines, Paris, 1746, pp. 94, 40. See also pp. 70 ff., 37 ff., 92 f.
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quent pregnancy does not leave them the necessary time to recover from the fatigue of pregnancy and childbearing and this unfavorably affects the health of their babies; and the more of this, the quicker they become pregnant again; it is further due to the fact that the hired wet-nurses do not give the babies the same care that they give their own babies. A part of the city-born babies who escape mortality in spite of the infirmity of their mothers and the carelessness of the wet- nurses often receive a poor digestion, deformation of their body, or other infirmity. Reaching the age of maturity they nevertheless marry, and their children, placed in the same conditions, reproduce their poor constitutions. ... It is true that in London the greater part of the mothers, even the princesses, feed their babies by breast. But in Lon- don, similar to Paris, the air is also less pure and healthy (than in rural parts). Fathers and mothers in the cities are less healthy than in the country (pp. 94, 40; see also pp. 70 fL, 37 ff., 92-93).
IX. JOHANN PETER SOSSMILCH
The conclusions reached by the German statistician, Sussmilch (1707-1767), in his famous work, Die gottliche Ordnung in den V crdnderungen des menschlichen Geschlechts, aus der Geburt, dem Tode und der Fortpflanzung desselben erwiesen, etc. (1st ed., 1741), were similar to the above. They were based on the statistical data of Berlin and other cities and rural parts of Ger- many. The following brief quotations from his work give the essentials of Siissmilch's generalizations.20
The mortality of the middle-sized cities is greater than in the coun- try. In proportion as the size of the cities and their population in- creases the mortality seems to increase also. In large and populous cities, the mortality is the highest, or, what is the same, the vital forces and their duration are the lowest. . . . The highest and most extraordi- nary mortality of the rural population hardly reaches the lowest and normal mortality of the cities.
The causes of this higher urban mortality are: first, the greater weakness of the city children, due to the greater feebleness of their parents, the greater practice of employing wet-nurses, and the greater proportion of disorderly and careless parents; second, the corrupted mores and sexual immorality which predominate in the cities; third, the indulgence of overeating; fourth, greater pas- sions, worries, and anxieties in the city; fifth, greater consumption of liquor and alcoholic beverages; sixth, poor and contaminated
26 Quotations are taken from the second revised edition, Berlin, 1761.
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air; seventh, a more successful spread of the contagious diseases due to crowding and the unhealthful conditions in the city; eighth, lack of care and of welfare measures among the poor classes in the city; ninth, an influx of foreigners to the city hospi- tals, asylums, and similar institutions. From this Siissmilch con- cludes that "the large cities are not profitable to mankind or a state." 2T
In so far as the relationship of the births to the deaths in the city and the country is concerned, the conclusions of Siissmilch are as follows:
In the cities, especially in the large cities, the number of deaths gen- erally exceeds the number of births. Only in an extraordinarily favor- able year does the number of births occasionally exceed that of deaths; but when one makes a balance of the deaths and the births for a series of years this excess of births disappears. . . . The causes of this are: (1) the above greater mortality of the city population; this is, however, insufficient and we must take into consideration, (2) the lowered fer- tility (that is, the proportion of the births to the total population). It is proved that the increased number of wants of men, higher standard of living, luxury, consumption, and the higher prices of the means of subsistence in the cities somewhat hinder men from being married. These are the reasons why in the cities the proportion of the married in relation to the population is somewhat low; why the annual num- ber of marriages is small, and, as a result, the number of children born per the population is not so great as might be expected. For these reasons, (3) the larger, richer, and more luxurious the city is, the greater is its commerce ... the greater also is the number of unmar- ried servants, soldiers, girls, and other persons in service. (4) Many large and small schools in the cities also increase the number of un- married persons. Finally, (5) the fact that Roman Catholic cities have a large number of monks and clergy tends to the same result. All these groups, hindered from marriage through commerce, luxury, or prohi- bition, contribute their share to the death list while they do not con- tribute their share to the birth list.28
Such is the explanation of Siissmilch of this relationship. It is to be noted that he differs from Gregory King and some others in regard to the number of children born per marriage in the city and the country. According to Siissmilch, this number is about
27 Johann Peter Siissmilch, Die gotthche Ordnung in den Verandemngen des mensch- lichen Geschlechts, etc., I, 79-114.
28 Ibid., I, 256 tf.
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the same in urban and rural families. But as the marriage rate in the country (per the population) is higher and the proportion of unmarried people is lower than in the city, this results in a higher birth rate and a lower mortality rate (per the population) in the rural parts than in the city.29
Other generalizations of Siissmilch worthy to be mentioned are the following: in the cities the proportion of the females in the population is conspicuously higher than in the country, where males predominate. The causes of this are that among the rural migrants to the cities females predominate because they are less needed in agriculture than men and they can easily find work as servants in the cities; on the other hand, the city trades and handicrafts are filled principally by the children of the city popu- lation.30
Further, Siissmilch indicated that the growth of cities is due not to the natural increase of the city population but to the migration of people from the country. Among other factors attracting the migrants to the cities is the fact that "though the agriculture is the most important and honorable, it is also the hardest industry; for this reason a country man easily may be induced to shift to the lighter work in the city factories," and for the same reason to stay in it.31
Naturally Siissmilch regarded unfavorably an excessive growth of the cities, and very favorably an expansion of agriculture with small farms cultivated by free farmers. "Only revive the laws of Licinius, forbidding the holding of more than seven jugera of land; or that of Romulus, which limited every Roman to two jugera, and you will soon convert a barren desert into a busy and crowded hive." In this respect his conclusion is sustained by Rich- ard Price and several other writers of this group.
The above fragments from the Political Arithmeticians give all the essential conclusions in the field of the rural-urban vital proc- esses and of moral and social conditions. It is understood that, in addition to the writers quoted, there were several other writers.32
20 Ibid., I, 130 ff., ^ 172 ff. 30 Ibid., II, 278 ff. * Ibid., II, 54 rl, 280 ft
32 Among these writers and their works are to be mentioned: Johann Heinrich Gotlib von Justi, "Anmerkungen iiber das Verhaltniss der jahrlich Sterbenden gegen die Leben- den," in Gottinger Polizeyamtsnachrichten, 1756, No. 92; Etnkitung zur Staatswlrt- schajtswissenschajt, 1760; Grundsatze der Polizfytvisscnschaft, 3d ed., 1762; Rev. Wil- liam Derham, Physico-theology, 1713. Many works (of de Moivre, Wales, Brakenridge, Maitland, Webster, Short, Hewlett, Hanway, Davenant, Gorsuch, Styles, Heberdens,
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Their conclusions, however, were similar to the above generaliza- tions and, for this reason, need not be quoted here.
F. PROMINENT ENGLISH THINKERS OF THE SEVEN- TEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
I. JAMES HARRINGTON
James Harrington (1611-1677) touched several problems in our field. The fundamental principle of his political and sociological theories is that political power is based on property: "such as is the proportion or balance of dominion or property in land, such is the nature of the empire. If one man be sole landlord of a ter- ritory," we shall have monarchy; if the land is in few hands, the political regime will be an aristocracy; "and if the whole people be landlords, the empire is a commonwealth." 33 When there is a discrepancy between the distribution of land in the country and that of power, the result is tyranny, oligarchy, and anarchy. In accordance with this principle, Harrington naturally attached the greatest importance to agrarian laws which would regulate the distribution of land in the country. Being a partisan of com- monwealth and democracy, he regarded an even distribution of land among the population and prevention of the concen- tration of it in few hands as the most important and indispen- sable condition for a realization of a good commonwealth and democracy. In his Utopian commonwealth, "Oceana," he intro- duced a fundamental law ("the thirteenth Order") according to
Messance, Simpson, Aiken, Percival, and others) cited in the quoted work oÂŁ Richard Price; Kent, Hints to Gentlemen of Landed Property; Styles, A Discourse on Christian Union; Short, Comparative History, Boston, 1761; Messance, Recherches stir la popu- lation des generalizes d'Auvergne, de Lyon, de Rotten, Pans, 1766; Aiken, Thoughts on Hospitals; Maitland, History of London; Wales, An Inquiry into the Present State of the Population of England and Wales; Sir William Temple, Works, 2 vols.; Hanway, Letters on the Importance of the Rising Generation, Vols. I, II; Wargenten's memoir in the Collection Academique, Paris, 1772, Vol. XV; Muret's memoir on the "State of the Population" in the Pays de Vaud, Bern, 1766; Wallace, Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind; Anonymous, Political Essays concerning the Present State of the British Em- pire, 1772; G. Gh. d'Arco, Dell'armoma pohtico-economica tra la citta e il suo tcrritorio 1771; Cesare Beccaria, Element! di economia pttblica, 1775; G. Palmieri, Riflessioni sulla publica felicia; Mernoires de la Societe de Berne, 1763-1765, Vols, I and II, containing several important memoirs, like that of Benjamin Carrard, "Memoire sur Tesprit de legis- lation," and others; Harte's Essays on Husbandry; Boulainvilliers and others, Des in- terests de la France mal entendus, 3 vols.; Richesse de I'etat a les pieces qui ont paru pour et centre, 1764; D'Angueille and others, Remarques sur les vantages et les desavantages de la France et de la Grand Bretagne. See references to other works in these volumes.
^The Oceana and Other Wor^s of James Harrington, London, 1771, p. 37. There are several modern editions also.
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which no one would have the right to own land beyond a definite limit, and a series of other measures whose objectives were to pre- vent the concentration of land in few hands.34 This condition given, Harrington believed that prosperity, order, progress, and democracy — in brief, the essentials of the welfare of a society — would be secured. Correspondingly, he regarded agriculture and a free farm population the most favorably and believed that under these conditions the relationships between the city and the country would be mutually beneficial. The subsequent excerpts give some of his ideas about these points.
23. HARRINGTON: RURAL-URBAN RELATIONSHIPS*
Praises of agriculture and of the free tillers of soil. — Agriculture is the bread of the nation; we are hung upon it by the teeth; it is a mighty nursery of strength, the best army, and the most assur'd knap- sac; it is manag'd with the least turbulent or ambitious, and the most innocent hands of all other arts. Wherefore I am of Aristotle's opinion, that a commonwealth of husbandmen must be the best of all others ... (p. 165). The tillage bringing up a good soldiery, brings up a good commonwealth; for where the owner of the plow comes to have the sword i too, he will use it in defence of his own; whence it has hap- pen'd that the people of Oceana in proportion to their property have bin always free. And the genius of this nation has ever had some re- semblance with that of antient Italy, which was wholly addicted to commonwealths, and where Rome came to make the greatest account of her rustic tribes, and to call her consuls from the plow . . . and husbandry, or the country way of life, tho of a grosser spinning (than the city life) was the most obstinate assertress of her liberty, and the least subject to innovation or turbulency. Wherefore the foundations were removed, this people was observ'd to be the least subject to shak- ings and turbulency of any; whereas commonwealths, upon which the city life has had the stronger influence, as Athens, have seldom or nev- er been quiet; but at the best are found to have injur'd their own busi- ness by overdoing it. Whence the urban tribes of Rome, consisting of the Turba jorensis, and Liberttns that had received their freedom by manumission, were of no reputation in comparison of the rustics. It is true, that with Venice it may seem to be otherwise, in regard the gen- tlemen (for so are all such call'd as have a right to that government) are wholly addicted to the city life: but then the Turba jorensis, the secretaries Cittadini} with the rest of the populace, are wholly excluded.
MAs to his "agrarian," see ibid*, pp. 94-95, 99, 103 and passim, * Harrington, op. cit.
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Otherwise a commonwealth, consisting of but one city, would doubt- less be stormy, in regard that ambition would be every man's trade: but where it consists of a country, the plow in the hands of the owner finds him a better calling, and produces the most innocent and steady genius of commonwealth (pp. 32-33) .
Relationships between the city and the country (where the above agrarian law is realized). — Answering the criticism directed against his principles, particularly against the point that his agra- rian law would not prevent the overgrowth of the city, the great contrast of the riches and poverty in it, nor subsequent danger for the commonwealth, Harrington indicated that the growth of the city, if accompanied by the above conditions of the agrarian law, would be of no danger but only beneficial to the country. A popu- lous country usually leads to a populous city, and vice versa. When a populous city comes to make a populous country this happens through "sucking"; when a populous country comes to make a populous city this happens in the way of "weaning."
For proof of the former: the more mouths there be in a city, the more meat of necessity must be vented by the country, and so there will be more corn, more cattle, and better markets; which breeding more laborers, more husbandmen, and richer farmers, brings the country so far from a commonwealth of cottagers, and the farmer, his trade thus uninterrupted, in that his markets are certain, goes on with increase of children, of servants, of corn, and of cattle. . . . The coun- try then growing more populous, and better flock'd with cattle, which also increases manure for the land must proportionably increase in fruitfulness. . . . Thus a populous city makes a country milch, or pop- ulous by sucking, . . . But a populous country makes a populous city by weaning; for when the people increase so much, that the dug of earth can do no more, the overplus must seek some other way of liveli- hood: which is either arms, such were those of the Goths and Vandals; or merchandise and manufacture, for which ends it being necessary that they lay their heads and their stock together, this makes populous cities. Thus Holland being a small territory, and suck'd dry, has upon the matter wean'd the whole people, and is thereby become as it were one city that sucks all the world. . . , And Amsterdam contributes and has contributed more to the defence of the commonwealth, or united provinces, than all the rest of the league, and had in those late actions . . . resisted not the interest of liberty, but of a lord/*5
SG<The Prerogative of Popular Government," ibid., pp. 278-280,
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Harrington also asserts that in such a society there would be no civil war, disorder, or anarchy (pp. 246 ff.). II. DAVID HUME
The attitude of Hume (171 1-1776) , so far as it is shown by his casual remarks made in his various essays, is somewhat indefinite. On the one hand we read in his essay "Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations" that "enormous cities are destructive to society, beget vice and disorder of all kinds, starve the remoter provinces, and even starve themselves, by the prices to which they raise all provisions." 3G Through their accumulation of great wealth in a few hands and their insecurity, they further check marriage and fertility because "their possession of wealth being precarious, they [the people in the cities] have not the same encouragement to marry, as if each had a small fortune, secure and independent. . . . Where each man had his little house and field to himself; what a happy situation of mankind ! How favorable to industry and agri- culture; to marriage and propagation!"
On the other hand, in a series of other essays, Hume regards rather favorably the development of manufacture, industry, arts, commerce, cities, and even luxury, when it is not vicious. Divid- ing "the bulk of every state into husbandmen and manufactur- ers," he finds each of these classes useful and necessary; the soci- eties in which various arts, manufacture, trade, and commerce are developed are rather better, more virtuous, more sociable, more powerful, more prosperous and free, and have greater happiness than primitive societies, which are without such a development of commerce, the arts, sciences, trades, and cities. Even agriculturists are more industrious, intelligent, inventive, and comfortable in the societies of the first type than in those of the second.37
When manufactures and mechanic arts are not cultivated, the bulk of the people must apply themselves to agriculture. They have no temp- tation, therefore, to increase their skill and industry; since they cannot exchange their superfluity for any commodity, which may serve either to their pleasure or vanity. A habit of indolence naturally prevails. The greater part of the land lies uncultivated. What is cultivated, yields not its utmost for want of skill and assiduity of farmers. . . .
3(5 David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, London, 1870, p. 235. 37 "Of Commerce," ibid., pp. 153 ÂŁf. See also "Of Refinement in the Arts," ibid., pp. 159 fi.
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In rude unpolished nations, where the arts are neglected, all labor is bestowed on the cultivation of the ground; and the whole society is divided into two classes, proprietors of land, and their vassals or ten- ants. The latter are necessarily dependent, and fitted for slavery and subjection. . . . The former naturally erect themselves into petty ty- rants; and must either submit to an absolute master, for the sake of peace and order; or if they will preserve their independence, like the ancient barons, they must fall into feuds and contests among them- selves, and throw the whole society into such confusion, as is perhaps worse than the most despotic government. But where luxury nour- ishes commerce and industry, the peasants, by a proper cultivation of the land, become rich and independent: while the tradesmen and mer- chants acquire a share of property, and draw authority and considera- tion to that middling rank of men, who are the best and firmest basis of public liberty. These submit not to slavery. . . . They covet equal laws, which may secure their property, and preserve them from mo- narchial, as well as aristocratic tyranny. . . . The lower house is the support of our popular government; and all the world acknowledges that it owed its chief influence and consideration to the increase of commerce. . . . How inconsistent, then, to blame so violently a refine- ment in the arts, and to represent it as the bane of liberty and public spirit. [However,] wherever luxury ceases to be innocent, it also ceases to be beneficial; and when carried a degree further, begins to be a qual- ity pernicious, though, perhaps, not the most pernicious, to political society,38
In that case it leads to demoralization, and other disastrous ef- fects. To sum up : Hume did not belong to the type of either urban or rural extremists and did not regard as exclusively virtuous and socially useful either the farmers or the urban people. Under some conditions either of them might be good or bad, sociable or unsociable, virtuous or not, might constitute a good and prosper- ous and happy society or its opposite. III. SIR JAMES STEUART
The opinions of Sir James Steuart (Denham) (1712-1780) are very similar to Hume's attitude. "Population and agriculture must be the basis of the whole (society) in all ages of the world." 39 But like Hume, he does not think that a society in which all are farmers is better than that in which a part of the people are en-
38 "Of Refinement in the Arts," ibid., pp. 164-167, Wor^s of the Late Sir James Steuart, I, 201.
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gaged in industry, commerce, and so on. The best society is that in which the population is evenly distributed between agricultural and nonagricultural pursuits. "That number of husbandmen is the best which can provide food for all the state, the remaining surplus of the population being engaged in other pursuits. In spite of many harms and defects of the cities they are useful for a nation and for farmers themselves." 40 The general advantages of the cities are: first, the removal of the unnecessary load upon the land—those idle people who eat up a part of the produce of labor without contributing to it; second, the opportunity of levy- ing taxes and of making these affect the rich; third, rise of the lands in value; fourth, promotion of good roads, which are bene- ficial to the husbandmen (pp. 71 ff.). Though he agrees with the conclusions of the above Political Arithmeticians as to the harm- fulness of the city life to the health of the people, the high urban death rate, the low marriage rate, and the prevalence of vice and debauchery, nevertheless he does not think these dangers are great or are not diminished by the beneficial effects of the cities (pp.69ff.).
IV. POLITICAL ESSAYS CONCERNING THE PRESENT STATE OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
These conclusions of Sir James Steuart brought forth vigorous criticism from the anonymous author of a large volume, Political Essays concerning the Present State of the British Empire (Lon- don, 1772), who starts his essay on agriculture with the most enthusiastic introduction: "If there is any profession or employ- ment among mankind, which from its antiquity, usefulness and innocence, ought to be held foremost in esteem, it is undoubtedly that of husbandry. All others depend on this alone; no invention can supply its place: The wisest nations and individuals have con- curred not only in protecting it but regarding its professors as the most valuable people in the state; many great and potent sover- eigns have even practiced this art." He further remarks: "Com- pare the amusements of modern kings, with such as agriculture would furnish them. What a contrast! No monarch should be without his experimental farm." Continuing this enthusiastic eulogy of agriculture he proceeds further to prove that "a nation
10 IKd. f p. 117.
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that does not raise corn enough to feed itself, must, in the nature of things, be dependent for bread and life on others" (though temporarily, like Holland, it may procure its food from other nations). "National independency can therefore result alone from agriculture," 41 He agrees further with Mr. Wallace, the author of the Dissertation on the Number of Mankind, that "the more persons employ themselves in agriculture and fishing, and the arts which are necessary for managing them to the greatest advan- tage, the world in general will be more populous; and as fewer hands are employed in this manner, there will be fewer people." Correspondingly he finds the conclusions of Sir James Steuart fallacious and extensively criticizes them.42 He finds also that Steuart's opinion "that great inequality of property is favorable to the multiplication of the lower classes" is wrong; much better for this multiplication is the system of more equal distribution of land among the farmer-owners and the country gentry, "who are the main support of every kingdom." 43 Further, he indicates that the greater the amount of food raised the greater the increase of the population and vice versa, revealing, as did many of his contemporaries, that the ideas of Malthus were in the air before Malthus. Proceeding in this way he indicates step by step other beneficial social, economic, and political effects of agriculture and pleads for its development in England.44 The whole work contains many interesting observations and rural-urban socio- logical conclusions. V. ADAM SMITH
As contrasted with the Physiocrats but similar to Hume, Adam Smith (1723-1790) did not regard the class of cultivators as the only productive class. The classes of manufacturers, artisans, mer- chants, artificers, and professionals were also considered by him productive classes.45 He regarded the origin and growth of the cities as a natural outcome of the development of rural produc- tion; the relationship between the towns and the country as
41 Political Essays, pp. 74-77. "Mid., pp. 84 ff. 4S Ibid., p. 91.
44 Ibid., pp. 93 fif. Steuart's theories are also criticized sharply by Arthur Young in his The Farmer's Letters to the People of England, pp. 334-352.
45 See Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. by Edwin Cannan, London, 1920, Vol. II, Bk. IV, chap, ix; Vol. I, Bk, II, chap, iii.
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mutually beneficial; and the towns as benefactors of the country.46 Side by side with these statements, he gave several generalizations concerning many specific aspects of country and city life, of their population, and of their occupational classes. Such are his theory of the peculiar character of the farmer's income; his theory of the natural preference of man for agriculture and the natural courses of things, in which agriculture is the first, manufactures are the second, and commerce is the third from the standpoint of desir- ability; his claim that the agricultural occupation is very complex and for this reason is more beneficial for mental development than the majority of the manufacturing industries, industries which through their division of labor lead to mental stupor in the people employed in them. Furthermore, he indicated that when there is an abundance of free land and a free farming popula- tion, these lead to a more rapid improvement of agriculture and production and to a more rapid increase of population and of prosperity, than do the purely industrial activities. He also stressed that the agricultural population gives good and valiant soldiers; that it is less mobile, more attached to the place, and more nation- alistic than the commercial population. On the other hand, he showed that the city population, all in all, is more progressive than an unfree rural population; that in Europe, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the cities led in the establishment of social order, freedom, constitutional governments, improvements of production and standard of living; that they also pioneered an increase in the efficiency of labor; in brief, that the role of the cities was positive and beneficial, and as such could in no way be regarded negatively. In short, as contrasted with the extreme par- tisans of either the city or the country, Adam Smith occupied a middle and well-balanced position according to which each of the large occupational classes has its own positive and negative characteristics; and the best situation is one of mutual cooperation between the city and the country, and not the one-sided develop- ment of either of them at the expense of the other. This shows that this great Scotch economist, sociologist, and moral philoso- pher formulated several important generalizations in this field. The subsequent paragraphs depict more substantially what has been given very briefly in the above characterization.
*Ibid., Bk. Ill, passim.
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24. ADAM SMITH : AGRICULTURE AMONG THE OTHER OCCUPATIONS*
The natural preference of man for agriculture and the reasons for it. — Upon equal, or nearly equal profits, most men will choose to employ their capitals rather in the improvement and cultivation of land, than either in manufactures or in foreign trade. The man who employs his capital in land, has it more under his view and command, and his for- tune is much less liable to accidents, than that of the trader, who is obliged frequently to commit it, not only to the winds and the waves, but to the more uncertain elements of human folly and injustice, by giving great credits in distant countries to men with whose character and situation he has seldom been thoroughly acquainted. The capital of the landlord, on the contrary, which is fixed in the improvement of his land, seems to be as well secured as the nature of human affairs can admit of. The beauty of the country besides, the pleasures of a country life, the tranquility of mind which it promises, and wherever the injustice of human laws does not disturb it, the independency which it really affords, have charms that more or less attract every- body; and as to cultivate the ground was the original destination of man, so in every stage of his existence he seems to retain a predilection for this primitive employment. ... A planter (for instance in Amer- ica) who cultivates his own land, and derives his necessary subsistence from the labor of his own family, is really a master, and independent of all the world. . . .
According to the natural course of things, the greater part of the capital of every growing society is, first, directed to agriculture, 'after- wards to manufactures, and last of all to foreign countries. . . . But though this natural order of things must have taken place in some degree in every such society, it has, in all the modern states of Europe, been, in many respects, entirely inverted. The foreign commerce of some of their cities has introduced all their finer manufactures, or such as were fit for distant sale; and manufactures and foreign commerce together, have given birth to the principal improvements of agriculture. The manners and customs which the nature of their original govern- ment introduced, and which remained after that government was greatly altered, necessarily forced them into this unnatural and retro- grade order (I, 357-359).
The city-country relationship and the beneficial role of the cities in regard to the country. — The great commerce of every civilized society, is that carried on between the inhabitants of the town and those of the country. It consists in the exchange of rude for manufactured produce, either immediately, or by the intervention of money, or of some sort
* Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
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of paper which represents money. The country supplies the town with the means of subsistence, and the materials of manufacture. The town repays this supply by sending back a part of the manufactured produce to the inhabitants of the country. . . .
The gains of both are mutual and reciprocal, and the division of labor is in this, as in all other cases, advantageous to all the different persons employed in the various occupations into which it is subdi- vided. The inhabitants of the country purchase of the town a greater quantity of manufactured goods, with the produce of a much smaller quantity of their own labor, than they must have employed had they attempted to prepare them themselves. The town affords a market for the surplus produce of the country, or what is over and above the maintenance of the cultivators, and it is there that the inhabitants of the country exchange it for something else which is in demand among them. . . .
(On the other hand) as subsistence is, prior to conveniency and lux- ury, so the industry which procures the former (agriculture), must necessarily be prior to that which ministers to the latter. The cultiva- tion and improvement of the country, therefore, which affords sub- sistence must, necessarily, be prior to the increase of the town, which furnishes only the means of conveniency and luxury. It is the surplus produce of the country only, or what is over and above the mainte- nance of the cultivators, that constitutes the subsistence of the town, which can therefore increase only with the increase of this surplus produce. The town, indeed, may not always derive its whole subsist- ence from the country in its neighborhood, or even from the territory to which it belongs, but from very distant countries; and this, though it forms no exception to the general rule, has occasioned considerable variations in the progress of opulence in different ages and nations (I, 355-356).
Of the discouragement of agriculture and the disfranchisement of farmers.— [In spite of the above mutually beneficial relationship be- tween the city and the country the actual policies, in the majority of the European countries, were unfavorable to the cultivators, be they slaves or serfs, free tenants or farmers. A series of limitations disfran- chised them, checked their energy, efficiency, and inventiveness, and, as a result, held them behind the cities.] Under all these discourage- ments, little improvement could be expected from the, occupiers of land. That order of people, with all liberty and security which law can give, must always improve under great disadvantages. . . . The an- cient policy of Europe was, above all this, unfavorable to the improve- ment and cultivation of land, whether carried on by the proprietor or by the farmer (Bk. Ill, chap, ii, pp. 369-370).
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Such a discouragement was one of the causes why the cities made a more rapid progress and through it also improved the country. But when agriculture is not discouraged, the progress of the country may be more rapid. [After surveying the history of cities and their progress in regard to commerce, manufactures, forms of government, social conditions, the privileges of freedom, abolition of serfdom, and so on, Adam Smith concludes:] The increase and riches of commercial and manufacturing towns contributed to the improvement and cultivation of the countries to which they belonged in three different ways [through affording markets for the country produce, through buying and improving land, and through introduction of good government] . . . . Through the greater part of Europe the commerce and manufac- tures of cities, instead of being the effect, have been the cause and occa- sion of the improvement and cultivation of the country. . . . This order, however, being contrary to the natural course of things, (see above) is necessarily both slow and uncertain. Compare the slow prog- ress of those European countries of which the wealth depends very much upon their commerce and manufactures, with the rapid advances of our North American colonies, of which the wealth is founded alto- gether in agriculture. Through the greater part of Europe, the number of inhabitants is not supposed to double in less than five hundred years. In several of our North American colonies, it is found to double in twenty and five and twenty years. [Every improvement of the condi- tions of the cultivators efficiently affects the welfare of the whole soci- ety.] Laws and customs favorable to the yeomanry (issued in Eng- land) have perhaps contributed more to the present grandeur of Eng- land than all their boasted regulations of commerce taken together (Bk. Ill, chap, iii, pp. 382, 390, 367).
Of all cultivator st a free small proprietor is the most efficient and in- dustrious improver of agriculture. — A small proprietor, who knows every part of his little territory, who views it all with the affection which property, especially small property, naturally inspires, and who upon that account takes pleasure not only in cultivating but in adorn- ing it, is generally of all improvers the most industrious, the most in- telligent, and the most successful (p. 390).
Wealth arising from agriculture is more durable and safer than that arising from commerce. — The ordinary revolutions of war and govern- ment easily dry up the sources of that wealth which arises from com- merce only. That which arises from the more solid improvements of agriculture, is much more durable, and cannot be destroyed but by those more violent convulsions occasioned by the depredation of hos- tile and barbarous nations continued for a century or two together (I, 394).
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25. ADAM SMITH: PSYCHO-SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FARMER CLASS*
The peculiarities of the farming population compared with other oc- cupational classes.— I. Farming requires more knowledge, intelligence, experience, and skill than any trade and occupation, except the pro- fessional occupations. "After what are called the fine arts, and the liberal professions, however, there is perhaps no trade which requires so great a variety of knowledge and experience. The innumerable vol- umes which have been written upon it in all languages, may satisfy us that among the wisest and most learned nations, it has never been re- garded as a matter very easily understood. And from all those volumes we shall in vain attempt to collect that knowledge of its various and complicated operations, which is commonly possessed even by the common farmer; how contemptuously soever the very contemptible authors of some of them may sometimes affect to speak of him. There is scarcely any common mechanic trade, on the contrary, of which all the operations may not be as completely and distinctly explained in a pamphlet of a very few pages. . . .
"The direction of (agricultural) operations, besides, which must be varied with every change of weather, as well as with many other acci- dents, requires much more judgment and discretion, than that of those which are always the same or nearly the same. Not only the art of the farmer, the general direction of the operations of husbandry, but many inferior branches of country labor, require much more skill and experi- ence than the greater part of mechanic trades. The man who works upon brass and iron, works with instruments and upon materials of which the temper is always the same. But the man who ploughs the ground with a team of horses or oxen, works with instruments of which the health, strength, and temper, are very different upon differ- ent occasions. The conditions of the materials which he works upon, too, is as variable as that of the instruments which he works with, and both require to be managed with much judgment and discretion. The common ploughman, though generally regarded as the pattern of stupidity and ignorance, is seldom defective in his judgment and dis- cretion. He is less accustomed, indeed, to social intercourse than the mechanic who lives in a town. His voice and language are more un- couth and more difficult to be understood by those who are not used to them. His understanding, however, being accustomed to consider a greater variety of objects, is generally much superior to that of the
* Adam Smith, op. cit. In this selection, which is a mixture of paraphrase and direct quotation, quotation marks surround the exact words of the author quoted.
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other, whose whole attention from morning till night is commonly oc- cupied in performing one or two very simple operations. How much the lower ranks of people in the country are really superior to those of the town is well known to every man whom either business or cu- riosity has led to converse much with both" (Vol. I, Bk. I, chap, x, pp. 128-129; see also Bk. V, chap, i, pp. 267 ff., where Smith states that the division of labor, which is greater in the cities in industry and commerce than in agriculture, destroys intellectual, social, and martial virtues) .
2. The labor of farmers is more productive than that of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers. Though Adam Smith rejects the claim of the Physiocrats that only the cultivator class is productive and that other classes are unproductive, none the less he claims that "the labor of farmers and country laborers is certainly more productive than that of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers. The superior produce of the one class, however, does not render the other barren or unproduc- tive" (Vol. II, Bk. IV, chap, ix, p. 173).
3. The nature of the farmer's income, according to its sources — wages, profit, and rent— is peculiar: it represents a combination of all these kinds of revenue and in this sense makes the position of the farmer class different from other social classes (Vol. I, Bk. I, chap, vi, p. 55).
4. Free farmers are more independent than any other class (Vol. I, Bk. Ill, chap, iv, p. 390; chap, ii, p. 361).
5. The farmer class is less mobile, more attached to the land, and shifts from place to place less than any other class (Vol. I, Bk. Ill, chap, iv, p. 389; VoL II, p. 188).
6. Old families, where the estate has been handed from generation to generation, are more common among the farmer class than among others, especially the commercial classes. "Very old families, such as have possessed some considerable estate from father to son for many successive generations, are very rare in commercial countries. In coun- tries which have little commerce, on the contrary, they are very com- mon. In commercial countries, riches, in spite of the most violent regu- lations of law to prevent their dissipation, very seldom remain in the same family" (Vol. I, Bk. Ill, chap, iv, p. 389).
7. The farmer class (free) is more fertile than the city people (Vol. I, Bk. Ill, chap, iv, p. 390).
8. The farmer class is more nationalistic and less cosmopolitan than the commercial class. "A merchant is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country. It is in a great measure indifferent for him from
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what place he carries on his trade; and a very trifling disgust will make him remove his capital, and together with it all the industry which it supports, from one country to another. No part of it can be said to belong to any particular country, till it has been spread as it were over the face of that country, either in buildings, or in the lasting improvement of lands" (p. 393).
9. The farmer class and the agricultural countries yield better sol- diers and their populations are more easily converted into soldiers (Vol. II, Bk. V, chap, i, pp. 188489, 267-268).
10. The farmer class and agricultural countries which have less divi- sion of labor than the cities, have a population more vigorous, persever- ing, martial, active, healthy, and dexterous than the city population and commercial and manufacturing countries (Vol. II, Bk. V, chap, i, pp. 267-268).
11. Because the farmer class is scattered over the country, it is less able to organize into unions and corporations than the city people, although the highly complex nature of the farmers' work and their interests make such an organization highly necessary. For the same reason, the farmer class is more virtuous and less guilty of the abuse of such union power at the cost of the whole country, and of the ex- ploitation of other social groups than are the city's laboring, commer- cial, and manufacturing classes. "The inhabitants of a town being col- lected into one place, can easily combine together. The most insignifi- cant trades carried in towns have accordingly been incorporated. The trades which employ but a small number of hands, run most easily into such combinations. By combining not to take apprentices they can not only engross the employment, but reduce the whole manufacture into a sort of slavery to themselves, and raise the price of their labor much above what is due to the nature of their work. . . . The inhabi- tants of the country, dispersed in distant places, cannot easily combine together." Likewise, "the country gentlemen and farmers are, to great honor, of all people, the least subject to the wretched spirit of monop- oly" (Vol. I, Bk. I, chap, x, pp. 127-128; Vol. II, Bk. IV, chap, ii, pp. 426-470).
12. Correspondingly, the farmer class is more altruistic and ready to render mutual aid than the commercial and manufacturing class, and besides, every improvement made by a farmer is willingly communi- cated for the benefit of others while the urban classes keep their inven- tions secret and exclusively for themselves. "The undertaker of a great manufactory^ sometimes alarmed if another work of the same kind is established within twenty miles of him. Farmers and country gen- tlemen, on the contrary, are generally disposed rather to promote than
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to obstruct the cultivation and improvement of their neighbors' farms and estates. They have no secrets, such as those of the greater part of manufacturers, but are generally rather fond of communicating to their neighbors, and of extending as far as possible any new practice which they have found to be advantageous" (Vol. II, Bk. IV, chap, ii, pp. 426-427).
These quotations exhaust the most important generalizations of Adam Smith in the field in which we are interested. We see that, all in all, his evaluation of the class of free farmers, country gentlemen, and country laborers was very high in all substantial respects: biological, intellectual, moral, social, and economic. At the same time, in the above statements, he set forth a series of most important generalizations in the field of rural-urban sociol- ogy, generalizations which are often repeated as something new, without any reference to Adam Smith or to his predecessors. VI. JOHN MILLAR
A series of authors, like John Millar (1735-1801), Lord Kames, Karl Dietrich Hiillmann, C. Meiners, Linguet, A. R. J. Turgots,47 and others, touched indirectly certain rural-urban sociological problems in the course of discussion of the problem of the origin and development of social inequality. As a sample of these works we shall take some of the generalizations given by John Millar. His book is devoted to an analysis of the changes in the social position of the women, children, paterfamilias, and the chiefs, and in the forms of government under the conditions of primi- tive hunting and fishing, the introduction of agriculture, and finally the introduction of arts, manufactures, and industry. In this sense it is an attempt to establish some functional or causal relationship between the forms of the technique of production of means of subsistence and the series of societal phenomena like the forms of the family, courtship, arts, political institutions, and gov- ernment. The subsequent quotations give samples of his gen- eralizations.
i7See John Millar, The Origin of the Distinction of Kernes, London, 1771; Lord Kames, Sketches of the History of Man, 4 vols.; 1788; K. D. Hiillmann, Geschichte des Ursprungs der Stance in Deutschland, Frankfurt a.d. O., 1806; C. Meiners, Geschichte der Ungleichheit der St'dnde in Deutschland, Hanover, 1792; Linguet, Theorie des lois civiles ou principles fondamentcaux de la sodete, 1767; A. R. J. Turgots, Reflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses, 1766.
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26. JOHN MILLAR: AGRICULTURE AND THE EVOLUTION OF WOMEN'S STATUS*
Agriculture and the position of women, forms of courtship, arts, and culture.— In contrast to the stage of hunting, fishing, and cattle-breed- ing, the introduction of the cultivation of land led to an ennoblement of the relationship between the sexes and to a heightening of the posi- tion of women in society. The reasons for that were the establishment of private property in land and its satellite consequence, an incessant warfare between the opulent proprietors of land. Therefore, "the high notions of military honor, and the romantic love and gallantry were equally derived from those particular circumstances. . . . From the prevailing spirit of the times, the art of war became the study of every- one who was desirous of maintaining the character of a gentleman. . , . The situation of mankind in those periods had also a manifest tendency to heighten and improve the passion between the sexes. It was not to be expected that those opulent chiefs, who maintained a constant oppo- sition to each other, would allow any sort of familiarity to take place between the members of their respective families. Retired in their own castles, they looked upon their neighbours either as inferior to them in rank, or as enemies. . . . The young knight, as he marched to the tournament, saw at a distance the daughter of the chieftain . . . and it was even with difficulty that he could obtain access to her, in order to declare the sentiments with which she had inspired him. The lady herself was taught to assume the pride of her family, and to think that no person was worthy of her affection who did not possess an exalted rank and character. To have given herself to a sudden inclina- tion [as was done in the pre-agricultural stage, according to Millar] would have disgraced her forever in the opinion of all her kindred."
Hence "the sincere and faithful passion, which commonly occupied the heart of every warrior, and which he professed upon all occasions, was naturally productive of the utmost purity of manners, and of great respect and veneration for the female sex. The delicacy of sentiment which prevailed, had a tendency to divert the attention from sensual pleasures, and created a general abhorrence of debauchery. A woman who violated the laws of chastity was indeed deserted by everybody, and was universally condemned and insulted. The love of God and of the ladies was one of the first lessons inculcated upon every young person who was initiated into the military profession."
From this teaching came the high romanticism, chivalry, and gal- lantry of this period. And all this naturally was reflected in arts. "The
* John Millar, The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks, 4th ed., Edinburgh, 1806, pp. 67-108. Quotation marks indicate exact words of the author quoted.
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sentiments of military honor, and the love and gallantry had neces- sarily a remarkable influence upon the genius and taste of their literary compositions. Men were pleased with a recital of what they admired in real life." Hence "the employment of the bards who along with their minstrels attended the festivals and entertainments of princes and sang a variety of small poetical pieces of their own composition, describing the heroic sentiments, as well as the love and gallantry of the times. . . . They were succeeded by the writers of romance. . . . The epic poetry described the same heroic and tender sentiments." Examples of such a poetry and epic are furnished by the Orlando Furioso, com- posed out of the preceding Morgante and Orlando Innamorato; by the Gierusalemme Liberata; the legends of the King Arthur, and so on.
When, however, the commercial and manufacturing stages came, such poetry and arts had to be replaced by different ones. The devia- tion took place first of all in Italy.
"The principal towns of Italy came thus to be filled with tradesmen and merchants, whose unwarlike disposition were readily communi- cated to others." To their influence there was added the influence of the clergy. The result was that "the decay of the military spirit among the Italians was manifest (also in that) their taste of writing was varied according to this alteration of their circumstances; and people began to relish those ludicrous descriptions of low life and of licen- tious manners which we meet in the tales of Boccace, and many other writers, entirely repugnant to the gravity and decorum of former times. ... In the other countries of Europe the matters introduced by chivalry were more firmly rooted and may still be observed to have a good deal of influence upon the taste and sentiments even of the present age. The fashion of those (earlier) times has also remained with us in our theatrical compositions; and scarce any author seems to have thought that a tragedy without love-plot could be attended with success."
With 'the development of manufacturing, commerce, and practical arts (urbanization), the condition of women has also changed. "The advancement of a people in manufactures and commerce has a tenden- cy to remove those circumstances which prevented the free intercourse of the sexes (in agricultural stage) and contributed to heighten and inflame their passions. . . ." Men and women meeting freely now and being educated along similar lines, "in this situation, the women be- come neither the slaves nor the idols of the other sex but the friends and companions. . . . The women now began to be valued upon ac- count of their useful talents and accomplishments." In addition to this change there came an increase of opulence and luxury of such indus- trial and commercial centers; "in refined and polished nations there is
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the same free communication between the sexes as in the ages of rude- ness and barbarism." However, "in a simple age, the free intercourse of the sexes is attended with no bad consequences; but in opulent and luxurious nations, it gives rise to licentious and dissolute manners, in- consistent with good order and general interest of society. . . . The natural tendency, therefore, of great luxury and dissipations is to di- minish the rank and dignity of the women, by preventing all refine- ment in their connection with the other sex, and rendering them only subservient to the purposes of animal enjoyment. The excessive opulence of Rome, about the end of the Commonwealth, gave rise to an exceed- ing debauchery; and the common prostitution of the women was carried to a height that must have been extremely unfavorable to the multiplication of the species; while the liberty of divorce was so much extended and abused that marriage became a very slight and transient connection." He further indicates that this was followed by disinte- gration of the family ties not only between husband and wife but also between parents and children, by a change of the law of inheritance, and by many other disastrous effects.
In a similar way Millar indicates that the transition from the agricultural to the manufacturing and commercial stages has been followed by a decrease of the paternal authority and an increase of the liberty of the children; and by several changes in the politi- cal institutions, forms of government, and selection of the lead- ers.48 Along similar lines, though not always similar in essence, were set forth several generalizations by other writers in this field enumerated above.49 VII. THOMAS R. MALTHUS
Thomas R. Malthus (1766-1834), the celebrated author of An Essay on the Principle of Population (1st ed., 1798), developed several theories concerning the problems we are investigating. In many respects, his views were similar to those of Adam Smith. In agreement with Smith he regarded agriculture and the agricul- tural classes as more productive, economically, than industry and commerce, and the manufacturing and commercial classes. He claimed that whether we would understand by wealth "the gross produce of the land" or "the clear surplus produce of the land" or Adam Smith's definition of wealth,
48 Millar, op. cit., chap, ii-vi.
48 See also Gilbert Stuart, A View of Society in Europe in Its Progress from Rudeness to Refinement, 1st ed., 1778, a new edition, Basil, 1797, esp. pp. 126-332, and Frederic U. Eden, The State of the Poor, London, 1797.
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It must always be true, that the surplus produce of the cultivators measures and limits the growth of that portion of the society which is not employed upon the land. Throughout the whole world the num- ber of manufacturers, of proprietors, and of persons engaged in the various civil and military professions, must be exactly proportioned to this surplus produce, and cannot in the nature of things increase be- yond it. If the earth had been so niggardly of her produce, as to oblige all her inhabitants to labor for it, no manufacturers or idle persons could ever have existed. ... In proportion as the labor and ingenuity of man exercised upon the land have increased this surplus produce, leisure has been given to a greater number of persons to employ them- selves in all the inventions which embellish civilized life. And though, in its turn, the desire to profit by these inventions, has greatly contrib- uted to stimulate the cultivators to increase their surplus produce; yet the order of precedence is clearly the surplus produce; because the funds for the subsistence of the manufacturers must be advanced to him, before he can complete his work. . . . The skill to modify the raw materials produced from the land would be absolutely of no value, and the individuals possessing it would immediately perish, if these raw materials, and the food necessary to support those who are work- ing them up, could not be obtained; but if the materials and the food were secure, it would be easy to find the skill sufficient to render them of considerable value.50
In accordance with this proposition, Malthus regarded the sur- plus produce arising from agriculture as the foundation of wealth, power, and prosperity, and as the indispensable condition for the very existence of a vast body of manufacturers, artisans, followers of the liberal professions, and the vast body of consumers.51 Fur- ther, while disagreeing with the Physiocrats in their designation of all classes except the agricultural as unproductive classes, he at the same time stressed that these classes are less productive than the agricultural class.52
The fine silks and cottons, the laces, and other ornamental luxuries of a rich country, may contribute very considerably to augment the exchangeable value of its annual produce; yet they contribute but in a very small degree, to augment the mass of happiness in the society: and it appears to me, that it is with some view to the real utility of the
50 T. R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, 4th ed., London, 1807, II, 132-131
61 Ibid., II, 137-138.
™lbid., pp. 138 £f. C£. "First Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), reprinted by the Royal Economic Society (with notes of James Bonar), London, 1926, chap. xvii.
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produce, that we ought to estimate the productiveness, or unproduc- tiveness of different sorts oÂŁ labor. The French Economists consider all labor employed in manufactures as unproductive, comparing it with the labor upon land, I should be perfectly disposed to agree with them; but not exactly for the reasons they give. [He further indi- cates that the labor employed in manufactures is also productive to some extent, but] in comparison with the labor employed upon land, it would be still as unproductive as ever. ... A capital employed upon land, may be unproductive to the individual that employs it, and yet be highly productive to the society. A capital employed in trade on the contrary, may be highly productive to the individual, and yet be almost totally unproductive to the society : and this is the reason why I should call manufacturing labor unproductive, in comparison of that which is employed in agriculture, and not for the reason given by the French Economists.53
From these principles he further deduces: that agricultural in terests in Europe have been neglected and manufacturing and commerce have received undue encouragement; that the best eco- nomic system is that in which the development of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures is well balanced; that the country which has such a system is safer than the country which is not self-sufficing in agricultural produce (especially in time of war) ; and that from a purely commercial standpoint the export of corn is one of the most advantageous for the country.54
Among other noneconomic generalizations of Malthus the fol- lowing ones may be mentioned: first, mortality in the cities is greater than in the country 55; second, the health of the city popu- lation and the healthfulness of the cities is inferior, and will be inferior, to that of the country people and rural conditions 58 ; third, he quotes and agrees with Dr. Aiken that the biological, moral, hygienic, and other conditions of laboring families in the cities are much poorer than in the families of agricultural laborers,
In (their families) we meet with neatness, cleanliness, and comfort; in (the urban laboring families) with filth, rags, and poverty, although their wages may be nearly double to those of the husbandman. It must be added that the want of early religious instruction and example, and
53 First Essay on the Principle of Population, quoted, pp. 300, 329-333; see there a development of these statements. See also the fourth edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population, II, 139 ff., 145 ff.
w An Essay on the Principle of Population, 4th ed., quoted, II, 145-160.
*lbid.t I, 328, 388.
*lhd., II, 4130.
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the numerous and indiscriminate associations in these (factory) build- ings, are very unfavorable to their future conduct.57
Finally in a general and somewhat indefinite way Malthus says that "by encouraging the industry of towns more than the indus- try of the country (agriculture), Europe may be said, perhaps, to have brought a premature old age. A different policy in this re- spect, would infuse fresh life and vigor into every state." 5S
G. PROMINENT FRENCH THINKERS OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY I. VOLTAIRE
The opinions of Voltaire (1694-1778) did not differ from those of other prominent thinkers of the eighteenth century. Like them he regarded agriculture as "a foundation of everything though not what makes everything. It is the mother of all other arts and all other goods." 59 Of all occupations "agriculture has the greatest need for large families and for conserving health and energy; it puts a man in the easiest position to have and maintain many chil- dren." 60 Furthermore, he indicates that
religion itself was founded on agriculture. All the fetes and all the rites have been but the emblems of this art — the primary of all arts — which united men together, supplied them with food, dwelling, and clothes, which represent the three things satisfying human nature. . . . It is not on ridiculous and amusing fables that religion was established. The first mysteries invented in the most ancient times were but a cele- bration of the field works under the protection of a supreme deity. Such were the mysteries of Isis, Orpheus, Ceres. Of these, Ceres, par- ticularly, shows to our eyes and mind how the agricultural works pulled man out of savage life. Nothing could be more useful and saintly. The orgies of Bacchus were for a long time as pure and as sacred as the mysteries of Ceres. The priestesses of Bacchus, called the venerables, took the vow of chastity and obedience to their superiors up to the time of Alexander. ... In brief, everything so sacred, so re- spected, in rural life now is despised in our large cities.61
"Through what fatality did it happen that agriculture is hon- ored only in China!" Voltaire exclaims, and with enthusiasm he
877&WV II, 118-120.
68 'First Essay, quoted, p. 344.
"Ocuvres competes de Voltaire. Paris, 1877-1885, XXIX, 360.
wlbtd., XIII, 151.
*lbid.t XXIX, 360.
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proceeds to describe various agricultural festivities in China led by her emperor and other measures and honors given to agricul- ture in that country, "What should our sovereigns of Europe do, having learned about the Chinese veneration of agriculture? Ad- mire and blush, but particularly imitate." 62
In many other places Voltaire expresses similar views. At the same time, he stresses again and again that in spite of their being the foundation of society and the primary factor of its prosperity, the cultivators have always been exploited, disfranchised, en- slaved, robbed, and abused in every possible way; and that such a treatment is continued up to his time, especially in the cities and among the parasites and drones of urban society.63 Like the Physi- ocrats he also believed that a society whose wealth was based on agricultural production was superior and more stable than the predominantly commercial society.64 Finally, he says that cities facilitate a decrease in birth rate because people do not want to have children in the cities; they also facilitate depopulation by attracting people from the country and making them less fertile. By attracting agriculturists and laborers from the rural parts, they are responsible for an increasing proportion of uncultivated land and thus facilitate the economic decay of a country because "the land not being cultivated, it cannot feed the urbanites and because the cultivation of land is the primary and real wealth." 65 II. MONTESQUIEU
Montesquieu (1689-1755) contributes but little to our study. Some purely casual remarks scattered throughout his works may be summed up as follows: (1) Agriculture is a basic industry and ought, by all means, to be facilitated. He styles the Chinese cere- monies in veneration of agriculture a very good custom.60 (2) In contrast to many writers he does not, however, oppose agriculture to commerce and arts, and ruralism to urbanism. On the contrary, he states that development of agriculture is necessarily followed by that of arts, of commerce, of science, and of money economy.67 (3) In his estimation of the effects of urbanization — arts, sciences,
*lbid.t XVII, 86-88,
68 Ibid., XXIX, 360-370; IX, 381; X, 204; XLVI, 352.
"lbid.t XVIII, 5ff.; X, 380.
*lbid., XLV, 404.
88 De I' esprit des lots, Bk, XIV, chap, viii; Bk. IV, chap. viii.
6T Ibid., Bk. XVIII, chap. xvi.
134 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
and commerce — he shows his usual balance of mind; he recog- nizes a series of its positive effects, such as a refinement of mores, extension of peace, formal justice, reinforcement of frugality, moderation, labor efficiency, orderliness, sagacity, and regularity. On the other hand, he indicates that these factors may lead to a corruption of mores, increase of inequality, disorder, physical and moral enervation, to a justice which is too formal, to depreci- ation of noncommercial virtues, to commercialization of vices and moral values, and to the weakening of hospitality and sin- cerity.68 (4) He stresses the attitude of indifference to the political regime among the peasants and farmers: if they have their prop- erty secure from invasion and violation it matters not to them whether there is a monarchy, a republic, or any other form of government.69 (5) The lack of a free farm population and the farmer proprietorial class he views as one of the factors in the depopulation of a country, and the establishment of such a landed class whose conditions are satisfactory, as the most important measure for the increase of the fertility of the population.70 Final- ly, he mentions several times that a development of cities has often, but not always and not necessarily, led to a growth of the spirit of Epicureanism, moral corruption. In this case it is to be considered as one of the factors in the decay of society.71 III. JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
The negative attitude of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) towards urbanization and his romantic idealization of rural and of savage life are well known. As early as his famous Discourse about Sciences and Arts (1750) he expressed it quite clearly, and in subsequent works, such as Le control social, fimile, La nou- vette Heloise, Gouvernment de Pologne, and others, he main- tained this attitude and developed it further. His argumentations may be summed up in a schematical way as follows: The happi- est and most virtuous life is the simple life of primitive people where there are no sciences, arts, cities, and complex civilization. The development of arts and sciences, which accompanies the growth of cities, commerce, industries, and complex civilization,
58 Ibid., Bk. XX, chaps, i-iii; Bk. V, chap, vi; Persian Letters, Letter CVII. fl8 De I'esprit des loif, Bk. XXIII, chaps, i, ii. wl&id., Bk. XXIII, chaps, xxiv-xxviii.
" Montesquieu, Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire, Glasgow, 1883, pp. 49-50, 52.
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 135
leads to a development of luxury, corruption, softening, effemi- nacy, injustice, and other evils. The development of these evils, in their turn, lead to a decay of society and the defilement of human nature. The subsequent fragments give some idea of this and of several other details concerning Rousseau's views in this field.
27. ROUSSEAU: CITIES, THE SOURCE OF PERDITION*
"When a taste for study and arts and literature begins to develop among any people in the world, the mores begin to degenerate. . . „ The appearance of such an inclination always signifies the beginning of corruption. . . . An inclination to literature, philosophy, and the arts annuls our primary sense of duty and our real glory. ... It softens our body and soul. ... It weakens all the ties of esteem and benevo- lence which attach a man to society. . . . Family and native country become for such a man mere words, empty of meaning; for such a philosopher there is neither parent, nor citizen, nor man. . . . From it there originate on the one hand, a refinement of taste, politeness, vile and defiling flattery, and other insidious, childish, and seductive pro- clivities, which, in the long run, dry up the soul and corrupt the heart; on the other hand, jealousy, rivalry, the hatred of artists so well known, pernicious calumny, treason, unfaithfulness, insincerity, and everything that is the vilest and odious in vice." 72
"Other evils, still worse, follow the development of arts and letters. Such an evil is luxury, born, like these, from idleness and the vanity of men. . . . Our philosophy pretends, against the experience of all times, that luxury contributes to the splendour of societies: but does it dare to deny that good mores are essential to the duration of an empire and that luxury is opposed to good mores? It is certain that luxury is a sign of wealth and prosperity; but what becomes of virtue when men try to enrich themselves at whatever cost? The statesmen of ancient times stressed incessantly good mores and virtue; our politicians talk only about commerce and money. In proportion as the commodities of life multiply, the arts progress, and luxury extends, real courage weakens, and military virtues disappear . . . and taste itself degener- ates. , . . Before arts molded our manners, our mores had been rustic and natural; now a vile and deceptive uniformity reigns there, and all minds appear to have been cast in the same mold : incessantly the rules of etiquette demand, and the rules of decency prescribe. None dares any longer to be what he is; incessantly they follow the prescribed rules and never their own genius. . . ." Rousseau makes further a
*This selection is drawn from a number of sources. Quotation marks indicate the words of Rousseau.
72 2V 'arcisse , in Qeuvres competes de J. /. Rousseau, Paris, 1873, V, 103-104.
136 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
rough historical induction that pre-urban and pre-literate peoples, such as the ancient Persians, Scythians, and Germans were virtuous, strong, healthy, victorious, powerful, and social. While when these same peo- ples and many others became civilized and developed arts, sciences, cities, luxuries, and commerce, they lost all these qualities, became cor- rupted, effeminate, enfeebled, weak, were conquered, and decayed.73
In a footnote to the Narcisse Rousseau adds that "among men there are thousands of sources of corruption; and though among them sci- ences and arts are probably the most abundant and efficient, they are not the only source of corruption. (Among those) commerce and all that facilitates communication and contact between nations carries to each of them not the virtues of the others but their crimes and perverts their mores, which were adapted to their climate and to the constitu- tion of their government." He further remarks that in attributing & corruptive effect to the sciences and arts, he understood by them not "the sovereign intelligence which sees in a twinkle of an eye the truth of all things, but vain and deceptive knowledge (connaissances) . Sci- ence taken in its real and abstract way deserves our admiration; the faulty science of men deserves but mockery and contempt." 74
After this it is comprehensible why Rousseau styles the cities "the source of perdition of mankind"; as a "source of physical and moral degeneration"; as "the suckers who bleed the nation"; as "the school of vices and contempt." "It is the rural world which teaches us to love and to serve mankind; while in the cities they learn but to scorn it." 75 Rousseau was well aware of the role of the cities as the centers of the waste of human material and its energy; of the negative biological bal- ance of the cities; of their inability to increase or maintain their popu- lations without migration from the country; of the unhealthy city con- ditions, and so on.76
Among other negative effects of the cities he sees that in them "hu- man beings become different from what they are. This is especially true of Paris and particularly in regard to women. Meeting a lady in a society, instead of seeing a Parisian lady as you expected, you see but a simulacrum of fashion. Her haughtiness, her ampleness, her poise, her stature, her breast, her color, her air, her looks, her gossip, her manners, nothing of this is her own; if you should see her in her natural condi- tion you would hardly recognize her. Such a change is rarely favorable to those to whom it happens." TT
73"Les sciences et les arts," in Exttaits de J. J. Rousseau, by M. Gidel, Paris, 2d ed,, chaps, i-tv, pp. 1-14.
^Oeuvres completes, V, 103. 75/&W., II, 27, 186, 441; X, 145. nllM., II, 27, 163 if., 186. '"Ibid., IV, 188.
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 137
In a similar way he mocks the attitude of superiority that urbanites maintain with regard to the rural people and assails "the authors, the literati, the philosophers who do not cease to cry that in order to per- form the duties of a citizen and to serve one's fellowmen, it is neces- sary to dwell in large cities. According to them to evade Paris means to hate mankind; the rural people are nothing in their eyes; if we are to believe them, there is no human being outside of the boarding houses, academies, and dinner parties. . . . Rural life and agriculture have their own pleasures; and these pleasures are less insipid and less rude than they think them; among rural people there may be found a taste, exquisiteness, and delicacy; a respectable man who would retire with his family to the country and would become his own farmer can enjoy a life as sweet as that amidst the amusements of the city; a man- ager of a farm may be a charming woman, graceful and full of more tender charms than all the urban landladies (les p elite s-maitr esses) ; finally, the most tender sentiments of the heart may animate rural so- ciety more pleasantly than the artificially exquisite language of the city circles, where our satirical and morbid laughter is a poor substitution for a natural gaiety lost by us." 7S Besides, "the country's lessons are in loving and serving humanity while the city's lessons are in despising
k;579
All these details of Rousseau's attitude toward the problem discussed are well summed up in his advice to Poland and the Polish people. Writing concerning the project of their constitution, Rousseau says: "The choice of an economic system which Poland must adopt depends on the objective which it has in view in correcting its constitution. If you (Poles) want but to become buoyant, brilliant, redoubtable, and influential in regard to other people of Europe, you have their exam- ples, and all that you have to do is to imitate them. Cultivate sciences, arts, commerce, industry, have a large army, fortresses, academies, espe- cially a good financial system with a good circulation of money, which facilitates its multiplication. ... In this way you would create an in- triguing, ardent, greedy, ambitious, servile, roguish, and fraudulent nation similar to others with the extremes of misery and opulence, li- centiousness and slavery, but then you will be regarded as one of the grand powers of Europe; you will be involved in all political systems; your alliance will be sought for in all diplomatic negotiations; there will be no war in which you will not have a hand. . . .
But if by chance you would prefer to form a free, peaceful, and wise nation, which does not fear or need anybody, which is self-sufficing and happy, then you must follow quite a different way, namely to main-
w/foW.f iv, 10-11. "Ibid., X, 145.
138 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
tain and reestablish simple mores, sound tastes, martial spirit without ambition; educate courageous and disinterested souls; turn your peo- ple to agriculture and the arts necessary for life; make them disdainful of money. . . . Following this route, you, of course, will not fill the papers with the noise of your fetes, your negotiations, your exploits; and philosophers will not flatter you; poets will not sing of you; and Europe will not be talking of you; but you will be living in abundance, liberty, and justice. . . . Favor your agriculture and useful arts, not for the sake of the enrichment of the cultivators, but for the sake of making life honorable and agreeable. Establish the manufacture of the primary necessities; multiply incessantly your grain and your popula- tion and do not trouble yourselves about other things. This is the prin- ciple which I would like to see reigning in your economic system. Un- der such a system, luxury and poverty, beggars and millionaires, would disappear gradually; and the citizens, cured of frivolous inclinations which lead to opulence, and of vices connected with misery, would put their cares and their glory in serving their country well and would find their happiness in the fulfillment of their duties." 80
The above quotations outline the essentials of Rousseau's opin- ions in the field. They are to be regarded as one of the most nega- tive attitudes toward the city and complex civilization.81
H. PROMINENT AMERICAN THINKERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The majority of the American writers of the eighteenth cen- tury expressed views similar to those of the Political Arithmeti- cians and the Physiocrats. These views are representatively ex- pressed in the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the president of Yale College, Dr. Styles. Another division of prominent political writers and statesmen, represented by Alex- ander Hamilton, held views somewhat nearer to those of Hume and other thinkers who regarded positively not only agriculture
"Ibid., V, 277-279.
81 These views naturally provoked sharp criticism on the part of Rousseau's contem- poraries. As a sample of this criticism Helvetius' sharp and caustic denunciation of Rousseau's theories may serve. Rejecting Rousseau's views, Helvetius claims that educa- tion and the progress of the arts and sciences lead to the intellectual, social, and moral improvement of man; that they are not responsible for decay; that ignorant peoples are the most cruel, wretched, and bloodthirsty; that the development of commerce, money economy, cities, and even luxury, is beneficial. In brief, in regard to urban, commercial, and refined civilization, Helvetius is more optimistic than even Hume or Montesquieu. See Helvetius, De I'homme, Qettvres completes d'Helvetius, Paris, 1818, Vol. II, Sec. V, chaps, iv-xi; Sec. VI, chap, xviii, pp. 304-389.
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 139
and the farmer, but also commerce, manufacture, and the cities. These opinions are illustrated by the subsequent excerpts from the works of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexan- der Hamilton.82 I. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Being under the influence of William Petty and later on of the French Physiocrats, Franklin (1706-1790) had a very high esti- mation of agriculture and the farmers, a view similar to that of the school of Quesnay.
Food is always necessary to all, and much the greatest part of the labor of mankind is employed in raising provisions for the mouth. Is not this kind of labor, then, the fittest to be the standard by which to measure the values of all other labor, anH consequently of all other things whose value depends on the labor of making or procuring them? May not even gold and silver be thus valued? If the labor of the farmer, in producing a bushel of wheat, be equal to the labor of the miner in producing an ounce of silver, will not the bushel of wheat just measure the value of the ounce of silver?
Thus for him agricultural value is the basis and the standard of all other values.
There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors. This is robbery. The second by commerce, which is gener- ally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.
Consequently "the great business of the [American] conti- nent is agriculture." It is "the most useful, the most independent, and therefore the noblest of employments." And Franklin's farmer says: "I am one of that class of people that feeds you all and at present is abused by you all." And he indicated further how the interests of the farmer class in America were sacrificed in favor of manufacturing and other employments. Meanwhile "only agriculture is truly productive of new wealth," and "manu- factures will naturally spring up in a country as the country be- comes ripe for them." He remarks further that England "is fond
83 For other writers and opinions see Styles, A Discourse on Christian Union, Boston, 1761; Jesse Buel, The Farmer's Companion, Boston, 1839; American State Papers: Finance, Vol. Ill (1815-1822), and Vol. V (1824-1828),
140 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
of manufactures beyond their real value, for the true source of riches is husbandry." The farmer, being the incarnation of hon- esty, independence, frugality, thrift, industry, and other positive characteristics, is the best counter-agent against luxury, vice, and other defects which are dangerous to the welfare of a society. With deep satisfaction he stresses that this country has a predomi- nantly agricultural character, an overwhelming agricultural popu- lation, and excellent conditions for the further development of agriculture. Its benefits are general for the whole commonwealth while "the advantages [of a regulation of commerce] . , . not being general for the commonwealth are but particular, to private persons or bodies in the State who procured them, and at the ex- pense of the rest of the people."
If we add to the above, that Franklin regarded with especial favor an agricultural system where the land is held by farmer- owners, in contrast to the system of the concentration of land in a few hands, which is necessarily followed by a class of poor landless laborers and poor tenants, the essentials of Franklin's attitude toward agriculture and farmers are outlined.83 II. THOMAS JEFFERSON
The agricultural sympathies of Jefferson (1743-1846) are well known. They also were strongly influenced by the French Physio- cratic School. The following fragment gives his opinion on the subject. Writing to John Jay (August 23, 1785) on the question of "whether it would be useful to us, to carry all our own pro- ductions, or none" he states:
Were we perfectly free to decide this question, I should reason as follows: We have now lands enough to employ an infinite number of people in their cultivation. Cultivators of the earth are the most valu- able citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country, and wedded to its liberty and interests, by the most lasting bonds. As long, therefore, as they can find employment in this line, I would not convert them into mariners, artisans, or anything else. But our citizens will find em- ployment in this line, till their numbers, and of course their produc- tions, become too great for the demand, both internal and foreign. This is not the case as yet, and probably will not be for a considerable time. As soon as it is, the surplus of hands must be turned to some-
9 The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. by A. H. Smith, New York, 1905-190(5, I, 147 if.; V, 535 tf., 361, 194 H.; X, 116 S.
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 141
thing else, I should then, perhaps, wish to turn them to the sea in pref- erence to manufactures; because, comparing the characters of the two classes, I find the former the most valuable citizens. I consider the class of artificers as the panders of vice, and the instruments by which the liberties of a country are generally overturned. However, we are not free to decide this question on principles of theory only. 84
III. ALEXANDER HAMILTON
The attitude of Hamilton (1757-1804) towards agriculture was less enthusiastic, while his attitude towards commerce was more favorable than that of Jefferson. In this sense Hamilton's views are nearer to the urban standpoint on the question. The essentials of his opinion are summed up in his paper published in The Federalist, November 27, 1787.y5
The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares. By multiplying the means of gratification, by promoting the introduction and circulation of the precious metals ... it serves to vivify and invigorate the channels of industry, and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness. The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active me- chanic, and the industrious manufacturer — all orders of men — look forward with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their toil. The often agitated question between agriculture and commerce has, from indubitable experience, received a decision which has silenced the rivalship that once subsisted between them, and has proved, to the satisfaction of their friends, that their interests are intimately blended and interwoven. It has been found in various coun- tries that, in proportion as commerce has flourished, land has risen in value. And how could it have ever happened otherwise? ... It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever have had an adver- sary. . . .
The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a large degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facili- tate the requisite supplies to the treasury. The hereditary dominions of the Emperor of Germany contain a great extent of fertile, cultivated, and populous territory. ... In some parts of this territory are to be
8iTke Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Philadelphia, 1871, I, 403-404; see also pp. 465-466.
™The Works of Alexander Hamilton, ed. by H. C. Lodge, New York, 1904, XL 89-97.
142 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
found the best gold and silver mines in Europe. And yet, from the want of the fostering influence of commerce, that monarch can boast but slender revenues.
Hamilton and his followers contended, further, that the cities and manufactures do not lead to an increase of vice, immorality, pauperism, and other bad effects; on the contrary, absorbing the mass of the surplus population and giving employment to them they prevent poverty, crime, and vice. He believed that the employment of children in manufacturing enterprises inculcated in them "habits of industry, order, and regularity, which gener- ally adhere to them through life." 8C
I. CONCLUSION: A CENSUS OF OPINIONS
The above sketch gives a survey of the most developed theories of the most prominent thinkers in the field studied, before the nineteenth century. It somewhat fills a void that has existed up to the present moment in a section of the history of rural soci- ology and rural-urban social philosophy. Such a history has not before been written, nor has there been a single work that has at- tempted to outline the development of opinions and theories concerning the rural-urban aspects of social life from ancient times to the nineteenth century. This survey outlines the essen- tials of this development. It shows, first, that many problems of rural-urban sociology appeared long ago; second, that they were also thought over and given this or that answer long ago; third, that the majority of the fundamental problems of rural sociology were discussed and analyzed long before the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Contemporary rural-urban sociologists neither formulated their problems for the first time nor set forth the varieties of solutions for these problems. In this sense the survey is useful and helps us today to acquire a little more accurate per- spective in the field of contemporary theories and hypotheses of rural-urban sociology.
In addition to these functions the survey fulfils an additional one: it represents a kind of census of the opinions of the most prominent social philosophers. If we do not assume that these opinions are worthless and wrong— an assumption scarcely justi- fied from any standpoint — then it may be of some value to know
88 American State Papers: Finance, Vol. Ill (1815-1822), pp. 456, 601 ff.
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 143
what these thinkers have really thought of rural and urban life and of rural and urban people. We know that these thinkers lived under widely differing conditions; some of them were rural born and reared, some were urban born and reared; some lived in a stage of relatively undeveloped urbanization, others amid highly urbanized conditions. The opinions themselves are composed either of collective, impersonal thought, such as that embodied in the religious and sacred books, or of the thoughts of social thinkers who, by their prestige and authority, are generally rec- ognized as masters of the social sciences. Computing as one the entire Chinese, the entire Jewish, the entire Egyptian, the entire Babylonian, the entire Hindu, and the entire Zoroastrian thought and excluding the opinions of European poets and story-writers, we have about forty-one units of opinions and theories. Let us roughly compute how many of these units share this or that opinion, and how many of them ascribe this or that character- istic to rural life and to the rural world. In an abbreviated form the results of such a very rough census of the opinions may be summed up as follows:
OPINION
PER PER
CENT CENT
OF OF
"YES" "No"
No DEFI- NITE STATE- MENT
1. Agriculture^ is a very useful, necessary, and im- portant industry . 100
2. Agriculture and cultivators are more important or "useful" than manufacture, commerce, other trades,
and other classes 40 5 55
3. Agriculture and cultivators are more important and superior than the professional and religious
occupations 10 25 65
4. Farmers and free cultivators are more healthy than the city population and rural life is more healthful
than urban life 80 5 15
5. Farmers are the best soldiers 40 . 60
6. Farmers and the rural people are more blameless and virtuous than the urban people; the cities are
the centers of vice and crime .... 65 10 25
7. The agricultural class is the only productive class .10 20 70
8. The agricultural class is more productive than other large social classes (those engaged in manu- facturing, commerce, trades, etc.) 18 6 76
144 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
PEK PER N«
n CENT CENT UEFI~
OPINION OF NITE
"YES" "No" STATE"
MENT
9. The agricultural occupation is hard 70 30
10. The class of cultivators is frugal 60 40
11. The class of cultivators is patient 50 50
12. The class of cultivators is peaceful and orderly 50 50
13. The class of cultivators is happier than the urban
classes 40 10 50
14. The class of cultivators is anticommunistic, anti- socialistic, and antirevolutionary ... 10 90
15. The class of cultivators is more religious than the
urban people 30 5 65
16. The class of cultivators is more independent, self- governing, and fit for democracy . 30 20 50
17. The class of cultivators is less cosmopolitan and
more patriotic than the urban people 45 55
18. With the exception of the professional and intel- lectual classes, the agricultural class is more intelli- gent than the bulk of the city population ... 25 15 60
19. Its place in the hierarchy of social classes is im- mediately after the group of the priests and rulers
and above all other classes 40 15 45
20. The agricultural class is unjustly exploited and dis- franchised 30 5 65
21. It is very sturdy 65 . 35
22. It has a higher birth rate than the urban class ... 35 . . 65
23. It has a lower mortality than the urban class. 40 . 60
24. It has a higher marriage rate than the urban class 30 . 70
25. It is more honest, less sophisticated, and less con- troversial than the urban class . 20 10 70
26. Rural people are less shifting and more stable than
city people 20 80
27. Rural people are more altruistic and inclined to
mutual help and cooperation than city people. ... 25 5 70
28. The cities are the source of demoralization, disor- ganization, disorder, decay 50 10 40
29. The city population is unable to keep its biological
balance 20 . 80
30. The cities are growing entirely at the cost oÂŁ mi- gration from the country 16 . . 84
31. Those who migrate from the country are the well- to-do country people 8 2 90
32. Those who migrate are the superior elements of
the country population 6 4 90
FOURTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES 145
PER PER nN°
CENT CENT DEFI' OPINION op op NITE
"YES" "No" STATE-
MENT
33. Those who migrate are principally of ages 10 to 40 12 88
34. Females migrate in a greater proportion than males 8 92
35. The rural family is larger, more integrated, more
stable, and purer than the urban family 45 5 50
36. The cities are the centers of arts, science, literature 35 65
37. The cities are the centers of artificiality and stand- ardization of manners . 5 95
38. One of the reasons why the rural classes are subju- gated and exploited by the cities is that they are scattered over a vast territory and for this reason cannot defend their interests as successfully as the
city people . . . 6 94
39. Rural people are more homogeneous (or pure) ra- cially than the urban people . 4 . 96
40. Rural people have a stronger esprit de corps than
urban people 8 92
41. Agriculture ennobles the position of women, puri- fies love and sexual life, increases the parental au- thority and attachment to children; while indus- trial and urban development tends to debase women and to disintegrate the purity of sex rela- tions and the family . . . 4 96
Though this census of opinions is very rough, nevertheless it has some significance. On the whole the opinions of the authors and sources studied show a rather remarkable unanimity. On some points it is extraordinary (as, for instance, that the rural people are more healthy, more blameless, less unmoral, the best soldiers, etc.). On other points, though few of the authors stress this or that characteristic, it is not repudiated by others. We see further that these authors noticed a great many urban-rural dif- ferential characteristics. They indicated almost all the most im- portant rural-urban differences and the differences of the city- country people which are discussed in contemporary works on rural-urban sociology. This is more true than is indicated by the table, in which are enumerated not all but only a part of the dif- ferences stressed by these authors. In the subsequent parts of this work we shall see to what extent these generalizations are valid. In view of the above unanimity and prominence of the authors it
146 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
is reasonable to expect that their opinions must contain a great deal of truth. The subsequent parts will show that this assumption is justified to a very considerable degree.87
87 Bibliography. — The principal sources and works are given in the text and foot- notes above. For the sake of economy of space the titles of these works are not repeated here. As to additional bibliography, it is to be noted that there does not exist any single work which gives a survey and analysis of the theories and opinions about rural life and rural people from the ancient to the present time All we have are a few mono- graphs, like Dr. Heitland's work quoted, which give a survey of the theories for a single country or for a definite limited period, or for one or a few authors. Since in the above most of the primary sources and original works of the most important authors are men- tioned and many monographs relating to the problems are quoted, it is scarcely neces- sary to add here other works that only indirectly or cursorily touch the problems dis- cussed. Readers or investigators who would like to make a more substantial study of the theories of a certain author, or school, or period mentioned in the text must turn to the works of the author, or school, or period, and the vast literature relating to each. The above survey gives a starting point and "the Ariadne thread" for this purpose. But it is far beyond the purpose of this work to list here the thousands of monographs written about various social thinkers and their works generally. To do this would transform the work into a history of the social sciences and the mental development of man, which is quite different from the purpose of these two chapters
CHAPTER III
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENTIATION
As will be shown in a later chapter rural-urban differentiation seems to originate and grow or proceed as a parabolic function. It begins gradually, increases its tempo, gains rapidly, and the city-country differentiation becomes great; then it lessens either through the engulfment of the city by the country or of the coun- try by the city, or the mutual fusion of the city and the country. In this chapter, the purpose is to describe the circumstances which bring about the first part of the curve of rural-urban differentia- tion, Why does city-country differentiation arise, and how does it proceed in its first phases of growth? These are the questions which engage us now.
Before proceeding to the analysis, it is first necessary to have at least a preliminary definition of the city in contrast to the coun- try. Otherwise the very analysis of the problem of the origin of the city-country differentiation is impossible. This explains why the authors who have discussed this problem have preceded it by some definition of the "city" as a social phenomenon different from the "country." The variety of these definitions is revealed in the subsequent readings. These definitions stress only some of the important characteristics of the city. But although they do not de- scribe all the constant and important differences between the urban and the rural worlds in their developed forms, they are sufficient for a consideration of the initial stages of rural-urban differentiation and permit the analysis of its forms and factors. In the next chapter we give a more adequate and complex analy- sis of the principal differences between the city and the country in their clearly defined form.
Before proceeding to the details of the problem, let us sum up the principal conclusions reached by various authors in this field. Practically all the competent authors agree that nomadic life and tribal organization preceded the appearance of the first cities. They all agree also that the initial stage of rural-urban diff erentia-
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tion was very slight and almost imperceptible. The first city was one tribe gathered together for a time. Only by a long, slow, and gradual process did the difference between the city and the coun- try widen and become tangible and clear-cut. Even at a relatively late period in the development of cities, as in the case of many large ancient cities of Egypt and Assyro-Babylonia, or during the first nine centuries of the Middle Ages, the urban world still con- tained a considerable proportion of agricultural population and many characteristic traits of the rural world. Many of these cities were somewhat "movable" also, having been rapidly erected by the will of a sovereign and often forsaken after his death.
The transition from nomadic to sedentary life comes about through the pitching of tents round a spring, at a ford important for commer- cial intercourse, or in one of the fertile sites. . . . Gradually the tents are replaced by huts of wattle or of mud, sometimes by dwellings ex- cavated in the hillside or in natural caves. Finally, the advantages of a regular, varied, and certain diet induce the nomads to cultivate plants, to train more numerous beasts for agricultural work, and to set up workshops for weaving wool, manufacturing implements of stone, clay, and copper, and for all the primitive industries. Thereafter the cluster of tents become villages, the villages form federations, real and personal property wins recognition, and the need of a State or- ganization makes itself felt.1
The details of this process are ably shown in the subsequent readings from R. Maunier, W. Sombart, K. Biicher, V. Kluchev- sky, Fustel de Coulanges, and HL Pirenne. These excerpts give the essentials of the process of rural-urban differentiation among many primitive groups, in ancient Greece and Rome, in medieval Europe, and among the Slavs and other peoples.
Further, almost all investigators agree also that the origin of the city has been paralleled by the origin of the state organization, which began to unite several tribes into one political body and to replace the tribal organization.
In order to designate State the Greeks used the term polis which means also the city. This synonymity is significant; generally there is no State without the city. Political unification has, as a rule, the city either as its starting point or as its basis: there was the city of Athens before there was the Athenian state; the city of Rhodes and the state
XA. Moret and G. Davy, From Tribe to Empire, New York, 1926, pp. 197-198. Additional quotations are reprinted with the permission of the publishers,
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 149
of Rhodes were created simultaneously. Exceptions to this rule are very rare: perhaps Sparta and Elis. . . . What characterizes the city? In the first place, a relatively large number of inhabitants; in the second, and rather often, a rampart which surrounds it and makes it a forti- fied place; such is the very initial meaning of the word polls, which signifies a citadel. Thus, the preliminary existence of a city is very often a circumstance that facilitates political unification; the founda- tion of a city is a circumstance which accompanies this unification.2
This process was very gradual, but it was common none the less. In this sense, the first state organizations were the city-states. Such was the situation in ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, China, Greece, Rome, among the Slavs, and among the European peoples at the beginning of the Middle Ages. The readings, espe- cially the papers of V. Kluchevsky and Petrie, show this clearly.
While it was a place of refuge and a political and religious cen- ter, the city was, at the same time, an economic phenomenon: a center for the accumulation of wealth and an aggregate of peo- ple which, at least in part, did not live on the produce of the land but obtained its means of subsistence from other rural aggregates. Early cities were consumption cities par excellence? The source from which the cities obtained their wealth and means of sub- sistence are problems answered in the papers of Petrie, Sombart, and Pirenne.
Any city is also an aggregate of population. Who built the early cities? By whom were they filled? Whence came their popula- tions ? What were the dominant occupations of the city-builders and the city-fillers ? These questions are elucidated in the papers given, particularly in those of Sombart and Pirenne.4
As to the factors responsible for the origin and development of the city-country differentiation, here again we find a great deal of agreement among the investigators. Almost all stress the impor- tant roles played by economic factors, war and safety, the increase of the population, demography, religious factors, inventions, espe-
3 Henri Francotte, La polls grecque, Paderhorn, 1907, pp. 106-107, in the Studlen zur Geschiclite und Kultttr des Altertttms, Band I, Hefte 3, 4; see there many important details; see also Korneman, Polls und Vrbs, Beltrage z. alt. Gesch., Band V, Heft 1.
8 See esp. K. Biicher's paper in Die Grossestadt, quoted further.
4 Some of the details of Sombart's theories are questionable but the essentials of his statements in this field seem to be adequate. See a criticism of Sombart's theories in G, von Below, Problems der Wlrtschaftsgeschlchte, Berlin, 1926, chap, vii,
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daily in the fields of technique, division of labor, and other less important factors.
The disagreement among the authors is largely on secondary points. For instance, some of the authors, like Maunier and A. F. Weber,5 are inclined to see principally the dispersing func- tion of agriculture and the concentrating role of other industries; while other authors indicate that agriculture, under some condi- tions and at certain stages, has played not only a dispersing but a concentrating or urbanising role. A sample of this is given in the following lines from Moret and Davy:
As in all agricultural countries exposed to sudden attacks from nomads, the sedentary peasants did not dwell in scattered huts. By night they gathered behind the solid walls of villages, where they left their families and treasures in safety when they went forth to their fields. Each village planted above its fortified gates an ensign-fetish, talisman, rallying sign. ... In these villages the hunters and tillers had come together for reason of defence, mutual aid, and collective safety.
Besides, there were many other tasks to be done together, and these tasks kept the people together and facilitated an enlarge- ment of the group. For instance, in Egypt, for the sake of agri- culture, it was necessary to develop a complex system for the regulation of the elevation of the Nile and the construction of a vast system of irrigation; "to drive out the wild beasts from the valley; to choose the animals suitable for taming," etc. In all these respects the role of agriculture led to concentration of the popula- tion, causing them to live together and to create and enlarge the villages, which, in many cases, became large towns or small cities.6 What has been said in regard to the discrepancy of opin- ions about the r61e played by agriculture may be said of many other factors. Some of the authors stress one aspect of the func- tions of the city, while others pay attention to other phases.
Two additional remarks need to be made. First, when the cities were so much differentiated from the country that they became abodes of a permanently settled population, such early cities were economically consumption cities: they fed themselves at the cost of the rural population and did not give back an economic equiva- lent for the supplies taken from the country. These supplies were
"See Adna F. Weber, The Growth of Cities. New York, 1899, chap. iu. 0 Moret and Davy, op, dt., pp. 123-125.
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 151
taken from the rural population in the form of taxes, levies, mili- tary booty, and similar duties and they were collected by the agents of kings, princes, conquerors, religious bodies, landlords settled in the city, and other "city-builders" and "city-fillers." These and similar sources furnished the subsistence basis of early Oriental and medieval cities. On this point all the competent in- vestigators seem to be in substantial agreement.7
Second, not all cities at all times are identical or even similar. While all had several common characteristics (analyzed in the next chapter) they varied in different ages and in different areas in regard to other traits. For instance, in the course of time many cities ceased to be purely consumption centers; they developed many industries and began to return to the country an economic equivalent for the goods of the rural population. Some cities have been predominantly political, some commercial, and others manu- facturing, religious, or educational centers. Likewise, other char- acteristics of the city, such as its size, density, and degree of inde- pendence, have varied with location and time. K. Biicher at- tempted to give a few fundamental types of cities. Although his theory is too schematical and in many respects inadequate from the standpoint of contemporary science, nevertheless it still has some value and deserves to be mentioned. He distinguished, in the first place, 'the ancient Oriental type of large city, such as Baby- lon, Thebes, Memphis, Nineveh, and so on. Such a city usually occupied a very large area; the circumference of its circle was to be computed by tens of kilometers. Its population was very nu- merous, and usually it was surrounded by a wall. Within the wall and near by, the population was engaged partly in agriculture. Nevertheless, such cities were predominantly consumption cities, and their principal functions were military and political. They were the abodes of rulers, officials, priests, soldiers, and their reti- nues. The functionaries lived on the supplies taken from the country.
The next type was that of the early cities of ancient Greece and Rome. They were but places of refuge for clans. Each was closely interwoven with its rural part. Each citizen was also a landowner
7 See further the readings from Petrie, Sombart, and Pirenne. See also K Biicher, "Die Grossestadte in Gegenwart und Vergangenheit," in Die Grossestadt, Dresden, 1903, pp. 1-32. "Economically such cities were purely consumption cities, which scarcely con- tributed anything to the increase of the commodities of the nation."
152 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
and a cultivator who had a villa, estate, or farm outside the city wall and managed it with the help of serfs or slaves, tenants, or members of his family. Later on, with the growth of city life in Greece and Rome, this typ,e of city gradually disappeared and was replaced by another type. The third type is the medieval city. Cities of this type rapidly ceased to be agricultural. In contrast to the early Greek and Roman cities, whose citizens were land- owners and cultivators, the inhabitants of the medieval cities were primarily artisans, handicraftsmen, merchants, etc., but not agri- culturists. The division of labor between the city and the country in medieval Europe was much greater than in early Greece or Rome. The country produced food and raw materials, whereas, the city transformed this material into the products of the handi- crafts and imported from other places such goods as were unob- tainable in the immediate rural surroundings. Under such cir- cumstances, the medieval cities could not be very large; in con- trast to the Oriental cities, they grew naturally from villages and were not primarily the abodes of political and military powers but the centers of handicrafts, trades, and commerce. As such they were market places. Each of them had to secure some means of subsistence; and in order to do this, they produced the handi- craft commodities and performed the marketing or trading func- tions. Each also took some political and economic measures to make its economic basis more solid. Each of such cities, with its rural surroundings, composed a kind of a self-sufficient area in which all the necessities were produced.
Finally, the fourth type is the modern city. The modern city is also a center of manufacturing and production, like the medie- val city; but, on the other hand, the economic basis of the modern city is not founded only upon small-scale trades and production for the surrounding rural territory. The modern city produces for the whole world; its market is not a place for the meeting of the near-by peasants with the city producers but "the world mar- ket." Consequently it is more independent of the demands of the rural area immediately around the city and does not compose with it a self-sufficient "urban area." Furthermore, the modern city itself does not try to produce everything necessary for its population. It specializes in the production of such commodities as can be manufactured there most profitably. After selling these
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 153
in the world market, the city buys and imports whatever is neces- sary for its population. In contrast to the Oriental cities, the modern city is not an abode of a despot or ruler. Many of them are not political centers at all; they do not care to acquire politi- cal autonomy. Others are the seats of national governments; but even in that case the political functions of such cities are much less important than their industrial and commercial functions.8 In spite of several shortcomings Biicher's theory of the principal types of city continues to have some value. Let us now turn to the readings, which develop various aspects of the problem.*
28. R. MAUNIER: DEFINITION OF A Cmd"
Since we propose as our subject of study certain modalities of urban phenomena, it is necessary to define what will be included under the name of city throughout this study; and before developing a new defi- nition, it is necessary to see if it is not possible to accept one of the cur- rent definitions. The latter can be divided into two groups.
I. Most of these are based on a unique character; they give the name of city to all social establishments presenting a certain definite property, but they differ as to the nature of this character.
Certain authors use morphological traits. They commonly designate agglomerations having a certain population as cities l ; that is, they distinguish the urban group by its volume or its dimension, by the quantity of its human elements in relation to its territorial element. This is most often the case with administrative statistics; the French censuses since 1846 and the International Institute of Statistics since 1887 have called all communities of more than 2,000 inhabitants cities. Such a definition cannot serve as a basis for a scientific study, and it has long been denounced by many as arbitrary; the size of establish- ments is too variable and too external in different places.
8Biicher, op. cit., passim.
* Besides the works cited in the text and footnotes of this chapter, see G. von Below, Problems der Wirtschajtsgeschichte (2d ed., 1926), particularly chap, vii, in which von Below criticizes Sombart's theories; William R. Halliday, The Growth of the City State (Boston, 1923); E. Kuhn, fiber die Entstchung der Stadte der Alten (Leipzig, 1878); Edward ^ Meyer, Kleine Schriften (1910), pp. 79 ft, 169 fL; Neurath, Antikf Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1918); M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (1926); Max Weber, General Economic History (1927); and the works cited in the next three chapters.
t From R. Maunier, Uorigine et la fonction economique des miles, etude de morpho- logic sociale, Paris, V, Giard and E. Briere, 1910, Int., chap, ii, pp. 34-44. Translated and published with the permission of: the author and the publisher. Numbered footnotes are those of Maunier in the work quoted.
1This is notably the point of view of P. Meuriot, Des agglomerations urbaines dans VEuropc contemporaine , 1898, and of A. Weber, The Growth of Cities, New York, 1899.
154 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Numerous historians have defined the cities of the Middle Ages morphologically by the existence of a fortification 2 ; but the absence of this character in modern cities and the lack of consistency in this definition prevents its serving to define and to specify the medieval type of city, for villages in some forms often possessed a fortification also.3
Other authors, among them Rumelin, have employed demographic characteristics and defined the city chiefly by the low birth rate or the high marriage rate; but they themselves recognize that these charac- teristics are not specific. The demography of the great city resembles that of the farm; that of the small city is similar to that of the village.4 Besides, the demographic properties of the city are too unstable to be discriminating; they vary with the size of the city and in time and between social groups. Thus, in the Middle Ages the urban mortality rate was lower than the corresponding rural rate; in the times of Graunt, the reverse was true; today, for other causes, the urban rate is becoming less than the rural.*
The juridical definitions 5 have the same defects as certain morpho- logical definitions; they are useful only for particular types of cities, and they are not even constant in a given social group. Municipal law and the law of the market place, which have often served as criteria for the historians, were, even in the Middle Ages, lacking in many population groupings called "cities" in texts.6
The most reputable of the unilateral definitions are those based on a functional character. The term "city" has often been applied to all agglomerations which have been the seat of special functions, whatever these functions might be 7 ; the abstract specialization of functions has been considered aside from its concrete content. Other authors, more
2 The German writers oÂŁ the eleventh century already distinguished two types of places: those not fortified (villages) and those fortified (cities). They thus opposed urbs, castdlttm, or civitas to the villa or to the vicus (F. Keutgen, Untersuchungen uber dettt- schen Stadtverfassung, p. 46). Von Maurer (Geschichte der Stadteverjassung, I, 31 ct seq.} says the same: "The cities are villages surrounded by walls." Cf. also Bobean (La ville sous I'ancien regime, p. 239), who sees in the wall the essential property of the city.
dSee below. Inversely, in many civilizations, even ancient ones, the cities are often not fortified; it was thus in Japan until the eighteenth century (Chartevoix, Histoirc et description du Japan, p. 10).
4 Rumelin, Ville et campagne, in Problemes d' economic politiqne el de statistique, pp. 210-212.
* EDITORS' NOTE. — These statements are questionable.
* Von Justi defined the city by the existence of a council, Stadtrat; but many medieval villages had an organization of this type, like the contemporary panchayat oÂŁ Hindu villages. Some have also defined the city by the speciality of its law, by the group of its privileges (V. Maitland, Domesday Book #nd Beyond, p. 173), what the Germans have called its Privilegierung.
"See for example, Planiol, Les villes de Bretagne au XVlll siecle (Nonv. Rev. histo- rique de droit, 1894, p. 134).
7 Muller-Lyer, Phasen der Kuhur nnd Richtungslinien des Forischritts, 1908, p. 133.
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 155
exacting, have insisted on the existence of certain specific and concrete functions and notably certain economic functions.8 Even today the historians commonly define the medieval city by the existence of a market. But the history of the localization of industries shows suffi- ciently that no economic function is a constant and specific trait of cities. Ancient cities, as Sombart notes, following Biicher,9 were above all cities of consumption, even the largest ones; and in modern times one finds cities with complex functions and some with specialized functions, some industrial cities and some commercial cities. One can even state that function is the most variable of the characters of the city.
II. Let us now consider the definitions based on multiple characters. These most often indicate the city by a multiplicity of characters which are of the same nature. Thus H. Pirenne defined the city by a group of morphological traits 10 ; and the contemporary economists define it by a group of functional characters.11 But the characters com- prised in this definition can also be of a different nature; the definition is then based at the same time on morphological characters and on the characters of the function of grouping.12 These definitions are only an amalgam of many simple definitions previously stated and incur the same criticisms.
8 Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, Bk. Ill, Part I): "The cities were inhabited chiefly by artisans and business men." This is an assertion which a part of this book will demonstrate to be false as regards the Middle Ages. See Sombart, Der Begriff der Stadt und das Wesen der Stadtebildttng (Brauris Archiv,, 1907, XXV, 2): the cities were "collections of men who were dependent for their subsistence on products of agri- cultural work carried on outside." But that proposition, as well as that of Smith, is true only for relatively modern cities. Ratzel (Anthropogeographie, II, 406) also defined the city as an industrial and commercial center. Sievekmg (Die nnttelalterhche Stadt, in Vierteljafaschrtft fur Soc. und Wirtschajtsgeschichte, 1904, II, 190) defined it as a center of exchange.
0 See Etudes d'histoire d' economic pohnque, pp. 342-343. Cantillon had the more correct view when he wrote (Essai stir la nature du commerce, p. 20): "The group of many rich proprietors of land who reside together in the same place suffice to form a city." Sombart replied that these pure consumers depended on agricultural work out- side the city; but it will be shown later in detail that in many civilizations agriculture holds, even within the cities, a considerable importance. This is a fact often disregarded.
10 The city, he said, was distinguished from the open country by its gates, churches, and density of population (L'origine des constltttttons urbaines, in Revue histonque, LVII, 64).
11 For example, by the coexistence of industrial, commercial, and political functions.
1S In 1801 the Cour de Rennes gave the title of city to a collection having "a numer- ous population, to which are joined some public establishments for the harmony of the general association and the commercial needs." (Cited by Ramalho, Des miles, bourgs, et villages, in Revue generals d" administration, 1901, I, 291.) Patrick Geddes ("Civics as Concrete and Applied Sociology," m Sociological Papers of the Sociological Society of London, 1905, II, 67 et seq., 88 et seq.} defined the city as formed of three elements: people (individuals and institutions), affairs (functions), and places. Von Below (V. Bur- ger, in Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschajten, ed. by J. Conrad, II, 1181) character- ized the medieval city as having both fortification and a market. Similarly Heil, Die deutschen Stadte im l/littelalter , pp. 25-27. M. Flach (Origines de I'ancienne France, II,
156 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
All these definitions, both simple and complex, have some common vices. They are based upon characters which are too special, of which many are superficial and secondary, and many also are not constant but rather belong only to certain types oÂŁ cities. The definition of a sociological character must have the following qualities:
1. This trait must be constant, that is, it must be found in all urban types; this condition is obvious.
2. It should be fixed; that is, it should be found relatively unchanged and vary as little as possible in degree; for a modality which persists in the diverse forms of its object but varies too much in degree in different instances does not fulfil the function of a definition which is to facilitate the identification of the defined object and to permit its sure distinction.
It will be 'seen later that the character in question cannot be a func- tional one; there is no character of this sort which is constant and fixed. The specificity of the function, considered abstractly and in itself, is a fact only for certain types of cities; it is lacking in what has been called "urban economy." Even the concrete quality of function is quite variable according to the specialized cities (cities of commerce, indus- try, or even those depending on one particular industry).
The criteria that we will employ thus ought to be of a morphological order; and, as we have already eliminated certain criteria of this spe- cies, the field of choice remaining to us is quite restricted. Neither the dimension of the settlement, nor the state of things that this involves (walls, construction of houses) can serve; the exterior form of the grouping is not of specific advantage. There remain to us only char- acteristics relative to internal structure. Thus the question is what constitutes the phenomena of structure which differentiate the city among the modes of settlement; and to answer it, we must make a classification of the latter.
Cantillon, who had one of the first of these classifications, tried 13 to distinguish four types of habitat: the village,14 the borough or mar-
329) defined the city by material protection, religious protection, and commercial activity. But the possession of a market with the special law attached to it was by no means a property of all cities. See a criticism of these definitions by M. Hassert, Die Stadte geographtsch betrachtet, 1907, pp. 4-6.
w It is necessary to mention before him Botero (Delle cause della grandezza e mag- nificcnza delta titta, Rome, 1588), who insisted on the physical conditions and limits of the development of cities and whose importance for statistics and sociology has been shown by M. Kovalevsky, (See his memoir on Botero in Vol. Ill of the Annales de I'lnstitut International de Sociologie.}
uHe does not mention the isolated farm, which without doubt was rare in his time; but one finds such farms in England by the eleventh centuiy (Vinogradojfif, English Society in the Eleventh Century, Oxford, 1908, pp. 264, 267-268; Maitland, Domesday and Beyond, pp. 15-16). A little later Steuart (Recherche des principes de I'econo-
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 157
ket place, the city, and the capital. The classification in use today is more simple; distinction is made between the isolated farm, the vil- lage, and the city. The one we propose is simpler still: it distinguishes between only two essential types of establishment, including in each a certain number of subtypes.
The first category includes simple establishments, that is to say, those composed of a single social group. It thus includes what is currently called the farm, formed of one family, and the hamlet and the village, composed of several or many families which form among themselves, however, an indivisible society, a single politico-social organism. The purest type of village is the "long house" such as one observes among the Indians of America or in Oceania, where all the members of the village live in common in the same house,15 each family having a spe- cial compartment assigned to it. In its origin the village is only the prolongation of the clan; it forms a true indivisible family, a com- munity closely bound together by collective responsibility. Although the modern village is composed of a multiplicity of families dwelling apart, these families are unities of too limited and yet too loose a nature to constitute true social divisions. They do not affect the village or- ganization, which remains homogeneous and simple.
The second category of social settlements includes the complex estab- lishments, those formed from a multiplicity of distinct social groups. In this book these will be called cities. They present different degrees of complexity, and the composition of their component groups follows different patterns; but all present two common properties which con- stitute the definition of the city: a dominant character and a secondary character.
A. Ordinarily one regards the city as a fact of agglomeration, or, we say more precisely, as a contraction of society 1G or of a part of society. This, for us, is not the most important characteristic, but rather the fact that the city is a complex society, that is, formed from a multiplicity of secondary groups.17 The city is a society made by an assembling of smaller societies: families, professional groups, etc. It is thus conceived not as a simple geographical fact, nor even as a simple economic phe-
mie politiquc, translation, I, chap, ix) completed from this point of view the classification of Cantillon and distinguished the farm, the hamlet, the village, and the city.
15 Cf. Morgan (Ancient Society, New York, 1878, p. 399), who notes that some of these houses contained 160 persons. Morgan (Les premieres civilizations, Etudes sur h prehistoire ft I'histoire, 1909, p. 121) indicates that in the eighteenth century the popu- lations of Kamtchatka lived in some sort of subterranean houses from 20 to 100 meters long and 6 to 10 meters wide, divided into compartments, where up to 300 persons were huddled together.
10 It will be seen later that there are, in origin, some cities which result from the con- centration of an entire society.
17 La Bruyere has already said: 'The city is divided into diverse societies like little republics with their laws, customs, dialects. ..." (Caracteres, chap, vii, 4.)
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nomenon, but rather as a social fact. Cities do not appear as isolated phenomena, sui generis; they are societies which can be connected by their characteristics to a certain social type and which differ from so- cieties of the same type only in degree.
B. In fact, even in the interior of the genus formed by complex so- cieties, there exist societies of two species. Those of one type have a definite local base, no doubt more or less clearly limited, but they are always rigidly tied to some portion of territory; the others are com- posed of personal associations deprived of geographic base. The local clan, the village, the province, the nation, are societies of the first type; the totemic clan, commercial society, the universal Church, are of the second type. Without doubt, the latter are not totally lacking in bonds uniting them to a certain point in space— the totemic center, social seat, or holy city; but these latter societies extend always beyond these limits, and the site serves them only as a center.
The city is a society of the first sort. But it occupies a special place in this group of societies, and thus the second character permits us to separate it from societies of the same type. All have a local base which is clearly enough defined; but that local base is more or less extensive, the society on it is more or less distended, and consequently the density of the social elements, men and things, varies. An Indian or an Eskimo tribe occupies a space which, relative to the number of its members, is truly enormous. The city, on the contrary, is a society which, in rela- tion to its volume— that is, to its population — occupies a restricted space.18 This difference is one of degree solely, which is specific only in that it separates the city, a social subtype, from societies of the same type; however it is not this character which distinguishes the city from the other modes of settlement and this is why we regard it as a secon- dary character. One cannot truly say where begins the space which is so small that the society occupying it can be called a city; this is not an absolute notion but a relative idea which varies according to the social types and chiefly with the population of the city. There is a whole scale of intermediate steps between the city and the most extended society of the same type. A city such as Paris occupies a larger space than a small society that is not a city; but by reason of its enormous population it constitutes a compact conglomeration of social groups, and that is sufficient.
18 Consequently, a market can, in case it unites a multiplicity of social groups, as do intertribal markets, be considered as a temporary city. There are some "cities*1 which are periodic. In another way the market often presents morphological characters like those of the "city"; it is often fortified. But we do not wish to imply by this, with H. Pirenne, that all cities originate from market places; the first part of this book aimed to demon- strate the opposite. The market is only a species of city characterized by periodicity and a certain junction,
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 159
The city is then a complex society whose geographical base is par- ticularly restrained for the size of its population, or whose territorial element is relatively meager in amount compared to that of its human elements.
29. MAUNIER: FORMATION OF THE CITY BY TEMPORARY CONCEN- TRATION OF A COMPLEX SOCIETY*
I. We are here in the presence of the most rudimentary of urban phenomena; this is the intermittent or periodic city; its causes are the original causes of the city. This phenomenon is something complex in itself. It is constituted, in fact, in two ways: either by a temporary and periodic contraction of a society that is normally more dispersed, or by a permanent concentration of elements previously dispersed, but the agglomeration thus constituted is mobile and is rhythmically shifted between two fixed points.
A. The first formation is already noted in the seminomadic societies. Among the Omahas the tribe regularly gathers in a camp where each of the clans of the tribe has its indicated place 1 and which thus consti- tutes the embryo of a city. Among the Eskimos the rhythm of concen- tration and of dispersion is regular; in summer the society is dispersed, in winter it is gathered together and then forms groups which are often of considerable size.2 In the more stable societies, true cities, which are deserted in times of peace, serve as periodic refuges during wars. Nomads themselves gather in these refuges with their flocks; most of these refuges give a shelter to whole tribes 3 ; that is to say, complex societies, formed of clans, necessarily constitute cities within which the nomadic life of the open is transformed in a way. The tem- porary constriction of the society leaves its organization intact 4 ; and likewise its functioning is undisturbed and nomadism is perpetuated even within the city.5
But it is in the sedentary and agricultural societies that this phe- nomenon develops. Whether it is a seasonal rhythm of dispersion and
* R. Maunier, op. cit.t Bk. I, Sec. VII, chap, i, pp. 54-60,
1Dorsey, Omaha Sociology (Third Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1883, pp. 219-220). Cf. Powell, Wyandot Government (First Report, p. 64; Wyandots).
3Mauss, Essai sur les variations saisonni&res des societes Eskimos (L'annee $ociolo~ gique, IX, 65, 78, and esp. 83-84).
sDurrieux and Fauvelle, Samarkand, pp. 47-48: the fortified circle of Gheok-Tepe can even contain several tribes.
4 Often they simply set up their tents inside, iust as outside (ibid, p. 48), the fortified circle, in ordinary times consisting solely oÂŁ bare ground.
"Durrieux and Fauvelle, Samarkand, p. 149; these vast agglomerations, called Kala, contain a great number of empty houses and the indigenous inhabitants move from one to the other of these with great facility.
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of concentration,6 or, particularly, if the concentration occurs in times of warfare, the temporary shelters, empty or nearly empty in times of peace, constitute true periodic cities.7
B. The second formation is a direct transition between the phenome- non of periodic cities and permanent settlements. The concentration is now continued longer, but the establishment is periodically displaced; there is a summer village and a winter village,8 and this displacement is not only horizontal but also vertical; the first is an establishment of the plain, the other of the mountain.9 One has here in some fashion a city whose parts are successive instead of being coexistent, so that each serves as a periodic refuge for the other. This is a phenomenon which will be constant in those permanent establishments in which one part, better defended, serves as periodic refuge for the others. Even in the temporary cities one finds such a refuge place 10 ; and thus there is a continuous and gradual transition from the forms of periodic con- centration to the "city" as a permanent establishment. The perio- dicity of the city is prolonged in some manner in its interior; a periodic city survives in the permanent city itself.
II. What are the causes upon yvhich these diverse and successive forms of the same phenomenon depend?
The identity of the fundamental characteristic, namely, the perio- dicity of the establishment, permits our saying that the causes are the same and vary only in degree or in quantity in proportion as one passes from the periodic city to the permanent city with mobile base; and that evolution reveals the existence of a struggle between the con- ditions facilitating concentration and those aiding dispersion, the first
eRatzel, VolJterfymde, I, 200 (Afrique); Flach, L' origins historique de I' habitation (Enqucte sur lf habitation) > II, 36: the Gauls in summer inhabit little rural aedificia and retire in winter into the villages and cities.
7 Such a situation has been found among the Negroes of Africa (Dapper, Description de 1' Afrique, Amsterdam, 1686, p. 259); among the Pueblo Indians (Krause, DIG Pueblo- Indianer Abhandhmgen der KaiserL Leopold deutschen Academic der Naturforscher, Halle, 1907, LXXXVII, p. 53); in the Hawaiian Islands (Westermarck, Origin and De- velopment of the Moral Ideas, II, 629-631); among the ancient Romans (Mommsen, Histoire tomaine, I, 51-52); in Roman Africa (Diem, VAjrique byzantine, 1896, pp. 143-144, 215); in Greece (Haussoullier, Let vie mtmidpale en Attique, pp. 193-194); in Gaul (Jullian, Histoirc de la Gauls, 1908, I, 174-175, II, 38-39, and Flach, L'origine <fc I' habitation, p. 26). See also for the later Middle Ages: Coggese, Class'i e comuni mr ali nd medio evo italiano, 1907, I, 176-177; Hegel, Geschichte der Stadteuerjassung in Italien, I, 480; Ballard, The Domesday Boroughs, p, 109; Meitzen, Siedelung und Agrarwesen, etc., II, 239 (the old Slavic cities were completely empty in times of peace); Reinhardt, Vol\sdichte und Siedlungsverhdltnisse Oberschwabens, Stuttgart, 1908, p. 67.
8 See Ratzel, Anthropogeographie, I, 171 (Alaska, Balkans). 0 Krause, Die Pueblo -Indianer, pp. 51-52.
10 One of the ancient periodic refuges or terramare of antiquity is formed of a circle not over 400 meters diameter inside of which a second wall encloses a citadel of 60 or 70 meters; still, there is no indication of any construction within these circles. (See Bau- meister, Denfynaler des \lassischcn Altertums, V. Stadtanlage, III, 1694-1695, with map.)
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 161
becoming more and more important and the latter offering less and less resistance.
The dispersing tendencies are the work of necessities of the economic order; they partake of the nature of the economic activity of the socie- ties where these first cities are located. In some it is hunting that neces- sitates the maximum of dispersion of the social units; the society gathers together in winter when hunting is impossible or infrequent. In other cases it is a rudimentary agriculture which exhausts the soil and thus requires frequent migrations or at least a pronounced dis- persion of the social elements. But the dispersion necessitated by agri- cultural activity is less than that associated with hunting: the neces- sity for dispersion weakens as one mounts the scale of societies.
At the same time there is a necessity for concentration when in a state of warfare.11 In the societies that are not stable, war is rare and intermittent,12 while in settled societies it becomes frequent and peri- odic,13 and necessitates the existence of fixed havens where the popula- tion first concentrates periodically and later in a permanent manner, when the war is continued for a considerable period. Thus the action of economic necessity for dispersion determines the rhythmic change from the settlement in the plain during the summer to the heights in winter where there is more security. This occurs when the cycle of agricultural tasks is accomplished.
It remains for us to determine what causes the lack of economic dif- ferentiation inherent in these first urban settlements. One comes to see that the city is in its origin only a gathering together, at first tempo- rary and then permanent, of a complex society formed of a multi- plicity of distinct groups. It is generally a tribe which constitutes this society, and the tribe is an assemblage of clans. When concentrated it remains what it was when dispersed; it continues to be formed from many local groups, normally independent of each other from an economic point of view, the tribe scarcely constituting more than a political and religious unity. Thus this society finds itself composing a city of undifferentiated type by simple contraction from a pre- existing organization. The internal organization of the city is only a prolongation and a transference of the tribal organization. All the divisions of the latter are found in it; not only do the clans have their indicated place in the periodic city of the Omahas, but also the two phratries of the tribe occupy opposing positions in that transitory
11 This is what the books themselves often say: The cities and chateaux are built, say the old English books, "for the shelter of the folk," (See Ballard, "Domesday Boroughs, P. 109.)
1 The pacific character of the intertribal relations in Australia have often been noted.
18 It was a chronic state among the agricultural Indians in North America.
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city 14 ; and even the periodic fortified refuges often include many small circles, besides the central circle,15 which are the first germ of suburbs, and where the many divisions of the group which is taking refuge in this gathering without doubt continue to live apart.
The organization of these first cities is then only a particular form of a more general organization, the tribal organization, from which it issues by simple contraction. The economic autonomy of the parts of the city is only the prolongation of the economic autonomy of the class, and it depends upon the same causes. We are not going to in- vestigate these causes at this time; it suffices to relate them to this more general structure and to have shown in the essential character of the undifferentiated city a continuation of the general character of the social milieu in which it is formed.
30. W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE: ORIGIN OF THE CITIES AND THE CITY- STATES IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ITS FACTORS*
The earliest stage which we know was that of a hunting people. . . . The first condition for a hunting life is the reservation of rights over an area by the tribe, excluding other tribes. Our notice, "Trespassers will be prosecuted," is the most venerable formula that we have. Tribal wars over hunting grounds and collecting grounds have always been going on, for getting meat, fruits, seeds, roots, and herbs. The tribe is organized to protect those rights. . . . This exclusive use of land for food gathering needs a united tribe to defend it from intruders, and therefore a chief to hold it together. . . .
So soon as the rainfall ceased in North Africa and the Nile partly dried up, there were mud flats for cultivation, and there was less game on the hills. A race pushed in from the west, bringing agriculture and abolishing cannibalism, changes linked with the Osiris group of gods. This regular production of food, artificially sown, provided larger sup- plies, which could be stored in greater amounts than were needed by the cultivators. This provided capital, and thus the means of extending power and control, which made a city-state possible. It has been no- ticed before how remarkably similar the distances are between the early nome capitals of the Delta (twenty-one miles on an average) and
" Dorsey, Omaha Sociology (Third Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 219, 220). Cf. Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 95. (There is also local opposition among the Iroquois when the tribe assembles in council.)
15 Baumeister, Den^maler des kfassischen Altertums, V. Stadtanlage, HI, 1695-1696; Meitzen, Siedelung und Agrartvesen der Westgermanen und Qstgermanen, etc., II, 239, These circles do not contain, he notes, any type of buildings; the temporary gathering of the tribe does not even modify the methods of habitation.
* From W. M. Flinders Petrie, Social Life in Ancient Egypt, Houghton Mifllin Co., Boston and New York, 1923. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 163
the early cities of Mesopotamia (averaging twenty miles apart). Some physical cause seems to limit the primitive rule in this way. Is it not the limit of central storage of grain, which is the essential form of early capital? Supplies could be centralised up to ten miles away; be- yond that the cost of transport made it better worth while to have a nearer center. If so, the unit of the nome, or Euphratean state, was the central corn store; and it was the central store of the surplus pro- duction which gave the power to form an independent city-state. The medium of exchange regulated the size of the state, and this principle we shall see to apply to later ages. In this period the storage of corn was the only form of capital which could be used to pay for united action, and purposes which were beyond the powers of a village.
For a city-state to control a country was impossible if working on a corn basis. Neither Egypt, nor Greece, nor Italy could establish a wider rule until metals became common enough to be accumulated and used to pay for labor. Corn could not be sent to and fro as taxes, and sent back again for payments over long distances; it was too bulky, heavy and liable to wastage. So soon as Egypt obtained a full supply of copper (as the large tools show), at the close of the prehistoric age, then united dominion became possible. Values were reckoned in cop- per down to Ptolemaic times. The same was the case in other coun- tries, and Italy retained the fiction of weighing copper, as the legalising of a sale, long after silver and gold were the currency.
The next stage of the growth of power depends on a free supply of silver, a more portable form of capital, which allows of tribute and pay- ment over a wide area. Silver was not much used in Egypt, as the sup- ply had to come from a distance, and silver and gold together became fairly usual about the XVIIIth dynasty. Then we see the immense ex- pansion of Egypt, when tribute could be levied in precious metal, and army supplies thus kept up. In Mesopotamia, the turning point of silver coming in is given on the obelisk of Manishtusu (equivalent to the IXth dynasty) , when land is valued both in corn and in silver, the old corn unit just giving way to metal. A century later came the first great unification by Naram-sin. In Greece, silver gave the power of union of states under Athens, the joint treasure of silver being kept at Delos. Such sufficed for a united Greece to work upon; but yet Persia, the power with gold, could not be touched. When Philip started a great gold currency, it was then that sufficient fluid capital could be wielded to attack Persia. The union of that great kingdom, the might- iest known in the world till then, from the Balkans to Lahore, rested upon a vast gold basis, the central store being tons of gold, worth 28,000,000 pounds. This capital, immense for the ancient world, was five times as much as the modern reserve of Germany, and was kept
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in the Julius tower; when it was scattered over the Greek world it gave the Greek the power of welding the later kingdoms, that were each far greater than the Greece which bounded the race a century before. The growth of Roman power similarly expanded on transfer to a silver and then to a gold basis. England, on a silver currency, could only hold itself together; but when the gold currency begins to be effective, the battle of Sluys started the career of expansion, which, after attempting to conquer France, finally found its scope overseas. Lastly, we have gone a step further. International trade can hardly shift all its pay- ments in gold about the world; it has on a credit basis resorted to paper, and so obtained a still more portable system of bills of exchange.
The limit, then, of political union and extensive trade depends on the transmissibility of payments. Corn suffices for a city-state, copper for a small group of cities, silver for an isolated country, gold for an empire, paper for the relations between empires. Without the means of storing power by capital, a wide dominion can only rest on violence, and is merely a series of plunder raids; the dominion may exist, like that of the Huns or Mongols or Bolshevists, but it is merely a tempo- rary compulsion. No stable and united rule, levying and distributing currency, can be extended beyond the limits available for that cur- rency.
Let us now look back to the condition of society in Egypt in the pre- historic age, when it was working on the corn basis. The chief of each nome would be supported by the central store, but as soon as a wider dominion of several cities joined, the chief would have to travel round and be supported by each in turn. He would have maintenance like a Celtic chief by food-rents proportioned to each estate, so many days at one and another. In England this system of local maintenance re- mained in Saxon and Norman times, owing to the scarcity of precious metals, and the Court shifted around, mainly between London, Win- chester, and Gloucester, during each year, so as not to eat up one dis- trict, nor to require all supplies to be sent long distances. It seems very likely that this system in Egypt originated the "royal offering" for the benefit of the dead nobles; the king allowed so much food-rent of his to be allotted to the ancestral offerings. In one of the earliest tomb inscriptions (Meten) we find "a concession of a domain" to a noble, and "a concession of twelve land endowments for funeral offerings" for his benefit, clearly a royal gift for endowment of the dead. There does not seem in Egypt any trace left, in historic times, of a tenancy for life or lives, with reversion to the State, so we need not suppose this to have been in force in prehistoric society; only, as land was looked on as belonging primarily to the king, we may take it that in the tribal state the land was allotted by the chief, and reverted in case of failure
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 165
of heirs. There do not seem to have been feudal tenures with special obligations, only all land had to provide various dues and taxes, unless specially exempt because of transfer to a temple.
When the dynastic people came in, just after the beginning of a free use of copper, they organised a considerable and growing class of offi- cials, who were no doubt quartered on the country, but who could use metal as capital in hand, for which every one would work because it was wanted for tools. By the third reign, there was a director of the inundation; in the fourth reign there is a list of the nomes on the seal of an official who had a control in them; there are commanders of fort- resses, a director of the interior, and other offices. After that the high officials rapidly multiply, until in the great settlement of the kingdom under Khufu (Cheops) the priestly property was cut down, and the whole realm organised on lines which it retained ever after.
31. FUSTEL DE COULANGES: ORIGIN OF THE ClTY IN ANCIENT GREECE
AND ROME*
The tribe, like the family and the phratry, was established as an in- dependent body, since it had a special worship from which the stranger was excluded. Once formed, no new family could be admitted to it. No more could two tribes be fused into one; their religion was op- posed to this. But just as several phratries were united in a tribe, sev- eral tribes might associate together, on condition that the religion of each should be respected. The day on which this alliance took place the city existed.
It is of little account to seek the cause which determined several neighboring tribes to unite. Sometimes it was voluntary; sometimes it was imposed by the superior force of a tribe or by the powerful will of a man. What is certain is that the bond of the new association was still a religion. The tribes that united to form a city never failed to light a sacred fire and to adopt a common religion.
Thus human society, in this race, did not enlarge like a circle, which increases on all sides, gaining little by little. There were, on the con- trary, small groups, which, having been long established, were finally joined together in larger ones. Several families formed the phratry, several phratries the tribe, several tribes the city. Family, phratry, tribe, city, were, moreover, societies exactly similar to each other, which were formed one after the other by a series of federations.
We must remark, also, that when the different groups became thus associated, none of them lost its individuality or its independence. Al-
* Taken from Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City, trans, by Willard Small from the latest French edition published before 1878, Boston, Lee and Shepard, 1900, pp. 167-170.
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though several families were united in a phratry, each one of them remained constituted just as it had been when separate. Nothing was changed in it, neither worship nor priesthood, nor property nor inter- nal justice. Curies afterwards became associated, but each retained its worship, its assemblies, its festivals, its chief. From the tribe men passed to the city; but the tribe was not dissolved on that account, and each of them continued to form a body, very much as if the city had not existed. In religion there subsisted a multitude of subordinate wor- ships, above which was established one common to all; in politics, numerous little governments continued to act, while above them a common government was founded.
The city was a confederation. Hence it was obliged, at least for sev- eral centuries, to respect the religious and civil independence of the tribes, curies, and families, and had not the right, at first, to interfere in the private affairs of each of these little bodies. It had nothing to do in the interior of a family; it was not the judge of what passed there; it left to the father the right and duty of judging his wife, his son, and his client. It is for this reason that private law, which had been fixed at the time when families were isolated, could subsist in the city, and was modified only at a very late period.
The mode of founding ancient cities is attested by usages which con- tinued for a very long time.
If we examine the army of the city in primitive times we find it dis- tributed into tribes, curies, and families,1 "in such a way," says one of the ancients, "that the warrior has for a neighbor in the combat one with whom, in time of peace, he has offered the libation and sacrifice at the same altar." If we look at the people when assembled, in the early ages of Rome, we see them voting by curies and by gentes? If we look at the worship, we see at Rome six Vestals, two for each tribe. At Athens, the archon offers the sacrifice in the name of the entire city, but he has in the religious part of the ceremony as many assistants as there are tribes.
Thus the city was not an assemblage of individuals; it was a con- federation of several groups, which were established before it, and which it permitted to remain. We see, in the Athenian orators, that every Athenian formed a portion of four distinct societies at the same time; he was a member of a family, of a phratry, of a tribe, and of a city. He did not enter at the same time and the same day into all these four, like a Frenchman, who at the moment of his birth belongs at once to a family, a commune, a department, and a country. The phra- try and the tribe are not administrative divisions. A man enters at
1 Homer, Iliad t II, 362; Varro, De Ling. Lett., V, 89; Isacus, II, 42. 2Aulus Gellius, XV, 27.
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 167
different times into these four societies, and ascends, so to speak, from one to the other. First, the child is admitted into the family by the reli- gious ceremony, which takes place six days after his birth. Some years later he enters the phratry by a new ceremony, which we have already described. Finally, at the age of sixteen or eighteen, he is presented for admission into the city. On that day, in the presence of an altar, and before the smoking flesh of a victim, he pronounces an oath, by which he binds himself, among other things, always to respect the religion of the city. From that day he is initiated into the public worship, and be- comes a citizen.3 If we observe this young Athenian rising, step by step, from worship to worship, we have a symbol of the degrees through which human association has passed. The course which this young man is constrained to follow is that which society first followed.
32. V. O. KLUCHEVSKY: ORIGIN OF THE CITIES AMONG EASTERN
SLAVS*
So far, then, as can be seen, the union of the clan was still the domi- nant form of social life among the Eastern Slavs at the time of their settlement of the Russian plain. At all events, this is the only form which the Poviest specifies with any clearness. "Each man lived with his own clan, in his own place, and ruled there his clan. . . ." As the immigrants spread themselves over the plain they tended chiefly to- wards its forest strip. ... In those wilds the Slavonic settlers sup- ported themselves by trapping fur-bearing animals, by forest apicul- ture, and by primitive husbandry. Yet, inasmuch as spots capable of being utilised for such pursuits were comparatively few and far be- tween, it follows that the immigrants would have to search the thickets and marshes until they found some comparatively dry and open clear- ing capable of being prepared for agriculture or of being used as a basis for hunting and wild apiculture in the surrounding forest, and these arable spots would be like little islands scattered over a sea of timber and swamp. Upon them the settlers would erect their lonely dwellings, surround those dwellings with earthen fortifications, and clear a space about them for husbandry and for the preparation of ap- pliances for the chase and apiculture. To this day the region around ancient Kiev retains vestiges of such fortified homesteads, the so-called gorodistcha. . . .T These gorodistcha are usually round (though occa- sionally square) spaces marked out by the remains of a rampart, and
8 Demosthenes, in Etibul; Isaeus, VII, IX; Lycurgus, I, 76; Schol., in Demosth., p. 438; Pollux, VIII, 105; Stobaeus, DC Repub,
* V. O. Kluchevsky, A History of Russia, trans, by C. J. Hogarth, London, J, M. Dent & Sons, 1911, I, 41-63.
1 Literally, remains of towns, or sites of towns.
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are to be found scattered along the Dnieper at a distance of from four to eight versts from one another. . . .
Still more important than juridical changes was the series of eco- nomic results which followed upon the settling of the Eastern Slavs in the Dnieper region. We see from the Poviest that the great mass of the Slavonic population occupied the western half of the Russian plain; and it was by the great river which bisects this plain from north to south that the industry of that population was governed. The vital importance of rivers as affording, in those days, the only means of com- munication from point to point caused the Dnieper to become the principal industrial artery, the main trade-route, of the western half of the plain. . . .
The most important result of this flourishing trade with the East was the rise of the ancient trading towns of Rus. ... A glance at their geographical distribution will suffice to show that they owed their origin to the growth of Russian foreign trade, seeing that, for the most part, they stretched in a chain along the principal river route leading "from the Varaeger to the Greeks" — that is to say, along the Dnieper- Volkhov line. . . . The rise of these great trading towns was the direct outcome of the complex economic process imposed upon the Slavs by their new environment. We have seen how, as they settled on the Dnieper and its tributaries, people began to live in isolated, fortified homesteads. Next, with the growth of trade, there grew up among these isolated settlements a number of trading-centers or places of in- dustrial exchange, whither fur-hunters and forest apiculturists would assemble for gostiba or barter : whence such spots acquired the name of pogosti, or places where gostiba was carried on. Subsequently, upon the adoption of Christianity, shrines became established at these local rural markets (as places of the most general resort) and, eventually also, parish churches. Around the parish church it was customary to inter the dead, and thus the pogost acquired also the importance of being the site of the local burial ground. Finally the parish was made to coincide with, or came to be formed into, a local area of administra- tion, and so developed into something resembling a volost. All thesSe terms, however, are borrowed from a later terminology, since, origi- nally, these developed pogosti were known only as gostinnia miesta, or places for gostiba (barter). In time, certain of the smaller gostinnia miesta which chanced to lie close to a busy trade route developed into markets of considerable size, and from these larger markets, serving as places of exchange between the native producer and the foreign buyer, there arose those ancient Russian trading towns which marked the water route from the Baltic to the Greek colonies and served as the
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 169
industrial centers and chief storage depots of the provinces which sub- sequently became formed around them. . . .
Soon the great trading towns of Rus had to undertake their own defence against possible foes. From this period, therefore, they began to arm their citizens, to gird themselves about with walls, to introduce military organisation, and to rely upon trained fighting men. Thus what were once only industrial centers and storage depots for com- merce now became converted into fortified points and armed places of refuge.
One circumstance in particular which contributed to the growth of the military-industrial population of these towns was the fact that, with the commencement of the ninth century and the close of the reign of Charles the Great,2 the coasts of Western Europe began to be overrun by bands of armed pirates from Scandinavia, and inasmuch as the greater proportion of these rovers emanated from Dania, or Denmark, they came to be known in the West as Danes. At about the same period, sea rovers from the Baltic began to make their appearance also upon the river trade routes of the Russian plain, where they acquired the local name of Variagi or Varangians. . . .
In proportion, too, as there arose in the Russian towns an armed class constituted of the native and immigrant elements just mentioned, and the towns became converted into fortified points, the relation of the latter to the surrounding populations also necessarily underwent a change; with the result that, when the Chozar yoke began to relax its grip, those towns which lay among tribes hitherto subject to the Cfo> zars declared themselves independent. . . . There can be little doubt that those towns soon followed up their assumption of their own de- fence by a corresponding political subordination to themselves of their trade districts or the districts of which each such town was the central storage depot. This process of placing the trade districts in political de- pendence upon the now fortified towns seems to have been begun . . . before the middle of the ninth century. ... It is difficult to say by what means this system actually became established. Possibly the trade districts were driven by the pressure of external danger to make volun- tary submission to the towns, but it is more probable that the towns availed themselves of the large military-industrial class which they now contained to subdue the districts by force of arms. Or sometimes the one may have been the case, and sometimes the other. . . .
The question next arises, Were the trading towns responsible for the formation of these provinces, or had the latter a tribal origin? . . . If they had had a tribal origin, and had been compounded of whole tribes irrespectively of economic interests, each such tribe would have
2 Of Sweden.
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formed a province by itself — or, in other words, each province would have been composed only of one particular tribe. This, however, was not the case: there was not a single province consisting wholly of one complete tribe. The majority of them included within their boundaries two or three different tribes or parts of tribes, while the remainder were made up of one complete tribe and one or more details of others. . . . Thus we see that the old tribal areas coincided neither with the old town districts nor with the newly-formed provinces of the Princi- pality of Kiev. Nevertheless, it is possible to tell from the tribal con- tents of those provinces what was the factor which governed their allot- ment. If among a tribe there arose two great towns, that tribe became split into portions; while if, on the other hand, a tribe possessed no great town at all, that tribe became absorbed into a province attached to some other capital town. We have seen that the rise of an important trading town among a tribe depended upon the geographical position occupied by that unit. Consequently such towns as became capitals of provinces arose exclusively among the populations lining the great river trade routes of the Dnieper, the Volkhov, and the Western Dwina, while tribes remote from those routes possessed no great town of their own, and therefore did not constitute separate provinces, but were absorbed into those belonging to tribes possessing such a center. . . , From this we see that the factor which governed the formation of the provinces was the great trading towns which arose along the principal river trade routes and of which none stood among tribes living remote from those routes. . . .
To sum up, then, we see that the great fortified towns which became capitals of provinces arose solely among those tribes which were most closely connected with the foreign trading movement, and that, after placing in subordination to themselves the surrounding rural popula- tions of their respective tribes (for whom they served, first of all as trade centers, and subsequently as centers of administration), absorbed into their provinces some of the population of neighboring tribes which possessed no great town of their own.
33. SOME ART: DEFINITION OF A CITY IN THE ECONOMIC SENSE*
A city in the economic sense is a rather large settlement of people who are dependent for their sustenance upon the products of the agri- cultural labor of others.1 The specifically economic coloring of this
*From Werner Sombart, Der modcrne Kapitahsmtts, 3te Auflage, erster Band, erste Halfte, Munchen und Leipzig, Verlag von Duncker und Humblot, pp. 128-129. Trans- lated and published with permission of the author and the publisher.
1I added to my definition which I gave in the 1st ed. (Vol. II, p. 191) the expres- sion, "rather large," being fully aware that I carried a certain vagueness into the defini- tion. It will never be possible to decide numerically when a group of men living in
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 171
concept becomes clear at once if we compare it with other conceptions of city: for instance, the architectonic, the juridical, the statistical, or any other one. A city in the economic sense may very well be a village in the administrative sense: for instance, Langenbielau at the present time, or Kempen up to the year 1294.2
A village in the economic sense of the word does not become a city by being fortified, as for instance the vici in modum municipiomrn of Roman Africa, of which Frontin speaks, and which are elsewhere called castella, i.e., which were villages prepared for defense.3 It be- comes a city just as little by having a fair in it or even by being granted the right of keeping a market. Neither does a village become a city in the economic sense, even if it were ten times a city in the administra- tive sense. The numerous "villages" which were raised to the rank of cities in the Middle Ages by being invested with city rights 4 remained, of course, in the economic respect what they had been before: villages.
Finally, the economic concept of the city is also distinguished from the statistical, which is an agglomeration of a great number of persons, We must learn to consider the giant cities of Oriental antiquity, like Nineveh and Babylon, not as cities in the economic sense.5 Likewise we must not ascribe the character of city to the large old communities of India like Calcutta 6 or the modern Teheran or similar settlements.7
34. SOMBART: GENESIS OF THE CITY*
If we raise the question as to the genesis of a city in the economic sense of the word, we must, according to my opinion, answer in two ways.
First, whence came these men without land and without possessions who were destined to form a city, and what caused them to congre-
a city way is large enough to constitute a "city." A certain size must, however, exist;
a single man cannot make up a city. The quantity becomes quality (city) at a certain
point. For my purposes this little vagueness is of no concern.
* Th. Ilgen, "Die Entstehung der Stadte des Erzstifts Koln am Niederrhcin," in the
Annalen des htstorischen Vercins fur den Niederrhdn, 1902, LXXIV, 14. ? A. Schulten, Die romischen Grundherrschaften, p. 45, 4Rietschel, Marty und Stadt, pp. 147 f.; Keutgen, Amter imd Ztinftc, p. 75.
6 They were "territories surrounded by colossal enclosures, containing a complex of cities more or less loosely connected" with fields and pastures in order to be able to feed the population in a case of siege. R. Pohlmann, Die ft bervolkerun g der antigen Grossc- stddte , 1884, pp. 374.
ft The older cities oÂŁ India are described to us as a group of villages that had "in the city" only their common pastures. Hunter, The Indian Empire, 1886, p. 46.
7 "The walled cities of Middle Asia enclose in their clay walls much larger spaces than necessary for a city alone. In Buchara, China, among others, fields and gardens, vacant lots, ponds and swamps, groves of elm trees and poplars, extensive cattle-yards, cover more than half of the area. ... In including these areas they reckoned upon the necessity of an independent maintenance in case of siege." F. Ratzel, AnthropogcQgra~ phie, 1891, II, 447.
*Sombart, op. cit., 130-136.
172 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
gate as a city settlement? That is the question as to the reasons which led to the migration of the country population; it is the question as to the reasons which caused the individuals to become city dwellers. Sec- ondly, it will, however (and above all), be our task to explain how it became possible (in an economic sense) that such peculiar settlements could be formed, settlements that differ from all natural ways of ex- istence. In order to find an answer, we must first of all bear in mind that a city lives on the surplus produce of the country, that its essential conditions and its life activity are consequently dependent upon the amount of this surplus produce of which it may avail itself.1 The de- tails of these facts can be made clearer probably through the following sentences :
(1) The size of a city is conditioned by the amount of the produce of its subsistence area and by its share in what we call surplus produce.
(2) The size of the subsistence area being given and the amount of the total produce being given by the degree of fertility of a district or the state of agricultural technique, the size of a city depends on the amount of the surplus produce. Thus, for instance, the circumstances otherwise being equal, there are larger cities in despotically ruled states with a high exploitation coefficient as to the country population than in countries with a democratic government.
(3) The size of the subsistence area and the amount of the surplus produce being given, the size of a city is conditioned by the fertility of the soil or the state of the agricultural technique. Fertile countries un- der such circumstances, therefore, can have larger cities than infertile ones.2
(4) The amount of the surplus produce and the productiveness of the soil being given, the size of a city is conditioned by the extent of its subsistence area. Hence, for instance, the possibility of larger com- mercial towns, the possibility of larger leading cities in larger countries.
(5) The extent of the subsistence area is conditioned by the degree of development of the transportation technique. Under such circum- stances, therefore, a situation near a river or the sea favorably affects 3 the expansibility of cities, and in a country with highways — again, un-
1 "It is the surplus produce of the country only . . . that constitutes the subsistence of the town, which can therefore increase only with the increase of this surplus produce." (Adam Smith, The Wealth of the Nations, Bk. Ill, chap, i.) This subject has been treated very fully, though not always successfully, by the predecessors of Adam Smith in the treatise of the Count d'Arco, Dell'armonia pohtico-economica tra la atta e il suo tnrritorio, 1771, and in Custodi, Scrittori class, ital. di econ. poL, P. M. Torno 30.
2J. Botero, Delle cause della grandezza dette citta, 1589, Libro I, cap. ix.
3 "Great cities are built as a rule on the coast of the sea or on large rivers for the sake of the convenience of transportation, because the transportation by water of goods and merchandise necessary for the subsistence and convenience of the inhabitants is much better than by wagons and transportation on land." (Cantillon, Essai sur la nature du
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 173
der such circumstances — cities can be larger than where there are only common roads; in a country with railroads, larger than where there are only highways.
City-founding people: city-builders and "city -fillers." — Furthermore we must clearly understand that there are two kinds of "city-found- ing" people, which are specifically different from each other: those who, by virtue of some power, of some fortune, of some activity, are strong enough to procure the produce of the country necessary for sub- sistence: for their own, as perhaps for that of other people. These are the city-founders proper, the real agents in the formation of cities, the active or genuine or primary city-builders: for instance the king who levies taxes, a landlord who draws rent, a merchant who gains in deal- 'ing with strangers, an artisan, an industrial man who sells his products abroad, an author whose writings are sold outside of the city limits, a physician who has his patients in the country, a student whose parents live in another place and who is dependent on the check from his parents, etc. . . .
There are other people in the city who cannot procure by their own power the necessary means of subsistence (I mean to say the produce of the country), but simply share that procured by the primary city- builders. We may designate them as "city-fillers," as objects in the formation of cities; as passive or second class or secondary (tertiary, and so forth) city-builders. They are secondary city-builders if they get their subsistence directly from a primary city-builder: the shoe- maker who makes the boots for the king; the singer who sings for him; the innkeeper with whom the landlord takes his meals; the jeweler in whose store the merchant buys the jewels for his sweetheart; the manager of a theater which the artisan attends; the bookseller who furnishes the books for our author; the barber who shaves our physi- cian, the landlady from whom our student rents his room, etc.
The evolution of cities from milages. — One may very well doubt whether there were any cities at all (in the economic sense) during the European Middle Ages. At any rate they did not originate at any time within a brief period, as, for instance, an American city does; but all of them have grown through a process of transformation, which in most cases probably lasted for centuries. They have grown from vil- lages, slowly and in an organic way (all of them from villages in the economic sense) ! How very slow the change from villages into cities must have been may be seen from the fact that even the largest cities (not to speak of the many of middle and small size) show traces of
commerce, 1755, pp. 22-23.) In the era oÂŁ railroads the truth of this statement will surely be questioned. For the Middle Ages, see the study oÂŁ K. W. Nitzsch, "Die ober- rheinische Tiefebene und das deutsche Reich im Ma," in the Preuss, lahrb., No. 30, pp. 239 ff.
174 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
country- or farmer-cities as late as the central and later part of the Mid- dle Ages, i.e., traces of settlements which were half urban settlements, in which a part of the population was still engaged in agriculture, hence had not yet become real townsmen.
A true picture of the village-like character of the medieval cities is drawn by Gustav Freytag in his Pictures of the German Past (II, 119 ÂŁ):
He who enters a city in the morning certainly meets first the city cattle. For even in the large Free Cities the citizen is engaged in agriculture on meadows, pastures, fields, vineyards of the city area; most of the houses, even the better ones, have cattle barns and sheds in their narrow court- yards. The sound of the flail is heard in Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm near the city hall as late as 1350; not far from the city wall there stand barns and sheds, every house has its granary and frequendy a room for the wine- press. ... In the streets of the city there walk the cows; the shepherd with his dog drives his flock to the nearby heights; also in the city forest there graze the cattle. . . . The pigs invade the houses through the doors and seek their dirty feed on their way. The cattle wade in the branches of the river which runs through the city. The mill is also not missing; in out-of- the-way places there are deposited large heaps, etc.
I believe that no feature of this picture is wrong and that what Frey- tag says here in regard to the large German cities of the real Middle Ages holds good to the same degree of the Italian cities, anyway up to the twelfth century, as well as of the English and of all medieval cities. . . .
35. SOMBART: THE COMPOSITION OF THE MEDIEVAL CITIES*
I shall now give a survey as clearly arranged as possible as to the structure and the evolution of the cities in the Middle Ages and begin with an analysis of those elements that I have designated as city- builders or dynamic factors in the formation of cides.
DYNAMIC FACTORS IN THE FORMATION OF CITIES
1. The Consumers
He who wants to understand correctly the genesis of the medieval cities must learn to see first of all that these cities in their vast ma- jority— and, certainly, practically all the important ones — have been almost nothing but consuming cities during the first centuries of their existence. Hence understanding their genesis means to comprehend how a consuming city could grow up under the conditions existing in the Middle Ages.
* Adapted from Sombart, op. at,, 142-179.
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 175
I call a consuming city that city which does not pay for its mainte- nance (as far as it gets such from outside of the city in the form of sur- plus produce of agricultural labor) with its own products because it does not need to do so, since it receives its maintenance by virtue of a legal tide (taxes, rent, or the like) without being obliged to return an equivalent. "It receives" means of course that a number of people re- ceive who thereby become the founders of this city. The distinguishing characteristic of a consuming city consists therefore in the fact that these consumers are its founders, while its "fillers" are all those who work for the former and thereby receive also a share in their consumption fund. The original, primary city-builders are therefore the consumers, while the fillers in a derivative sense are the producers. The consumers are in this case the independent ones, the people with a vital power of their own, while the producers are the dependent ones whose possibility of existence is determined by the amount of the share which the consum- ing class is willing to grant them out of their consumption fund. (The term dependency must be understood correctly: it is a matter of course that in every community all are really dependent on all if we wish to express thereby that nobody can be without his neighbor without losing some of his life's content.)
Consequently, in order that consuming cities may arise, it is neces- sary above all that in a certain place a large consumption fund is gath- ered which will be consumed there. The consumption fund may be gathered by one (or a few) mighty consumers or by a larger number of average or small consumers: a king can found a consuming city just as well as a thousand retired generals. Who, however, were these con- sumers m the Middle Ages? Essentially, we may say, the rulers who subsisted on taxes and the landlords who subsisted on their rents. It is to be noticed that the line between rulers and landlords in the sense of the word here used is not fixed: the ruler who levied taxes was at the same time a great landed proprietor, therefore received likewise reve- nues from his own property in the form of rent from his estate. A clear distinction between royal domain and national property had not yet been made.
In the Middle Ages a first group of important cities originated as residences of secular and clerical princes. These are those in which the landlord, who everywhere is the nucleus oÂŁ the medieval city, grows into a somewhat greater prince, a sovereign in the sense that he in- creases his revenues from real-estate rents by revenues through taxes. That is a gradual process, and consequently the formation of cities in such cases is likewise effected slowly and gradually.
The cities that concern us here are therefore the, residences of bishops, archbishops, counts, duces, margraves, dukes, kings.
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Churches and monasteries.— Besides these great princely consumers there gather in a medieval city a number of men who draw average and small rent from their landed property, and who again can form a considerable consumption fund. I think first of all of all churches and monasteries, some of which had, as we know, the control of rather con- siderable revenues. If we now begin to write the economic history of medieval cities we shall have to ascertain the amount of these revenues. As an example I cite St. Thomas Foundation and St. Peter Foundation in Strassburg, which had (in the fifteenth century) a revenue of alto- gether 2,374 marks, or 33,000 marks in our present currency.1
Clerical orders of \nighthood. — Besides the churches and monas- teries the clerical orders of knighthood were also of importance for "many German cities, because they established here a prebend of their own and being rich, as we know, could draw together and have con- sumed considerable amounts of rent in the cities.2
Pupils and students.— The ecclesiastical capitalists are then associ- ated with the secular people entitled to rents. In the first place I shall mention at least in passing a category of original city-founders who probably have not been without significance for some cities (Bologna, Paris, Oxford). I mean the pupils 3 and students 4 who got their check from outside of the city. They certainly supported many an innkeeper, many a grisette besides.
2. The Producers
We can hardly think of a city where some part of the population does not support itself and others by industrial or commercial activity; that means which gets its subsistence from abroad by exchange of its own accomplishments. Even in the Middle Ages these constituent parts were not entirely lacking in any city. It is time that we recall them and learn to comprehend them one after the other in their peculiarity.
The inland town. — In the first place we shall have to mention the work of the cities for the surrounding country: the manufacture of industrial objects for the peasants and the delivery of foreign import articles to them. A city whose population subsists for the most part on
*Wilh. Kothe, Kirchliche Zustdnde Strassburgs im 14. Jahrh., 1903, p. 2.
2W. Arnold, Verf. Geschichte d. deutsch. Freistddte, pp. 178ÂŁf. (Regensburg, Speier, Koln, Mainz, Strassburg, Basel, Worms); K. Bucher, Die Bevol\erung von Frankfurt a. M. im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert, 1886, pp. 5140.
3 Cloister schools and their extension in Europe are treated fully by Montalembert, Die Monche des Abendlandes, 6th German ed,, 1878, pp. 169 fi. See also G. von Maurer, Geschichte der Stadtevcrfassung, III, 57$.
* For the later time cÂŁ. first of all the work of F. Eulenburg, Die Frequenz dcr deut- schen Universitdten, 1904.
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 177
this intercourse with the surrounding country we call an inland town, sometimes a market place. Doubtless in the Middle Ages this type of city existed to a larger extent than today; such cities were the boroughs of 500 to 1,000 inhabitants in which, along with city work, agriculture was carried on to a considerable extent as it is today, and which there- fore always remained petty farming towns. Most of these 270 "found- ing cities" in Eastern Germany were of this type.
Exchange with the peasants. — Also in the large cities, that is in those of which we think first of all when speaking of cities, there existed an exchange with the peasants (and still more with the landlords) of the vicinity, and a part of the population (tradesmen and grocers) sub- sisted on it. We must, however, not consider this sale to the rural dis- tricts in the Middle Ages as very extensive: because the agriculture within the cities was still too strongly developed and the cultural level of the country population was not high enough. We must not think, for instance, that this exchange between city and country was the vital nerve of a medieval city. We must not think that the peasant bought from the city people industrial and foreign products to the amount for which they sold to them their products at the weekly markets. The larger part of their net proceeds rather went into the pockets of the landlords in the country and in the city, and these bought now with the tribute money (or the proceeds from the food delivered to them) the merchandise from the tradesmen and the merchants in the city. So that if the landlords lived in the city, they were maintained by the peasants and not by themselves.
International trade. — Of somewhat greater importance for many of the medieval cities was the international trade. However, we should not exaggerate this international trade as a factor in city-building. The commercial town has economically the peculiarity that it draws its sub- sistence in small amounts from a very large circle.5 And this peculiarity of its existence puts narrow boundaries to the expansion of a merely commercial town. There never have been and there cannot be very large purely commercial towns, for either the transportation technique is still so undeveloped that the extent of commerce can be only a limited one, or, the transportation technique being more highly developed, the rate of profit by trade is comparatively so low that immense amounts of merchandise must be sold in order to leave a considerable quantity of value as gain in the hands of the merchants and therefore as sub- sistence material for the city population. ... If we assume an average income of only 100 marks in our present-day currency for the city of Lubeck of the fourteenth century and a profit rate of 20 per cent on
8 "They drew their subsistence from the whole universe": Montesquieu, U esprit des lots, Bk. XX, chap. v.
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the turnover, the trade itself would have maintained only about 6,000 people in Liibeck.
The industrial city.— There remains to mention the export business as a factor in the formation of cities. As far as it is to be taken into account it gives rise to the industrial type of city. And this type cer- tainly existed in the Middle Ages, undoubtedly also on the basis of industrial production in the narrower sense (i.e., the improvement of the material). In this case, cities which specialized in a certain indus- try certainly were able to maintain thereby a few hundred, in a few cases a couple of thousand, people: Milan with weapons, Nuremberg with its "Nuremberg goods," Constance with its linen, Florence with its cloths. These, however, are only exceptions. And, as the develop- ment of these industries occurred in the later years of the Middle Ages, it hardly enters into a consideration of the origin and earlier expansion of the city.
With more right we may say that of greater significance for the be- ginnings of city life were certain products of the ground (or of the sea) on which or near which the city was situated. I am thinking of the salt cities, of the mountain (silver) cities, of the wine cities, of the herring cities. But I must warn again not to overestimate the power even of these sources of income as factors in city formation.
Money transaction. — Only one factor, besides the accumulation of rent from land, plays, as far as I can see, an important part in the de- velopment of medieval cities; that is money transaction, the banking business, or usury, as we may distinguish in individual cases. In re- gard to usury and its importance I shall go into more detail in the further course of this discussion. At this time I wish only to point out in advance that the instinctively correct evaluation of usury as a factor in the formation of cities probably explains the endeavors of many citizens (town councillors), anxious for the welfare of their city, to bring about settlements of Jews.
If, however, in spite of all, anybody still doubts the correctness of my thesis that the medieval city has been principally and, at any rate in the first part of its existence, a consuming city and hence owes its de- velopment to the mass of rents from land (and taxes) accumulated at one point, he will, I think, be relieved from his doubt if he looks at the objects of city formation in the Middle Ages, those secondary, tertiary, etc., city-builders, hence builders in a derivative sense, who in reality are the first to fill the cities. We shall speak of them from now on.
THE OBJECTS IN THE FORMATION OF CITIES
I divide the city-fillers into two groups, direct and indirect bread-
* Adapted from Sombart, op. cit., pp. 159-180.
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 179
getters. The direct bread-getters are those who are in the service of the city-builders and are paid for services which they render to them, hence are maintained by them directly. To this group belong the servants in the widest sense, belong the courtiers, but also the officers of the king, of the bishop; belongs finally also the whole clergy- priests, monks, etc. Indirect bread-getters are the independent trades- men and merchants who manufacture industrial products for the city- builders or procure goods from outside of the city. Principal classes of the "city-fillers" were as follows.
1. The clergy. — The clergy of the higher and lower orders, together with their numerous servants, constituted a large part of the popula- tion, e.g., 5 per cent in Strassburg and Nuremberg.
2. Soldiers and officers.— Though we have no definite statistical ma- terial, we may assume that the garrisons in the larger cities, as well as the officers and dignitaries of the clerical and secular princes, composed another large part of the population.
3. Craftsmen. — We cannot doubt that craftsmen were among the primary builders of cities, yet they were of no great direct significance, since they were in the service of the landlords. Most of the latter, how- ever, clerical as well as secular, lived in the cities and needed the craftsmen for building purposes: churches and palaces. The eleventh century was especially actively engaged in building.
4. The tradesmen. — The present-day theory that the tradesmen were the real founders of cities is not held by the author. The itinerant tradesmen did not help to build cities until they settled down in a cer- tain place, induced by the opportunities for trading that they found after sufficient landlords had settled at or near such places. The cities of the Middle Ages were, in the economic sense, the foundation of those who received revenues. Only these people made continuous trading possible.
5. The recipients of alms. — Since it was one of the objects of the monasteries to take care of the poor and needy, we may assume that there were many who depended on alms in the cities of the Middle Ages.
The "urge to the city." — Up to this time we have spoken only of the interest of the primary city-builders (i.e., for the most part of the landlords) in the evolution of a city as well as of its (economic) possi- bilities. In order that a city might really grow, the objects in the forma- tion of cities also had to make their appearance. A history of the cities, therefore, should show the various motives causing people to settle down within their walls. Of course, a part of them were already living at the place where the city came into existence: the servants (in the widest sense of the word all the jratribus et ecclesie — and o£ course
180 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
also the other landlords) cottidie in propria persona servientes; further, the industrial laborers who originally had worked for the landlords and now gradually had become independent craftsmen. They and their progeny formed the stock of those who filled the cities. To these we add the free itinerant craftsmen.
A considerable part of the city population, however, was constituted of those who arrived from the rural districts, as we may safely assume from numerous indications, though we hardly know more than the mere fact. In order that an immigration from the rural districts may take place on a large scale, two series of definite circumstances must concur: the country must expel, the city must attract.
That which disgusted people with the life in the country during the centuries which come especially under consideration, resulting in the first inner strengthening of the cities, seems principally to have been the following:
1. The lack of safety, which had especially appeared during the tenth century as a consequence of the invasions of ravaging tribes and the following excessive increase of domestic chivalry. The most detailed description of these conditions is found in the second volume of Flach's work \Qrigines de I'anaenne France^. He attributes great significance to this lack of safety (for the development of France). But even for other fields it is evidently a sign of the times about the year 1000: the lacJ^ of safety. That is why they built walls.
2. The socage duty in many parts of the country. At least this is ex- pressly reported by a monk in regard to secular landlords whom their serfs left in order to seek refuge in the monastery. The fact that nu- merous serfs came to the cities permits the conclusion that they had at least enough of the socage duty.
3. Since the twelfth century it seems to have been popular in some places to confiscate independent farms. Peasants thus treated were de- prived of the possibility of existing on the land.
4. For the period of the ninth to the twelfth centuries and beyond that, at least in many countries, we must take into account a strong increase in population whereby a surplus population was created which helped to increase the crowd of those who left the rural district. This surplus population either migrated into the districts lately settled or served in filling the cities.
That which made the city attractive for those driven from the rural districts was first of all the possibility to make a living for themselves and their families, even without landed property; the possibility to se- cure permanently the means of existence. And this in a state of free- dom. This ideal of freedom seems to have exercised at least as much attraction as the prospect of safety and acquisition. We know that the
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 181
cities really did their part to give or to preserve to the newcomers the freedom for which they longed. In all countries it became a principle of the city law that the city meant freedom and that the serf was (un- der definite, very easy conditions) to be protected against the persecu- tions of his master. All these circumstances combined gave rise to a lik- ing for the city, which turned into a "prejudice'* and created an urge for the city as we see it again a thousand years later.
In these cities a new specific economy unfolded, which was of de- cisive importance for the ensuing culture of Europe. Two forces cre- ated it: the interest of those small craftsmen whom we saw camping in those market booths or in those frame houses that like swallows' nests were attached to the castle of the landlord, and the interest of the city itself.
36. SOMBART: THE ECONOMIC POLICY OF THE CITY*
"And therefore the city is, according to the Aristotelian description and according to the idea which underlies its natural manifestations, a self-sufficing economic unit, an organism of people living together in close communion." l These truthful words introduce Tonnies' beauti- ful meditations regarding the nature of the city per se. And every trea- tise on the city of the Middle Ages and its peculiarity should begin with the same words.
In these words we are directed to that idea which alone can give us a conception of the nature of this strange formation of the Middle Ages which we call city: to that idea of solidarity which we do not simply carry into these matters we like to understand; which therefore in this case does not simply serve as a philosophical means of help to our reflection; which rather represents the central sun that gave life to all that happened in a medieval city because it, as an active idea, filled the souls of the inhabitants and certainly of those who were a decisive factor in the formation of city life.
The policy of the cities. — Hence from this sense of solidarity there flowed also like a natural current the totality of those measures that we generally call the policy of the cities. In this policy the strong con- sciousness of solidarity becomes, as it were, visible. Whether it was the landlords of the city in the beginning of municipal evolution, or later the patrician families, or finally the plebeian guilds from which these measures proceeded, they were always filled with the same spirit; they were always carried by the naive egoism of this small group of people who felt that they were a unit and were determined to assert them- selves successfully as such against the entire world, which, to them,
* Adapted from Sombart, op, cit., pp, 180-187. 1Fcrd. Tonnies, Gemeinschajt und Gesellschaft, p. 18.
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meant foreign territory — toward which they felt no obligations, which they would strive to subject to their own use, the emissaries of which they would meet with distrust because they did not expect anything good of them.
The principle of supplying the needs. — This community idea deter- mines also the material principle on which the entire economic policy of the medieval cities is based; that basic principle which is nothing else but that which had regulated the economic constitution of the tribe, of the village, of the socage— the principle of economic self- sufficiency, of economic autarchy, the principle of supplying the needs.
If we do not lose sight of the object of all municipal economic policy — to provide for a supply of goods satisfactory as to quantity and quality — we shall very easily be able to understand these thousands of little measures in which the activity of the municipal powers finds ex- pression and to connect them into a cohesive system.
Importation policy. — It is in accordance with the nature of the city, as we know, that it has to provide a large part of its sustenance through importation from abroad. Hence the same considerations which, within an individually conducted economy, lead to measures intended to put every single field of production into full operation — let us think of the various ordinances of the so-called Capitulare de villis — must prompt the municipal political economist to take steps to procure the needed amounts of goods which the city itself can no longer produce. The importation policy takes the place of the original production policy and then really constitutes the most important part of the entire economic policy of the city.
Street, mileage, and staple rights. — We summarize a first part of the measures pertaining to this policy under the designation of street, mileage, and staple rights which the city strives to obtain. This means the right to lead every train of goods that moves within a definite cir- cuit around the city (especially, of course, it is always the foodstuffs, first of all the grain for bread, which the city is intent upon procuring) through the city itself and to stop the amount of goods thus brought in for at least a few days in the city and to put them at the disposal of the citizens for a possibly existing need. That means in other words that the grain dealers and others who had purchased the grain else- where were forced to transport the same — even if indirectly— through the city and to store it there before it could be taken to its destination.
The mar\et right.— The farmers in the city's circuit — the larger the better — were hindered in disposing of their products anywhere else than in the city. The "right" to enforce this was called the market right, by virtue of which the citizens secured for themselves a purchase monopoly.
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 183
IÂŁ the country people came to town with their products, it was also desired to prevent speculators from purchasing the goods before they had reached the market. It was, therefore, forbidden to buy provisions before they had arrived at the market or to buy them at all for resale or at least to make delivery of provisions. The obligation to take the products to the market was also based on the argument that only in this way could people convince themselves of their quality and of their "legality."
The right to buy first (Einstandsrecht) , — It was again in an en- deavor to safeguard the interests of the consumer as against the dealer that the former was granted the so-called Einstandsrecht, i.e., the right to buy for himself from any goods which a dealer had brought with him as much as he needed (even against the will of the dealer). Or the dealer was not permitted to buy until the consumers had been provided for: "donee burgenses ad suum opus emerint" and other ordinances like that.
Good quality.— That heed was given to the good quality of the goods that were to be sold is evident from the ordinance mentioned before, which was the same in almost all cities — the provisions brought into the city shall be offered for sale only on the public market places designated for that purpose. Furthermore, it was sought to prevent spoiled goods being offered for sale, exorbitant prices being demanded, the use of false weights and measures, etc. Thus an extensive system of market-police ordinances regulated the trading in the interest of the buyer. On the other hand, no objection was made to selling sick cattle or putrid meat to dear fellow Christians in the neighborhood: "They may very well drive all sick sheep and wethers alive into the country and sell them," decides Strassburg in the fifteenth century, likewise Nuremberg in 1497: "To put and drive away from now on all such immature and faulty cattle."
But arrangements were also made which guaranteed to the city a good provision, especially of grain; granaries were built at the expense of the city and grain and the like stored therein. Furthermore, the city council saw to it that craftsmen and dealers from abroad offered their goods for sale at the fairs; that the trades were well represented, that production in the city was taken care of hqnestly and conscientiously.
Boundary right (Bannrecht). — In a shorter way the same goal (to secure the sale of the products of the craftsmen) was reached by forc- ing the rural districts in as large a circuit as possible to provide them- selves in the city with industrial products. This was achieved by pro- hibiting all industrial activity in the rural districts— the content of the so-called boundary right.
Industrial production. — With this provision for the sale of industrial
184 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
products, the policy of the city touches upon another problem, that of the preservation of a definite organization of the municipal pro- duction, the industrial one, and thereby the problem the solution of which was of as great significance for the evolution of city life as was providing for the municipal market. For just in this we find the peculi- arity of the city economy, that it developed fully this system of organ- ized industrial economy. At the end of the Middle Ages it is just the interests of the handicraft which plainly constitute the interests of the city.
37. HENRI PIRENNE: ORIGIN OF THE MEDIEVAL CITIES*
An interesting question is whether or not cities existed in the midst of that essentially agricultural civilization into which Western Europe had developed in the course of the ninth century. The answer depends on the meaning given to the word "city." If by it is meant a locality the population of which, instead of living by working the soil, devotes itself to commercial activity, the answer will have to be "No." The an- swer will also be negative if we understand by "city" a community endowed with legal personality and possessing laws and institutions peculiar to itself. On the other hand, if we think of a city as a center of administration and as a fortress, it is clear that the Carolingian period knew nearly as many cities as the centuries which followed it must have known. That is merely another way of saying that the cities which were then to be found were without two of the fundamental at- tributes of the cities of the Middle Ages and of modern times— a mid- dle-class population and a communal organization.
Primitive though it may be, every stable society feels the need of providing its members with centers of assembly, or meeting places. Ob- servance of religious rites, maintenance of markets, and political and juridical gatherings necessarily bring about the designation of localities for these purposes. Military needs have still more positive effects. Pop- ulations have to prepare refuges. . . . War is as old as humanity, and the construction of fortresses almost as old as war. The acropoles of the Greeks, the oppida of the Etruscans, the Latins, and the Gauls, the bur gen of the Germans, the gorods of the Slavs, like the {raals of the Negroes of South Africa, were at the beginning no more than places of assembly and, especially, shelters or enclosures. In ordinary times these enclosures remained empty. The people resorted to them only on the occasion of religious or civic ceremonies, or when war con- strained them to seek refuge there with their herds. But, little by little
* From Henri Pirenne, Medieval Cities, Their Origins and the Revival of Trade Princeton University Press, 1925, pp. 56-67. Reprinted with permission oÂŁ the publisher'.
ORIGIN OF RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 185
with the march of civilization, their intermittent animation became a continuous animation, Temples arose; magistrates or chieftains estab- lished their residence; merchants and artisans came to settle. What first had been only an occasional center of assembly became a city, the administrative, religious, political, and economic center of all the ter- ritory of the tribe whose name it customarily took. . . ,
[At that time the cities became in the first place the religious cen- ters. While the secular power dwindled the authority of the church increased.] The prestige of the bishops naturally lent to their places of residence— that is to say, to the old Roman cities—considerable im- portance. [As contrasted with the princes who had to travel and who did not live in the city], the immobility which ecclesiastical discipline enforced upon a bishop permanently held him to the city where was established the see of his particular diocese. The city became synony- mous with the bishopric and the episcopal city. . . , When the disap- pearance of trade, in the ninth century, annihilated the last vestiges of city life and put an end to what still remained of a municipal popula- tion, the influence of the bishops became unrivalled. Henceforward the towns were entirely under their control. In them were to be found, in fact, practically only inhabitants dependent more or less directly upon the Church, . . . The population was composed of the clerics of the cathedral church and of the other churches grouped nearby; of the monks of the monasteries; of the teachers and the students of the ec- clesiastical schools; and finally, of servitors and artisans, free or serf, who were indispensable to the needs of the religious group and to the daily existence of the clerical agglomerations.
Almost always there was to be found in the town a weekly market whither the peasants from roundabout brought their produce. At the gates a market toll was levied on everything that came in or went out. A mint was in operation within the walls. There were also to be found there a number of keeps occupied by vassals of the bishop, by his advo- cate or by his castellan. To all this must be added the granaries and the storehouses where were stored the harvests from the monastical demesnes brought in, at stated periods, by the tenant-farmers. At the great yearly festivals the congregation of the diocese poured into the town and gave it, for several days, the animation of unaccustomed bustle and stir.
CHAPTER IV
FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE RURAL AND URBAN WORLDS
A. "SIMPLE" AND "COMPOUND" DEFINITIONS
The preceding chapter depicted the origin of rural-urban dif- ferentiation and its characteristics at the earliest stages. In the course of time the cleavage between the city and the country grew, and correspondingly the differences between the urban and the rural social worlds increased. They increased quantitatively as well as qualitatively: many differential traits scarcely perceptible at the initial stages of the differentiation became clearer and more conspicuous, and, at the same time, several differences perceptible at the early stages developed further into several subclasses.
If one wishes to study the differences between two plants or two animals, it is not sufficient to study them only as they appear in the initial stages of their development— in the stages of seed, embryo, or bud; in order to grasp all the important differences, one must study these plants or animals in their developed forms when the differences are more clear-cut, more numerous, and more conspicuous. The same is true in regard to human differen- tiation. Many of the fundamental differences between the rural and the urban worlds, which are almost imperceptible at the early stages, become very clear at later stages of their development; hence, the advisability and logical necessity of an analysis of these differences as they are exhibited at later stages of country-city dif- ferentiation. Such an analysis and establishment of the differ- ential variables between the urban and rural worlds is absolutely necessary also for a causal explanation of many other rural-urban secondary differences. As we shall see, these secondary differences are but a result of the fundamental variables.
The purpose of this chapter is to outline the most important of these rural-urban differences. Since sociology is interested pri- marily in the differences that are general in space and relatively constant in time—that is, those that appear in a more or less con-
[186]
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 187
spicuous form in the past and in the present, and in all the rural and the urban social worlds (Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome, Europe, America, etc.) — we shall take only the differential vari- ables that correspond to these requirements. In other words, those variables that we study are typical not only for this or that partic- ular city and its near-by rural aggregate, but for the city and the country generally whenever and wherever they occur. This means that in this chapter we try to analyze the most important constant and general, and in this sense typical, differences be- tween the rural and the urban worlds. This amounts to a con- struction of a sociological definition of each of these worlds.
Before proceeding to the analysis of these typical variables of the country and the city, a few methodological remarks are ad- visable. First, we must emphasize that the sociological definition of the country and the city worlds is not to be described in terms of one characteristic, whether this one be size of community, density of population, administrative nomenclature, occupational composition of the population, or what not. In this respect we agree with many of the authors quoted in the preceding chap- ters that the sociological definition of these worlds requires a combination of several typical traits. It must be a compound definition.1 Without repeating here the methodological require- ments of such a compound definition 2 and without reproducing all of the material and data given in Sorokin and Zimmerman's Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology (chap, ii) we shall briefly outline the fundamental differences between the urban and rural worlds and construct in this way their compound sociological concepts,
B. DIFFERENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS AND "COMPOUND" DEFINITION OF THE RURAL AND URBAN WORLDS
I. OCCUPATIONAL DIFFERENCES
Rural society is composed of a totality of individuals actively engaged in an agricultural pursuit, such as the collection and cultivation of plants and animals, and the totality of their chil- dren— "a passive rural population" — whose age does not permit
1See also Max Weber, General Economic History, pp. 317ff.; F. Ratzel, "Die Geo- graphische Lage der grosser! Stadte," in Die Grossestadt, Dresden, 1903; Eduard Linde- manri and Nels Andersen, Urban Sociology, chap. i.
2 See Sorokin and Zimmerman, Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology, pp. 13-15.
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them to be actively engaged in any occupation but who, being born and living in a rural society, are marked by many of its characteristics.
The principal criterion of the rural society or population is occupational— fat collection and cultivation of plants and ani- mals. Through it rural society differs from other populations, particularly urban, engaged in different occupational pursuits. In this aspect rural sociology is in the first place a sociology of an occupational group, namely the sociology of the agricultural oc- cupation. From this difference there follows a series of other dif- ferences between rural and urban communities, most of which are causally connected with this difference in occupation. Let us outline the principal of these differences which have been more or less constantly and indissolubly connected with the rural and urban aggregates. II. ENVIRONMENTAL DIFFERENCES
The nature of the agricultural occupation makes the cultivators work out of doors more than do the workers in the majority of the urban occupations. They are exposed more to the fluctuations of various climatic conditions.3 Further, they are in a much greater proximity to, and in a more direct relation with, nature — soil, flora, fauna, water, sun, moon, sky, wind, rain — than an urbanite. The urban dweller is separated from all this by the thick walls of huge city buildings and the artificial city environ- ment of stone and iron. In many other respects also, the nature of agriculture is radically different from almost all urban occu- pations (see also chap. xxi).
These environmental differences are certain for the contem- porary urban and rural worlds. They were present also in the past, for while they were insignificant at the initial stages of the
3 The following table shows one of the differences between the air of>the city and, that of the country, between the "indoor" and the "outdoor" air.
THE AVERAGE MICROBIC CONTENT OF THE AIR PER 100 CUBIC FOOT
MICROBES AT 2 0 ° C. STREPTOCOCCI
Country 56 12
City 72 11
Offices 94 22
Factories ..... 113 43
Thus a cultivator has better air than the city-dweller and factory-worker. Bureau of Educ. Publication, 1915, No. 50, p. 171; see also Monthly Weather Review, XLII, 452; American Journal of Public Health, March, 1915.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 189
rural-urban differentiation, they have developed gradually with the growth of the cities.4 The separation of the dwellers of the ancient cities from nature was possibly not so great; nevertheless, it was quite tangible. The Bible properly remarks the simul- taneity in the origin of the city and of the artificial environment of walls and city buildings. "And they [the posterity of Noah] said to one another, 'Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.*' And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, 'Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven' " (Gen. 11:3-5). As a rule, the ancient cities of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, China, medieval Europe, and elsewhere were separated from nature by walls of stone and brick, which some- times were very long and thick and were often ornamented with a series of tall towers (watch posts).
The acropolis of the Greeks, the oppida of the Etruscans, the Latins, and the Gauls, the burgen of the Germans, the gorods of the Slavs, like the \raals of the negroes of South Africa, were at the beginning no more than shelters. The general arrangement of the cities was every- where the same. They consisted of a space surrounded by ramparts made of trunks of trees or mud or blocks of stone, protected by a moat and entered by gates. . . . Little by little . . . temples arose; magis- trates or chieftains established their residence; merchants and artisans came to settle.5
Inside the wall, the city, when developed, also was composed of a huge mass of stone, mud, or brick structures — palaces, temples, storehouses, dwelling houses, sometimes paved streets, which all together, especially in large cities like Babylon, Memphis, Athens, and Rome, left the city dwellers very little direct contact with nature. The artificiality of the ancient cities was also manifested by their regular form. Built often at the direction of a sovereign, they had the form of a regular square or a similar geometrical figure. Jn many cities, parks, gardens, and vegetation were almost lacking; where they existed, as, for example, in the famous ter- raced gardens of Babylon, the trees and plants had an artificial origin and were given artificial forms and patterns. The air of the cities was greatly polluted and full of various odors. In brief, the isolation from nature and the artificial character of the city
4 See R. Maunier, op. cit,t pp. 72-86.
SH. Pirenne, Medieval Cities, Princeton, 1926, pp. 57-58.
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environment was typical also of the cities of the past.6 The chief differences between ancient and modern cities in respect to the walls between the human organism and nature are that the modern city is composed, in a large degree, from steel, iron, and paper, comparatively unused substances in cities of the past, and that the walls of gas between the individual and nature have changed in density and composition with the introduction of new fuels and the gas engine. III. DIFFERENCES IN SIZES OF COMMUNITIES
The nature of agriculture has hindered the concentration of the cultivators into large communities with many thousands of popu- lation. Even now, in order that an average-size peasant, farmer, or cultivator family may secure the necessary means of subsistence through agriculture, several acres of farm land are needed. At the same time, the nature of agriculture has required that the culti- vator dwell more or less permanently near the cultivated land. These facts and the existing means of transportation have not rendered it possible for the cultivators to live in communities of many thousands of population. Hence, there is and always has been a negative correlation between the size of the community and the percentage of the population engaged in agriculture. Usu- ally an increase of the size of a community above a few hundreds of population, finds the proportion of agriculturists rapidly de- creasing. This makes it comprehensible why statisticians have taken the size of the community as a criterion of the city and the country. In the statistics of the majority of countries, communi- ties below 500, 1,000, 2,000, 2,500, or 8,000 (according to the coun- try) are regarded as "rural," while those with populations above these sizes are viewed as "urban."
Although there are predominantly agricultural communities with populations above 500 or even 1,000, and there are predomi- nantly industrial communities with populations below 500 or 1,000, nevertheless, the above statistical criteria of the city and the country community serve fairly well. Thus the third characteristic
41 See further the description of some of the ancient cities in the next section. For details see G. Maspero, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria, pp. 194 if. and chaps, i and ii; Cambridge Ancient History, I, 373 E, 505 ff.; VII, 360 ff.; Edward Bell, The Architecture of Ancient Egypt, pp. 78 ff.; Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, Babylonian Life and History, pp. 229 ff.; the works cited of R. Pohlmann and Maunier, and in Die Groste- stadt; Henri Pirenne, Medieval Cities, pp. 57ff.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 191
of the rural aggregates in contrast to the non-rural groups is the smaller size of the -former in comparison with the latter.
This is clearly corroborated by the fact that the agricultural population lives either on open farms or in small hamlets and villages 7 and by the fact that the populations of the large com- munities have a very insignificant percentage of people engaged in agricultural pursuits.
Of the total population of the large cities, the percentage en- gaged in agriculture, forestry, gardening, etc., was, in Germany (1925), from 0.68 to 2.01 per cent; in Vienna (1923), 0.78; in Sophia (1920), 2.24; in Copenhagen (1921), 0.76; in Paris (1921), 0.03; in London (1921), 0.23; in Helsingfors (1920), 0.97; in Budapest (1920), 1.27; in Italian cities (1921), from 3.18 to 0.48; in Warsaw (1921), 0.93; in Moscow (1923); 0.51; in Leningrad, 1.09; in Buenos Aires (1914), 0.78; in Rio de Janeiro (1920), 2.54; in Osaka (1920), 0.70; in Bombay (1921), 1.20; in Sydney (1921), 3.11; in Wellington (1921), 2.88; in Cairo (1917), 2.12, and so on. From 30 to 50 per cent of the population of these and other cities were engaged in industry; from 20 to 30 per cent were in com- merce; the rest were engaged in the professions, personal service, governmental service, and other pursuits.8
It is useless to give other data. It is sufficient to say that the nega- tive correlation between the size of community and the propor- tion of the population engaged in agricultural pursuits holds for all countries and for practically all times since the appearance of the differentiation into agricultural and nonagricultural com- munities.9
Although the exact size of the population of most ancient cities is unknown, nevertheless, from various sources, especially from a study of the sites of the cities, historians have been able to estab- lish the approximate size of many of them. In the first place, there were some cities with very large populations. For example, the population of Babylon and several other Oriental cities ap-
TSee the evidences of this in Sorokin and Zimmerman, Principles, pp. 19-20.
8 Annuaire statistique des granges villes, 1927, Table 20, pp. 2140, See there other data.
9 For the previous years and centuries see Weber, op. cit,, pp. 314 fi. For the ancient cities see the papers of K. Biicher and G. von Mayr, in Die Grossestadt, pp. 125 #.; Vor- tr'dge und Aufsatze zur Stadtcausstelltmg, Dresden, 1903, ed. by Zahn and Jaensch; Sombart, op. cit., I, erste Hillfte, 142 ff., 131-133; II, zweite Halfte, 623; Henri See, Lcs engines du capitalisms moderne, Paris, 1926, p. 17.
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parently was above 300,000; according to some historians it ap- proached a million. Populations oÂŁ other ancient and medieval cities were approximately as follows: 800,000 to 1,200,000 in Rome; about 600,000 in Alexandria and in Antioch; about 400,000 in Cassarea and Carthage; about 100,000 in Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Pergamus.10 Numbers of other cities, although not so large, had populations of many thousands of individuals. The medieval cities in Europe were also of considerable size. About the twelfth century "Palermo numbered about half a million souls; Florence had 100,000; Venice and Milan, over 100,000; Asti, 60,000-80,000; Paris, 100,000 at the end of the twelfth cen- tury, and perhaps 240,000 at the end of the thirteenth; Douai, Lille, Ypres, Ghent, Bruges, each had nearly 80,000; London, 40,000-45,000," and so on.11 Constantinople in the eleventh cen- tury had about 1,000,000.12 Regarding the populations of other Oriental cities of the past, we can judge from the size of the site of the city as well as from the testimonies of contemporaries. Here are a few typical descriptions.
Roman cities. — Alexandria already at the time of Diodorus, accord- to official figures, had a free population of 300,000 souls, a total which, because of the immense foreign and slave population, was decidedly lower than the actual population. Moreover, this figure applies to a time (180. Olymp.) which falls previous to the wonderful growth of Alexandria beginning with the Augustan monarchy, a growth as a result of which the population must have doubled itself in the two centuries before Herodian. If the Carthage of that time could rival this city in greatness, it certainly must have had about 700,000 inhabitants at least, similar to the ancient Carthaginian city shortly before its downfall.
Therewith we also gain knowledge as to the size of other cities, for example, Antioch, the "metropolis of the Orient," which Josephus designates as the third city of the empire — after Rome and Alex- andria, while later Libanius places it on the same level with the three
10 See the summary of various computations of Beloch, Merival, and others in W. S. Davis, The Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome, pp. 45-47; Cambridge Ancient His- tory, VII, 811-812; R. Pohlmann, Die Ubervolkerung der antigen Grossestddte, Leipzig, 1884, pp. 1-25; J, Beloch, Die Bevolfcmng der griechisch-romischen Welt, 1886; Otto Seeck, "Die Statistik in der alten Geschichte," Jahrbucher /. National ofonomie und Sta- tistik., 1897, pp. 161-176; see in the same volume Beloch's "Zur Bevolkerungsgeschichte des Altertums," pp. 321-343; for less conservative figures see Duruy, Histoire des Grecs, II, 154; Histoire des Romains, I, 364, 414.
11 P. Boissonnade, Life and Wor\ in Medieval Europe, New York, 1927, p. 203. For the Arabian cities see the work of Ibn-Khaldun previously cited.
"Pirenne, op. cit., p. 85.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 193
greatest cities after Rome and Constantinople, which are, without doubt, Alexandria, Carthage, and Milan. The size of Milan can be estimated by the fact that, according to the report of Procop, 300,000 adult males are said to have lost their lives during the capture and de- struction of the city by King Vitig in the year 593. Furthermore, if in the East a city of third rank like Caesarea in Cappadocia had about 400,000 inhabitants (in the third century), how much greater must have been the increase of the population of the new world capital on the Bosphorus, where every imaginable ingenious means and the ad- vantage of an incomparable location cooperated to produce a center of culture which soon outstripped all eastern cities and finally became equal in population to western Rome itself. Finally, besides these great cities many other cities developed themselves in a more or less metro- politan manner — only recall Lyon and Treves, Merida, Tarraco, Selen- cia, Laodicea, Smyrna, Ephesus, and others — to which development the provincial history and the magnificence of monumental remains offer eloquent testimony.
Taking into consideration the lack of records and statistics of popu- lation and in spite of their problematical worth, let the circumference figures of the most important cities here be enumerated, which figures are handed down to us by chance. At the time of Vespasian's census in the year 74 Rome had a circumference of 13,200 paces, while the Aurelian wall, which did not inclose nearly all of the settled area, together with the unwalled parts of Trastever, already measured over 17,000 paces. Carthage is given 10,250 paces, referring it seems to the earlier times of emperors, likewise Alexandria, which at the time of Diodorus had measured a little over 80 long-measures — 10,000 paces — now measured 16,360, a significant symptom of the growth of this city. When a little over 8,000 paces are ascribed to Antioch, it truly is much lower than the highest circumference figure of that city. That figure would with difficulty be kept under 18,000 paces, which Constantinople actually reached at the time of its greatest expansion.13
Babylon (about 2250 B. C.). — The great towered encircling walls of Babylon rise sheer from the plain, in their outer bastion 3.3 meters thick, fronted by a deep fosse; behind this bastion lies a wall of burnt brick, 7.8 meters thick, and at an interval of about twelve meters an- other wall of crude brick, 7 meters thick. The space between the two walls is filled with rubble, so that a road leads along the top of the walls broad enough for a four-horse chariot, as also do the classical travelers aver. To the northeast the frontage is 4.4 kilometers long, and not quite half that length on the southeastern side. The circuit of the city was about eighteen kilometers; Herodotus says eighty-six and
"Pohlmann, op. cit,t pp, 18-20,
194 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Ctesias sixty-five. . . . Leaving the central mound, the way southeast- wards leads to the populous quarter where the burghers of Babylon had their homes, . . . The houses are closely crowded in, but with never a window looking on the street, the narrow streets like any eastern town today, their walls stoutly built of mud and brick, good brick their flooring, and the water-supply obtained from numerous circular wells.14
The Chinese city of Kanbalu, the capital of Kublai Khan (thirteenth century A. D.).— The new (part) of the city is of a form perfectly square, and twenty-four miles in extent, each of its sides being six miles. It is enclosed with walls of earth, that at the base are about ten paces thick. . . . The streets in general are so straight that when a per- son ascends the wall over one of the gates, and looks right forward, he can see the gates opposite to him on the other side of the city. In the public streets there are, on each side, booths and shops of every descrip- tion. . . . The wall of the city has twelve gates. . . . Outside of each gate is a suburb so wide that it reaches to and unites with those of the other nearest gates on both sides, and in length extends to the distance of three or four miles, so that the number of inhabitants in these sub- urbs exceeds that of the city itself. . . . Within each suburb there are at intervals many hotels, or caravanserais in which the merchants ar- riving from various parts take up abode. The number of public women who prostitute themselves for money is twenty-five thousand. . . . The multitude of inhabitants, and the number of houses in the city of Kan- balu ... is greater thaa the mind can comprehend. The suburbs are even more populous than the city.15
The Hindu city of Pdtali-putra (302 B. C.) according to the descrip- tion of Megasthenes. — The city was encompassed all round by a ditch, 600 feet in breadth and 30 cubits in depth. In the inhabited quarters, Pataliputra stretched to an extreme length on each side of 80 stadia (about 9 miles). Its breadth was 15 stadia (about 1% miles). And it was of the shape of a parallelogram. The total circuit was therefore about 21% miles, i.e., slightly above the double of that of Aurelian's Rome.16
The city of Kinsai (thirteenth century). — This city is an hundred miles in circuit. The number of bridges (in it) amounts to twelve thousand. . . . The whole city must have contained one million six hundred thousand families.17
14 Cambridge Ancient History, I, 505-508.
™The Travels of Marco Polo, New York, 1926, pp. 132-152. See there similar de- scriptions of many other cities of China, India, and other Oriental countries.
16 Benoy Kumar Sarkar, The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus, Leip- zig, 1922, p. 65.
17 The Travels of Marco Polo, pp. 232, 248.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 195
The city of Dur-Sarginu, a royal residence of ancient Assyria. — Dur- Sarginu being built at once (according to the decision of the great king, Sargon) has none of the irregularities observed in older cities. The streets retain in every direction the width of the road they con- tinue. . . . The city, erected upon a regular plan, formed an almost perfect square of about seven hundred acres. . . . Toward the center of the town the houses become richer and more beautiful, the traffic in- creases, luxurious chariots are seen amongst the crowd of pedestrians. The center of such a city is the palaces of the sovereign. . . . Thou- sands of persons are attached to the sovereign's household and to the administration of his business: some as chamberlains, treasurers, scribes, eunuchs, military chiefs; others as soldiers, footmen, and cooks. There is a perpetual movement of the detachments, couriers, officials; files of donkeys bring provisions; morning and evening hundreds of male and female slaves descend in processions to draw the water re- quired for such an immense number of people. . . . Merchants, trades- men of every kind, supplicants, and even mere sight-seers, enter (the gate of the city) without the least difficulty. . . . The peasants enter every morning, pushing their cattle before them or driving carts heavily loaded with vegetables and fruit.18
The proportion of the population of the cities of the past that was engaged in agriculture was considerable in the earliest and simplest forms of cities and at the initial stages of the urban-rural differentiation. However, it has been decreasing with the growth of the differentiation and the urbanization of the cities. In other words, the negative correlation discussed holds in regard to the past and to various societies. The following quotations give the essentials of the situation.
The earliest undiflf erentiated type of the city-village was marked by a preponderance of the agricultural over the industrial and com- mercial functions. Cattle-breeding was extensively practiced in many ancient cities. There were common pasture lands in ancient cities and especially in the ancient medieval cities of France, England, Germany, Italy, and in American cities. Sometimes the herd itself was a com- munal property. . . . The agricultural function properly was still more important in this type of the city. Generally, agriculture was an im- portant occupation of the urbanites. The city contained a large number of individuals engaged in agriculture and living from it; this was the general character of the ancient cities; often, the same situation was found in the medieval cities of England, France, Germany, and in the contemporary cities of the non-European civilization. Finally, even in
18 G. Maspero, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria, New York, 1914, pp, 195-205.
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the cities where various trades were developed, the artisans themselves were often actively engaged in cultivation of some soil. Close ties ex- isted between the city and the village. Often, in the time of harvest, the inhabitants of the city emigrated to the neighboring villages; some- times they were even obliged to do so. The city itself possessed the lands for a communal cultivation. . . . The land within the cities it- self was cultivated in a considerable part.
Correspondingly, such a city was very much like the village in other respects. "Urban and the rural law were of the same nature. The law of urban property was but a prolongation of rural tenure." The processual and the criminal laws of the city and the village were similar,, and the state of the rural-urban collective rnind was identical.19
Such was the situation at the early stages of the city. However, even then, the cities contained a somewhat smaller proportion of agriculturists than the rural parts, and the proportion of the nonagricultural population — rulers, officials, clergy, artisans, mer- chants, artificers, etc. — was somewhat greater in the cities. As soon as the rural-urban differentiation made further progress, the proportion of the agriculturists tended to decrease more and more in the cities, while the proportion of the nonagricultural population tended to increase. "The city, since its early stages, tended to become, as much as possible, the ecclesiastical, political, military and commercial center of the surrounding villages." 20 "Ancient oriental cities (Babylon and others) were principally organs of refuge and domination; economically they were purely consumptive bodies which added almost nothing to the produc- tion of the commodities of the nation."21
19 R. Maunier, L'origine et la jonction cconomique des miles, pp. 72-86. See in the preceding chapter Sombart's statements and data. See also Liebenam, St'ddteverwaltung in romischen Kaiserreiche, pp. 14-15, 28-29; MagofEn, Topography of Praeneste, Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1908, XXVI, 22-23; Trapenard, Uager scripturanus , 1908, pp. lOff.; Gomme, The Village Community, p. 273; Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. 258; Domesday Book., I, 154; Karl Hegel, Entstehtmg des deut- schen Stadtewesens, p. 102 ff.; G. von Below, Entstehung der deutschen Stadtgemeinde, p. 35; Roberti, "Dei beni appartenenti alle citta dell 'Italia settentrionale," Archivio guiridico, 1906, pp. 53-55; Andrews, The River Towns of Connecticut, Johns Hopkins University Studies, VII, 68 ÂŁF.; Haussoullier, Vie municipale en Attique, p. 69; Houdoy, Condition et administration des villes chez Remains, pp. 414rf.; other references are given in Maunier's work cited above, pp. 72-80.
20 G. Schmoller, "La division du travail," Revue d' economic politique, 1890, p. 144; Max Weber, General Economic History, pp. 317 ff.; Biicher's paper in Die Grossestadt. See also Sombart's data in the preceding chapter.
21 K. Biicher, "Die Grossestadte in Gegenwart und Vergangenheit," in Die Crosse- stadt, p. 13.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 197
In ancient Egypt, in addition to priests, officials, soldiers, and merchants, "the townsmen were artificers and mechanics."22 In the Bible we are told that the cities were given to the Levites (clergy) : "And the cities shall they have to dwell in. ... And the suburbs of the cities, which ye shall give unto the Levites, shall be from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits round about."23 The Levites had some agricultural functions, but only as a by-occupation. The same is true of Roman, Greek, and other cities. At a relatively early stage their occupational popula- tion consisted, in considerable degree, of the officials, clergy, merchants, bankers, professionals, soldiers, artificers, donkey driv- ers, porters, dyers, fullers, dealers in dry goods, in drugs, and in fruits, bakers, hotel-keepers, barbers, goldsmiths, physicians, teach- ers, servants, and so on.24
Similar was the situation in the relatively early medieval towns of Europe. In Nottingham the Domesday census computed 214 houses of which only 19 were the houses of the villani. In Nor- vich 1,238 burghers had only 80 acres of land; in Strasbourg in 1473, of 26,198 inhabitants only 5,476 were Landleutc; in Ham- burg in 1376 the agriculturists composed only a part of its popu- lation; similar was the situation in other medieval cities.25
In the European cities of the ninth century the bulk of the population consisted of the clergy, monks, students, artificers, and officials.26 In the cities of the later centuries the large class of merchants, commercial people, and artisans was added and com- posed the bulk of the population.27 The same was true of the relatively early Arabian, Chinese, Hindu, Persian, and other non- European cities. "Their inhabitants in general live on commerce and manual arts."28
22 Petrie, op. cit., p. 20.
^Numbers 35.
54 See L. Friedlander, Town Life in Ancient Italy, New York, 1902, pp. 6, 942 and passim.
25 See Maunier, op. cit., pp. 78-79; Ellis, Introduction to Domesday, II, 476; Ballard, Domesday Boroughs, pp. 60-61; K. Biicher, "Zur mittelalterischen Bevblkerungsstat.," in Zeitschrift f. die ges. Staatswisscnsch., 1882, pp. 115-116; Eheberg, "Strassburg's Be- volkerungszahV in Conrad's Jahrbucher, 1883, p. 308; Maitland, Township and Borough, See also Henri Se*e, Les origines du capitalisms moderne, Paris, 1926, pp. 16 flf.
28 See Pirenne, op. cit.f pp. 66 ff.
21 Ibid., chaps, iv, v. See Sombart's analysis of the builders and the fillers of the city given in the preceding chapter.
28 The Travels of Marco Polo, pp. 178 and passim; also Ibn-Khaldun, Prottgo- m&nes, cited above, Sec. IV; Bucher, op. cit., pp. 9 ÂŁf.
198 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
With a further development of the cities the negative correla- tion between the size and urbanity of the city and the proportion of the agriculturists in its population became still more conspicu- ous. It manifested itself first in a division of the city into two principal parts: the castrum, a fortress, inhabited by rulers and armed forces and partly by agriculturists, and the portus, inhab- ited by artisans, merchants, and other nonagricultural popula- tion; second, in a more rapid growth of this second part and in a decrease of the agricultural population in the first part. All this led to a continual decrease of the agricultural population in the cities.29 At this stage of the differentiated city, the city instead oÂŁ being as before but a rural district of a restricted dimension becomes a proper abode of the industrial and commercial functions; this fact finds its reflection in the law, in the form of en- forcement on the part of the city (Stadtzwang) of the obligatory rule that commerce and industry must be carried on only within the abode of the city and in the form of the similar constraint concerning the market (Marfytztvang), The practice of specialized handicrafts is pro- hibited outside of the city or of a limited circle around it; an obligatory division of labor tends to be established between the city and the rural parts.30
The above survey is sufficient for us to contend that the nega- tive correlation discussed has appeared since the beginning of the rural-urban differentiation and has grown parallel with the growth of this differentiation; in this sense, it is a constant and general differential characteristic of the rural and urban worlds. IV. DIFFERENCES IN DENSITY OF POPULATION
The fourth principal difference between the rural community and the nonrural, particularly the urban community, has been the negative correlation between the density of population and rurality, and the positive relationship between density and ur- banity. As a rule communities of cultivators have a lower density of population than urban communities. This difference is also causally connected with the nature of cultivation. As yet, it is not possible either for thousands of people to secure the means of subsistence from a few acres or to carry on the cultivation of the land by families who live at a far distance. Sufficient evidences
M See the details and the literature in Maunier's work cited, pp. 142 ff. 80Maunier, op. cit., p. 160; see there the literature and the details.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 199
of this are given in the Principles (pp. 20-22). A few additional ones follow.
In Italy in 1921 in cities of 100,000 and more population there were the following persons per hectare 81:
|
CITY |
DENSITY IN THE MUNICIPALITY AS A WHOLE |
DENSITY IN THE TERRITORY OF THE Ci TY CENTER |
|
Torino |
38.6 |
87.4 |
|
Milano |
39.5 |
95.0 |
|
Venezia |
5.5 |
238.0 |
|
Ferrara |
2.8 |
49.3 |
|
Bologna ... Roma |
. 18.1 . ... 3.3 |
115.7 128.7 |
|
Bari |
15.6 |
304.4 |
In 1926 the density of the population of the principal cities of Europe per one square hectare was from 21 (Reval) to 333 (Paris); in South America, from 10 to 103; in Africa and Asia, from 64 to 78; in Australia and New Zealand, from 10 to 22. (Annuaire statistique des grandes miles, 1927, p. 218.) All these figures are far above the densities of the rural parts.
Not only is the urban population more dense in relation to the number of persons per unit of territory, but it also has a greater density in the sense that a lower percentage of its total number of households or families have "a structurally separate dwelling" (a house, flat, or room having separate access either to the street or to a common landing or staircase).32 The urban households or fami- lies are considerably less separated or isolated from other fami- lies even in their dwelling places. Such a situation represents one of the forms of greater density or greater crowding or overcrowd- ing in urban communities. Such, for instance, is the situation in England and Wales as shown by the following figures.33
81Ugx> Giusti, Le grandi dtta italiane, Florence, 1925, p. 9.
32 See a good definition in the Census of England and Wales, 1921, General Report, pp. 34-35.
33 Census of England and Wales, 1921, General Report, pp. 45-46. See also A, News- holme, Vital Statistics, 1924, chap, xxvi. In so far as known, in other countries the situa- tion is either similar or the rural population has a number of rooms per person not gen- erally lower than the urban.
200 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
DISTRIBUTION OF PRIVATE FAMILIES BY NUMBER OF ROOMS OCCUPIED
|
PLACE OF |
NUMBER OF ROOMS OCCUPIED |
Av.No. OF ROOMS _ PER FAMILY |
AV.NO. OF ROOMS PER PERSON |
||||||||
|
RESIDENCE |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
1CH |
||
|
London County boroughs Other urban areas . . Rural districts |
132 34 20 7 |
211 108 88 62 |
235 163 132 133 |
180 90 253 213 249 234 268 227 |
61 136 148 128 |
32 44 57 62 |
22 24 31 44 |
11 11 16 23 |
26 14 25 46 |
3.62 4.39 4.74 5.09 |
0.96 1.04 1.13 1.22 |
In other countries the form of density under discussion mani- fests itself in a lower percentage of urban families in "a struc- turally separate dwelling" or in a higher number of families or persons who dwell in one building or dwelling place. In the United States, for instance, in 1920, there were 4.6 persons per dwelling in rural communities, and 5.7 persons per dwelling in urban communities.34 If we take big cities the difference is still greater. In 1890 the number of persons per dwelling in the big cities and their states was as follows 35 :
|
CITY |
STATE |
|
|
New York Chicago |
18.5 8.6 |
6.7 5.7 |
|
Philadelphia .... |
5.6 |
5.2 |
|
Brooklyn |
9.8 |
6.7 |
|
St. Louis |
7.4 |
55 |
In Norway (1920), for each 100 dwelling places in the five largest cities there were only 1.5 separate houses (logements particulier) \ in the cities of over 5,000 population (excepting the five largest cities) the number rises to 12.4; and in the rural communities to 76.36 In Poland (1921) the average number of persons per
M Abstract of the fourteenth Census, p. 463.
35 Weber, op. at., p. 416.
* Stttistisk Arsbok, 1924, Oslo, 1925, pp. 178-180.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 201
dwelling building (par bailment) was 14.08 in the cities, and 6.2 in the rural communities.
At the same time among the dwelling buildings in the rural communities, more than 90 per cent had only one logement (that is, were separate houses for one family), while in the cities only about 47 per cent of all inhabited buildings were separate houses. The remaining were buildings with several apartments, flats, or structurally separate dwellings (buildings with more than one logement. Y1 In Switzerland the average number of persons per house in the cities in 1920 was 13.8 (that is, several families dwelt in one building), while in the rural parts the system of one house for a family was more predominant.38 In Canada (1921) in the urban area there were 1.14 families and 5.16 persons per dwelling and in rural areas 1.02 families and 4.79 persons.39 In Belgium per 100 houses there were 217 separate dwellings (logements) in the four biggest cities, 119 in other cities of 10,000 and over, and 109 in the communities with less than 10,000 population.40 The situa- tion is similar in other countries.41
Finally the same fact is shown by the statistics of the number of persons per building (bailments) in the large cities of Europe. Of all inhabited buildings, the proportion with 1 to 10 inhabitants per building is relatively insignificant; more than 50 per cent of the buildings are inhabited by 11 and more persons; in many large cities buildings with more than 100 dwellers compose from 10 to 30 per cent of all dwellings of the city.42 Such a situation generally does not exist in the rural parts.
Without other evidence, we may safely conclude that the densi- ty of population, measured either by the number of individuals per unit of territory, by the number of families per one dwelling or building, or by the number of families or individuals per one structurally separated dwelling is positively correlated with ur- banity and with the size of urban community and negatively with
87 Annuaire statistique de la repttblique polonaise, 1924, Varsovie, 1925, pp. 18-19.
38 Statistische s Jahrbuch der Schtvciz, 1925, p. 41.
™The Canada Year Book, 1925, p. 98.
^ Annuaire statistique de la Belgiqtie, 1924-1925, p. xxi,
41 See for instance, Statistis^ Aarbog, 1927, p. 29.
42 See Annuaire statistique des grandes villes, 1927, pp. 24-25; this makes compre- hensible the predominance of the many-storied buildings in the city in contrast to one- or two-storied houses in the rural parts. See the data, ibid., pp. 22-23. See there also the data concerning the number of persons per room, pp. 28 ff.
202 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
rurality and the smallness in size of the community. This rule holds not only in regard to the present but to the past also. To each stage of economic civilization there is a corresponding specific density of the population. In a state of savagery, where man does not cultivate the land and lives by hunting, fishing, and collecting the gifts of nature, a vast piece of land is necessary to obtain subsistence for a family. Among the Eskimos, who live in a cold climate, we find scarcely 2 persons per 100 square kilometers. But even in a warm cli- mate the Indians of Amazon do not have more than 3 persons per square kilometer. In the pastoral stage man cultivates land but little. In the steppes of Turkestan ... the density of the population fluctuates from less than 1 to 2.7 inhabitants per square kilometer. In the agri- cultural stage the density becomes much greater. It fluctuates from 10 to 40 inhabitants per square kilometer, according to the natural fer- tility of the soil and the degree of art with which it is cultivated. In the industrial stage . . . the density increases still more. The populations of the cities grow. Finally, in the industrial and commercial stage . . . density does not have any limits or, at least, its limits are always ex- tensible.
In the industrial regions of northern France in 1906 the density was about 328, while in the agricultural regions of the lower Alps it was only about 16. In industrial Lancashire the density was 844, in the province of Archangel it was only O.5.43
Thus since earliest times a fundamental characteristic of the city was its greater density. "The city is a complex society whose geographical basis is particularly restrained in proportion to the size of its population." Such is the definition of the city developed by Maunier and by many others.44 Since the initial period, this dif- ferential trait remains and is further accentuated with the growth of the cities. If some of the half-agricultural cities of the past (in Babylon, Egypt, Assyria) did not suffer much from real over- crowding, nevertheless the density of their populations was far greater than in the rural parts of those countries. Other large cities of the past, like some Roman and Greek cities, were greatly over- crowded and, hence, suffered a great deal.45 When the cities as-
43 E. Levasseur, "La repartition de la race humaine," 'Bulletin de Vlnstitut International de Statistlque, Tome XVIII, 2e Livraison, pp. 55, 61-62. See also in the same volume, P. Meuriot, "De la mesure des agglomerations urbaines," pp. 82-95; F. Carli, L'equilibrio delle nazioni, Bologna, 1919, pp. 9 6 if.
44 See Maunier's paper in the preceding chapter.
45 See the data and analysis in the quoted works of Pohlmann, Beloch, Seeck, Ibn- Khaldun, and others.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 203
sumed a conspicuous industrial and commercial character, their densities increased more and, as Levasseur says, became poten- tially unlimited.
V. DIFFERENCES IN THE HOMOGENEITY AND THE HETERO- GENEITY OF POPULATIONS
The fifth permanent difference between rural and urban com- munities is that the population of the rural communities tends to be more homogeneous in Its socio-psychical characteristics than that of the urban communities. By homogeneity is meant, in the first place, similarity in acquired, socio-psychical characteristics, such as language, beliefs, opinions, mores, patterns of behavior, and so on. Whether the rural population is more homogeneous racially than the urban will be discussed later. It is sufficient at this time to stress the socio-psychical homogeneity. City popula- tions in this respect have always been "a melting pot" in which have been thrown together individuals of different nationality, religion, culture, mores, customs, conduct, and taste. In the course of this book we shall see that the city is a community in which coexist the most opposite and contrasting types of human beings: geniuses and idiots; whites and Negroes; healthiest and the un- healthiest; multimillionaires and paupers; emperors and slaves; saints and criminals; atheists and ardent believers; radical reac- tionaries and radical revolutionaries. In all these and other re- spects, the city is a co-dwelling of the most heterogeneous and contrasting types of human personalities, while the country com- munity contains more "flat," homogeneous, and uniform types. Two principal factors are responsible for this. First, the urban population is recruited to a much greater degree out of migrants from widely differing areas with different standards, mores, man- ners, beliefs, etc. Second, as we shall see, there is a greater division of labor, greater social differentiation and stratification, and greater contrasts in standards of living and environment which surround the various members in the urban communities com- pared with the rural. Since the members of urban communities are surrounded by much more differentiated, stratified, and dis- similar conditions than those in the country, naturally they will differ from one another more than the members of the rural com- munity with its less differentiated, stratified, and more "even" environment. These two reasons are sufficient to make the propo-
204 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
sition comprehensible and valid. The following few representa- tive data show that the urban population is really recruited out of migrants from wider areas than the rural.
In the United States the proportion of native-born of native parents systematically decreases and that of foreign-born sys- tematically increases as one passes from the open farms to larger and larger urban communities. In 1920 the situation was as fol- lows46:
|
CLASSES OF |
PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION |
|||
|
WHITE POPULATION |
Farms |
Villages |
Cities |
U.S.A. |
|
Native parentage |
66.6 |
64.6 |
45.2 |
55.3 |
|
Foreign parentage |
7.4 |
10.5 |
20.8 . |
14.8 |
|
Mixed parentage |
4.7 |
5.7 |
8.1 |
6.6 |
|
Foreign-born . . |
4.7 |
9.6 |
19.1 |
13.0 |
In another form, the same positive correlation of the percentage of foreigners with increase in the size of the cities may be seen from the following figures.47
|
PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION IN |
COMMUNITIES WITH |
||||
|
CLASSES OF |
POPULATIONS |
OF |
|||
|
POPULATION |
Below |
2,500- |
25,000- |
100,000- |
500,000 |
|
2,500 |
25,000 |
100,000 |
500,000 |
and Over |
|
|
Native parentage . |
65.9 |
58.1 |
49.3 |
45.7 |
29.3 |
|
Native white of foreign |
or |
||||
|
mixed parentage . . |
. . 13.6 |
22.3 |
26.5 |
28.2 |
37.6 |
|
Foreign-born |
. . . 6.5 |
12.5 |
16.9 |
17.2 |
28.4 |
|
Total white |
86.0 |
92.9 |
92.8 |
91.1 |
95.3 |
As the remaining (Negro and Indian) population is native also, the figures show the correlation clearly. The situation is similar in England.48
46 Farm Population of the U. S., Census Monograph VI, 96.
"Immigrants and Their Children, 1920, Census Monograph VII, 22-23.
48 See Sorokin and Zimmerman, Principles, p. 24; Census of England and Wales, 1921, General Report, p. 151. For the previous period of 1871-1881 see an excellent analysis and the data in E. G. Ravenstein's "The Laws of Migration," Journal of Rural Stat. Soc.f June, 1885, Vol. XL VIII. While for the whole of England and Wales the percentage of the people residing in the county of birth was 74.60, for London it was 62.9, and for the seven Scotch cities, 52.4, Ibid., pp. 174-176.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES
205
Switzerland (1920) and Sweden (1910) show this correlation in the number of persons out of each thousand in the country and in the city who were born out of the community.
|
BORN IN THE COMMUNITY OF RESIDENCE |
IN OTHER COMMUNITIES OF THE SAME CANTON OR DEPARTMENT |
IN OTHER CANTONS OR DEPARTMENTS |
FOREIGN- BORN OR ABROAD |
|
|
Switzerland* |
472 |
251 |
185 |
92 |
|
Urban communities |
344 |
478 |
178 |
|
|
Swedent Stockholm |
411 |
566 |
23 |
|
|
Cities , . . . |
422 |
230 |
332 |
16 |
|
Rural parts |
608 |
264 |
122 |
6 |
If the confrontation had been made between the urban and the rural communities the difference would have been still greater.
The situation is similar for other countries.49 The statistics of the countries from which the foreign-born population of the large cities is recruited shows that the foreigners come from literally all parts of the world. The mere enumeration of the principal countries from which the foreigners came to each large city amounts to fifty and more countries scattered over all continents of this planet.50
Such a heterogeneous origin of urban population naturally leads to a greater heterogeneity in socio-psychical traits compared with the rural population.
Take, for instance, the religious or the national (according to the native language) composition of the rural and urban popula-
* Statistisches Jahrbttch der Schwdz, 1926, pp. 26-27. •^Statistisk Arsbo^ for Sverige, 1919, p. 45.
49 See the data for Norway m Annumre statistique de la Norvege, 1924, Oslo, 1925, p. 19; for France, Germany, and other countries the data for previous years are in G. von Mayr, op. tit., II, 121 ff.; C. Biicher, Industrial Evolution, chap, x; Levasseur, op. tit. II, xvii, 319 ff.; P. Sorokin, Social Mobility, chap, xvi; Weber, op. tit,, pp. 259 fi. For recent Germany, JMuller, Deutsche Bevdlfyrungsstatistilt, Jena, 1926, pp, 69 ff. Also consult the statistical yearbooks of various countries. For all principal cities see Annumre des grandes^ villes, 1927, pp. 152-154. In a great majority of the cities of all continents the proportion of the people born in the city of residence is from 30 to 40 per cent of the residing population of the city, while the proportion of the foreigners, foreign-born, and born m other parts of the country composes from 70 to 60 per cent of the residents of
50 See Annuaire des grandes villes, 1927, pp. 154/T.
206 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
tions. While, as a rule, in the majority of the village communities the inhabitants have the same religion and are of the same nationality, the city population in these respects gives a very com- plex picture. In the large cities, such as Berlin, Leipzig, Budapest, Moscow, and others, there are living side by side more than 20 different nationalities; the statistics — which do not include all small language groups— show for Berlin at least 26 nationalities; in Leipzig, the number is 20; in Budapest, 34; in Moscow, more than 50; and so on. Moreover, these nationalities show a congre- gation of people in one city from all parts of the world with quite different culture complexes and psychology (German, English, Arabian, Armenian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Per- sian, French, Italian, Serbian, Russian, Greek, Albanian, Spanish, Finnish, Czech, Croatian, Tartar, Jewish, etc.).51
Similar is the picture given by the religious affiliation of the urban population. Christians of all denominations, Mohamme- dans, Buddhists, Confucianists, Jainists, Hindus, Hebrews, athe- ists, and so on, are living side by side.52
The same may be said of other psycho-social traits of the urban population.
Similar results are shown by the statistics of the percentage of foreigners in various occupations. As a rule the ratio of foreign- born persons in the agricultural class to the total occupational population of the class is less than the ratio of the agricultural population to the total occupational population of the country. For instance, in the United States (1920) of 100 per cent of the agricultural population, the foreign-born composed only 9.2 per cent. Other occupations had much higher percentages: 34.8 in mining; 28.6 in manufacturing; 18.2 in transportation; 20.6 in trade; 16.8 in public service; 10.9 in professional service; and 22.9 in domestic and personal service. Only clerical occupations had a proportion of foreign-born as low as in agriculture (8.6 per cent).53
In France (1906) the percentage of foreigners among various strata of principal occupations was as follows (French citizens in each group are taken as 100) 54 :
51 See the data in the Annuaire des grandes miles, 1927, pp. 177ff.
B2See*'6zW, Table 18.
58 Immigrants and Their Children, 1920, pp. 272-273.
54 Annuaire statistique (de la France) , 1910, pp. 12-15.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 207
|
AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY, FISHERY |
INDUSTRY |
COMMERCE |
PROFES- SIONAL SERVICE |
DOMESTIC SERVICE |
|
Employers 0.5 |
3.8 |
43 |
1.4 |
|
|
Employes and laborers 1.4 |
6.7 |
5.8 |
0.4 |
4.0 |
|
Working on own account 1 .6 |
5.9 |
4.9 |
6.1 |
A somewhat similar picture is given by other countries.
Shall it be wondered that in the same city factory, office, or other institution are found persons gathered together from the most different, and sometimes most remote, places? 55 People re- cruited from the widest and most different areas, with different populations, are "put in one bed" in the city. They live, dwell, work, and interact side by side. In the rural communities such "putting into one bed" of strangers drawn from widely separated areas and groups takes place in a much lower degree. As a rule, this degree is less, the smaller and the more agricultural is the community.
Greater homogeneity of the agricultural class is evidenced also by the fact that it is the one class more than any other big occupa- tional class that is closed to the infiltration of members of other occupations; it is recruited from the children of farmers and peasants to a higher degree than the population of any big occu- pation is recruited from the children of fathers in the same occu- pation. In this sense, agriculture is factually the most caste-like occupational class. It is true that in connection with the rural "exodus" a part of the children of farmers and peasants shift to other occupations. In this sense the doors of the agricultural occu- pation are open for emergence, but they are practically closed for entrance to almost all whose fathers are in other than the agricul- tural occupations. Thus from generation to generation the farm population is filled with the children of farmers and husbandmen to a much higher degree than any other big occupational class. A few figures may illustrate the statement. Studies of the occu- pations of the fathers of farmers, tenants, and farm laborers in the United States have shown that the following proportions of the fathers were in agricultural pursuits.56
M See the proofs in Sorokin and Zimmerman, Principles, pp. 25-26, and in P. Sorokin, Social Mobility, pp. 386 ff.
06 W. F. Kumlien, What Farmers Thinly of Farming, So. Dakota Agric. Exper.
208 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
OCCUPATIONS OF THE FATHERS AND FATHERS-IN-LAW OP FARMERS, TENANTS, AND AGRICULTURAL LABORERS
PERCENTAGE ENGAGED IN PERCENTAGE ENGAGED IN AGRICULTURE OTHER OCCUPATIONS
|
.PLACE |
AUTHOR |
Fathers |
Fathers- in-law |
Fathers |
Fathers- in-law |
|
S. Dakota |
W. F. Kumlien |
89.3 |
10.7 |
||
|
Minnesota |
C. C. Zimmerman |
88.5 |
82.5 |
11.5 |
17.5 |
|
Ohio |
Cooper's study |
94 to 92 |
6 to 8 |
||
|
N. Y. State |
E. C. Young |
82 |
73 |
18 |
27 |
|
N. Y. State |
R. L. Gillett |
84 |
16 |
||
|
11 counties in Wales Monmouth |
IA. W. Ashby f & J. M. Jones |
85.6 87.4 |
14.5 12.6 |
Numerous studies, the details of which are given in Sorokin's Social Mobility, show that among the nonagricultural occupa- tions there was not a single occupational class whose members were recruited from the children of fathers in the same occupa- tion in 80 per cent of the cases. The highest were a few instances of 60 per cent either in America or in various European countries. The majority of the occupations give proportions much lower — from 2.7 to 40 per cent.57 These figures do not even remotely ap- proach the above proportions of fathers of farmers who were farmers. Although the above data are fragmentary, nevertheless their consistency in that all have yielded a very high proportion of recruits of the agricultural class from the children of that class, and the same for their wives, gives the conclusions drawn a high probability. This means that the agricultural class is more homo- • geneous even from an occupational standpoint than any other occupational class.
Station Bulletin 223, April, 1927, p. 11; C. C. Zimmerman, "The Migration to Towns and Cities," Amer. Journ. Sociology, XXXII, 451; cited Report No. 3 of the Ohio State University, p. 17; E. C. Young, The Movement of Farm Population, Cornell University Agric. Exper. Station Bulletin 426, pp. 88-89; R. L. Gillett, A Study of Farm Labor in Seneca County, N. Y., Bulletin 164, p. 59. Among those who go from the city back to farms the percentage who had previous experience in farming or were brought up on farms and in rural communities is also high; a study by the United States Department of Agriculture shows that out of 1,166 persons of this type only 155 or 13.3 per cent had never had previous farm experience (U. S. Department of Agriculture, Analysis of Migration of Population to and from Farms, Washington, 1927, p. 9).
CT See the data and tables m Social Mobility, pp. 428-440. This reference covers prac- tically all studies in this field; for the sake of brevity the table and figures are not repro- duced here.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 209
Concerning the greater heterogeneity of the city population due to greater heterogeneity of the various parts of the city environ- ment which surrounds the various strata and groups of the urban population, we shall speak later. For the present, the above con- siderations and data seem quite sufficient as proof of the greater homegeneity of agriculturists as a class and the rural population generally.
This correlation holds also in regard to the past. By virtue of the same factors, the cities of the past were "melting pots" in a much greater degree than the rural parts. A few quotations give the typical picture. In the ancient Assyrian cities of the past, the common people and the burghers are of many different types, of various origin and physiognomy. The Assyrian conquerors are great movers of men. They pride themselves upon transplanting nations like trees. . . . Sargon filled his city with people gathered from the four quarters of the world, from mountains and plains, from cities and deserts; then he set over them, to keep them all in check, a handful of Assyrian soldiers, priests, and magistrates. Now, after sixty years have passed, . . . they might be taken for Assyrians from their speech and dress, but their features betray their foreign extraction; one still re- tains the aquiline profile of the Hebrew of Samaria, another has the fair hair and blue eyes of the Aryan Medes, a third displays the purest Armenian type, and many, who have sprung from mixed marriages, blend the characteristic features of three or four distinct races.58
"Like Alexandria and like the other cities of Syria, Antioch was made up of many nationalities." 59
"Constantinople showed an enormous variety of types, races, costumes, occupations, and conditions. With the merchants from all countries were mixed the natives of the city, Slavic adven- turers, the Scandinavians, the Armenians, the Khozars, the Ne- groes, the Latins, and so on." 60
Marco Polo remarks in regard to many Oriental cities visited by him that they have "people from all quarters." 61
We know that the population of many ancient cities was com- posed in a great proportion of slaves, serfs, and so on, drawn together from all parts of the world. Among the ancient coun-
58 G. Maspero, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria, pp, 195-205.
59 M. Rostovtzeff, "Syria and the East," Cambridge Ancient History, VII, 185. 80 Charles Diehl, Byzancc, Paris, 1919, pp. 118 if.
w The Travels of Marco Polo, p. 152; for ancient Arabian cities see Ibn-Khaldun, ProUgomenes, Notices et extraits, XIX, 270 S.
210 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
tries, cities often figured as places of refuge for criminals who flocked to them from different parts of the country. They were also places of refuge for foreigners. The Bible gives a sample of this. "For the children of Israel, and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them, shall these six cities be for refuge; that every one that killeth any person unwittingly may flee thither." 62 This again facilitated the heterogeneity of the city population.
Add to this that the cities were the centers of attraction for the poets, the teachers, the philosophers, and the adventurers from various countries. Bear in mind also that for every conqueror the cities, as the centers of wealth and political power, were always the principal point of attraction. After having taken them, the foreign conquerors, with their guard and army, officials and servants, agents and priests, settled in the city as a new govern- ment and in this way again facilitated its heterogeneity. Finally, being the centers of trade and commerce, art and culture, the cities always attracted a great number of people — merchants, artisans, artists, etc. — from "all quarters of the world." Under these conditions the greater heterogeneity of the city population in the past can scarcely be questioned. The following description of Pohlmann gives a typical picture not only for Rome but for the cities of the past generally.63
Since the consolidation of the Roman control, we find numerous symptoms of regular mass-emigration, first out of Italy, then the prov- inces, which, as Friedlaender correctly states, overflowed the city in a constantly changing but, until Constantino, scarcely diminishing force, mixing their population with the component parts of all old-world na- tionalities.1 Cicero calls Rome "a congregation fashioned out of a union of nations"; 2 and voices from the time of the emperors cele- brate the city "which turned the glances of Gods and men upon itself," as "meetingplace of the globe," 3 as a "compendium of the world." Assertions which forcibly remind us of Montchretien's charac- teristic comment on Paris: "Paris pas une cit&, mats une nation; pas
C2 Numbers 35:15.
83 From Robert Pohlmann, Die flbervolfyrung der antigen Grossestadte im Zusam- rnenhange mit der <3esammtenttuicl$lung stadtischer Civilisation, Leipzig, 1884, pp. 17-18.
1 Compare what Ammiamis Marcellinus relates about Emperor Constantine: stupebat, qua edentate omne quod ubique est hominum genus conftuxent Roman, XVI, 10, 5.
2 De pet. cons. 14, 54. Roma est civitas ex nationum conventu constituta.
8 ]uli Flori epitome, p, XLI Jahn: in illo orbis terrarum conciliabulo. As late as the fourth century Symmachus says of Rome (IV, 28): undique gentium convenitur.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 211
une nation, mais un monde" and we are reminded of the word of a modern cultural historian which terms contemporary world-cities gigantic "encyclopediae" of the universal civilization. In fact the de- scriptions of imperial Rome remind us throughout of the picture of a modern metropolis with its intense concentration of the common life of its peoples. "Only observe," Seneca writes his mother, "this mass of people for whom there are scarcely enough houses in this immeasur- able city. The greater portion of this swarm lives far from its native home. They have converged from the municipal and colonial com- munities, yea, from all parts of the globe. Some were led hither because of their desire for glory, others by the need of some public office, others because of their rank as representatives, others because of revelry which seeks for a copious arena suitable for vice, others because of the desire for knowledge, yet others by the colorful games and spectacles. These were drawn by friendship to demonstrate their abilities, those by indus- try which here finds extended material. Some offer up their beauty, others offer their eloquence. There we find no types of men which would not meet in this capital city, where great rewards beckon virtues as well as vices."
Similar is the picture of the medieval city population. The me- dieval city "is inhabited mostly by immigrants. . . . The ma- jority are engaged in commerce (negotiator es). They are adven- turers, men on the margin of society, particularly energetic, enter- prising, and with initiative, who, at the beginning through piracy and later on through commercial operations, accumulated then- capitals. . . . The city is for them nothing but ca basis of opera- tion' ; they traverse from country to country and transport their merchandise from place to place." 64
In the early Russian cities, "the upper class therein — the class which the Prince employed as his instrument both of rule and de- fense— was formed of his retinue and divided into an upper and a lower grade." This and the mercantile class which resided in the cities "were almost wholly Varangian in composition, not Sla- vonic ... [in the tenth century]" and "altogether distinct from the native lower classes, i.e., from the bulk of that indigenous Sla- vonic population which still paid a dan (tribute) to the alien Varangian element." 65
More than that. The existing data show that, in the early cities
64 See, op. cit., p. 16.
65 V. A. Kluchevsky, History of Russia, I, 90-92.
212 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
where there still existed a tangible proportion of agriculturists, these city agriculturists were composed of the homogeneous popu- lation of the rural parts surrounding the city, while the nonagri- cultural population of the cities was recruited from much more remote and different areas and was much more heterogeneous. The inhabitants of the rural section of the cities came from the environs adjacent to the cities and were of rural origin; the merca- tores, on the contrary, in their bulk came from remote parts and were of an urban origin. The origin and social composition of these two sections of the city were thus radically different; one was fed by the adjacent rural milieu, while the other was the product of much wider urban economic system.66
For instance, in medieval Koln 81 per cent of the inhabitants of its rural sections came from a distance less than 75 kilometers and only 40 per cent of them came from a city. In the commer- cial and industrial sections of the city, only 58 per cent of the inhabitants came from a distance less than 75 kilometers. All told, 68 per cent of them came from other cities.67
Similar relationships have been shown by the data of some other cities. Thus, in Frankfurt of the fifteenth century, of the incoming Jews (nonagricultural population), 90 per cent; of the metal-workers, 79.3 per cent; and, of the bookbinders, up to 97.5 per cent came from other cities.68 This means the agriculturists of the rural parts in the past were more homogeneous than the city population. Furthermore, even the agriculturists of the cities were more homogeneous than the urban nonagricultural population. It is useless to pile up additional evidences. The correlation dis- cussed holds not only in regard to the present but in regard to the past.
VI. DIFFERENCES IN SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION, STRATIFI- CATION, AND COMPLEXITY
The sixth relatively constant difference between the urban and rural social aggregates is that the urban are marked (in the same country and at the same period) by a greater complexity, mani- fested in a greater social differentiation and stratification. Speak-
MMaunicr, op. cit., pp. 161-162.
87 H. Bunger, Beitrage zur mittelalterischen Topographic und Statist!^ der Stadt Koln, 1896, pp. 71-74.
68 K. Biicher, Industrial Evolution, pp. 375 fF.; see also A. Doren, Kaufmannsgilden im Mittdalter, p. 82; Inama-Sternegg, Deutsche Wirtschajtsgeschichte, III, 31; Lamprecht, 'Zur Sozialstatistik der deutsche Stadt in Mittelalter," Braun's Archiv, I, 528.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 213
mg figuratively, the city represents a social body composed of more numerous and more different parts with specialized func- tions, and its structure is much more differentiated and stratified or pyramided, than the body and structure of a rural aggregate. This is true no matter what criterion of complexity, differentia- tion, and stratification is taken.69 Let us begin with social differ- entiation.
As we have seen, the city, according to its very definition and from its very beginning, was "a complex society formed out of multiplicity of secondary groups. The city, differing from a vil- lage through its multiplicity, could develop from a village only through agglomoration of several villages or through segmenta- tion and differentiation of one village into many parts." T0 This means that it was, from its beginning, a social body more dif- ferentiated than a rural village. This differentiation appears in a territorial segmentation of various parts of the city each with its peculiar and pre-urban or tribal peculiarities; or in a terri- torial localization of its more numerous social classes and occu- pations; or in an increase of the occupational differentiation and division of labor among the city population, without a terri- torial localization of each occupational group within the territory of the city; or, finally, in a richer diversity of the mores, traits, customs, beliefs, opinions, tastes, etc. of the members co-dwelling within the territory of the same city. From whatever of these bases of social differentiation we compare the urban and the rural aggregates, the city appears more differentiated than the latter.
In so far as the differentiation or heterogeneity of the city human material is concerned, we have already seen that the urban popu- lation is more heterogeneous than the rural. (See the preceding paragraph.)71 In this respect, the city has been a real "coinddcn- tia oppositorum"
In so far as the division of labor, as a criteria of differentiation, is concerned, this has been greater in the city than in the agricul- tural aggregates, first, because "the more primitive is a society the more homogeneous is the economic life within a group" 72
08 About forms of social differentiation and stratification in rural aggiegates see further special chapters.
70Maunier, of. tit., pp. 42, 86, 96 fT.
"See also E. Durkheim, De la division du travail social, Paris, 1902, chap. iv.
"Durkheim, op. cit,, pp, 103 ff.; G. Schmoller, "La division du travail," Revue a" economic politique, 1890, p. 127.
214 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
and the less is the division of labor among its members. The cities appeared later than the pre-urban agricultural settlements and thus had to have a greater division of labor than the latter. Second, "in economic history . . . formation of trades appears for us in the early Middle Ages. The chief activity of specializa- tion is coincident with the prime of municipal development. Divi- sion of production begins at the same time." 7S In antiquity as well as in the Middle Ages "the cities facilitated the development of the division of labor." 74 Such was the situation in the past and such it is in the present.
To comprehend the greater division of labor in the city it is suf- ficient to glance at a table of occupational statistics. Even contem- porary occupational statistics enumerate only about ten subdivi- sions of agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry. At the same time, they contain several hundreds of subdivisions for the other gainful occupations, which, as a rule, are located principally in urban communities.75 As early as 1890 there were at least 557 different occupations in Leipzig. These in their turn could be sub- divided into a series of subclasses.76 In contemporary large cities and in manufacturing and other urban occupations, the division of labor had progressed still more than in Leipzig by 1890 and led, in modern industry, science, trade, and so on, to an excessive specialization.
The members of an agricultural class may still be compared to an encyclopedist, who talks or writes about everything with equal familiarity. If we take the few representatives of other occupa- tions who dwell in rural communities, they also are much less specialized than their colleagues in the city. The rural teacher, physician, minister, and shopkeeper are also "encyclopedists" in comparison with their specialized fellows in the city.
If we measure the degree of rural and urban social differentia- tion by the number of various social classes and the differences between them, the result is again that the city is a social aggregate composed out of more numerous and different social classes than
78 Bucher, op. tit., p. 294.
74 Schmoller, op. cit.t p. 143. See also H. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, II, 2890. and passim; R. Maunier, "Vie religieuse et economique," Revue intern, de sociologie, 1908.
75 See, for instance, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1925, pp. 48-56. The same is true of any classification of occupations and occupational statistics.
MO. Petrenz, Die Entwickelung der Arbeitsteilung in leipziger Getuerbe, Leipzig, 1901, p. 89.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 215
the rural aggregates. The city has always been the place of the co- dwelling of the governmental, ecclesiastical, military, professional, commercial, artisan, and even agricultural classes, each of them different from the others. In the city the ruler is a ruler only and does not carry on other functions; the merchant is a merchant only; the soldier, a soldier; the priest, a priest. In the rural com- munity one and the same person almost always fills diverse functions. A farmer may be partly a constable, and partly a mer- chant. And in so far as each carries on several functions in this embryonic form, the differences between the individuals is not so great and the whole aggregate is not as differentiated as the urban aggregate.77
The same was true even of the initial stages of the city. If it was composed of several tribes and divisions situated together within one abode, the city represented a complex society embracing sev- eral different social groups in itself, in contrast to the village, which consisted largely of one of these groups, and for this rea- son was simpler and less differentiated in its morphological con- stitution.
The same may be said regarding social stratification in the city and the rural community.78 Urban skyscrapers compared with the flat, one- or two-storied rural houses symbolize the greater social stratification of the cities. Whether we take economic strati- fication— the distance from the richest to the poorest measured by the amount of wealth or income; or occupational inter- and intra- stratification — the distance from the president of a big corpora- tion to its office boy or a common laborer; or the distance from the highest position of the most envied occupation to the lowest position of the worst or most undesirable occupation; or socio- political stratification measured by the distance from the highest socio-political rank of a king, president, pope, dictator, or com- mander-in-chief of an army, to the lowest; in all these respects and in many others, the urban community is much more strati- fied and exhibits incomparably greater contrasts than the rural community. The above proposition is so evident that it is scarcely necessary to present evidence for its corroboration.79
"Besides the works quoted see also F. Tonnies, Gemtinschaft und Gesellschaft, 1887.
78 See the concept, forms, and analysis of social stratification in Sorokin, Social Mo- bility, Part I.
79 See the Principles, pp. 47-49,
216 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Greater economic stratification of the city has also been a con- stant trait. Since their appearance, the cities have been storing places of the concentrated wealth of the group, very unevenly dis- tributed within the city population. In the above paper of Petrie (see the preceding chapter) it was shown that accumulation of wealth was one of the important conditions of the existence and development of the cities. Without such an accumulation, they could not grow and could not exert the influence which they did. With corresponding modifications, Marco Polo's statement in re- gard to Kanbalu, the central city of China in the thirteenth cen- tury, may be applied to the cities generally.
To this city everything that is more rare and valuable in all parts of the world finds itsjway; and more especially does this apply to India, which furnishes precious stones, pearls, and various drugs and spices. From the provinces of Cathay [China] itself, as well as from the other provinces of the Empire, whatever there is of value is brought here, to supply the demands of those multitudes who are induced to establish their residence in the vicinity of the court. The quantity of merchandise sold exceeds also the traffic of any other place; for no fewer than a thousand carriages and pack horses, loaded with raw silk, make their daily entry; and gold tissues and silks of various kinds are manufactured to an immense extent.80
This enormous wealth is not eyenly distributed in the city but is usually concentrated in the hands of a few (the kings, nobles, captains of finance, and so on) who live side by side with people in dire poverty. The country population has often been very poor but it seldom has had multimillionaires distributed among it. If the bottom of the economic pyramid in the rural aggregates has often been as low as the bottom of the urban aggregates, its top has never approached even remotely the upper layers of the eco- nomic pyramid of the cities. The same is true in regard to occu- pational and sociopolitical stratification.
The reasons for a greater urban social differentiation and strati- fication are evident. The nature of the rural agricultural com- munity is, such that it "does not keep" and "sends out to the city" the individuals who become excessively rich, or excessively poor, or aspire to the pleasures, fame, positions, and activities which the rural community cannot provide. In the section devoted to migra-
80 The Travels of Marco Polo, p. 153.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 217
tion we shall see that the poor peasants who cannot manage their holdings successfully, in order to secure a living, usually quit farming and go to the city and become city proletarians. In this way, the rural community is freed from a large poor and pau- per class. On the other hand, the farmers or peasants who become rich and ambitious, and whose appetites go beyond what a rural community can provide, also shift to the city and become mem- bers of the rich or well-to-do urban stratum. In this way the rural community is "purified" constantly of its paupers, prospective mil- lionaires, and men with great ambition, talent, and genius. This elimination of the extreme economic, psychological, and social layers from the rural population has been going on incessantly. The process is still going on. It has automatically flattened the social pyramid of the rural aggregate and hindered an appear- ance there of either the excessively rich or excessively poor, the excessively talented or excessively untalented, and generally the excessive contrasts in social stratification and inequality. Most of these excessive deviations from the average of the rural communi- ty have been automatically removed to the city, by virtue of the urban and the rural nature. VII. DIFFERENCES IN SOCIAL MOBILITY
The next relatively constant difference between the urban and rural aggregates is that the urban has been more mobile or dy- namic than the rural class. On the average the urban population shifts more from place to place, from occupation to occupation, from one social position to another, from poverty to riches and vice versa, from slaves to masters and vice versa. In brief, the urban aggregate has a greater horizontal and vertical mobility than the rural population.81
Territorial mobility, — Let us first discuss territorial mobility. The greater territorial mobility of the urban compared with rural populations is manifested, first, in that on the average per head of the urban population there is a greater number of shifts of resi- dence—from room to room, from flat to flat, from apartment to apartment, from house to house— within the city, than in the rural aggregates. Second, the average mileage covered by the city dwellers per head of population in a given unit of time is greater
81 Concerning the concept of mobility, its forms and factors, see Sorokin, Social Mo- bility, chap, vii and passim.
218 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
than that for the rural population. Third, the pulsation of daily influx and outflux of the population of the cities is much more intensive than in rural communities, and fourth, at any given time in the total urban population, the proportion of those who are born in and stay in the city is less in the total population of the city than a similar group in the total rural population. The first three categories of facts represent territorial mobility within the community; the fourth, between the communities.
This fourth category requires further specification. Territorial mobility between communities can be measured either by the average number of shifts to and from other communities per head of the resident population (every incoming and outcoming shift counts) or by the average number of shifts one way only. It is evi- dent that these two forms of measurement are not identical and may give different results. Let it be understood, therefore, that in our statement we mean the first form of the measurement (every incoming and outgoing individual), because the equilibrium or immobility of any system is disturbed not only by the streams of exodus from it but also by the influx into it. In regard to inter- community territorial mobility (understood in the above sense) we contend that city mobility is higher than rural mobility. In regard to territorial mobility measured in the second form (only the outgoing stream) we are less sure that city territorial mobility is higher than that of the country; nevertheless, even in regard to this form of territorial mobility (the outgoing migration) we are inclined to think that it is greater in the urban than in the rural aggregates.82 For our purposes, however, it is sufficient to have a greater inter-community territorial mobility of the city popula- tion in the first meaning (both goers and comers counted),
82 The only serious contention contrary to this of which we know has been made by E. G. Ravenstein, who claimed that "the natives of towns are less migratory than those of the rural parts of the country." However, the data of Ravenstein do not support his claim. First, Scotch townsmen who lived elsewhere formed 27.9 per cent of all towns- men, but all Scotch who lived elsewhere formed only 25.6 per cent of all Scotch. Second, Berliners who lived elsewhere formed 16.7 per cent of all natives of Berlin, whereas Germans who lived elsewhere formed 15.7 per cent of all Germans. Further, in the case of the cities, he takes as their "native population" not only the population born in the city but also in its county; meanwhile, in his confrontations he takes all the migrants from a county as the migrants to rural places only, while they are, in a great proportion, located in the cities. In brief, the above conclusion by Ravenstein is not proved. In his second paper he also gives a series of data which contradict his claim. See Ravenstein's papers in the Journal of Royal Stat. Soc. for 1885 and 1889,
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 219
though it may be greater, in a great many cases, in the second meaning also (only outgoing counted).
The first evidence of the greater territorial mobility of the popu- lation of urban communities is the data given above concerning the proportion of migrants and of natives born within the com- munity of residence in the rural and urban districts. It has been shown that urban populations have much higher proportions of persons born outside of the city or community and much lower proportions born within the city or community than rural com- munities. In addition, it has been shown that the attraction of the migrants by cities extends over much wider areas than for rural communities. These data are a direct corroboration of the state- ment that urban populations have greater territorial mobility. Furthermore, they are corroborated by a series of other relevant data given in the Principles (pp. 28-32). To those we add here a few additional ones. The place of birth of the French citizens en- gaged in various occupations gives the following pictures.83
This table shows that in rural communities and agricultural oc- cupations much greater proportions of the population are born in the division of residence. Much smaller proportions moved to other divisions of the country and engaged in the same occupation or stayed in rural areas and correspondingly a much smaller per- centage of the rural population is composed of newcomers from other divisions of the country or from abroad.
A similar picture is given by the statistics of emigration and immigration of Belgium, Sweden, and other countries.84 A series of other data also support the proposition. Many historians have found that since the growth of the cities in the Middle Ages the city people, especially those of the commercial class, "were more mobile by reason of the exigencies of their profession" than the rural population.85 R. Livi found, in his classical study of the Italian soldiers, that the rural population is the most sedentary in comparison with the professional, commercial, and other big urban occupational classes.86 E. Huntington found that
83 Computed from Annuaire statistique de la France, 1910, pp. 11-13.
84 See the Principles, p. 30; Annuaire statistique de la Belgique, 1924-1925, Bruxelles, 1927, p. xlvi; Statistisk Arsbo\, 1926, p. 56. The data are similar for a series of years, See the Arsbok for 1927, p. 75.
85 P. Boissonade, Life and Work in Medieval Europe, New York, 1927, p. 192.
86 See R. Livi, Antropometria mihtare, Roma, 1896 and 1905, I, 45-51; II, 52 #., 72 if, and passim.
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among the notables in the American Who's Who farmer-notables have a lower index of migration (.72) than the notables of any other occupation (these other indices range from 1.09 to 1.74) ,87 On the other hand, studies of several cities have shown a high degree of territorial mobility of the populations.88 A. Joy's study has shown again that in his sample the heads of agricultural families move less than those of any other occupation. The per- centage of heads of the family who had never moved from the place in which they were at the time of marriage is: for agricul- tural families 55.6; for professional 31.4; for trade 46.8; for manu- facturing 40.6; for clerical 44.4; for public service and transporta- tion 33.3; in brief, those engaged in agriculture moved least.89
Without adding more data of the above type we may safely conclude that a greater territorial mobility of the urban popula- tions compared with rural is pretty certain, at least for modern times. However, in view of the importance of this thesis, it is ad- visable to present briefly a series of other evidences which show some specific sides of the phenomenon and which, besides, are useful for an analysis of several other important problems of rural-urban sociology.
The first evidence arises from the nature of the work of the agriculturist compared with the urbanite. The agriculturist does not travel long distances. Trips to neighboring farms, villages, or towns, and rarely to distant places, are all his business requires and permits. Agricultural laborers are more migratory, with their trips for seasonal work to other places, and sometimes, as is the case in Poland and Russia, even to foreign countries. But the sea- son being over, they return to their permanent place of residence. Besides, only an insignificant proportion of them go for such long distances. Quite different are the occupations of professionals, salesmen, tradesmen, financiers, insurance agents, employes of transportation, officials, and various employes and laborers of industry, all of which are predominantly urban. The very nature of their occupation requires a great deal of territorial mobility or traveling. An incessant mobility is necessary for success in their business and is unavoidable.
87 E. Huntington, The Pulse of Progress, New York, 1926, chap. in.
88 R, D. McKenzie, The Neighborhood, 1923, p. 160,
89 A. Joy, "Note on the Changes of Residence," Amer. Journ. Sociology, XXXIII, 617.
222 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
A second line of evidence, which is at the same time an ex- planation of the lower territorial mobility of the rural populations in comparison with the urban ones, is suggested by the nature of the agricultural occupation and its satellites. It ties a farmer or peasant to the land. The land cannot be moved or taken to a new place. On the other hand, as long as the agriculturists remain agri- culturists they cannot easily shift from place to place, or from farm to farm, because a long time and much work are necessary to start a new farm, to prepare and organize it, and to learn to manage it successfully. If not juridically, then factually they "ad glebae adscript! sunt" and must stay for life or many years on the same farm. This is true for a farmer-owner as well as for a farmer-tenant. On the other hand, the nature of the agricultural occupation leads to, and is correlated with, the fact that among agricultural occupations we find a higher -percentage of owners of immovable property (land and houses) and independent man- agers of their business and a lower percentage without such prop- erty among laborers or employes and laborers generally than among the manufacturing, mechanical, and mining pursuits, which compose the bulk of the urban occupations, or among the whole occupational population of a country (see the data in chap. xxi). Other urban occupations, such as trade, clerical serv- ice, domestic service, public service, and professions, may have a proportion of proprietors or independent managers of their business among their occupational population as high as in agri- culture. But the proprietors in these cases are not so much the owners of immovable as of movable property, and as such they are not tied to one place and can shift from place to place more easily. For this reason they are not adscripti to their place of em- ployment and can shift easily to new places or communities. If they have property, as a rule it is movable (money, bonds, shares, and so on) and as such does not hinder shifting and may be easily transferred to a new place.
These principles also remain valid in the cases where the bulk of the agricultural class, as in Russia, does not have private prop- erty rights in the land cultivated but has community ownership of land (obs china, mir), which does not permit the selling or buy- ing of the land by an individual member of an agricultural com-
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 223
munity. This ties a peasant to his community much more strongly than in the case of individual landowning.00
These factors — the nature of the agricultural business, which ties a man to his land, and a higher percentage of owners of im- movable property (lands and houses) and independent managers of their business among the agricultural class in comparison with the bulk of the urban occupational classes — make the lower terri- torial mobility of the rural population easily comprehensible.
In the above analysis we have been dealing principally with the intercommunity territorial mobility of the populations studied. Let us now glance at the territorial shifting of the population of rural and urban communities within the community itself and its adjacent places. No statistics are necessary to prove the claim that it is much greater in urban than in rural communities. Take, in the first place, changes of the place of habitation. An enormous part of urban population, which dwells in rented rooms, flats, apartments, hotels, and houses, is in a state of incessant shifting from one rented room to another, from one flat to another, and from one hotel to another. The very fact that furnished rooms, flats, or hotel rooms in cities are rented, as a rule, by the day or week testifies to the fact that an enormous part of the population stays in these dwellings for short periods of time — only a few days, a few weeks, a few months, and rarely a few years. Only a i datively small portion of the urban population stays at the same place of dwelling for several years.
In rural communities, the situation is rather reversed. As a rule, rural families, especially in Europe, stay in the same community, often in the same house, for generations, not to speak in terms of days, weeks, months, or years.91 The tenants also stay for years. There is more shifting among the farm laborers. But again, shifts by farm occupants are, as a rule, from one farm to another in the same community or for a very short distance. This is providing they do not migrate to town. If the city "home" means a "park- ing place over night" or one that is changed after a few nights or weeks to another "parking place," in the rural communities "home" generally means a permanent place. Sometimes these ru- ral homes are saturated with the life and activities of several gen- erations of the same family.
90 See a more detailed analysis of this in the Principles, pp. 3 1 ft.
91 See the facts in the Principles, pp. 34-36.
224 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
The same may be said for the territorial, short-distance, daily movements of urban and rural populations. As a rule, urban popu- lations, especially now, dwell in the sections of the city or its sub- urban areas that are at a considerable distance from the place of work. Hence the incessant "throbbing" of the city with the rush- ing crowd, the incessant streams of thousands of people moving by cars, street cars, taxies, elevated cars, and subways, on, over, and under the ground of the city. Hence the pulsation of the city with ebbing and flowing waves of the population by day and night. Everything and everybody is in a state of movement in the city all the time.92
In rural communities, there is nothing even remotely similar to that "mad rushing" and mad mobility. The surroundings of open farms and the streets of an agricultural village are quiet; no rushing crowds, no rushing and incessant streams of people, no hurry; they remind one again of the quiet pond compared to the mad waterfalls of a city. Besides many other effects, such mad mobility of the city population requires from its members special quick adaptive responses if they are not to be crushed in the mad currents of the population. In a rural community such quickness of self -protective responses is unnecessary.
The totality of evidence given here makes it probable that the territorial inter- and intra-community mobility of the city popu- lation has been and is incomparably greater than that of the rural and agricultural communities. This proposition appears to be valid for the present. It is probable that the difference discussed existed also in the past, once agriculture became sedentary (as contrasted with pastoral life) and the differentiation of the coun- try and the city developed.93
The reasons for such a phenomenon were indicated above: the agricultural occupation ties the cultivators to the land and does not permit or require territorial migration, while many of the city groups—rulers and officials, judges and priests, merchants and artisans, and so on—are and were required by the nature of their business to be more migratory. These considerations seem to be
02 See the data in the Principles, p, 36. See also Census of England and Wales, 1921, General Report, p. 193.
98 Even the pastoral organizations did not migrate much inter- or intra-community. The community moved but it did not mix with others or change the positions of its elements relative to each other.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 225
supported by the facts. Historical records of China, India, and some other countries depict the agricultural class as very "seden- tary" or "immobile." Megasthenes, Diodorus, Strabo, and Arrian unanimously describe the cultivator of ancient India as the caste which "devotes the whole of its time to tillage. The husbandmen themselves, with their wives and children, live in the country and entirely avoid going into towns." 94
Even at the present moment the territorial mobility of the pre- dominantly agricultural population of India is insignificant. More than nine-tenths of the Indian population reside in the districts where they were born (according to the census of India). Emigra- tion abroad from India is practically nil. Similar is the picture for China, Tibet, and Russia, when they are in normal nonrevolu- tionary or noncatastrophic conditions.05
If we take the early agricultural communities of the Teutons or other peoples of the beginning of the Middle Ages, their self- sufficing "village economy" and "mark-organization" hindered and did not require any territorial shifting. The people born in the mark or hundred or village died in the same community, even in the same house where several generations of their fore- fathers died. "Connecting roads between the villages were origi- nally quite absent, as each village was economically independent and had no need of connection with its neighbors." 96 On the other hand in the cities, even in the past, "at all hours you see multitudes of people passing and repassing on their various avo- cations." 97
At the best, a small proportion of the surplus population of the village occasionally left and went to the city or to other places, but through this, as a rule, they cut themselves off from the rural community and entered the moving streams of the urban popula- tion. Furthermore, we know that the ancient and medieval mer-
MSee the translation of their descriptions in F. J. Monahan, The Early History of Bengal, Oxford, 1925, pp. 141 fi.
9tSee The Imperial Gazetteer of India, I, 4, 8, 497; Stat. Abstract for the United Kingdom Relating to British India, p. 203; J, A. Baines, "Distribution and Movements of the Population in India," Journal of Royal Stat. Soc., 1893, LVI, 1-43; M. Lee, Economic History of China, p. 50.
0flM. Weber, General Economic History, p. 4; see especially G. von Maurer, Geschichte der Dorfverfassung, 1865-1867, I, 39, 313-327; see also Frank Tannenbaum, The Mexi- can Agrarian Revolution, pp. 85 ff., for details as to poor communication between the early Indian communities even in 1926.
9T Travels of Marco Polo, p. 236.
226 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
chants, handicraftsmen, soldiers, rulers, and other urban groups were exceedingly mobile.98 "The city was for them only a 'basis of operation.' They ran from country to country and shifted their merchandise from place to place." 05) And their territorial migration was primarily from city to city but not from the city to the country. In the periods of compulsory attachment of the culti- vators to the land, in the form of slavery, or serfdom, or colonus, conditions did not permit them to shift (legally) at all Under the conditions of community landownership, they were attached to their abode by an almost indissoluble tie, especially those who remained in the country and did not go to the city. Add to this, the much poorer roads and means of transportation of the rural communities and the numerous network of roads and more ac- cessible means of transportation for the cities. These naturally facilitated the territorial mobility of the city people.100 When these circumstances and the historical facts like the above are taken into consideration the lower territorial mobility of the rural class in the past becomes very probable.
Comparative interoccupational mobility. — A mass of evidence also suggests that the same correlation is true and valid generally in regard to shifting of the populations from occupation to occu- pation. Although the data for this point are not as plentiful as in the case of territorial mobility, nevertheless it is possible to claim that agricultural populations remain agricultural longer or change jobs on the average less frequently than the bul\ of the urban population. In other words, on the average, urban populations are less "rooted" to an occupation than the population engaged in agriculture.
Let us discuss the problem, in the first place, in the aspect of cf inter generational'' shifting of occupations from the fathers to their children. The intensiveness of intergenerational shifting of occupations may be measured by the percentage of children of a given occupational class who follow their fathers' occupation. The higher the percentage of children "inheriting" the father's
98 See Bucher, op. cit., pp. 372, 3750.; Maunier, op. cit., pp. 162-163; Lamnrecht's paper cited, Braun's Archiv, I, 528.
80 See, op. cit., p. 16.
100 See the works of Sir John B. Phear concerning lack of roads in Indian rural com- munities as recently as the last century. See A. H. Smith, Village Life in China; D. H. Kulp, Country Life in South China; and I. M. Williams, An American Town, for further studies of the relationship between agencies of communication and the low terri- torial mobility of farmers and peasants, See also Tannenbaum, op, cit.t pp. 85 ff.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES
227
occupation, the lower is the index of occupational mobility by generations. In so far as that part of the agricultural children who remain in their father's occupation is concerned or the part which does not belong to the surplus of the rural population migrating to the city, we have already seen (see above, p. 208) that inherit- ance of the fathers' occupations is true to a higher degree than with any other large occupational group. In regard to this part the principle seems valid. It is less certain in regard to the whole agricultural population, including the part which migrates to the cities. Nevertheless, as far as existing data show, the proposition is valid even in this aspect of the agricultural population. In other words, in spite of the intensive exodus at the present time from the agricultural occupation, the percentage of the children who "inherit" their fathers occupation in agriculture is one of the highest among all the large occupational classes.
The following data at least partly support the proposition. A series of studies in the United States (1920-1926) have given the following proportions of children who "inherit" their fathers' occupations in various occupational classes.101
|
PERCENTAGE OF OCCUPATIONAL GROUP TRANSMISSION OF AUTHOR STUDIED OCCUPATION FROM FATHER TO SON |
||
|
Students of University oÂŁ Minnesota |
26.1 |
P. Sorokin |
|
Business men of Minneapolis |
22.5 |
P. Sorokin and |
|
M. Tanquist |
||
|
Alumni of University of Minnesota |
17.7 |
O, M. Metms |
|
Prominent naval officers |
62.9 |
Ch. Davenport |
|
Employed boys of N. Y. C. (of non- |
||
|
agricultural fathers) |
2.7 to 49.5 |
H. C. Burdge |
|
Farmers' sons of N. Y. State |
70 |
E. C. Young |
|
Farmers' daughters of N. Y. State |
60 |
E. C. Young |
|
Farmers' sons |
69.3 |
E. C. Young |
|
Farm operators |
84.1 |
R. L. Gillctt |
|
Farmers' sons and daughters (Min- |
||
|
nesota) |
63.7 |
C. C. Zimmerman |
|
Farmers' sons and daughters (Ohio) |
50, 40 |
C. E. Lively |
|
With all children |
80 to 85 |
|
|
Farmers' sons and daughters (S. Da- |
||
|
kota) |
69.1 |
W. F. Kumlien |
101 P. Sorokin, Social Mobility, p. 416; see there other data and references; Lively, Ohio State University Mimeograph No. 3, cited above, pp. 17, 35.
228 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Thus, as these figures show, the inheritance of the agricultural occupation from fathers by sons (or interoccupational mobility from generation to generation) is higher practically than in any other large occupational class. And this is in spite of the "rural exodus."
Let us glance now at the intensity of interoccupational shifting of various occupational classes within the life of one generation. Do the members of the agricultural class change their occupa- tions more often than the members of predominantly urban occu- pations? The information at hand rather suggests that all in all the agricultural class changes its occupation more rarely than the other large occupational classes, or that the interoccupational shifting in the life span of one generation of the agricultural class is somewhat lower than that of almost all other large occupational groups.102
To sum up: in so far as that part of the agricultural population is concerned which does not compose "the rural exodus," it is reasonably certain that its rate of occupational shifting in the life of several generations, as well as in the life span of one genera- tion, is lower than that of almost all big occupational classes of urban population. So far as the whole agricultural population is concerned, including the part which migrates to other occupa- tions, it is also probable, though not so certain, that its occupa- tional mobility, both intergenerational and within the life of one generation, is less than that of almost all large occupational urban classes.
Other forms of mobility of the urban and rural populations. — Without pretending to prove the proposition here, but as a mere hypothesis, it is possible to contend that in respect to other forms of mobility — climbing and sinking along the economic ladder, from poverty to riches and vice versa; promotion and demo- tion up and down social and political ranks, from slave to mas- ter and vice versa, from subordinate to governing positions, and vice versa, from low to high social positions and vice versa; and in all forms of social "ups" and "downs" — the city population is
102 See the data and literature in the Principles, pp. 38 ff.; P. F. Brissenden and E. Frankel, Labor Turnover in Industry, 1922; Don Lescohier, The Labor Market, chap, iv; J. H. Willitts, "Steadying Employment," Annals of Amer. Academy of Political and Social Science, May, 1916; P. Sorokin, Social Mobility, pp. 394 ff., 424 ff. See there other sources.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 229
more mobile than the population of the rural and agricultural class. The principal reasons for the proposition are given in the Principles (pp. 41 fL),
Firstj all the institutions which serve as channels of the vertical circulation (social promotion and demotion) of individuals in a society, the universities, churches, centers of financial and eco- nomic power, army headquarters, centers of political power, head- quarters of arts, sciences, literature, parliaments, influential news- papers,103 emperor's courts, and other "social elevators" are lo- cated in cities but not in the country. A man who remains in a rural community and does not go for a time at least to the city, practically does not have any chance to become prominent, to climb to high social positions, or to be demoted from high eco- nomic, political, social, artistic, scientific, or literary positions to lower ones.
Even if in a few cases a man, while staying in the country, has suc- ceeded in making money or doing something prominent, such a man, in order to become really prominent (famous, influential, noble), has to secure the sanction of the city. A rich peasant is still only peasant; a wonderful country poet, without the sanction of the city press and the city, is still only the poet of "his neighborhood" and not known to the world.104
Since the rural community does not have these "elevators" of rapid social circulation, it is natural that a rural dweller cannot use them, as long as he stays in the rural locality.
The above discussion of the relative amount of opportunity for vertical circulation in city and country is not a denial that rural districts have their own social ladders. The agrarian ladder, from hired man to tenant, part owner, full owner, and landlord, as well as the fluctuations in status of large groups of agriculturists, functions in the country. A farmer or peasant may climb the agrarian ladder but he is still a farmer or peasant and has made relatively little progress toward climbing the urban social ladder. On the other hand, an urbanite who successfully climbs the urban social ladder has, at the same time, climbed the rural social ladder. He may buy an estate or country home and immediately become an absentee landlord or full owner of land. Climbing the urban
103 See about the channels and machinery of social circulation of individuals in Soro- kin's Social Mobility, chaps, viii, ix, and pp. 494 ÂŁf. 104 Ibid., p. 494.
230 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
social ladder automatically gives one a position on the rural social ladder. The reverse is not so true or general. A second reason for the less intensive vertical mobility of the rural population is that the social pyramid or stratification of the rural community, as we shall see further, is much lower than that of the urban com- munity. These and similar considerations given in the Principles make it comprehensible that the urban population must be and has been more mobile even in the sense of vertical circulation.
The above totality of facts and considerations makes the propo- sition of a more intensive territorial, occupational, economic, and vertical mobility of urban populations compared with rural rather probable. The rural community is similar to calm water in a pail, and the urban community to boiling water in a kettle. From country to country, and from period to period these differences change in their concrete forms and in their tempo and force. But in spite of this, the relative difference in mobility seems to remain constant between typically rural and urban communities.
If the process of urbanization is continued and the present trend toward smaller and smaller differences between the city and the country progresses, the difference in mobility, like all other differences, is doomed to disappear also. But when this happens, if it happens, it will mean only that the very division of communi- ties into rural and urban is over and not that the trait studied was wrongly interpreted as a differential trait between the city and the country. VIII. DIFFERENCES IN THE DIRECTION OF MIGRATION
The eighth fairly permanent and constant difference between rural and urban communities is the direction of the rural-urban migration of the population. With the exception of catastrophic periods in the life history of the country, and since the appearance of rural-urban differentiation, the currents of the population go- ing from the country to the city or from agricultural occupations to predominantly urban occupations have always been stronger and carried more poptilation to the city than the migratory cur- rents from urban to rural communities. Like water which flows naturally from a higher to a lower level, population generally flows naturally from rural to urban centers and from agriculture to industries and other urban occupations. Rural communities have been the centers of production of a surplus of human beings,
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 231
and the urban communities the centers of their consumption. This is an important diagnostic trait which, practically speaking, has been permanent in the history of mankind. Only when, owing to various causes, a whole country entered a disastrous and catastro- phic period of economic, political, moral, mental, and social decay and disorganization has there been a termination of this exodus from country to the city and from agriculture to urban occupa- tions or a greater powerfulness of the migratory current from the city to rural parts and from urban to agricultural occupations.
The end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Mid- dle Ages, the years from 1917 to 1922 in Russia, and the years of great catastrophic revolutions and wars in various countries and at various times are examples of these catastrophic periods. It is well known that the years of the Revolution, from 1917 to 1922, in Russia were followed by a disastrous economic disorganization of the country. Industry was reduced to 10 or 12 per cent of pre- revolutionary production. Agricultural production was reduced one-half. The money was entirely depreciated. In brief, the nation passed through one of the greatest catastrophes from any stand- point. This was followed by a great disurbanization. For instance, the population of Moscow decreased from 2,017,000 on Febru- ary 1, 1917, to 1,028,000 on August 26, 1920. Before the Revolution the population of Petrograd was 2,420,000; in 1918 it was 1,469,- 000; in 1920 only 740,000. Altogether, at least eight millions, net, left the towns of Russia and went to the rural parts during this period.105 Similar things happened during other great revolutions and catastrophes.106
The following description gives a picture of the disurbanization and overwhelming migration from the city to the country at the end of the Western Roman Empire.
The miserable populations which survived took refuge in the fields and the great domains, which were protected by ditches and palisades, or by embankments of earth and stones, or else in the shadow of the old Roman townships (vici)> which could serve as a refuge for the small cultivators. Natural economy once more predominated, and life became concentrated and localized in the country districts, where the barbarians preferred to dwell.
105 See Statistical Materials for Petrograd, 1922, V, 19; The Red Moscow, 1921; Dur- ing Fife Years, 1922, p. 295. (All in Russian.)
100 See Sorokin, Sociology of Revolution, chaps, xii, xiv.
232 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Industrial economy, indeed, received its death-blow with that of the towns, which had been the home o£ the Graeco-Roman civilization. The barbarians showed a peculiar savagery in destroying those cities, in which the most flourishing varieties of industry and corporations of artisans had developed and still survived. Everywhere the conquerors dispersed the townsfolk and destroyed everything which might pre- serve the memory of civilized life — temples, churches, basilicas, the- aters, circuses. Buildings and monuments alike were delivered to the flames, and throughout both West and East numbers of still flourish- ing towns disappeared, never to rise again. . . . The population fled in terror into the islands and forests and mountains. "He may call himself a rich man now who has bread," wrote a contemporary, and the relics of the old population, which crept back to dwell among the ruins, had wild beasts for company. Rome itself, thrice sacked in the fifth century and five times taken by assault in the sixth, was only the shadow of the superb imperial city, and in the time of Gregory the Great (600) numbered only 50,000 inhabitants, a bare twentieth of her former population. Within the crumbling walls of these ghostly towns and in their half-deserted streets a few miserable artisans still vegetated, all that was left of the flourishing crafts of the past. Ploughed fields and gardens occupied the greater part of the open spaces, destitute of houses and of inhabitants. Industrial activity disappeared, and the very tradi- tions of the ancient industry were lost. The West fell back again into the elementary economic life of primitive peoples.
In the midst of the universal disorganization trade was reduced to a simple traffic in foodstuffs or in manufactures of primary necessity, and its range of circulation was very narrow. The great home and foreign commerce, which had developed so brilliantly under the em- pire, was no longer possible. Everything that was necessary to promote and to facilitate business was lacking. Land was now once more the sole capital, and natural products served as a medium of exchange. Trade by barter, the primitive method in use among the Germans, reappeared in the ancient Roman Empire, where money became rare and credit disappeared. The fine Roman roads, no longer kept in repair, deteriorated, the bridges fell down, the imperial post ceased, there were no more relays. All rapid movement became impossible. Everywhere insecurity reigned; brigands fell upon travelers and mer- chants on the edge of the woods and at the fords across rivers and marshes. Armed bands prowled about the country, and journeys be- came perilous expeditions, undertaken only in caravans and with armed escorts. The ports declined, the seas were infested with pirates, maritime trade became as uncertain as land commerce. The great trans-
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 233
port companies had for the most part broken up, and the shipbuilders were ruined. "He who once fitted out six great vessels," says a writer of the fifth century, "is happy now if he owns but one little boat."107
Details of this process will be given further; here it is necessary to stress only the very fact of the prevalent direction of migration toward the city in normal or particularly prosperous periods of the development of a given society.
This phenomenon means one-sidedness of population migra- tion. It means that normally rural communities and agriculture more willingly permit their members to leave the community and the occupation than they permit entrance by people from cities or from other occupations. In this sense, the positive development of a society is associated with the growth of urbanization and the prevalence of the cityward migration over the reverse situation; the periods of social catastrophes are correlated with ruraliza- tion and a greater prevalence of the countryward migratory cur- rent. In subsequent chapters the process will be discussed in all substantial phases.
IX. DIFFERENCES IN THE SYSTEM OF SOCIAL INTERACTION The ninth principal and constant difference between the aggre- gates studied is a quantitative and qualitative difference in the sys- tem of social contact or interaction of the members of both com- munities. Since the rural communities are less voluminous and less densely populated and the population is less mobile, it is to be expected that the number of various persons whom a cultivator meets, and with whom he enters into an intentional or uninten- tional, long or short, intensive or extensive contact and the num- ber of the contacts per individual must be much below that of an urbanite. This means that the city is a more dynamic world than the country, not only in that the urban population is more mobile, but also in that the system of its interaction is more complex, dy- namic, and intensive than is the system of interaction of the rural population. In a city one cannot avoid the multitude of people with whom he has to rub shoulders every day in the streets, ele- vators, subways, offices, apartment houses, theaters, factories— everywhere. There is no place for solitude. A cultivator, especially when he lives on an open farm, meets
107 P. Boissonnade, Life and Wor% in Medieval Europe, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1927, pp. 26-28.
234 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
a very limited number of people daily or annually. He works mostly alone or in the company of the members of his house- hold. In the city, to be amidst a crowd is something normal and unavoidable; on an open farm or even in a community of agri- culturists, to be amidst a crowd is something exceptional. In ad- dition, the crowds in rural communities, as a rule, are much smaller than the crowds of a city community. The number of letters received and sent by a farmer or peasant, the number of magazines and newspapers read, the number of telegrams and telephone messages received and sent, the number of theaters, movies, and plays visited, these and other indirect contacts are, in all probability, less numerous per capita in a rural than in an urban population. Although no valid statistical data can be given in corroboration of the above statement, on account of the non- existence of such data,108 nevertheless the authors contend that the number of face-to-face and indirect contacts per individual in a certain unit of time (day, week, year) is much greater in the city than in a rural community.
Other than this quantitative aspect, the system of contacts or interactions in rural and urban communities has a series of quali- tative differences.
1. The area of the contact system of a member of a rural com- munity, as well as that of the rural community as a whole, is spa- cially more narrow and limited than the area of a member of an urban community and of the urban community as a whole. By the area of a contact system is meant the extent of the territory in which are located the individuals and institutions with whom an individual or a community is in contact. The larger the terri- tory the larger is the social area of the contact system. Notwith-
108 Some indirect evidence is in tts favor. For instance, the number of letters per capita of population is much greater in industrialized countries than in predominantly agricul- tural ones. While in 1913 in England, Belgium, Germany, and the United States, the number of letters per capita was from 95.9 to 38.9, in predominantly agricultural coun- tries, British India, Egypt, Russia, it was only from 2.9 to 8.4. The number of objects mailed per capita in the first group of countries was from 164.1 to 104.9. In the second group it was only from 3.3 to 11.5. Further, in all urbanized countries, the number increases rapidly parallel to an increase of urbanization. See the detailed figures in Annuaire intern, de statistique, 1920, VII, 130-131. Furthermore, there aie few, if any, rural communities which are passed daily by 210,000 individuals or even by a tenth part of this number. Meanwhile, in Chicago during 16.5 hours, such a number daily passes the corner of State and Madison streets. A series of similar evidences indirectly makes the contention reasonably certain. A few direct evidences lead to the same con- clusion See H. J. Burt, Contacts in a Rural Community, Univ. of Missouri Agric Exper Station Bull. No. 125, 1929.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 235
standing the individual exceptions, as a rule an inhabitant of a city has, on the average, a conspicuously larger area of contact system than a rural dweller (see the reasons in the Principles,
pp.79ÂŁE.).
Since urban communities originated through trade and ex- change, and since they never have been self-sufficing and always have needed to exchange with other communities, "exchange, trade, and interaction" are the very soul of the city and cause the bulk of its population to interact with individuals and groups scattered over a very vast area and in the most various localities. Although it is hard to prove this statistically on account of the lack of evidence, yet one feels justified in saying dogmatically that the area of the interaction system of one merchant company, political group, or newspaper and magazine editorial staff, in a contemporary city, is incomparably wider than that of several rural communities and their populations. In predominantly rural countries, such as Russia, India, China, the area of the contact sys- tem of the bulk of their rural population seldom exceeds a few dozen miles from their place of birth and habitat. In contempo- rary big cities, there are very few of the population who are not iii contact with at least one person in a foreign country, not to mention many people in the remotest parts of the same country.
If a rural community or a city be taken as a unit, then the cir- cles of interaction of each of such units, absolutely and relatively in proportion to the population, are almost incomparable. Look at the maps of the railways, waterways, lines of telegraphs and tele- phones. They all tend to center around the city. Look at the map of the readers and subscribers of city publications, newspa- pers, books, magazines; at the map of consumers of manufactured values of the city industry; at the map of the migration lines of the city "errand" agents, salesmen, preachers, teachers, lecturers, instructors, actors, players, artisans, officials, engineers, organizers, bankers, and so on. Any contemporary city of even moderate size, not to mention the large cities, is connected factually with the whole world.
2. If the totality of the relations that compose the network of the interaction system of an urbanite and of a ruralist be divided into two parts, face-to-face, or primary, relations and indirect, or secondary, relations, then it is probable that face-to-face relations
236 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
occupy a smaller proportion of the whole interaction system of an urbanite than of a rural individual. Readers of a city newspaper, book, or publication; listeners to the city radio speaker or singer; clients, buyers, and customers of city business enterprises or com- mercial houses; taxpayers and subjects of the government located in the city; members of religious organizations whose headquar- ters and authorities are in the city; millions of individuals with whom the city institutions, agencies, and individuals are in con- tact: these rarely are seen, touched, heard, have shaken hands, or have had direct interaction with the other corresponding units of social contact. They are the "anonymous" public, whose reactions are felt only indirectly by the urban population. Only an infini- tesimal part of the persons with whom an urban individual inter- acts are personally known to him. The greater part of them are only "numbers," "addresses," "clients," "customers," "patients," "readers," "laborers," or "employes." They remain for him "hu- man abstractions," or mere special agencies for definite kinds of interactions. Their whole Gestalt, or personality, remains un- known. Hence, the extraordinarily large place in the urbanite system of interaction occupied by the totality of indirect relations.
Somewhat different are the same aspects of the interaction sys- tem of the typical rural individual. He has a relatively narrow area for his system of interaction; a limited number of individuals with whom he interacts; and a smaller number of indirect com- munications. All these lead to the fact that face-to-face relations (with his family, minister, teacher, neighbors, etc.) compose a much larger part of his whole system of interaction than of that of a typical urbanite. The human beings with whom he interacts are concrete in body and flesh. He touches, smells, sees, and hears them. For this reason, they are, in a less degree, abstractions for him than for an urbanite. And the whole living personalities or Gestalten of those with whom he interacts are known more thor- oughly to him than is the case with the urbanite.
3. A slightly different aspect of the above means that the inter- action system of an urbanite is woven, to a greater proportion than in the case of a rural individual, out of impersonal and to a less degree out of personal relations. Hundreds of persons met by the city dweller in subways or elevateds are only "passengers" to him and unknown beyond this trait; the same is true for hun-
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 237
dreds oÂŁ persons who eat in the same cafes; for hundreds who at- tend the same religious services, theaters, political meetings, scien- tific lectures, exhibitions, department stores, factories, offices, and so on. He knows little, if anything, regarding the personalities and biographies of the clerks in the shops he attends, the girls who connect his telephone lines, the post-office clerks, icemen, milkmen, taxi drivers, delivery men, "bosses," and employes, and workers. The very multitude of partners to urban interac- tions and the constant mobility and shifting makes it impossible for him to know their personalities, their lives, or their whole hu- man Gestalten.
In a rural community the situation is different. The partners of interaction are limited in number, and there is a prevalence of face-to-face contacts and less mobility of individuals. All these condition the prevalence of "personal" relationships in the inter- action systems of the member of a rural community. The whole system of rural interaction, its threads and network, are colored there by the daubs of "personal touch," "intimacy," and concrete- ness. This makes it comprehensible why, in the systems of inter- action of rural populations, human beings are functioning as hu- man beings, and their relations involve, to a greater degree, moral evaluations, emotionality, and positive or negative attitudes, not only because of the good or poor performance of the occupational function of a robot, but because of his whole personality and the totality of his actions as a man.
4. In a similar manner, it is possible to claim that in the totality of relations which compose the network of the interaction system of an urban individual, the part composed of casual, superficial, and short-lived relations, in contrast to permanent, strong, and durable relations, occupies a much more conspicuous place than in the interaction system of a rural dweller. One cannot remem- ber, or seldom even wishes to continue contact with hundreds of the persons with whom elbows are rubbed in subways and streets, or with the druggists, shop clerks, servants, and other human ob- jects of daily interaction in cities. Thousands of contacts arise in this way and die or are forgotten in a few moments or seconds.
Different is the situation in a rural community. Since its popu- lation is more or less constant, and remains there for life or for many years, the bulk of relations which compose the interaction
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system of a farmer are durable, long-lived, substantial, and solid. They may be friendly or inimical, good or bad, ugly or beautiful, but they stay, exist for a long time, and do not evaporate quickly as do similar city relations. For this reason, they are deeper, less superficial, and involve the whole personalities of the interactors and the interacted persons.
5. Since the area of the interaction system of an urbanite is larger, the number of contacts is more numerous, the people with whom he interacts are more heterogeneous, the relations are more * flexible, less durable, and more impersonal; the whole network of his system of interaction is to be marked by greater complexity, greater plasticity, differentiation, manifoldness, and at the same time by greater superficiality, "standardization/5 and mechaniza- tion than the network of the interaction system of a rural dweller.
The greater complexity, manifoldness, and plasticity of the in- teraction system of an urbanite follows from what has been said before. Being amidst an incessantly changing, highly variable, and heterogeneous "human river," an urbanite must be able to change his actions at any moment according to the circumstances. He cannot afford to be inflexible or rigid in his actions and reac- tions in regard to these heterogeneous people with whom he has to interact; on the contrary, such an attitude would doom him to failure.
On the other hand, the impersonal, undurable, and superficial character of urban contacts makes it impossible for the above variability, specialization, and manifoldness to be real, deep, or "organic." Hence, the necessity for "standards" and standardized, half-mechanical, ready-made patterns in the processes of urban interaction. An urbanite treats differently his iceman and his minister, his physician and his grocer, his landlord and his workers. But this difference is that of ready-made standards and not a personal modification of behavior thought over and in- vented. An urbanite, in his variations of actions and reactions, may be compared to a phonograph; he simply and half -mechani- cally changes one standard for another (like one record for an- other). The standards generally do not touch the individuality. Otherwise they would not be standards. All they touch is the to- tality of the most superficial, exterior, and impersonal traits. For
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 239
this reason, the "yes> sir" of a hired man in the city does not mean at all any particular respect of the addressor to the addressed. It is merely a standard address for the particular circumstances. In this sense the interaction system of an urbanite is superficial and quite mechanical It misses the most important thing, human personality and individuality, or man's "heart and soul." The rural interaction system is less diversified outwardly and has a smaller number of standards in application to various classes of people. But it is more individualized in regard to various individ- uals. It is more filled by an undetached emotional attitude called forth by the peculiarities of the individual interacted with. It goes beyond the "social dress" of a man and comes closer to his heart, soul, or personality. The subsequent readings from G. Simmel and O. Spengler develop the above characteristics of the rural and urban systems of social interaction. In addition, they particu- larly stress many psycho-social traits of the city which are corre- lated with its fundamental variables and which, for the present, are not touched in our analysis. The descriptions of the "city- soul" by Simmel and Spengler excellently supplement the above "framework" of the city and the country worlds. A detailed analy- sis of this "city-soul" will be given further, in subsequent parts of this work.
C. SUMMARY
The above does not exhaust the differences between the urban and rural worlds but it is sufficient to serve as a starting com- pound concept for further analysis. Let us sum up the above im- portant relatively constant, and causally connected, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the urban and rural worlds.
RURAL WORLD URBAN WORLD
OCCUPATION Totality of cultivators and Totality of people engaged
their families, In the com- principally in manufactur-
munity are usually a few ing, mechanical pursuits,
representatives of several trade, commerce, profes-
nonagricultural pursuits, sions, governing, and other
They, however, do not nonagricultural occupa-
compose the proper object tions. of rural sociology.
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ENVIRONMENT
RURAL WORLD
Predominance oÂŁ nature over anthropo-social envi- ronment. Direct relation- ship to nature.
URBAN WORLD
Greater isolation from na- ture. Predominance of man-made environment over natural. Poorer air. Stone and iron.
SIZE OF Open farms or small com-
COMMUNITY munities, "agriculturalism" and size of community are negatively correlated.
As a rule in the same country and at the same period, the size of the ur- ban community is much larger than the rural com- munity. In other words, urbanization and size of community are positively correlated.
DENSITY OF In the same country and at
POPULATION the same period the density
is lower than in the urban community. Generally den- sity and rurality are nega- tively correlated.
Greater than in rural com- munities. Urbanity and density are positively cor- related.
HETEROGENEITY AND HOMO- GENEITY OF THE POPULATION
Compared with urban populations the populations of rural communities are more homogeneous in ra- cial and psycho-social traits. (Negative correlation with heterogeneity.)
More heterogeneous than rural communities (in the same country and at the same time). Urbanity and heterogeneity are positively correlated.
SOCIAL DIFFER- ENTIATION AND STRATIFICATION
Rural differentiation and stratification less than ur- ban.
Differentiation and strati- fication show positive corre- lation with urbanity.
MOBILITY Territorial, occupational,
and other forms of social mobility of the population are comparatively less in- tensive. Normally the mi- gration current carries more individuals from the country to the city.
More intensive. Urbanity and mobility are positively correlated. Only in the pe- riods of social catastrophe is the migration from the city to the country greater than from the country to the city.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 241
RURAL WORLD URBAN WORLD
SYSTEM OF Less numerous contacts per More numerous contacts.
INTERACTION man. Narrower area of the Wider area oÂŁ interaction interaction system of its system per man and per members and the whole ag- aggregate. Predominance of gregate. More prominent secondary contacts. Pre- part is occupied by primary dominance of impersonal, contacts. Predominance of casual, and short-lived rela- personal and relatively dur- tions. Greater complexity, able relations. Comparative manifoldness, superficial- simplicity and sincerity of ity, and standardized for- relations. "Man is interact- mality of relations. Man is ed as a human person." interacted as a "number"
and "address."
These fundamental characteristics, as has been shown, are all causally connected, or interrelated. As soon as one takes the agri- cultural occupation and the people engaged in it, he finds the other differences enumerated. The first "variable," so to speak, carries the others with it. In their totality, they compose the typi- cal and constant "cradle" or "framework" within which rural and urban phenomena carry on. In some of the cities one group of these variables is more conspicuous, and in other cities another group. But, all in all, the totality of the above variables, to a greater or less degree, belongs to all cities. Since we now under- stand this typical urban and rural "framework," we may turn our attention to the typical "pictures" inclosed in each of these "frames." Our task now is to find out what are the relatively con- stant differences between, and typical characteristics of, "the pic- ture" inclosed by the above "rural framework" and that in "the urban framework." What social phenomena are correlated with the above urban and rural variables ? This means that after rural sociology finds "the framework" of the world, its tasks consist in a study of the sociologically relevant phenomena constantly and typically associated with the variables out of which this "rural framework" is composed.
These tasks, in so far as they are concentrated on typical and constant differences, their correlation with the variables which compose the framework of the rural world, and the intercorre- lation of these social phenomena with one another, are exactly identical with the tasks of sociology generally and rural sociology particularly.
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Since the urban and rural worlds are now separated, and since our object of study is the rural world (a consideration of the urban world being necessary only to make the peculiarities of the rural world more conspicuous), from now on we shall concen- trate our attention on the rural world.
38. GEORG SIMMEL: LARGE CITIES AND MENTAL LIFE*
The psychological basis on which the type of urban individualities is developed is the increase of nervous life which arises from the rapid and uninterrupted change of internal and external impressions. Man is a differentiating being, i.e., his consciousness is aroused through the difference between the impression of the moment and that of the mo- ment before. Persisting impressions, small differences between them, and their habitually regular maturation and contrasts require, so to speak, less consciousness than the rapid forcing together of changing pictures, the abrupt contrasts that are found within the material cov- ered by one glance, the unexpectedness of impressions that force them- selves upon one. In so far as the urban center creates these psycholog- ical conditions, it creates a marked contrast to village and rural life in both the sensory foundations of mental life and in the quantity of con- sciousness which it requires of us as differentiating beings.
The rhythm of sensory-mental life is slower, more habitual, and more uniform in village and rural districts than in the city. This contrast explains, above all, the intellectudistic character of urban mental life, as contrasted with that of the village, which is based more on feelings and emotional relationships. These latter are rooted in the unconscious portions of the mind and develop most readily under the quiet equanimity of undisturbed habits. The intellect, on the other hand, is rooted in the transparent, conscious upper levels of the mind, and is the most adaptable of our inner powers. In order to adapt itself to the change and contrasts of phenomena, it does not require the upheavals and the inner disturbances which are the only means whereby the conservative mind can adapt itself to a different rhythm of occurrences.
Thus the urban type, though, of course, subject to thousands of modifications, develops a protective organ against the uprooting with which the tendencies and discrepancies of the external milieu threaten him. He reacts primarily with the intellect rather than with the emo- tions, for he achieves a mental prerogative by the increased conscious-
* Adapted from Georg Simmel, "Die Grossestadte und das Geistesleben," published in Die Grossestadt, lectures and papers for the Metropolitan Exposition, von Zahn & Jaensch, Dresden, 1903, pp. 187-206.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 243
ness, which also created this prerogative. Thus in the city the reactions to the phenomena of daily life are transferred to the mental organ, which is least sensitive and furthest removed from the depths of the personality. Intellectualism, recognized thus as a preventive against the city's oppression of our subjective life, branches out into many and varied individual phenomena. Great cities have always been the seats of money economy, because the many-sidedness and the concentra- tion of economic exchange have given the medium of exchange an importance that it could hardly have attained in the sparsity of rural exchange. But money economy and domination by the intellect are most intimately related. They both possess the purely objective treat- ment of men and things in which formal justice is often paired with a most inconsiderate hardness.
The purely intellectualistic man is entirely indifferent to everything that is personal, for personality is characterized by relationships and reactions that cannot be exhausted with the purely logical intellect; neither does the individuality of the occurrence enter into the money principle. Money is concerned only with that which is common to all, that is, with the exchange value, which reduces all quality and unique- ness to the question of mere quantity. While all emotional relation- ships between persons are based on individuality, the intellectual relationships reckon with men merely as with figures, or with indif- ferent elements that are of interest only because of their performance, which may be objectively evaluated. This type of relationship exists between the urban resident and his wholesaler, as well as his customer, his employe, and, frequently, the persons with whom he carries on the required social intercourse. In contrast to this we find the char- acter of the smaller circle, in which the unavoidable knowledge of individualities creates an unavoidably stronger emotional tone of be- havior, far removed from the mere objective evaluation of disburse- ments and receipts.
In more primitive circumstances, production is for the consumer who orders the goods, so that producer and consumer know each other. The modern city, however, is supported almost entirely by production for the market, i.e., for entirely unknown consumers, who will never enter into the circle of those whom the producer actually knows. Thus the interest of both parties acquires an unmerciful objectivity; their intellectually calculating economic egoism does not need to fear any diversion from the subject in hand through the imponderables of per- sonal relationships. The money economy has forced the last remnants of individual production and immediate barter out of existence and daily reduces the amount of labor that is done directly for the customer.
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It and the impersonal relationship, mentioned above, stand in such close relationship to each other that no one is able to say whether the mental, intellectualistic attitude influenced the money economy, or vice versa. It is certain only that life in the metropolis is the most fertile ground for this interrelationship, a fact which is well illustrated by the words of the most important English constitutional historian: "Through the history of England, London has never acted as its heart, but often as its intellect and always as its purse!"
The same mental tendencies are united with a seemingly unimpor- tant characteristic at the surface oÂŁ life. The modern spirit has become more and more a calculating one. Corresponding to the aim of nat- ural science to transform the world into a mathematical problem and to describe in a mathematical formula every portion of it, we have the calculating exactness of practical life which the money economy has brought with it. First, it has filled the day of so many persons with balancing, calculating, and enumerating activity, and with the reduc- tion of qualitative values to quantitative terms. Through the calcula- tion of monetary values there has entered into the relations of the elements of life a precision, a certainty in the determination of equali- ties and differences, an unambiguity in appointments and agreements, similar to that which is mediated externally through the general dif- fusion of watches. The conditions of the metropolis are both cause and effect of this characteristic. The relationships and affairs of the typical urban resident are so manifold and so complicated, and, above all, urban relationships and activities are interwoven into an organism of so many parts through the agglomeration of so many persons with such differentiated interests, that the whole would break down into an inextricable chaos without the most exact punctuality in promises and performances. The punctuality, computabilityf and precision which the complicated and expanded nature of metropolitan life forces upon the urban resident stand in the most intimate relationship with its monetary and intellectualistic character; they also color the content of life and favor the exclusion of those irrational, instinctive, sovereign traits and impulses which want to determine the form of life from within rather than to receive it from an external source as a general, schematically precise form.
The same factors which have been combined into a picture of the greatest impersonality in the exactness and minute precision of life, on the other hand, influence a most personal phenomenon. There is probably no mental phenomenon which is so entirely reserved for the metropolis as sophistication. It is, first of all, the result of those rapidly changing and contrasting concentrated nervous stimuli which seemed
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 245
to be the cause of urban intellectualism. Stupid and mentally inactive persons do not care, as a rule, to be sophisticated.
In addition to the physiological source of urban sophistication we have another, which is found in the money economy. The essence of sophistication is a dullness toward the differences in objects, not in the sense of failing to perceive them, as in the case of the feeble-minded, but rather, perceiving them so that the meaning and the importance of the differences between objects, and thus of the objects themselves, is experienced as unimportant. To the sophisticated individual all objects appear under a uniform weak and gray tone, no one worthy of being preferred to any other. This mental attitude is the correct sub- jective reflex of the completely developed money economy, for money evaluates the multiplicity of objects uniformly and expresses all their qualitative differences in quantitative terms only. And, in so far as money, with its lack of color and its indifference, asserts itself as the evaluator of all values, it becomes the most fearful leveler, for it robs them of their essence, their uniqueness, their specific value, their imcomparability. They all float about in the constantly moving money stream with the same specific gravity, lie on the same plane, and are differentiated only by the size of the parts of it which they cover.
The mental behavior of the urban residents toward each othet may, in a formal respect, be designated as reserved. If the ceaseless external contacts with countless persons should arouse so many inner reactions as in the small town, in which one knows nearly every person one meets and has a positive relationship to him, one would entirely exhaust oneself internally and get into a mental state that is simply unthink- able. This psychological circumstance, as well as the justifiable sus- picion which we have toward the persons whom we meet in fleeting contacts in the large city, forces us into that reserve which has as one result our frequent failing to know the next-door neighbor by sight, even though he has been there for years, a situation which makes the residents of villages consider us cold and without any feeling.
This reserve, with its overtone of hidden aversion, again seems to me a form or cloak of a much more general mental trait of the metro- politan resident. It grants the individual a kind and measure of per- sonal freedom which has no analogy in other circumstances. Thus it goes back to one of the great developmental tendencies in social life as such, one of the few for which a somewhat generally valid formula can be found. The earliest stage oÂŁ social organization, which may be found in historical as well as in contemporaneous primitive societies, is a relatively small circle, firmly differentiated from neighboring, strange, or in any way antagonistic circles, but so much the more
246 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
firmly closed within itself. It permits the individual member only little leeway for the development of unique qualities and free movements, for which he shall be responsible only to himself. . . .
Social evolution proceeds from this stage in two different, but cor- responding, directions. In the measure in which the group grows — numerically, spatially, in importance, and in the content of its life- it loosens its immediate internal unity. The clearness of the original demarcation from others is attenuated through interrelationships and connections with them. At the same time the individual secures free- dom of movement, much beyond the original jealous limitation, and a peculiarity and uniqueness, which is made possible and required by the division of labor in the growing group. State and Christianity, guilds and political parties have developed according to this formula; of course, with the modifications which the special circumstances and powers of each have imposed upon the general scheme. But it seems to be clearly recognizable in the development of individuality within urban life. Village life, in antiquity as in the Middle Ages, imposed limitations of movement and relationships, externally; of independence and differentiation, internally; limitations under which modern man could not exist. Even today, the urban resident, when transplanted to the small town, feels a similar restraint. The smaller the social circle that forms our environment, the more limited are the relationships to others which might erase the circle's boundaries; the more carefully it watches over the performances, manner of life, and attitudes of its individual members; and the more clearly its quantitative and quali- tative peculiarities mark the boundaries of such a circle, as a whole. The Polls of antiquity seems to have had exactly the character of the small town in this respect.
Today the metropolitan resident is "free," in contrast to the trifles and prejudices which restrain the resident of the small town. For mutual reserve and indifference, the mental condition of life in large circles, are never felt more strongly as related to the independence of the individual than in the densest crowd of the metropolis, where the bodily nearness and closeness does not decrease but makes the mental distance all the more noticeable. The fact that one may never feel so alone and forsaken as, at times, in the crowds of a big city is evidently only the converse of this freedom. For, here, as generally, it is not at all necessary that the freedom of the individual be reflected in his emotional life as pleasurable.
The sphere of life of the small town is, in the main, a unity within itself. It is a characteristic of the large city that its internal life extends wavelike over a large national or international region. The most im-
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 247
portant nature of the metropolis lies in this functional largeness, beyond its physical boundaries; and this effectiveness of the city acts reflexively, giving its life weight, importance, and responsibility. Cities are, further, the seats of the greatest division of labor; they produce extreme forms of this. Urban life has transformed the struggle with nature for exist- ence into a struggle with man. In the city the gain sought as a result of the struggle is granted not by nature, but by man himself. In this we find the indicated source of specialization, as well as a deeper one, for the producer must constantly seek to arouse new and peculiar needs. The necessity of specializing performance in order to find a not yet exhausted source of income, a not easily replaced function, forces differentiation, improvement, increasing the needs of the public; all this must obviously lead to growing personal differences within this public.
And this leads to the more narrow individualization of mental char- acteristics to which the city gives rise in proportion to its size. A series of causes are apparent. First of all, there is the difficulty of making their own personality count in the dimensions of metropolitan life. Where the quantitative increase of importance and energy reaches its limits, a person attempts qualitative differentiations, in order to gain social recognition in some manner, and especially through the arousal of the sensibility to differences. This leads to the most astounding peculiarities, to the specifically urban extravagances of uniqueness, caprice, and pettiness, whose meanings are not found in the content of the behavior but in the form of being unique, of setting oneself apart and thus becoming noticeable. For many persons this method of impressing the consciousness of others is the only means of preserving some self-respect and sense of importance. Another circumstance, not noticeable in itself, but, nevertheless, cumulative in its effects, acts in the same manner: the shortness and infrequency of the meetings (of the same individual with the same persons) urge an urbanite to im- press as unambiguous, clear-cut, and sharp a picture of his personality on the other person as possible.
It seems to me that the most important reason why it is the metropo- lis that stresses the drive to the most individualistic personal existence — no matter whether always justifiably or always successfully — is as fol- lows. The development of modern culture is characterized by a pre- ponderance of that which is called the objective impersonal spirit (Geist) over the subjective (individual or personal). Thus in language, as in law, in the technique of production as in art, in science as in the objects of our domestic surroundings, there is embodied a spirit whose daily growth is followed by the mental development of individuals
248 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
only imperfectly and with a constantly increasing lag. The big cities are the true scenes of this objective culture. It grows beyond, and dif- ferently from, everything personal. Here we find in buildings and in institutions of learning, in the wonders and comforts of a space-con- quering technique, in the formations of common life, and in the visible institutions of the state, such an enormous and so overwhelming a mass of crystallized impersonal spirit that the personality cannot, so to speak, maintain itself as distinct and counts less and less.
On the one hand, urban life is endlessly simplified, for stimuli, inter- ests, means of filling out time and consciousness are offered from every side and carry the personality along as in a stream, in which swim- ming movements are hardly required. On the other hand, life is more and more composed of these impersonal contents and offerings, which tend to supplant the truly personal colorings and unique qualities. Thus, if the personality would preserve itself, it must offer the most extreme forms of uniqueness and peculiarity, it must exaggerate these in order to become at all audible, even for itself. The atrophy of the individual through the hypertrophy of objective culture is one reason for the fierce hatred which the exponents of individualism, following Nietzsche, have for the big city. But it is also the reason why they are so passionately admired in the big cities. The resident of the big city is the person to whom they appear as the prophets and saviors of his unsatisfied longings.
When we trace these two forms of individualism, which are nour- ished by the quantitative circumstances of the big city — i.e., individual independence and the development of personal uniqueness — the big city gains an entirely new value in the universal history of the mind.
39. OSWALD SPENGLER: THE SOUL OF THE CITY*
Primeval man is a ranging animal, a being whose waking conscious- ness restlessly feels its way through life, all microcosm, under no servi- tude of place or home, keen and anxious in its senses, ever alert to drive off some element of hostile Nature. A deep transformation sets in first with agriculture— for that is something artificial, with which hunter and shepherd have no touch. He who digs and ploughs is seeking not to plunder, but to alter Nature. To plant implies, not to take some- thing, but to produce something. But with this man himself becomes plant— mmdy, a peasant. He roots in the earth that he tends, the soul of man discovers a soul in the countryside, and a new earthboundness of being, a new feeling, pronounces itself. Hostile Nature becomes the
* Reprinted from TA* Decline of the West, Vol. II, by Oswald Spengler, by special arrangement with Alfred A, Knopf, Inc., authorized publishers.
RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES 249
friend; earth becomes Mother Earth. Between sowing and begetting, harvest and death, the child and the grain, a profound affinity is set up. . . . And as completed expression of this life-feeling, we find every- where the symbolic shape of the farmhouse, which in the disposition of the rooms and in every line of external form tells us about the blood of its inhabitants. The peasant's dwelling is the great symbol of settled- ness. It is itself a plant, thrusts its roots deep into its "own" soil. It is property in the most sacred sense of the word. The kindly spirits of hearth and door, floor and chamber — Vesta, Janus, Lares and Penates — are as firmly fixed in it as the man himself.
This is the condition precedent of every Culture, which itself in turn grows up out of a mother landscape and renews and intensifies the intimacy of man and soil. What his cottage is to the peasant, that the town is to the Cultureman. As each individual house has its kindly spirits, so each town has its tutelary god or saint. The town, too, is a planthke being, as far removed as a peasantry is from nomadism and the purely microcosmic. Hence the development of a high form- language is linked always to a landscape. Neither an art nor a religion can alter the site of its growth; only in the Civilization * with its giant cities do we come again to despise and disengage ourselves from these roots. Man as civilized, as intellectual nomad, is again wholly micro- cosmic, wholly homeless, as free intellectually as hunter and herdsman were free sensually. "Ubi bene, ibi patria" is valid before as well as after a Culture. In the not-yet-spring of the Migrations it was a Ger- manic yearning— virginal, yet already maternal — that searched the South for a home in which to nest its future Culture. Today, at the end of this Culture, the rootless intellect ranges over all landscapes and all possibilities of thought. But between these limits lies the time in which a man held a bit of soil to be something worth dying for.
It is a conclusive fact — yet one hitherto never appreciated — that all great Cultures are town Cultures. Higher man of the Second Age is a town-tied animal. Here is the real criterion of "world history" that differentiates it with utter sharpness from man's history — world history is the history of civic man. Peoples, states, politics, religion, all arts, and all sciences rest upon one prime phenomenon of human being, the town. As all thinkers of all Cultures themselves live in the town (even though they may reside bodily in the country), they are perfectly una- ware of what a bizarre thing a town is. To feel this we have to put ourselves unreservedly in the place of the wonder-struck primitive who for the first time sees this mass of stone and wood set in the landscape,
* EDITORS' NOTE, — Spengler sharply distinguishes Culture from Civilization : Civiliza* tion is the declining stage o£ Culture, or Culture whose soul is already dead or dying. Civilization represents only the empty, though polished, shell of the living Culture.
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with its stone-enclosed streets and its stone-paved squares— a domicile, truly, of strange form and strangely teeming with men!
But the real miracle is the birth of the soul of a town. A mass-soul of a wholly new kind— whose last foundations will remain hidden from us for ever— suddenly buds off from the general spirituality of its Culture. As soon as it is awake, it forms for itself a visible body. Out of the rustic of farms and cottages, each of which has its own history, arises a totality. And the whole lives, breathes, grows, and acquires a face and an inner form and history. . . .
It goes without saying that what distinguishes a town from a village is not size, but the presence of a soul. . . . We have to go back and sense accurately what it means when out of a primitive Egyptian or Chinese or Germanic village—a little spot in a wide land—a city comes into being. It is quite possibly not differentiated in any outward fea- ture, but spiritually it is a place from which the countryside is hence- forth regarded, felt, and experienced as "environs," as something dif- ferent and subordinate. From now on there are two lives, that of the inside and that of the outside, and the peasant understands this just as clearly as the townsman. The village smith and the smith in the city, the village headman and the burgomaster, live in two different worlds. The man of the land and the man of the city are different essences. First of all they feel the difference, then they are dominated by it, and at last they cease to understand each other at all. To-day a Branden- burg peasant is closer to a Sicilian peasant than he is to a Berliner. . . .
[In the city], separated from the power of the land — cut off from it, even by the pavement underfoot — Being becomes more and more languid, sensation and reason more and more powerful. Man becomes intellect, "free" like the nomads, whom he comes to resemble, but narrower and colder than they. "Intellect," "Geist," "esprit," is the specific urban form of the understanding waking-consciousness. All art, all religion and science, become slowly intellectualized, alien to the land, incomprehensible to the peasant of the soil. With the Civiliza- tion sets in the climacteric. The immemorially old roots of Being are dried up in the stone masses of its cities. And the free intellect— fateful word— appears like a flame, mounts splendid into the air, and pitiably dies. . . .
In the earliest times the landscape figure alone dominates man's eyes. It gives form to his soul and vibrates in tune therewith. Feelings and woodland rustlings beat together; the meadows and the copses adapt themselves to its shape, to its course, even to its dress. The village, with its quiet hillocky roofs, its evening smoke, its wells, its hedges, and its beasts, lies completely fused and embedded in the landscape.
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The country town confirms the country, is an intensification of the picture of the country. It is the Late city that first defies the land, con- tradicts Nature in the lines of its silhouette, denies all Nature. It wants to be something different from and higher than Nature. These high- pitched gables, these Baroque cupolas, spires, and pinnacles, neither are, nor desire to be, related with anything in Nature. And then begins the gigantic megalopolis, the city -as-world, which suffers nothing be- side itself and sets about annihilating the country picture. . . . Extra muros, chaussees and woods and pastures become a park, mountains become tourists' viewpoints; and intra muros arises an imitation Nature, fountains in lieu of springs, flower-beds, formal pools, and clipped hedges in lieu of meadows and ponds and bushes. In a village the thatched roof is still hill-like and the street is of the same nature as the baulk of earth between fields. But here the picture is of deep, long gorges between high, stony houses filled with coloured dust and strange uproar, and men dwell in these houses, the like of which no nature-being has ever conceived. Costumes, even faces, are adjusted to a background of stone. By day there is a street traffic of strange colours and tones, and by night a new light that outshines the moon. And the yokel stands helpless on the pavement, understanding nothing and understood by nobody, tolerated as a useful type in farce and pro- vider of this world's daily bread.
It follows, however — and this is the most essential point of any — that we cannot comprehend political and economic history at all unless we realize that the city, with its gradual detachment from and final bank- rupting of the country, is the determinative form to which the course and sense of higher history generally conforms. World history is city history. , . .
We find in every Culture (and very soon) the type of the capital city. This, as its name pointedly indicates, is that city whose spirit, with its methods, aims, and decisions of policy and economics, dom- inates the land. The land with its people is for this controlling spirit a tool and an object. The land does not understand what is going on, and is not even asked. In all countries of Late Cultures, the great par- ties, the revolutions, the Csesarisms, the democracies, the parliaments, are the form in which the spirit of the capital tells the country what it is expected to desire and, if called upon, to die for. The Classical forum, the Western press, are, essentially, intellectual engines of the ruling City. Any country-dweller who really understands the meaning of politics in such periods, and feels himself on their level, moves into the City, not perhaps in the body, but certainly in the spirit. The sentiment and public opinion of the peasant's countryside — so far as
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it can be said to exist — is prescribed and guided by the print and speech of the city. . . . Caesar might campaign in Gaul, his slayers in Mace- donia, Antony in Egypt, but, whatever happened in these fields, it was from their relation to Rome that events acquired meaning.
All effectual history begins with the primary classes, nobility and priesthood, forming themselves and elevating themselves above the peasantry as such. The opposition of greater and lesser nobility, be- tween king and vassal, between worldly and spiritual power, is the basic form of all primitive politics, Homeric, Chinese, or Gothic, until with the coming of the City, the burgher, the Tiers ÂŁtat, history changes its style. But it is exclusively in these classes as such, in their class consciousness, that the whole meaning of history inheres. The peasant is historyless. The village stands outside world history, and all evolution from the "Trojan" to the Mithridatic War, from the Saxon emperors to the World War of 1914, passes by these little points on the landscape, occasionally destroying them and wasting their blood, but never in the least touching their inwardness.
The peasant is the eternal man, independent of every Culture that ensconces itself in the cities. He precedes it, he outlives it, a dumb creature propagating himself from generation to generation, limited to soil-bound callings and aptitudes, a mystical soul, a dry, shrewd under- standing that sticks to practical matters, the origin and the ever-flowing source of the blood that makes world history in the cities.
Whatever the Culture up there in the city conceives in the way of state forms, economic customs, articles of faith, implements, knowl- edge, art, he receives mistrustfully and hesitatingly; though in the end he may accept these things, never is he altered in kind thereby. Thus the West-European peasant outwardly took in all the dogmas of the Councils from the great Lateran to that of Trent, just as he took in the products of mechanical engineering and those of the French Revolu- tion— but he remains what he was, what he already was in Charle- magne's day. The present-day piety of the peasant is older than Christi- anity; his gods are more ancient than those of any higher religion. Remove from him the pressure of the great cities and he will revert to the state of nature without feeling that he is losing anything. His real ethic, his real metaphysic, which no scholar of the city has yet thought it worth while to discover, lie outside all religious and spiritual his- tory, have in fact no history at all.
The city is intellect. The Megalopolis is "free" intellect. It is in resist- ance to the "feudal" powers of blood and tradition that the burgher- dom or bourgeoisie, the intellectual class, begins to be conscious of its own separate existence. It upsets thrones and limits old rights in the
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name of reason and above all in the name of "the People," which henceforward means exclusively the people of the city. Democracy is the political form in which the townsman's outlook upon the world is demanded of the peasantry also. The urban intellect reforms the great religion of the springtime and sets up by the side of the old religion of noble and priest, the new religion of the Tiers £tat, liberal science. The city assumes the lead and control of economic history in replacing the primitive values of the land, which are forever inseparable from the life and thought of the rustic, by the absolute idea of money as distinct from goods. The immemorial country word for exchange of goods is "barter"; even when one of the things exchanged is precious metal, the underlying idea of the process is not yet monetary — i.e., it does not involve the abstraction of value from things and its fixation in metallic or fictitious quantities intended to measure things qua "commodities." . . . The City means not only intellect, but also money. . . .
[In the city] the notion of money attains to full abstractness. It no longer merely serves for the understanding of economic intercourse, but subjects the exchange of goods to its own evolution. It values things, no longer as between each other, but with reference to itself. . . . Money has now become a power ... a power that makes those concerned with it just as dependent upon itself as the peasant was dependent upon the soil. There is monetary thought, just as there is mathematical or juristic.
But the earth is actual and natural, and money is abstract and arti- ficial, a mere "category" — like "virtue" in the imagination of the Age of Enlightenment. . . . This is the reason, too, for the want of solidity, which eventually leads to its losing its power and its meaning, so that at the last, as in Diocletian's time, it disappears from the thought of the closing Civilization, and the primary values of the soil return anew to take its place.
Finally, there arise the monstrous symbol and vessel of the completely emancipated intellect, the world city, the center in which the course of a world history ends by winding itself up. . . . There are no longer noblesse and bourgeoisie, freemen and slaves, Hellenes and Barbarians, believers and unbelievers, but only cosmopolitans and provincials* All other contrasts pale before this one, which dominates all events, all habits of life, all views of the world.
The earliest of all world cities were Babylon and the Thebes of the New Empire. ... In the Classical the first example is Alexandria, which reduced old Greece at one stroke to the provincial level, and which even Rome, even the resettled Carthage, even Byzantium, could
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not suppress. In India the giant cities of Ujjaina, Kanauj, and above all, Pataliputra were renowned even in China and Java, and everyone knows the fairy-tale reputation of Baghdad and Granada in the West. In the Mexican world, it seems, Uxmal (founded in 950) was the first world city of the Maya realms, which, however, with the rise of the Toltec world cities Tezcuco and Tenochtitlan sank to the level of the provinces. . . .
The rise of New York to the position of world city during the Civil War of 18614865 may perhaps prove to have been the most pregnant event of the nineteenth century.
The stone Colossus "Cosmopolis" stands at the end of the life's course of every great Culture. The Culture-man whom the land has spiritually formed is seized and possessed by his own creation, the City, and is made into its creature, its executive organ, and finally its victim. This stony mass is the absolute city. . . .
These final cities are wholly intellect. Their houses are no longer . . . derivatives of the old peasant's house. . . . They are, generally speak- ing, no longer houses in which Vesta and Janus, Lares and Penates, have any sort of footing, but mere premises which have been fashioned, not by blood but by requirements, not by feeling but by the spirit of commercial enterprise. . . . The mass of tenants and bed-occupiers in the sea of houses leads a vagrant existence from shelter to shelter like the hunters and pastors of the "pre" time, then the intellectual nomad is completely developed. This city is a world, is the world. Only as a whole, as a human dwelling place, has it meaning, the houses being merely the stones of which it is assembled.
Now the old mature cities with their Gothic nucleus of cathedral, town halls, and high-gabled streets, with their old walls, towers, and gates, ringed about by the Baroque growth of brighter and more elegant patricians' houses, palaces, and hall churches, begin to overflow in all directions in formless masses, to eat into the decaying country- side with their multiplied barrack-tenements and utility buildings, and to destroy the noble aspect of the old time by clearances and rebuildings. Looking down from one of the old towers upon the sea of houses, we perceive in this petrification of a historic being the exact epoch that marks the end of organic growth and the beginning of an inorganic and therefore unrestrained process of massing without limit. And now, too, appears that artificial, mathematical, utterly land-alien product of a pure intellectual satisfaction in the appropriate, the city of the city-architect. In all Civilizations alike, these cities aim at the chess- board form, which is the symbol of soullessness. Regular rectangle- blocks astounded Herodotus in Babylon and Cortez in Tenochtitlan,
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In the Classical world the series of "abstract" cities begins with Thurii, which was "planned" by Hippodamus of Miletus in 441. Priene, whose chessboard scheme entirely ignores the ups and downs of the site, Rhodes, and Alexandria follow, and become in turn models for in- numerable provincial cities of the Imperial Age. The Islamic archi- tects laid out Baghdad from 762, and the giant city of Samarra a cen- tury later, according to plan.1 In the West-European and American world the layout of Washington in 1791 is the first big example. There can be no doubt that the world cities of the Han period in China and the Maurya dynasty in India possessed this same geometrical pattern. Even now the world cities of the Western Civilization are far from having reached the peak of their development. I see, long after A.D. 2000, cities laid out for ten to twenty million inhabitants, spread over enormous areas of countryside, with buildings that will dwarf the biggest of today's and notions of traffic and communication that we should regard as fantastic to the point of madness. . . .
But no wretchedness, no compulsion, not even a clear vision of the madness of this development, avails to neutralize the attractive force of these daemonic creations. The wheel of Destiny rolls on to its end; the birth of the City entails its death. Beginning and end, a peasant cottage and a tenement block are related to one another as soul and intellect, as blood and stone. But "Time" is no abstract phase, but a name for the actuality of Irreversibility. Here there is only forward, never back. Long, long ago the country bore the country town and nourished it with her best blood. Now the giant city sucks the country dry, insatiably and incessantly demanding and devouring fresh streams of men, till it wearies and dies in the midst of an almost uninhabited waste of country. Once the full sinful beauty of this last marvel of all history has captured a victim, it never lets him go. Primitive folk can loose themselves from the soil and wander, but the intellectual nomad never. ... He would sooner die upon the pavement than go "back" to the land. Even disgust at this pretentiousness, weariness of the thousand-hued glitter, the taedium vitae that in the end overcomes many, does not set them free. They take the City with them into the mountains or on the sea. They have lost the country within themselves and will never regain it outside.
1 Samarra exhibits, like the Imperial Fora of Rome and the ruins of Luxor, truly American proportions. The city stretches for 33 km. (20 miles) along the Tigris, The Balkuwara Palace, which the Caliph Mutawakil built for one of his sons, forms a square of 1250 m, (say, three-quarters of a mile) on each side. One of the giant mosques meas- ures in plan 260x180 m. (858x594 ft.). (Schwartz, "Die Abbaridenresidcnz Samarra, 1910; Herzfeld, Ausgrabungcn von Samarra, 1912,) Pataliputra, in the days of Chan- dragupta and Asoka, measured intret muros 10 miles x 2 miles (equal to Manhattan Island or London along the Thames from Greenwich to Richmond — TR,)«
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What makes the man of the world cities incapable of living on any but this artificial footing, 'is that the cosmic beat in his being is ever decreasing, while the tensions of his waking consciousness become more and more dangerous. . . . Intelligence is the replacement of unconscious living by exercise in thought, masterly, but bloodless and jejune. The intelligent visage is similar in all races— what is recessive in them is, precisely, race. The weaker the feeling for the necessity and self-evidence of Being, the more the habit of "elucidation" grows, the more the fear in the waking-consciousness comes to be stilled by causal methods. Hence the assimilation of knowledge with demonstrability, and the substitution of scientific theory, the causal myth, for the relig- ious. Hence, too, money-in-the-abstract as the pure causality of eco- nomic life, in contrast to rustic barter, which is pulsation and not a system of tensions.
Tension, when it has become intellectual, knows no form of recrea- tion but that which is specific to the world city— namely, detente, relaxation, distraction. Genuine play, joie de vivre, pleasure, inebriation, are products of the cosmic beat and as such no longer comprehensible in their essence. But the relief of hard, intensive brain work by its opposite — conscious and practised fooling — of intellectual tension by the bodily tension of sport, of bodily tension by the sensual straining after "pleasure" and the spiritual straining after the "excitements" of betting and competitions, of the pure logic of the day's work by a con- sciously enjoyed mysticism— all this is common to the world cities of all the Civilizations. Cinema, Expressionism, Theosophy, boxing con- tests, nigger dances, poker, and racing — one can find it all in Rome. Indeed, the connoisseur might extend his researches to the Indian, Chinese, and Arabian world cities as well. . . .
And then, when Being is sufficiently uprooted and Waking-Being sufficiently strained, there suddenly emerges into the bright light of history a phenomenon that has long been preparing itself underground and now steps forward to make an end of the drama— the sterility of civilized man. This is not something that can be grasped as a plain matter of Causality (as modern science naturally enough has tried to grasp it); it is to be understood as an essentially metaphysical turn towards death. The last man of the world city no longer wants to live—he may cling to life as an individual, but as a type, as an aggre- gate, no, for it is a characteristic of this collective existence that it elim- inates the terror of death. That which strikes the true peasant with a deep and inexplicable fear, the notion that the family and the name may be extinguished, has now lost its meaning. The continuance of the blood relation in the visible world is no longer a duty of the blood, and
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the destiny of being the last of the line is no longer felt as a doom. Children do not happen, not because children have become impossible, but principally because intelligence at the peak of intensity can no longer find any reason for their existence. Let the reader try to merge himself in the soul of the peasant. He has sat on his glebe from primeval times, or has fastened his clutch in it, to adhere to it with his blood. He is rooted in it as the descendant of his forbears and as the forbear of future descendants. His house, his property, means, here, not the temporary connexion of person and thing for a brief span of years, but an enduring and inward union of eternal land and eternal blood. . . . For the "last men" all this is past and gone. Intelligence and sterility are allied in old families, old peoples, and old Cultures, not merely because in each microcosm the overstrained and fettered ani- mal element is eating up the plant element, but also because the wak- ing consciousness assumes that being is normally regulated by causality. That which the man of intelligence, most significantly and character- istically, labels as "natural impulse" or "life force" he not only knows, but also values, causally, giving it the place amongst his other needs that his judgment assigns to it. When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard "having children" as a question of pro's and con's, the great turning point has come. For Nature knows nothing of pro and con. Everywhere, wherever life is actual, reigns an inward organic logic, an "it," a drive, that is utterly independent of waking-being, with its causal linkages, and indeed not even observed by it. The abundant proliferation of primitive peoples is a natural phenomenon, which is not even thought about, still less judged as to its utility or the reverse. When reasons have to be put forward at all in a question of life, life itself has become questionable. At that point begins prudent limitation of the number of births. In the Classical world the practice was deplored by Polybius as the ruin of Greece, and yet even at his date it had long been established in the great cities; in subsequent Roman times it became appallingly general. At first explained by the economic misery of the times, very soon it ceased to explain itself at all. And at that point, too, in Buddhist India as in Babylon, in Rome as in our own cities, a man's choice of the woman who is to be, not mother of his children as amongst peasants and primitives, but his own "companion for life," becomes a problem of mentalities. The Ibsen marriage appears, the "higher spiritual affinity" in which both parties are "free" — free, that is, as intelligences, free from the plantlike urge of the blood to continue itself, and it becomes pos- sible for a Shaw to say "that unless Woman repudiates her womanli- ness, her duty to her husband, to her children, to society, to the law,
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and to everyone but herself, she cannot emancipate herself." The pri- mary woman, the peasant woman, is mother. The whole vocation towards which she has yearned from childhood is included in that one word. But now emerges the Ibsen woman, the comrade, the heroine of a whole megalopolitan literature from Northern drama to Parisian novel Instead of children, she has soul conflicts; marriage is a craft- art for the achievement of "mutual understanding." It is all the same whether the case against children is the American lady's who would not miss a season for anything, or the Parisienne's who fears that her lover would leave her, or an Ibsen heroine's who "belongs to herself—- they all belong to themselves and they are all unfruitful. The same fact, in conjunction with the same arguments, is to be found in the Alex- andrian, in the Roman, and, as a matter of course, in every other civil- ized society — and conspicuously in that in which Buddha grew up. And in Hellenism and in the nineteenth century, as in the times of Lao-Tzu and the Charvaka doctrine, there is an ethic for childless intelligences, and a literature about the inner conflicts of Nora and Nana. The "quiverful," which was still an honorable enough spectacle in the days of Werther, becomes something rather provincial. The father of many children is for the great city a subject for caricature; Ibsen did not fail to note it, and presented it in his Loves Comedy.
At this level all Civilizations enter upon a stage, which lasts for cen- turies, of appalling depopulation. The whole pyramid of cultural man vanishes. It crumbles from the summit, first the world cities, then the provincial forms, and finally the land itself, whose best blood has incon- tinently poured into the towns, merely to bolster them up awhile. At the last, only the primitive blood remains, alive, but robbed of its strongest and most promising elements. This residue is the Fellah type.
If anything has demonstrated the fact that Causality has nothing to do with history, it is the familiar "decline" of the Classical, which accomplished itself long before the irruption of Germanic migrants. The Imperium enjoyed the completest peace; it was rich and highly developed; it was well organized; and it possessed in its emperors from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius a series of rulers such as the Caesarism of no other Civilization can show. And yet the population dwindled, quickly and wholesale. . . .
The historical student has only to turn his attention seriously to other Civilizations to find the same phenomenon everywhere. Depopulation can be distinctly traced in the background of the Egyptian New Em- pire, especially from the XIX dynasty onwards. . . . The same tend- ency can be felt in the history of political Buddhism after the Csesar Asoka. If the Maya population literally vanished within a very short
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time after the Spanish conquest, and their great empty cities were reab- sorbed by the jungle, this does not prove merely the brutality of the conqueror . . . but an extinction from within that no doubt had long been in progress. And if we turn to our own civilization, we find that the old families of the French noblesse were not, in the great majority of cases, eradicated in the Revolution, but have died out since 1815, and their sterility has spread to the bourgeoisie and, since 1870, to the peasantry which that very Revolution almost recreated. In England, and still more in the United States — particularly in the east, the very states where the stock is best and oldest — the process of "race suicide" denounced by Roosevelt set in long ago on the largest scale.
Consequently, we find everywhere in these Civilizations that the provincial cities at an early stage, and the giant cities in turn at the end of the evolution, stand empty, harbouring in their stone masses a small population of fellaheen who shelter in them as the men of the Stone Age sheltered in caves and pile-dwellings. . . .
This, then, is the conclusion of the city's history; growing from primitive barter centre to Culture city and at last to world city, it sacri- fices first the blood and soul of its creators to the needs of its majestic evolution, and then the last flower of that growth to the spirit of Civil- ization— and so, doomed, moves on to final self-destruction.
PART TWO
RURAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN ITS ECOLOGICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL
ASPECTS
CHAPTER V
ECOLOGY OF THE RURAL HABITAT
Fundamental aspects of rural social organization. — After our previous outline of the fundamental differences between the rural and urban worlds, we may proceed to a more intensive study of the rural world and its population. An investigation must analyze this complex object from several standpoints in order to grasp it in all its essential aspects. A more or less adequate study of the social organization and functioning of any social aggregate must include at least the following aspects: (1) the ecological, which shows the geographical milieu and the territorial distribution of the habitats of the members of the group studied; (2) the morphological, which shows the nature and forms of the social ties that bind the members of the group into a real collective unity and depicts the forms of social differentiation, stratification, and mobility of the rural population; (3) the institutional, which ex- hibits the agencies and the institutions through which the group satisfies all its necessities and functions as a living unity and which furnishes us insight into the functional aspects of the group studied, for we obtain a knowledge of the functioning of the group as a whole when we know the fundamental functions of each of the principal institutions of the group and their inter- relations with one another; and (4) the cultural, which depicts the entire Gestalt or psycho-social physiognomy of the group studied. The cultural and the institutional aspects are closely in- terrelated and will be studied together in one work. These four aspects, studied in their variations in space and in time, exhaust the essential aspects of the study of the social organization and functioning of any group, including that of the rural social world. In accordance with this outline we shall commence with the ecological aspect of rural organization. Then we shall study it in its morphological, institutional, and cultural aspects. When this is done, we shall go beyond the rural social world and ex- amine more closely the relationships between the rural and
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urban worlds and those between the agricultural and nonagri- cultural classes. Let us turn now to a study of the ecological aspect of rural social organization.
Ecology of rural habitat.— K general survey and an excellent analysis of the problem is given in the paper of one of the most prominent social geographers of our time, Dr. A. Demangeon. Though we present his study in a slightly abbreviated form, nev- ertheless its breadth, depth, and clearness are so conspicuous and the literature which it covers is so complete that any long intro- duction on our part is unnecessary. It may possibly be of value here to stress the leading principles of Dr. Demangeon's paper. It emphasizes several points; first, that both fundamental types of the rural habitat— the grouped and the dispersed forms— have been and are still widely diffused over the inhabited portions of this planet; second, that the factors that have shaped either of these types have been numerous and their origin and existence are the result of multiple causation rather than of the exclusive influence of some one factor; third, that neither the village nor the isolated farm type can be regarded as the original while the other one is subsequent in time. In this respect Demangeon, like many other competent investigators in the field, takes a different position from the widely accepted opinion of the textbook writers in rural sociology who maintain that the evolution of the rural habitat has consisted in a transition from the village to the dis- persed or isolated farm type. The factual situation has been more complex than a mere transition from one to the other, for in some places and among some people the original type of the rural habi- tat was the dispersed type (the isolated farm of a family circle), which later on was replaced by the grouped or village type of habitat, while among other people and in other regions the evo- lution has been reversed. Our present knowledge makes this proposition reasonably certain. It illustrates, once more, the fallacy of the uniform — linear — theory of social evolution, which assumes that there is a general sequence of certain stages through which all peoples pass in uniform manner and in a definite order. The real situation in this, as well as in many other fields of social change, has been more complex, less uniform, and less linear. Besides these principles, Demangeon's paper gives a concise but
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 265
adequate analysis of many other problems connected with the main problem, such as the socio-economic types of the organiza- tion of cultivation among the grouped and the dispersed agricul- tural population, the factors that have been instrumental in these and similar problems, etc. Taken as a whole, the paper not only gives a satisfactory analysis of rural ecology, but serves as a good introduction to other aspects of rural social organization. The only aspect that is touched upon too slightly in the paper is the analysis of the various types of architecture, construction, and style of rural houses and the factors responsible for a predomi- nance of a given type in a given locality. Important as is this prob- lem, it cannot be given a place in this chapter. Those who are in- terested in it, and want to study it, can find an excellent bibliog- raphy in the works mentioned in Demangeon's paper and in the works enumerated in the bibliography below.
ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
BRUNNES, J., Geogrciphie humaine de la France (Paris, 1920).
CLEMENT, T., CHOBERT, J., HUART, C., Les anclennes constructions rurales
en Belgique (Bruxelles, 1914-1919), 4 vols. DEMANGEON, A., "L'habitation rurale en France," Ann. de geog. (1920),
Vol. XXIX. FLACH, J., L'origine historique de Inhabitation et des Hcux habites en France
(Paris, 1899). FOVILLE, A. DE, Enquete sur les conditions de ^habitation en 'Prance. Les
maisons-types (Paris, 1894-1899), 2 vols. GEER, STEN DE, "A Map of the Distribution of Population in Sweden,"
Geogr. Review (1922), VoL XII.
LEFEVRE, M. A., Lf habitat rural en Belgique (Liege, 1926). LEYDEN, FR., Zur Siedlungsfande des flamischen Landes (Berlin, 1923). MEITZEN, A., Siedelung und Agrarwesen der Westgermanen und Ostgerma-
nen, der Kelten, Romer, Finnen, und Slat/en (Berlin, 1895), 4 vols. MIELKE, R., Das deutsche Dorf (Leipzig, 1917).
, Das Dorf (Leipzig, 1910).
PESSLER, W., Das altsdchsische "Baulrnhause in seiner geographischen Ver-
breitung (Braunschweig, 1906). RONSE, A., and RAISON, TH., Fermes types et constructions rurales en West-
Flandre (Bruges, 1918), 2 vols. ROXBY, P. M., "The Distribution of Population in China," Geogr, Review
(January, 1925).
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SCHWEISTHAL, M., "Histoire de la maison rurale en Belgique et dans les contrees voisines," Ann. Soc. Arch. (Bruxelles), Vols. XIX, XX.
SWAB, H., Das Schweizerhaus, sein Ursprung und seine Constructive Ent- wic\lung (Aarau, 1918).
VAVROU^EK, B., and WIRTH, F., Dedina (Prague, 1925).
An excellent bibliography is given in most of these works, and especially in those oÂŁ Lefevre, Demangeon, and others.
40. DEMANGEON: GEOGRAPHY OF RURAL HABITAT*
To travel across France from west to east is sufficient to obtain the idea of a contrast, which has long been observed by travelers, economists, and geographers, between the scattered habitat of Brittany and the clustered habitat in Lorraine. In the regions of dispersed habitat one no- tices that the rural houses are here separated from each other behind screens of trees and lost at the end of a winding path, and there loosely gathered in small, more or less open groups, which are called hamlets. In the regions having a grouped habitat the houses are assembled, on the contrary, in close masses in villages which form "colonies of social plants'* 1 and are separated by vast expanses of open fields. Even if one has not himself viewed these landscapes, large-scale topographical maps permit him to note the existence of the same contrast in countries widely separated in space and differing greatly in civilization, from western Europe to the Far East.
This contrast is so general that it naturally leads the mind to enquire concerning its causes. This search does not present itself as a local and limited problem; it opens a vast field where the geographical explana- tion must traverse a complex of facts, some of which go back to the distant past of humanity and others are still being born under our eyes. The problem appeals to a variety of studies: natural, social, demo- graphic, and agricultural conditions. It embraces a knowledge of hu- man settlements throughout all history and constitutes one of the most original aspects of the science that deals with the modes of life, for it is concerned with knowing how the ties are formed that bind the life of the peasant to the cultivated earth. It is not confined to the recon- struction of a destroyed past, but it plunges directly into the living courses of actual societies. Certain originalities of habitat reveal to us the uniqueness of certain social temperaments and of certain material civilizations. What a profound difference separates the ancient village of India, stable, self-dependent, rigidly centralized, faithful to its tradi-
* From A. Demangeon, "La geographic de 1'habitat rural," Annales de geographic, 1927, XXXVI, 1-23, 97-114. Translated and printed with permission of the author. *P. Vidal de la Blache, Principes de geographic humaine, 1922, p. 182.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 267
tions of work and life in common, from the young American township in the Great Lakes region, composed of a scattering of isolated farms that have not yet found their social center!
It may seem bold to attempt to establish a synthesis over so vast a terrain, which is yet so little known and already encumbered with so many chaotic elements. In reality this attempt is concerned only with establishing a preparatory classification and with offering material for discussion.
I. THE FACTS. COUNTRIES OF THE GROUPED AND COUNTRIES OF THE
DISPERSED TYPE A. COUNTRIES OF GROUPED HABITAT
If one is able to trace the outlines of the geographical distribution of the grouped habitat, one has a chance of finding a basis for explanation and classification. The regions having villages often coincide with the plains of the east, central, and western parts of Europe, which in- clude the best and the most ancient of the agricultural regions. These village regions are also found frequently in forested and mountainous districts.
Western Europe. — In France the area of villages extends over nearly all of the departments of the North and East; the maps show us great clusters of houses in the midst of nearly blank spaces; while in the West in the department of Manche we find a swarm of 18,930 dis- persed inhabited places, there are noted in Champagne, in the depart- ment of Marne, only 1,580 grouped places, though its population is only 14 per cent less than that of Manche. In Belgium the collective mode predominates in all of the southern regions.2 In the Netherlands it is strongly marked on the slimy soil of Limburg, on the thin soil of Drente, as well as in certain coastal reclaimed regions. Finally, in the British Isles it rarely appears, and then only locally, e.g., in the York- shire plains and about the chalk cliffs of Downs. These lines of rural clusters of houses stand out strikingly in the midst of the general dis- persion in Britain.
Central Europe. — Despite the diversity of forms obligingly described by German scientists, the concentrated village represents the funda- mental type of habitation throughout the plains from the north to the east of the Weser, as well as in the neighboring archipelago of Den- mark and southern Sweden, and in Bohemia with its belt of clusters.3 One also encounters it, mixed with various types of dispersion, in all
2M. A. Lefevre, L' habitat rural en Belgique* ttude de geographic humainc, 1925. pp. 14-27.
3 A. Meitzen, Siedelung und Agrarwesen der Westgcrmanen und Ostgermanen, etc, 1895, Vol. I; M. Mayr, Die Siedelungen des bayrischen Anteils am EShmerwald (Forsch. zu der Landes und VolfafotiuZf, 1912, Vol. XIX).
268 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
of south Germany. . , .4 In Switzerland, the cantons of ScharThausen and most of Jura are composed of villages which are scarcely separated from each other.5 But the greatest degree of concentration of rural dwellings is found in the plain of Hungary. Here large villages, from 30 to 50 kilometers apart, appear as islands in the ocean of fields and steppes; they sometimes contain as many as 10,000 or 20,000 inhabit- ants, and, with their large and dusty streets constantly overrun with stock, they resemble great cities whose houses are farms.6
Southern Europe. — As one goes southward from the center of France the agglomerated type becomes more conspicuous as one ap- proaches the shores of the Mediterranean Sea; it is scarcely general in the plain of Valencia,7 but it becomes so in the plains of Catalonia (and thereabouts) s ; in Biterrois most of the villages are about 700 population, and 24 communes exceed 1,000 inhabitants. In Spanish Galicia, of 2,124,000 persons, 1,806,440 live in villages, and the province of Orense has only 4 persons for 100 of its population living outside villages.9 In many parts of Provence the frequent parodoxical posi- tions of the villages perched in inaccessible places in the mountains give a picturesque illustration of the concentration of the population. If one digresses along the Mediterranean in order to enter the Po basin, one notes that the two types of habitation, grouped and dispersed, are intermingled: the dispersed forms are more numerous in the fertile irrigated plains, the villages frequenting by preference the high plain of Bergamo, the verge of the Alps, the Lombardy plain, and the high Verona plain.10 One gets the impression that the village form in the Po basin, while formerly much more widespread, has yielded to the dispersed type. But the most curious instances of the concentrated habitat are found in southern Italy and Sicily; the peasants crowd to- gether in true cities which frequently attain some tens of thousands of inhabitants: great accumulations teeming with life in the midst of empty and deserted fields.11 In order to reach their fields the agricul-
4 R. Gradmann, Das I'dndhche Siedelungswesen des Konigreichs Wiirtembergs (Forsch. zu der Landes und Volfekunde, 1913, Vol. XXI). By the same author, Petermanns Mitt., LVI, 1910, I, 183-186, 246-250; A. Meitzen, op. tit., I, 429-431.
KW. Wirth, Ztir Anthropo geographic der Stadt und Landschaft Schaffhausen, 1918.
6L. de Lagger, "La plaine hongroise," Ann. de geog., 1901, X, 438-444.
TD. Fancher, "La plaine de Valence," Ann. de geog., 1924, XXIII-XXIV, 127451.
8 Max Sorre, La repartition des populations dans le Bas-Languedoc, Bull. Soc. langue- docienne de geog., 1906.
°J. Dantin Cereceda, Distribution geographica de la P ablation en Galicia, 1925, 40 ff. and map.
10 A. Lorenzi, "Studi sui tipi antropogeografici della Pianura Padano," Riv. G. Italiana, 1914, Vol. XXI. See also Benevent, Recueil Travaux Institut G. Alpine, 1916, pp. 189- 237; O. Marinelli, Atlante dei tipi geogra-fid, 'desunti dai rilievi al 25,000 e d 50,000 dell Institute Geografico Militare, 1922. (Consult especially the charts 63, 64, 70, 71.)
11 Th. Fischer, "Ansiedlung und Anbau in Apulien," Uittelmeerbilder, 1906, pp. 204-215.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 269
tural workers must often go from twenty to thirty kilometers; indeed, they frequently spend the week far from their homes and return only for Sunday. This is an example of a paradoxical type of habitation which separates the cultivator from the land which he works.
In the Balkan peninsula vast regions in the east, central, and southern parts must be included in the grouped type of habitation. The houses are pressed together in villages in eastern and southern Serbia as in southern Albania; they are built with walls touching, and are often more serried than in the cities as they follow along the narrow and sinuous streets.12 In the Peloponnesus the houses are rarely isolated, except a few stores along the roads and an occasional monastery in some secluded spot.13
Eastern Europe. — In Russia the agglomeration of the rural popula- tion increases as we pass from the northwest to the southeast districts, as we approach the region of the Black Earth. Doubtless all Russian vil- lages are not identical in appearance or size. There are differences "be- tween the Little-Russian village, with its whitewashed houses and the small gardens between the houses, and the Great-Russian village stretched out in a straight line, with wooden houses placed close to- gether and usually having no trees." But the collective mode of living, small or great, is the rule in all of Russia south of a line joining Minsk and Perm; one observes this fact not only in the prairies of black dirt and in the steppes but also in the belt of forested departments of Mos- cow and Novgorod.14
The Orient. — Practically all of the great agricultural communities in the Orient are characterized by village life. Except in a few regions, India is an aggregate of villages; the village is here the social cell. The group of houses gathered together on an elevated spot is often sur- rounded by earthen walls; one enters by a tortuous path. Outside is an empty spot where the cattle are herded together at night; within the circle are grouped the agencies of communal life, the cistern, pool, well, or reservoir for water, and the temple. Clusters of trees shade the approaches to -the village; they offer shade for the cattle during the hot part of the day, a playground for the children, a place of rest for strangers.15 Each village behind its groves and in the midst of its fields thus forms a small, isolated world which seems to be self-sufficient.
13 J. Cvijic, "La peninsule balkanique," Geographic humainc, 1918, chap, xvi; P. Vu- jevic, "Siedlungen der serbischen Lander," Geogr. Zeitschr., 1906, XII, 507-519.
13 A. Philippson, Der Peloponnesos, 1892.
14 A. Woeikof, "La groupernent de la population ruralc en Russie," Annales de geographic, 1909, XVIII, 13-23.
16 B. H. Baden-Powell, The Land System of British India, 1892, and The Indian Village Community, London, 1896; W. Crooke, The North-Western Provinces of India, 1897.
270 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
The peasants of Java also dwell together in this way, each house sur- rounded by its little garden, forming verdant villages near the rice fields. The village of Tonkin, "with its houses of clay, its fishponds and pools, its small vegetable gardens and the border of bamboo with occasional entrances, which serve as shade or as defense — all this forms a complete unit."16 The village also predominates in the plains of north China. It seems that everywhere, from the Atlantic to the Pa- cific, the grouped habitat presents itself as an organized, systematic, and ancient form of human establishment.
B. COUNTRIES WITH DISPERSED DWELLINGS
The contour of the landscapes differs greatly according as one con- siders the grouped or dispersed habitat. In the landscape of villages, the houses are massed in groups, which punctuate the solitude of the culti- vated fields; there seems to be a clear separation between the village and its fields. In the case of dispersion, the habitat is not closely tied to the cultivated fields, the attraction between the houses themselves is much less than between the houses and the fields, the farmhouse and other buildings are located near the land, and often each plot of ground is surrounded with a fence, hedge, or ditch. It seems that even the small groups of houses known as hamlets should generally be con- sidered as forms of dispersion, for they nearly always involve the close relation of houses and fields.
Western Europe. — If one excepts certain districts where villages pre- vail, one can say that dispersion constitutes a characteristic of the rural inhabitants in the British Isles. Nearly everywhere in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England, as well as in the neighboring islands of Man and Jersey, the farms are isolated and located in the midst of, or near- by, the plots of land cultivated. Settlement by isolated farms always predominates more exclusively in the West than in the East.
In France the region of the dispersed type no doubt covers two- thirds of the territory. As in other countries of Europe the type has many varieties, which can doubtless be explained by differences of age and method of establishment. On the plateaus and in Valois great farms prevail, a powerful agency of cultivation which dominates the cultivated region from its high position. In west Armorica, southwest Aquitania, and north Flanders there is a host of little farms distributed in the groves and fields. The land belonging to each family is located close by the house. In more than two-thirds of the communes of the department of Mayenne over two-thirds of the population live apart. In [certain parts of central France] the rural population is distributed
lttP. Vidal de la Blache, Prindpes de geographic humaine, pp. 192-193.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 271
among small groups of houses or hamlets. In Creuse and C6tes-du- Nord more than three-fourths of the people live on separate farm- steads. In this scattering and loosening of habitat, there are many points of crystallization which are often called villages; but these are common centers of social, religious, and commercial life where live officials, shopkeepers, and a few artisans, the agricultural work being carried on by separate families living apart. It is necessary to note that the grouped and dispersed modes are not separated by wide gulfs, but there is a continuous transition with overlapping from one to the other. Certain places reveal islands of villagers in a region predominantly dis- persed; while in other places are to be found regions of isolated farm- steads in a district composed largely of villages.
In Belgium there is a zone of dispersion running from French Flanders through Flanders and Brabant; it crosses into Germany and covers the territory of the lower Rhine, and goes through Westphalia as far as the Weser.17 It also encloses, in the Netherlands, the sandy land of North Brabant with a few villages included. In Friesland many isolated farms are found established near the land cultivated by the residents.18
Central Europe.— The system of isolated farms preponderates in only a few parts of Germany: the Rhenish and Westphalian plains as far as the Weser; clusters in middle Germany; certain cantons in the Black Forest and Palatinate; and the more elevated plains of Bavaria at the edge of the Alps. Hamlets and isolated farms comprise more than four-fifths of the inhabited places of Ravensburg.19 The Alpine regions also must be classified as regions of dispersion, particularly in the French Alps; even if isolated houses be rare, hamlets abound, little clusters of farms near the respective cultivated plots.20 In Switzerland, isolation is the rule in nearly all the mountains and foothills. In the canton of Appenzell, the hamlets enclose more than 45 per cent of the total population and the isolated farms an additional more than 31 per cent; every peasant has all his land in a single piece around his dwell- ing.21 In the environs of Lake Zurich, while the shores of the lake are occupied by villages, little hamlets and isolated farms populate the zone of morainic hills. In the commune of Hutten, the isolated farms alone represent 86 per cent of the number of inhabited places and 44 per
17 M. Lefevre, op. cit., pp. 27-31; A. Meitzen, op. cit., I, 517-518.
18 A. Blink, Nederland, III, 251; A. Meitzen, op. cit., II, 52.
10 R. Gradmann, Das landliche Siedlungstvesen, p. 35; O. Schliiter, Deutsches Sifde- lungswesen, in J. Hoops, Reallexifan der germanischen Alterthums^unde, 1911, 1913, pp. 402-439.
20 R. Gradmann, op. dt.t p. 184; A. Meitzen, op, cit., pp. 416, 453; R. Blanchard, Les Alpes franfaises, 1925, p. 74.
21 A. Ott, Die Siedelungs-verhaltnisse beider Appenzell, 1915, pp. 43-49.
272 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
cent of the total population.22 Mountains do not seem to favor large groupings of population.
Southern Europe, — The Mediterranean countries, which are so rich in villages, do not exclude dispersion, however. Nearly all the Po Val- ley as well as the regions between Adige and Brenta reveal a veritable seed plot of isolated farms on the most fertile and better cultivated soils, the farms being hidden behind rows of trees. "The region swarms with rural houses not more than 500 meters apart. They are indistinctly blended with the immense garden into which the entire plain has been converted by the labor of the inhabitants; hedges of trees and festoons of vines interlace the fields and protect against the rays of the sun." 23 Even in Morocco where villages are preponderant, among the Hoha and the Vhiadma, one sees houses spread over all the region.24 Elisee Reclus states: "There are some independent tribes which feel them- selves strong enough to dispense with village life. Each family is iso- lated. The dwellings are distributed without plan on the sides of the mountains as among the Basques." 25
With the exception of [a few] regions, all the northwestern part of the Balkan Peninsula must be included with the countries with dis- persed habitat. In the mountainous regions that have been cleared of forests and where pastoral life flourishes, the houses are scattered about in the forests with the fields and orchards near by; frequently they are grouped into hamlets when the families are united by blood.26 Simi- larly, in the hills and mountains of Transylvania and Bulgaria, one finds himself in a region of hamlets.
Northern Europe. — The countries in northern Europe are marked by a strong preponderance of isolated farms. This type of habitation is noted in the Baltic countries and especially in Finland in every place where the colonists have cleared land, in the mountains and by the lakes. This type also prevails in the north of Sweden and Norway, and in Iceland.
The Orient. — Even in China and India, where the village appears to be the ancient structure of rural civilization, certain regions are excep- tions to this general rule. In China as we go south from the region of the Yangtse, the houses are spread out over the cultivated hillsides in little groups placed in the midst of gardens and plantations.27 In India one notices some regions of dispersion in lower Bengal, south Punjab,
~A. Schach, Beitrage zur Siedelungs und Wirtschaftsgeographie des Zurichseegebietes, 1917, pp. 70-73.
23 P. Vidal de la Blache, op. tit., p. 176; O. Marinelli, op. cit.
*Aug. Bernard, Le Maroc, 1913, p. 149.
^fclisee Reclus, Geographic universelle, 1886, XI, 690.
26 J. Cvijic, La peninsule bal\anlque, pp. 207-209; A. Meitzen, op. cit., II, 219; Vujevic, op. cit., pp. 510-511.
27 P. Vidal de la Blache, op. cit., p. 191.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 273
and Malabar. The rural population of the latter district is dispersed, each cultivator often having his house in the midst of fields and of gardens and widely separated from neighbors. He possesses his planta- tion of fruit trees, cocoa trees, mango trees, palm and nut trees, and banana trees; he waters these with water from his well.28 The orchard here seems to be associated with these dispersed farmsteads. Thus, in regions widely separated from each other, we see two types of rural landscapes alternate, coincide, and overlap: on the one hand, large human aggregates where the cultivators live in groups with social life which is often highly developed; on the other hand, small, more or less isolated unities working in semi-independence.
II. SEARCH FOR ORIGINS AND CAUSES OF THESE MODES OF HABITATION
In order to explain the types of rural settlement one can, in different places and at different times, appeal to quite different factors. It may be said that the whole history of civilization is reflected in the actual types of human establishments. Certain forms existing today are not the original forms; here and there one sees evidence of evolution; some places have even had total revolutions. The examination of these influences which alone can determine the forms of habitat permits us to describe and to classify them. Three large groups of factors can be made: (1) the influence of natural conditions; (2) the influence of social conditions; (3) the influence of agricultural economy.
A. THE INFLUENCE OF NATURAL CONDITIONS
Among the natural conditions which seem to have contributed to the determination of the various habitats one recognizes relief con- figurations, the nature of the soil, and the natural resources of water.
Relief.— Relief formations certainly react on the distribution of human dwellings. It has often been observed that regions having con- tinuous level plains appear better adapted to grouping, while country that is indented and broken into small bits favors the isolated type of dwelling. "The dense village is found in countries where the arable surface is continuous, all-of-a-piece, permitting a uniform cultivation. Under the pressure of common necessities, collective associations are formed. The digging and maintenance of wells and of pools and the necessity of building walls contributes to the concentration and the grouping of the dwellings." 29 If the plains are better adapted to vil- lages, it appears that the mountains and broken regions offer greater advantage for isolated houses and hamlets. This is due to the small plots of arable land available in such regions; the uneven division of
28 G. Slater, Economic Studies, Vol. I, Some South Indian Villages, 1918, pp. 163 et $eq.
30 P. Vidal dc la Blache, op. at., p. 195.
274 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
that land limits the efforts of the colonists and prevents them from dwelling together in one place. This is so for several reasons: frequent transportation by wagon or cart is necessary but difficult under such conditions, manure can be distributed only for short distances, and the lack of fenced areas fosters pastoral economy.30
Numerous observations illustrate this influence of geographical relief. In Great Britain, before the advent of the enclosures which disturbed the conditions of settlement in the plains, many writers describing rural life contrast the influences of plains and mountains on the types of settlement. In his Description of England, which was written in the time of Elizabeth, Harrison has this suggestive passage: "The habita- tions of our rural towns and villages in the open, level country are located close together in streets, the houses touching one another; while in the wooded regions — i.e., in the mountains — they are scat- tered here and there, each among its own fields." 31 In the period of the Domesday BooJ^, one notices that the isolated farms often appear in the forests — i.e., in the hilly country; thus concerning Eardisley in Hereford one finds a manuscript which clearly states: In medio cu jus- dam silvae est fosita et ibi est domus una defensabilis?2 At the same time in a mountain valley Langdendale in Derbyshire presents a clear type of dispersion with its series of little hamlets of a couple of farms every two miles.33
These instances of a contrast between plains and mountains are re- peated from one end of France to the other. In Vosges, dispersion in- creases as we go toward the mountains; there is a tendency to village life in east Coney on the blistered chalk plateaus; and there is a scatter- ing of farms with their orchards and fields to the east of the river.34 In Languedoc dispersion increases as one ascends, and the hamlets nestle in the recesses of the mountains.35 In Germany the same contrast is frequently repeated: clustered houses in the plains of Wurttemburg, Unterland, and the plateaus of Ranke Alb; dispersed dwellings on the moraine hills that extend to the north of Lake Constance and Allgan.36 Similarly are found villages in the great valleys and the plains that cross the Alpine region in Switzerland, Tyrol, and Bavaria; hamlets and isolated farms are found in the mountains.37
80 Many authors are agreed on this influence of relief: A. Meitzen, op. cit., II, 390; R. Lennard, "Englische Siedelungswesen," in Reallexi^on by Hoops, pp. 593-613; H. Bernhard, "Die landliche Siedlungsformen," Geogr. Zeitschr,, 1919, pp. 20-32.
31 Cited by J, L. Gomme, The Village Community, 1890, p. 64.
82 Cited by Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, 1908, p. 267.
83 Cited by Vmogradofr", op. cit., p. 267.
34 A. Cholley, "La V6ge," Ann. de geog., 1914, pp. 233-235.
38 Max Sorre, "La repartition des populations dans le Bas-Languedoc," op. cit., p. 44. 30 R. Gradmann, op. cit. (Forschtmgen), pp. 38-41, and Petermanns Mitt., pp. 184-186, 87 A. Schach, op. at., pp. 74-80. Also consult a Swiss map.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 275
In the countries bordering on the Baltic, in Scandinavia and Finland, dispersion prevails wherever cultivation has conquered the fields on the mountain slopes or among the rocky hills of the glacial countries; the mountaineers of Norway live on isolated farms, but villages reap- pear on the plains with their level, continuous slopes. In Walachia the hamlet is the prevailing type in the hills and mountains and the "village in the plains.38 Villages are found in the plains of Podolia and Galicia, hamlets among the Carpathians 39 ; in Little Russia, isolated farms predominate in the rugged regions of Poltava and of Khorol, large villages in the plains of Zolotonocha and of Kozelets.40 The Kangro district in Punjab has two juxtaposed types of habitation: in the plains the villages are surrounded by their arable land in confused parcels; in the mountains are hamlets of scattered houses, each surrounded by its fields. The same facts are observed in China and Japan; mountains and plains are widely differentiated by forms of relief and are marked by contrasting types of habitation.
Nevertheless, this contrast which seems to be so general and so defi- nite does not explain everything. For one often notes the preponder- ance of dispersion in certain plains (that of Lucerne in Switzerland, Flanders, and the English Plain) and the excess of villages in certain mountains (central Italy, Kobylia, northern Riesenburg). Gradmann observes that there is no coincidence in Upper Schwabia between regions of indented relief and the domain of dispersed habitats, and conversely that large and continuous areas of fertile soil do not contain villages.41
Soil constitution. — Soil can impose radically different conditions upon the distribution of habitations, depending on whether it is dry and solid or marshy and soft. Whether the danger arises from rivers or seas, the necessity of defending their hearths against the waters often leads men to gather together. In Italy the unhealthy state of the valleys has forced the people to occupy the elevated and healthy sites, and here the villages flourish. Similarly, in the Po Valley the homes are located in long rows on the dikes. The same danger has forced close settlement in the parts of the Netherlands that are menaced by the seas. Before the construction of dikes the inhabitants gathered on high places, most often artificial, the jagged silhouette of which still attracts the attention. ... In the low areas (in the Netherlands) the houses are located along the streets, roadways, or on the dikes; these villages may be counted by the tens in Holland. One finds the same
88 Emm. de Martonne, La Vallachie, 1902, chap. xvii.
30 P. Vidal de la Blache, op. at., pp. 188-189.
40 A. Woeikof, op. cit., p. 21.
ttR. Gradmann, op. cit. (Forschungcn), p. 41.
276 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
type of extended villages in the colonies of peat-cutters of Overyssel, Drente, and Groningen on the banks of the canals.
One gets the impression of an imperious necessity which, in the low lands susceptible to flooding, constrains the inhabitants to gather to- gether on high places. However, why is it that in the regions of polders (low areas), for instance, in the maritime plain of Flanders and on the bottom of a former lake in Haarlem, one finds dispersed dwellings prevalent?
Resources of water. — Many men have stated the influence of water supply on the manner of settlement in a very simple and reasonable manner, thus: "In regions of permeable limestone rocks the water is hidden away in depths of the earth and can be obtained only from deep wells and rare springs; hence the houses are of necessity closely grouped together. Inversely, in regions of hard rock where the water spreads everywhere, water is common and houses are scattered."
Assuredly the tyranny of water imposes itself on the rural habitat in arid places, e.g., m the Mediterranean region where nearly all the population lives in villages and each village is located near a spring.42 In his book on the Peloponnesus43 Philippson shows the close tie binding the settlement to the source of water supply; he describes these strong and fresh springs which are the pride and joy of the in- habitants; shaded with great plane-trees, emptying their clear water into a stone basin, they are the center of the villages. In irrigated coun- tries the law of water is rigorously enforced. "Thus everything is sub- ordinated to the source of life, and there can be no other mode of grouping than that which permits everyone to share equally in its en- joyment, whether the source is running water or bodies of water." 44 In the Punjab the peasants are grouped near tta essential supply on which their crops depend: reservoir, well, or canal. Cohesion is neces- sary in order to keep the control of the water in hand. The village reservoir is the condition of common existence; with its strong dikes of earth shaded by beautiful trees, like a fortress it contains the source of life.
But in the humid countries of heavy rainfall in western Europe, it is impossible to affirm any rigid relation between hydrological conditions and the distribution of houses. Even in case of difficulty in obtaining it, one can collect and hoard the water when it rains. The pretended law of water no longer exists. In regions of equal water supply are found different systems of settlement. On a subsoil of chalk and simi-
42 T. Fischer, op. cit., pp. 204-209; Ch. Monchicourt, La rtgion du Haut Tell en Tunisie, 1913, pp. 391-399.
WA. Philippson, op. tit., p. 385.
"P. Vidal de la Blache, op. dt., p. 173.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 277
lar substances French Picardy has compact villages, while the Chiltern plateau in England has isolated farms. In the same region in France, CauXj on a chalk subsoil one finds dispersed dwellings in the west and compact villages in the eastern part. On the plateaus of Ardennes in France and Belgium where springs are abundant, the inhabitants are gathered in villages. On the other hand, in some parts of Hungary where water is always found near the surface in a sheet that can be tapped with the most shallow wells, the rural dwellings are grouped in large villages. The question of water supply, especially in the past, seems of secondary importance, and we would be in error to imagine it of decisive importance.45
B. THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS
The types of habitat may have been determined by factors in the human environment itself. One can conceive that, as was the case with many other products of civilization, these types have been manifesta- tions of original tendencies or of traditions peculiar to different peo- ples. One might also conceive that in their origin they have obeyed the needs of defense and that the organization of property has also been instrumental in the development of these types.
Original tendencies.— We are but slightly informed on the original tendencies of human societies. The documents that we have on the primitive periods furnish us with hypotheses only. But the mind can- not avoid searching for the origins of rural civilization. Is the grouped habitat or the dispersed habitat the first form? Or should we suppose that they are both distinct original forms springing from different local conditions? We will ignore this question. What seems probable is that long before the epoch in which the territorial establishment based on permanent occupation of a particular geographical area became the material base of social organization, blood relationship had been the tie of social groups. Has not the custom of living together been de- veloped among men who belonged to the same family and descended from the same ancestor? Have they not sought, by a wholly natural instinct, to group together and to associate for mutual defense? Thus the formation of groups would be the first step taken by men, and that ancient family organization would be the framework of the first village communities; grouping and not dispersion would be the first beginnings of settlement. In Celtic Great Britain the inhabitants lived in family groups composed of hundreds of individuals with their flocks, thus constituting villages. But we do not know if such has every- where been the primitive type of habitat or if the family community
"This opinion on the question of water is similar to that of R. Gradmann, op, cit. (Farschungen), p. 38; and to that of 0. Marinelli, Geogr. Teacher, 1925, p. 202.
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has everywhere been followed by the village. In western Serbia the per- sistence of family communities does not prevent the scattering of habi- tations into small hamlets; we cannot be certain as to whether that dis- persion is a primitive fact or whether it is the result of evolution. The evolutionary process which transforms the grouped habitat into the dispersed form, of which we have many ancient illustrations, is true agricultural progress since it permits the cultivator to reside near his fields. But this is not the only type of agricultural progress, since the development of agriculture has often rendered the village community necessary. According to H. J. Fleure, it is the use of the plow that has necessitated cooperative cultivation and frequently, no doubt, the con- solidation of houses.
Ethnic traditions. — In the opinion of certain scholars the opposition between grouped and isolated habitations is explained by contrasting ethnic traditions. A. Meitzen first indicated the contrast, which is so marked in western and central Europe, between the regions of con- centrated villages and the regions of isolated farms. He attributes this contrast to a difference of original settlement, the villages correspond- ing to Germanic, and the isolated farms to Celtic, settlement. He indi- cates particularly the numerous villages between the Weser, Elbe, and the Danube and everywhere that the "victorious conquests of Ger- mans"46 had established them. Isolated farms are widespread in Ire- land, Scotland, Wales, and other parts of western France.
This theory does not bear criticism. Despite the prodigious and inter- esting accumulation of facts that the works of A. Meitzen contain, the theory suffers from insolvable contradictions. It is not demonstrated— in fact the contrary is true — that the group type of settlement is the ex- clusive property of Germanic peoples. We see it in the possession of Slavs who, as Meitzen recognizes, live in villages of peculiar form, but villages nevertheless; in the possession of Celtic communities in Great Britain; in the possession of Romans, among whom certain "villas" or great estates with their agricultural workers formed the nucleus of true villages; in the possession of Gauls who lived more often in villages (fid) than on isolated farms. Among the Helvetians Caesar counted not less than 400 vici, which he clearly distinguished from isolated dwellings (aedificia) .4T Nor has it been demonstrated any more clearly that the isolated dwelling is an attribute of the Celts; since, in coun- tries west of the Weser which are entirely Germanic, all the people live
48 A. Meitzen, op. cit., I, 520. This theory has been revived and set forth by other authors, as O. Schluter, in the Geogr. Zeitschr., 1900, VI, 248-262, and in the Reallexi- \on by Hoops, pp. 402-439 (Deutsches Siedelungswesen*) .
47 J. Flach, L'origine historique de I' habitation, pp. 10, 36-37; K. Schumacher, Siede- lungs und Kulturgcschichte der Rheinlandc, 1923, II, 193-203; F. Seebohm, The 'Eng- lish Village Community, pp. 279-280.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 279
in this fashion. The same dispersion is observed in other Germanic countries such as Flanders, the Swiss and Bavarian Alps, and northern Scandinavia.48 Nevertheless, even if the facts had supported the theory of ethnic influences, the solution of the problem would have only been pushed back further, for it would remain to explain why a given race adopted such a type of habitation.
This theory is no better suited to the other countries to which many since Meitzen have wished to extend it. In India, certain scholars wished to designate the village as an Aryan institution, but it is very widespread among the Dravidians.49 In the Alpine region of upper Adige, O. Schliiter contrasted the villages of the Italian districts with the dispersed habitats of the Germanic districts (here the Germans would thus have adopted the dispersed type instead of the more com- pact mode).50 But as O. Marinelli 51 has remarked, the simplicity of this relation is only apparent; it is not ethnic traditions that are mani- fest here but economic necessities; it is necessary to seek the explana- tion in the differences between the epochs of colonization and of agricultural economy.
Conditions of security. — The necessity of defense in times of trouble has forced the peasants to group themselves into villages; conversely, with the return of security, they have deserted the villages to establish themselves on the land of their choice. History furnishes numerous proofs of this relationship. The Mediterranean countries still have vil- lages perched on high bluffs in a most paradoxical position opposite their distant fields. In the plain of the Po, in a region long exposed to the ravages of armies, one still sees many fortified villages of huddled houses.52 "At the place where the steppe and other modes of life meet," says Vidal de la Blache,53 "everything has the appearance of a fortress; the village itself in the Sahara, in Arabia, in Turkestan, and Mongolia, becomes a refuge.*' In Aures and Kabylie the villages are perched on high places and hill-crests whicH dominate the surrounding country, "hundreds of aerial points separated by deep valleys in which the eagles plunge with extended wings." 54 "The inhabitants of these houses seek safety in the grouping and defensive arrangement of their
48 For the criticism of Meitzen's theory, sec R. Gradmann, op. cit. (Forschungen), p, 95; A. Schach, op, cit., pp. 110-112.
49 G. L. Gomme, The Village Community, pp. 23-32.
80 O. Schliiter, Deutsches Siedelungswescn, p. 437. See also Emm. de Martonne, Les Alpes, 1926, pp. 143-147.
61 0. Marinelli, Geogr. Teacher, 1925, p. 202,
C2O. Marinelli, Geogr. Teacher, 1925, p. 202; R. Benevent, Revue geogr. alpine. 1916, pp. 204-205.
B8P. Vidal dc la Blache, op. cit., pp. 195-196.
wAug. Bernard, Enquete sur I' habitation rurale des indigenes de VAlgerie, 1921, pp. 82 et seq.
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buildings." 55 Certain villages in Tunis are posed as acropolises upon steep peaks behind thick groves of spiny cactus. On the southern slope of the Atlas Mountains many villages have been transformed into forti- fied places and are true citadels where the sedentary peasant places his storehouse of grain protected from roving nomads.
Many troubled epochs have left their traces in the types of habitat in France. Brutails relates 56 that in most of Roussillon the peasants deserted the plains from fear of African corsairs in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in order to establish mountain villages. Those re- maining in the plains retrenched and fortified; "in Corsavi, a church which was dedicated in 1158 is today far from the village, which aban- doned it to gather around a fortified rock." In the southern Alps along the Durance one notices a tendency for the houses to become more closely grouped as one recedes from the central region, that is, as one goes toward the more accessible and more frequently menaced places; in order to escape the attacks of the Saracens, who had long come by sea, the villages are located on high points as though about fortresses.57 In Baronnisi, as Mouralis has shown, the Romans lived in scattered dwellings on the plain; but, due to feudal disturbances, the peasants left the valleys for elevated villages. "Certain villages . . . were located on rocky positions which were nearly inaccessible and often were hun- dreds of meters above the river." 5S
The needs of defense, however, have not led everywhere to concen- tration of houses. In Frioul and Roman Campagna many isolated farms have been fortified; this is proof that insecurity does not always lead to grouping. One would be more wrong than right in considering all grouping as a defensive precaution; this has been assumed without proof for Russian villages located south of Moscow and of Oka, and for the Hungarian villages of AlfoldL In France, nothing permits us to state that the populations of Picardy, of Champagne, and of Lor- raine are gathered into villages because of need for security. The very fact of the location of these villages in open country drives away all possibility of protection; they seem rather to have sought the center of fertile territory. "The appearance of a village in Meuse does not reveal any preoccupations with security, quite the contrary. ... It is consid- eration of agricultural existence that is revealed in the choice of loca- tions. The approaches are easy, without hedges of trees, in open coun-
65 Aug. Bernard, op. at., pp. 75-76.
65 f- A. Brutails, Etude sur la condition des populations ruralcs du Roussillon au moyen dge, 1891, pp. 38-39, 43.
57 R. Blarichard, Les Alpes franfaises, 1925, p. 75.
58 D. Mouralis, "Les phenomÂŁnes d'habitat dans le massif des Baronnics (Prealpes du Sud)>" Revue geogr. alpine, 1924, pp. 547-645.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 281
try. The village is open on the fields in all directions, and the steeple can be seen from afar.'* 50
The agrarian regime. — The social organization is able to impose cer- tain restrictions on the habitat. In the countries of great estates and large holdings, the proprietors have frequently themselves decided the location of the agricultural houses. The large villages of southern Italy originated principally in the fact that the landlords wished to group their tenants in order better to control them.60 According to Mannelli, they prevented the settlement of their peasants in the country, not only to avoid the dangers of malaria and to escape the expense of construc- tion of too many rural houses, but also in order that the enjoyment of an isolated farm should not become for each working family an excuse to claim ownership of the plot of land that was assigned to it.61 In Russia, the superintendents of the great estates preferred villages m order that the peasants could be overseen more easily.02 In the Balkan peninsula the system of large holdings organized by the Turks led to the formation of villages by the grouping of the houses around the dwelling of the master.63 In Mexico, the landlord had the agricultural workers (peons) gathered together in a village near his house. Simi- larly, certain Gallic-Roman villages (vici) originated in the grouping of the colonists near the villa; later certain villages of the Middle Ages originated in the collection of serfs at some point of the lordly domain. In our own days in Roman Campagna one observes Lombardian and Piedmontese farmers establish great estates and gather the families of permanent workers around them, thus forming the nuclei of new vil- lages. In Verceil and Novara, Cremona, and the Po Delta, great hold- ings always have the same result—the concentration of the workers' families.
At other times the great proprietors adopted the system of dispersed farms when it was to their interest to divide their domains among many small holders. The Baltic countries have a majority of small iso- lated farms; this is because, for a long period, the landed nobility has believed that cultivation profited and succeeded better when it was freed from servitude to a village community,64 Thus, according to Marinelli, we can also explain the diffuse colonization which was widespread in Tuscany at the end of the medieval period; the unit of exploitation, the podere, was sufficiently large to occupy and support a family, and the house of each tenant was built on the land which
60 P. Vidal de la Blache, ttude stir k valUe lorraine de la Mffusc, 1908, pp. 147-148.
60 H. Bernhard, "Die landlichen Siedlungsformen," Geogr. Zeitschr., 1919, pp. 29-30.
61 0. Marinelli, op. cit., 1925, p. 203.
C2 A. Woeikof, op. dt,f pp. 20, 23.
03 J. Cvijic, La peninsule balfynique, pp, 223-224.
C4A. Woeikof, op. cit., p, 16.
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he formed. A group of several of these small farms formed an estate which the owner assigned to the oversight of an intendant.
C. THE INFLUENCE OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY
Even the condition of agricultural economy can lead the peasants at one time to group together, at another time to dwell apart. Whether a population is sparse or dense, or whether it possesses crude or refined methods of cultivation, it will exercise a different hold on the soil; and this possession can change within the same country if economic condi- tions change. Let us consider how the types of agricultural economy can act on the types of habitat,
The nomadic stage of cultivation. — One of the first stages of agricul- tural culture appears to have been the itinerant, nomadic culture; that is, the continual shifting of the cultivated fields across the vast un- claimed areas. This instability is explained both by the poor techniques of production and by the low population density. The occupants are content to burn the bushes and herbs which cover the ground; with little effort they turn under the ashes, and after one or two harvests they allow the fields to return to the wild state and clear another field which was previously uncultivated. This nomadic culture is found among the Germans at the time of Tacitus, among the Irish in the sixteenth century, among the inhabitants of Wales in the Middle Ages. It is still observed in the steppes of southern Russia and in the forested region of northern Russia. In some places the colonists proceed by burning; on the ashes of the forest they sow three or four plantings and then abandon the exhausted land to the forest. The same practice persists in Siberia and in cantons of the governments of Olonetz, Archangel, and Perm.
With this unstable agriculture, the habitation shifts with the fields. The movement of houses is facilitated by their lightness and simplicity of construction. In these conditions, nothing, except possibly the tend- ency for families to gather together, aids consolidation. From the eco- nomic point of view many tendencies lead to scattering and dispersion: the necessity of indefinite ranges for the animals, frequent shifts in cul- tivated fields, and open country for hunting. The historical documents nearly always show us this primitive economy in association with the isolated or dispersed habitat. Since a now distant epoch when the fam- ily community relaxed its ties, we see the dispersed habitat extend over Ireland and Wales. In the twelfth century Cambrensis described the light flimsy houses of Wales as constructed of wood for a semipastoral people who lived dispersed about the fringe of the forest. The coloni- zation of the Russian forest was the work of isolated pioneers or of small groups. In the republic of Novgorod in a surveyor's register of
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 283
the fifteenth century cited by Woeikof mention is made of numerous farms and small holdings. It was by means of hamlets that the clear- ings proceeded in medieval Wiirttemberg. The penetration oÂŁ the Swedes into the vast forests of the Northland, like the advance of the Finns into their immense forest, was accomplished by isolated estab- lishments.65
The stage of periodic redistribution. — A new stage of agriculture begins when the growth of population and the rarity of arable land compels the society to limit the individual right of free appropriation. The boundaries of the cultivable fields are determined so as to order and regulate their division among the families. These divisions are made for a limited period and effected periodically; they are intended to decrease the inequalities of division of the land and to provide land for the new generations; they thus establish the relations of a limited community among the sharers. This intervention of the community for the periodic redi vision of the lands only applies to the best of these, to those that can return good crops; outside of these regularly culti- vated fields there is a zone of unsurveyed fields, pastures, and woods which are not divided but enjoyed in common. These agricultural prac- tices have predominated for a long time in numerous parts of Europe: Russia, Sweden, Germany. The redistribution of the cultivated fields was still made in Ireland under the oversight of Sir John Davies in the seventeenth century. Hanssen points it out as late as 1835 in Eifel and Hunsrlick.66
Does this stage of agricultural evolution correspond to any evolution of habitats? Curiously, it seems not to act in the same manner in all countries: in one place it leaves the dispersed habitat intact, elsewhere it favors the grouped type. In medieval Ireland one notes the existence of arable lands which are cultivated in common where each receives an equal lot by periodic distribution. According to Seebohm, by the seventh century there were already complaints that the growth of popu- lation had reduced the individual shares from thirty to twenty-seven strips or furrows.67 One might believe that this practice should have led the Irish to bring their houses near the arable fields and to develop villages. But Ireland has always remained a country of scattered home-
05 For the nomadic stage oÂŁ culture see: P. Lacombe, L' appropriation du sol, 1912, pp. 10-11, 19-22; F. Seebohm, The English Village Community, pp. 186, 370, 342, 368; J. St. Lewinski, The Origin of Property, pp. 5-9, 15-18; M, R. Bonn, Die englische Kolonization in Ireland, 1906, I, 255-259; II, 140-141; H. Bernhard, "Die landlichen Siedlungsformen," Geogr. Zeitschr., 1919, pp. 20-32; A. Woeikof, "Le groupement de la population rurale en Russie," Ann. de geog., 1909, pp. 13-23; L. Beauchet, Histoirc de la propnete fonder e en Suede, 1904, pp. 10-15,
80 J. St. Lewinski, op. cit., pp. 52-53, 60-61; A. Meitzcn, op. cit,, II, 24.
67 F. Seebohm, op. cit., pp. 126, 214-230; G. Slater, "The Inclosure of Common Fields," Geogr. fourn., 1907, pp. 45-46.
284 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
steads. In reality, in this country of pastoral economy, the parcels of good land represent only an insignificant proportion of the exploited territories. The peasants gather at more or less fixed dates to plow, seed, and harvest, but they place their houses near their pastures, each separate from the others.
In Sweden, the custom of periodically redividing the arable fields existed before the twelfth century. This custom assured to each inhabi- tant the enjoyment of a certain number of parcels during a given num- ber of years, but with the obligation to return them to the community at a time fixed by law with a view to a reallotment. As this was an agricultural country, one might believe that the necessity of abandon- ing their fields periodically must have led the cultivators to choose a fixed spot, not subject to division, where all their houses would be grouped. It appears, however, that even the land on which the family dwelling was erected was not the private property of each family but that the obligation of sharing fell on it also. Hence all dispossessed in- habitants became deprived of their houses and razed them to re-erect them on a new plot of ground. The law always granted them a certain delay, for it was desired to avoid the profound disturbance that the simultaneous demolition of all of the houses would have provoked. It is safe to say that this obligation to reconstruct the house elsewhere was not unduly laborious, for the rural dwellings of Sweden were made of planks and could easily be knocked down and transported. Thus the habit of living in isolated houses persisted in Sweden despite these conditions, the system of hamarsfypt.
We see in Russia, on the contrary, that the periodic redistribution of land was conducive to a village life. It is at a recent date, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, under the influence of land short- age and of increasing population, that the people came to desire the periodic reallotment of the land among the inhabitants of the same agricultural community. Thus developed a Russian institution that has long been taken for a Slav institution, the mir; from the territory of the mir each father of a family received a few parcels distributed in each quality of soil and kept them until the next reallotment, which was made, according to differing regions, every six, ten, fifteen, and even twenty years. This evolution, more recent than the one in Sweden, did not lead to the periodic displacement of the dwellings; the peasant had to establish his habitation on the place chosen for the village so as not to move to each portion and to make possible cer- tain common endeavors. It seems that, in this case, the obligations of the agricultural community had separated the peasants from the system of isolated farms and led them to dwell in groups.68
88 J. St. Lewinski, op. cit., passim; A. Meitzen, op. cit,f I, 25; II, 213,
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 285
The stage of fixed possession within the agricultural community. — A new stage of agriculture commences the day that increase of popu- lation renders a better management of the soil necessary. The peasants come to desire to cultivate the same land rather than to shift their place of cultivation periodically; they can thus realize for themselves, individually, all the benefits of the labor they have bestowed on the fields. This agricultural formula does not everywhere date from the same period, but it reveals a systematic organization with fixed rules which are imposed upon all the members of the agricultural com- munity. In a large part of Europe it has been conceived in such a manner that it can be adapted, during the year, to the production of cereals and to the care of domestic animals. It requires a triennial ro- tation of a winter cereal the first year, a spring cereal the second year, and fallowing the third year. In practice this rotation precludes the isolated mode of habitation. All the arable territory is divided into three portions devoted respectively to wheat, oats, and fallowing. On each of these the freedom of the cultivator was limited by a discipline of cooperative work and community obligations; it was necessary for everyone to work at the same time on the agricultural tasks, leaving the stubble fields and fallowed ground to the flocks. As each person had his plots scattered in each of the three fields, it was impossible for the house to be located in the center of its scattered domain. The houses were grouped around a central nucleus, wells, bridge, and later, church or chateau; in dwelling in this village, the peasant was really in the center of his domain. One understands that "the necessity of an agreement on the conduct of the cultivations . . . had created the need of centralizing the exploitation of the soil at some point. A co- operative regulation of the dates of the events in agricultural life, the fixing of certain periods of exploitation necessitated the settled habitat as beneficial to all. . . . This gave rise to the common central village in which all roads terminated." 69
This organization, extremely ancient in certain countries, originated in certain other countries at dates before recorded history. In Sweden, the periodic redistribution of lands according to the system of ham- arstypt gradually tended with agricultural progress to be replaced by that of solsfypt; individual enjoyment of the land was substituted for collective use. This revolution was in the process of being accom- plished in the epoch of the drafting of the provincial laws, during the thirteenth and until the end of the fourteenth centuries; but it was ac- complished only gradually as those interested demanded it. The result of this definitive division of the land was the choice of a location for
60 P. Vidal dc la Blache, op. cit., pp. 185-186.
286 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
the village, where the peasants' houses came to be gathered. This loca- tion was divided between the cultivators in proportion to the extent of their holdings; each was allowed to fence his portion; he might erect any buildings he chose on condition of preserving a certain space be- tween his own and his neighbor's house to prevent fires and allow adequate drainage.70
More recently, at the end of the nineteenth century, one notes in Java a process of substituting villages with their communal customs for the dispersion of individual houses. In the region of rice plantations, irrigation often necessitates the grouping of the dwellings. Examples are frequent in India. In Pudu-Vayal, thirty miles northwest of Mad- ras, the village territory is divided into sections in accordance with the value of the soil One section corresponds to the land bordering on the reservoir and least exposed to drought; another section of fields is farther from the water supply; and a third section receives enough water only every two or three years.71 Here also the situation obliges the inhabitants to locate in a central place.
The stage of specialized culture. — New progress of rural economy and new needs have led certain advanced peoples to perceive, often at an early stage, the inconveniences of the grouped habitat. The entan- glement of plots of land holds the cultivators in a rigid dependence upon others and obliges them to diverse services: to always raise the same crop on the same plot of ground, to harvest together, to allow the neighbors to cross their fields, to lose time in reaching the more distant plots, to desist from undertaking improvements until agreement and collaboration are obtained, to irrationally choose the crops to be culti- vated. From the agricultural point of view, the isolated habitat which reposes in the midst of its fields represents a superior practice; it al- lows the cultivator his liberty; it brings him near his soil; it allows him to escape from the people of the village. The isolated farm forms the strongest economic unity and is independent of the constraint of others.
Certain countries also which are permeated by the commercial spirit and anxious to direct their agriculture as much towards supplying food for great cities as towards domestic consumption have deliberately formed compact blocks from the dispersed fields of the village com- munities in order to establish isolated farms. England completed this revolution in two periods, one in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the other in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; this strenu- ous operation bears the name of "enclosure." By the formation of in-
70Beauchet, op. at., pp. 32-33, 41-43.
71 J. St. Lewinski, op. at., p. 30; G. L. Gommc, op, at., pp. 23-24.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 287
dependent farms full initiative is granted to the farmer; he can arrange his work and production to his own fancy, give clover and turnips a place in the rotation, feed more cattle, enclose his fields in order to bet- ter care for his flocks. This revolution in methods of cultivation led to a revolution in habitat, which became dispersed where it had been concentrated. European colonists established in the New World have frequently adopted this dispersed type as the most modern and most economical of rural establishments. It is also in the direction of disper- sion that the tendency to specialization of crops which we note nearly everywhere in the world is acting: market gardening in the Mediter- ranean countries, orcharding in the same region, and intensive grass- raising in the plain of the Po.
In order to explain how certain men have acquired the habit of dwelling together in villages and certain others of living on isolated farms or in small hamlets we must appeal to all the natural, social, and agricultural conditions of their surroundings. The study of habitat is one chapter of the study of rural civilizations; it should go back to their distant origins and follow their evolution to the present period. If we wish to classify the types of habitat, we must consider them as manifestations of human enterprise which are not necessarily de- termined by natural geography. In the same country during the course of its history the factors affecting habitat are not acting uniformly; agricultural colonization has succeeded in adopting a succession of dif- ferent types of habitat. In the same country, one type of habitat already well established has often changed into another if the conditions of the human environment have made that evolution necessary,
III. THE TYPES OF GROUPED HABITAT
Agglomeration finds its expression in the village, the fixed habitat of a group of cultivators. What method can be adopted for classifying the variations of this type ? It seems necessary to consider especially the position of the fields with relation to the village. This situation pro- vides the index which permits us to indicate the cause and the origin of grouping. Three principal varieties of villages can thus be recog- nized: (1) the village with rotation of fields, which was widespread in the Middle Ages in western and central Europe but which is cer- tainly of more ancient origin; (2) the village with contiguous fields, of more recent origin, belonging to a period oÂŁ increasing population and associated with colonization of lands which had formerly lain un- used in the spaces between the ancient village domains; (3) the village separated from its fields, a paradoxical creation from the point of view of economics, security, or large estates.
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A, THE VILLAGE WITH ROTATION OF FIELDS
A product of an advanced stage of agricultural civilization, this type of village has been known in Europe since a very ancient period. As a common and permanent habitat belonging to a numerous population living on a limited area of land, it presents some notable characteris- tics. The cultivated territory is divided into three portions, each de- voted in turn from one year to another to the production of winter cereals, spring cereals, and fallowing. This rotation seems to nourish both the people and the cattle. It assures regular pasturage for domestic animals; when the crops are once harvested, the fields become a vast pasture open to all the flocks of the village. This system of open pas- ture, called open-field in England, is made possible by great expanses of open fields without fences and nearly without trees. One of the most remarkable traits of rural life in villages is the pasturage of the com- bined flocks of cattle on the fallowed and stubbled fields. It is neces- sary for all the fields to be cleared of the crops at the same time; thus harvests must be made quickly and this leads to cooperation. A soli- darity of work unites the villagers, dominates the agricultural system, fixes the modes of exploitation, and necessitates living in grouped dwellings. "The dwelling could scarcely be isolated since it cannot con- centrate its fields about it. There is only one means for a man to live in the center of his holdings; this is to dwell in the village. Rotation of fields has imposed a regime of labor which makes enclosure impos- sible and obligates people to adopt the common pasture and the tan- gled parcels of land. The independence of the land does not orig- inate in an individual initiative which is free from services to the com- munity. It is necessary to live in the community or else to separate oneself completely by emigrating to some new region and establishing an isolated farm." 72
This agrarian organization reveals itself as one of the most ancient known to our civilization. The inhabiting of villages probably orig- inates in past history at the unknown time when the agricultural life which is associated with it arose. We find it clearly defined with the triennial rotation in the ninth century in France in the registers of Saint Germain-des Pres 73 and in Belgium in the registers of the abbey
72 G. Hottenger, Morcellement et remembrcment, 1914, p. 40. Numerous authors have written about this type of village; see: O. Schliiter, Deutsches Siedelungstvesen, in the Reallexikon oÂŁ J. Hoops, 1911-1913, pp. 402-439; F. Seebohm, The English Village Community, 1898; J. Wilson, "Agriculture and Its History. Ireland, Clare Island," Proc. R. Irish Acad., May, 1911; A. Mcitzen, op. citt, and particularly his atlas; J. Flach, The Historic Origin of Habitation and of Inhabited Places in France, not dated; H Bernhard, "Die landlichen Siedlungsformen," Geogr. Zeitschr., 1919, pp. 20-32; VinogradofF, English Society in the Eleventh Century, 1908,
"M. B. Guerard, Polyptyque de I' abbe Irminon, 1884: Prolegomenes, p. 649.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 289
of Mount Blandin.74 Hanssen indicates its existence, judging from certain manuscripts in Germany in the eighth century,75 and Seebohm likewise in England in the seventh century.76 But these medieval manuscripts, as far back as they may go, do not record the origin of the organization that they mention. Everything demonstrates, on the other hand, a continuity between the villages at the beginning of the Middle Ages and the villages of the preceding epochs. In England, the use of marl in the time of the Britons implies the practice of a regu- lar rotation; according to Seebohm 77 the Saxons found there an an- cient agriculture with the village community and open-field dating from a considerable time before the Romans. In his interesting book on the English village, H. Peake 7S goes back to the prehistoric origin of the village community. He assumes that a community system based on the cooperative cultivation of arable land ought to date from the time when the cultivation of grains begins, that is, with the neolithic epoch; and he thinks that the establishment of the first villages in East Eng- land coincides with the arrival of men of the Alpine race (about 1000 or 900 B. C.) who cleared the heavy soil of the plains and there began the growing of these grains according to the triennial rotation as they had done in their central European home.
In Germany, as the excellent studies of Gradmann have shown, the regions of villages correspond to the territories first peopled, with those that have been the most completely freed of vestiges of the neolithic age, and with those that the neolithic peoples had found free from for- ests, open and adapted to agricultural establishments. In these natural clearings which formed gaps in the primitive forests, the pioneers of humanity created their fields and built their villages; our actual vil- lages are the direct descendants of theirs. . . . These open spaces amidst forest masses determined the first agricultural societies. It is to the prehistoric epoch that we must go in order to find the origin of the village with rotating fields. This ancient concentration of habitat represents a tradition which is so powerful that in certain countries which have renounced the division of land and the scattering of hold- ings for the redivision of land in independent holdings the inhabitants have perpetuated the village; today it is from this center that the land of each, freed, however, of all community duties, is exploited. Without
74 Cited by V. Brants, in the Essai hitforique stir la condition des classes rurales en Belgiquff jusqu'a la fin du XVIII stick, 1880, p. 206,
75 See J. Wilson, op. cit.. p. 10.
70 F. Seebohm, op. cit., pp. 376-379.
77 F. Seebohm, op. cit., pp. 250-251, 430-436.
78 H. Peake, The English Village. The Origin and Decay of its Community, 1922.
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doubt we have an example oÂŁ this incomplete evolution in the island of Aurigny.79
Certain countries of old civilization also have the village habitat with agriculture carried on cooperatively. This is the case for tens of thousands of Indian villages where the necessity of controlling the ir- rigation water has led to the grouping of peasants. Everywhere one notes the grouping of the houses, the scattering of plots, the long dis- tances which must be traversed in order to reach the distant fields. In a (certain) district in Tinnevelly there are 1,913 parcels of land of which 600 are less than a half-acre, most of them located about 4.5 kilometers from the village; in Eruvellipet (160 miles south of Mad- ras) a holding of 30 acres is divided into 21 pieces; in (a certain) dis- trict of Tanjore a holding of 10 acres is divided into more than 10 pieces. This subdivision, this dispersion of the fields of the same culti- vator throughout the village territory is customary in the United Prov- inces and the presidency of Bombay. Slater, who has shown the many handicaps in this arrangement, states that it is rare to see villagers con- sent to diminish these difficulties; so strongly rooted are the traditions of village life.80
B. THE VILLAGE WITH NEIGHBORING FIELDS
In addition to the ancient villages with scattered fields one finds others established during the Middle Ages by the colonists who cleared the forests and swamps of Europe.
We know that this period witnessed the appearance of many isolated farms and hamlets : Why then, among generations recognizing the eco- nomic superiority of the isolated hamlet, should there be found men who adopt the grouped habitat? In reality, as many of these new col- onies were established among the marshes and forests, there are na- tural conditions which lead to grouping. But, in contrast to the vil- lages with rotation of fields, in these new villages there was a carefully maintained contact of each house with its fields. This contiguity re- sulted from the general plan of the village, which was usually deter- mined by the great proprietor who founded the colony. The farms were arranged to the right and left of a road; behind each of them the fields extended in long parallel lanes across the entire available territory. It is to this variety of villages, established in the ninth and fourteenth centuries, that the German scientists (Meitzen, Bernhard, Schliiter, Gradmann) give the well-chosen name of Reihendorjer (villages in a line). They distinguish two varieties: the villages of
70 S. Harris, "La communaute de village d' Aurigny," Ann. de geog., 1926, XXXV, 293-297.
80 G. Slater, op, cif., passim.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 291
the marshes (Marschuf endorser) and the forest villages (Waldhuf en- dor fer) .
The marsh villages are established in wet or flooded regions of the low countries of western Europe along the dikes and canals. Each house clings to the inner side of the dike; and its fields, divided into strips by the ditches, form a narrow band stretching across the drained land. This type of village originated in the Netherlands countries, where it has several examples among the polders (residents of low land) and in the colonies of peat-workers. There are Dutch colonies carried into the German countries of the North Sea, along the Elbe and the Weser; the first was established at Vahr near Bremen in 1106 and the type spread during the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, always with the aid of Hollanders; and one sees it still de- veloping in the nineteenth century among the German peat- workers. The same system is established in other drained regions, such as the Fens of England or the low plains of the Po basin'.81
The forest villages were located along the valleys or the roads of mountain forests. Here again the habitations arranged on each side of a road had a long strip of ground which included the gardens and meadows on the low ground, the fields higher up, and the pastures and wood lots highest of all. These villages abounded in the Black Forest, and one finds them also in Austria, Silesia, and Pomerania.82 They are likewise observed in certain parts of France that were cleared in ancient times, as in North Caux. Leopold Delisle has followed, in the manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the history of the villages located in the clearings of the Norman forests. The land destined for habitations was divided into equal portions; at one end of these long pieces each man erected his cottage, and these cottages were aligned on each side of the road which served the village. Many villages still preserve this arrangement.83
C. THE VILLAGES LOCATED APART FROM THE PIELDS
In certain villages one observes no direct or near contact between the dwelling of the cultivator and his fields; grouping is not based on any agricultural plan. It even seems that the position of the fields forms a paradoxical difficulty for cultivation; there is complete separation between the two elements of the village, houses and fields. One notices
81 See Bernhard, off. cit., p. 28; Schliiter, op. cit., pp. 402, 436; A. Meitzen, op. cit , I, 43, 49; II, 31-36, 343 et seq; Blink, Nederland, III, 257-260. See also the Atlas of Marinelli.
32 See R. Gradmann, op. cit. (Forschungen, 1913), and Pctermanns Mitt,, 1910; A, Meitzen, op. cit., I, 26, 416; II, 396-400, 417-418; M. Mayr, Die Sieddungen-Bohmer- wcUd (Forschungen, 1912).
83 Leopold Delisle, ttudes sur la condition de la classe agricole et I'etat de I' agriculture en Normatidie au moyen dge, 1851, pp. 395 et scq.
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this dissociation in villages which have been forced for defense to perch on a high point, to huddle together, and to fortify, remaining often tens of meters distant from their fields, above the valley lands which they cultivate. It has been stated that these dwellings hasten to descend and to approach the fields whenever security is obtained. In the south- ern Alps the villages on the heights fall in ruins, and their inhabitants migrate to the low lands. No less complete is the separation in the great villages of southern Italy, where the great proprietors gather all their workmen together and where the workers must often go from twenty to thirty kilometers to reach the fields. In central and southern Italy there are also numerous vineyards at a distance from the village, necessitating the erection of a temporary dwelling at picking time. In the Peloponnesus, many mountain communes have land in the plains, often distant several days travel; here they construct a house which they inhabit during the winter fieldwork, living in the moun- tain village in summer.84
IV. THE TYPES OF DISPERSION
The dispersion of dwellings marks the triumph of individualistic over social tendencies. Why did the isolated habitat persist for centuries in certain countries? Why have other countries chosen to substitute it for the grouped habitat? Why have new countries adopted it and not the grouped habitat? These questions lead us to distinguish within the dispersed type four varieties which are differentiated essentially by their age, that is to say by the date of colonization or of agricultural evolution in which they appeared. They are (1) primary dispersion, of ancient origin; (2) intercalary dispersion; (3) secondary dispersion; (4) primary dispersion, of recent origin.
A. PRIMARY DISPERSION, OF ANCIENT ORIGIN
We know that the grouped habitat and the existence of villages re- veal to us certain necessities of rural economy : fertile soils, suitable for the production of grains; limited land, so that the use must be regu- lated and divided among the members of the community. The same necessities are not imposed in the lands, woods, and mountains which are less fertile and more adapted to pasturage than to cultivation. The arable lands are scattered discontinuously over uncultivated areas; vast waste areas are open to roving cattle. To these less compact resources corresponds a looser and more dispersed habitat. Many countries adopted the dispersed type in an early period and have faithfully clung to it throughout many centuries. This ancient custom is ex-
84 On these dissociated villages see: D. Mouralis, op. cit,, passim; O. Marinelli, Geogr. Teacher, 1925, p. 203; A. Philippson, Der Peloponnesos, 1892.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 293
pressed in the landscape itself, in the shady appearance of the hedges and fences, earthen walls, and rows of trees which surround each habitation. Thus results the old contrast between the bare, deserted, fenceless fields of the village regions and the verdant groves of the countries of isolated farms where nearly all the fields are enclosed.
Among the oldest places with isolated habitat is the Britannic west (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Devon, Cornwall). In his description of a trip across Wales, Leland states that none of the inhabitants live in grouped habitats. All the historians agree in recognizing that hereto- fore Cornwall has been essentially a country of dispersed farms long since enclosed. We have the same certainty regarding Ireland.85
It is the same in west France, in Normandy and Brittany, as well as in the mountainous regions. In the northern Alps, Arbos shows the general tendency to dispersion in the form of hamlets or of isolated farms.86 According to Cholley, the settlement of the mountains in Savoy was accomplished during the eleventh and twelfth centuries by means of the dispersed form. "The settlement is found linked to a particular form of individual or familial exploitation. . . . The divi- sion into little hamlets seems to be the original manner of settlement of the region, and it is under the form of small hamlets or of isolated farms that settlement proceeded in the sixteenth century. . . . The iso- lated house and the simple hamlet (from one to ten houses) appear to be the original forms of settlement of the country; and the villages seem to be derived from these. . , . The map of scale 1 : 80,000 clearly shows this swarming of scattered houses and groups of two or three. For example, in Great Bornand, the twenty-seven houses of the hamlet of Chinaillon are in reality spread over nearly a kilometer." 8T There is the same scattering of dwellings in Segala and upper Cevennes (central part), in the mountains of Roussillon, and in the Vosges. The settlement of the Vosges mountains was effected during the twelfth century by means of hamlets and isolated farms, in distinction to the plain, which is the region of clustered villages.88 In Brittany, dispersion is the rule; it is even tending to increase. "The little groups of two hearths are multiplying; the peasants isolate themselves in their corners of meadow between the four walls of their ditches."89
85 A. Meitzen, Die verschiedene Weiss des Ubergangs vom Nomadenleben zum festen Siedlung, 7e congres geographiqtte international, 1889, 2e partie, pp. 483-498; G. L. Gomme, op. dt., pp. 141-142; F. Seebohm, op. cit,, pp. 240-242; R. H. Tawney, The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century, 1912, p. 262; A. G. Bowen, "Study of Rural Settlements in South West Wales," Gffogr. Teacher, 1926, pp, 317-325.
86 Ph. Arbos, La vie pastorale dans les Alpes jrangaises, 1924, pp, 481, 499, 519, 529.
87 A. Cholley, Les Prealpes de Savoie, 1925. See the chapters on settlement and habitat.
88 A. Fournier, Topographic ancienne du dÂŁpartement des Vosges, 1897. 80 C. Vallaux, La Basse-Bretagne, 1906, pp. 131-132,
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In Germany, west of the Weser, as far as one goes back in history one finds isolated farms each surrounded with its fenced plot of land; dispersion is the rule also in the German Alps and in Bavarian Bohmer- wald. In the rocky lands of north Europe amidst the scattered bits of arable land the unit of settlement is the farm; this is likewise the case in Greenland and Iceland. In the Dmaric Mountains, in the western part of the Balkan peninsula, the dispersed habitat prevails. "The vil- lages often extend for seven or eight kilometers, the hamlets often for two or three kilometers, and the houses are separated by a kilometer or more. ... All the buildings, land, orchard, forest, are grouped around the house; the whole thing forms an economic unit."90
In Mexico, in contrast to haciendas and their villages of peons and in contrast also with the village communities of the Indians which oc- cupy the better land, in the mountainous regions and the least acces- sible land one notices many ranches or small rural properties isolated or in small hamlets; one finds them particularly in the hilly regions with small plots of land which are too small for large-scale exploita- tion.91 While villages predominate in the east of India, the peasants of Malabar, Cochin, and Travancore avoid grouping their houses; and dispersion is most prominent in the localities where the basic crop is not a cereal such as rice but a tree such as the coconut.92
B. INTERCALARY DISPERSION
In addition to the countries where the custom of the isolated habitat is lost in the night of time, there are others of more recent coloniza- tion where the zones of dispersion are intercalated among the zones of grouped habitats. Between the clearings which were primitively culti- vated exist some forests where the clearings of medieval times have made new breaks; here, in these lands, the waste lands and the woods, infiltrations of colonists have established themselves beyond the bound- aries of the ancient villages.
Illustrations of these irregular scattered settlements interspersed be- tween the village clearings are not lacking in France. Musset described in Bas-Marne of the eleventh and twelfth centuries a new generation of isolated properties, farms, or small holdings, which were placed in the intervals between the former establishments. They were character- ized by bearing the name of the proprietor who founded or owned them preceded by the article and followed with the suffixes iere or trie. The abbot Augot counted 8,000 of these names in the single depart- ment of Mayenne, representing about 2,500 persons; settlement was
MJ. Cvijic, La peninsule bal\anique, pp. 173-174, 216, 218-220. MSee G. McCutchen McBride, The Land Systems of Mexico, 1923. 82 Slater, op, cit., p. 152.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 295
made here at the expense of the forest by successive clearings.93 To the west of Paris one notes a significant contrast between the large an- cient villages occupying the muddy plateaus on the right bank of the Mauldre River and the host of hamlets and individual farms spread out on the left bank; most of these scattered places are of more recent date than the villages. . . . M. Quantin 94 tells us of parts of Puisaye which belong to the department of Yonne which are "covered with innumerable farms, isolated houses, and small hamlets scattered throughout the wooded regions. These places are rarely mentioned in the old documents. Most of them originated in grants (in the fifteenth century) of portions of the domains of the feudal lords or monasteries to individuals."
In Germany, also, lines of hamlets and separate farms are inter- twined with zones of villages. These forms of habitat, originating in the medieval clearings, appear, for example, in the valleys of the Kin- zig and the Murg (in the Black Forest),95 in the Westphalian 96 plain, in the hills and rugged plateaus which prevail in the basin of the Neckar and the Mein.97 In Switzerland about Lake Zurich beside the ancient villages located on the terraces and plains are to be found a host of separate dwellings which date from the twelfth to the four- teenth centuries, which were the great period of forest clearings. . . .98 In the Low Countries, on the sands of Brabant, Limbourg, Gueldre, and Overyssel the farms are scattered over the land, along the roads and paths, each in the midst of its fields surrounded with hedges and earthen levees.
C. SECONDARY DISPERSION
In certain countries the inconveniences of the village finally appeared to be so intolerable to agricultural exploitation that the dispersed habi- tat was substituted for the villages, often progressively, but frequently deliberately, without a transition stage. Thus was accomplished a true reconstruction of habitat, and even a rude inversion. But one should distinguish between instinctive and systematic reconstruction.
Frequently, in a nearly instinctive manner, the peasants attempt by slow degrees to free themselves from the concentrated habitat. About the enormous villages of Hungary extend fields which are so large that it is nearly impossible to operate them while living in the village. Thus in the fields of rye, maize, potatoes, and of forage which often sur-
88 R. Musset, Le Bas-Marne, 1917, pp. 223-239, 452-455. 04 Cited by Flach, Originc de I' habitation, pp. 91-92, 63-64. 05Gradmann, op. cit.f Petermann's Mitt,, p, 186. 1)8 Schliiter, op. at,, pp, 543-544.
07 A. Meitzen, op. cit., I, 416-417, 431-441.
08 A. Schach, op. cit., pp. 80 et seq.
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round the village at a radius of ten to fifteen kilometers, they have erected temporary structures, more simply constructed than the village houses, where the peasants dwell during the season of field work. These temporary shelters are composed of two parts, the stable and the living quarters and granary, and are covered with tiles or reeds and sur- rounded with a fence to confine the cattle; one can see them from afar because of the high silhouette of the well sweep. A host of these small houses are scattered over the agricultural outskirts of the villages. This dwelling is temporary and uncomfortable, but it often tends to become permanent; thus we have an indication of a tendency to the fragmentation of the villages. To this form of dispersion another may be added: this is the small agricultural colony which is established beyond the region of cultivation in the solitude of the forest, the peas- ant constructing a permanent cottage on his parcel of land, thus mark- ing a new stage in the reconstruction of the habitat."
In Swiss Mittelland one can observe a slow dissociation of the vil- lage communities and a multiplication of individual farms; in the com- mune of Wiilflingen . . . more than two-thirds of the people lived in the village in 1880 but today less than half do so, the rest being on separate farms.100 Certain parts of Russia are evolving similarly to- wards independent operation: in the steppes of northern Crimea, as well as in the district of Konstantinograd, many peasants have pur- chased land and are established on individual farms. In the northern part of the government of Kherson, certain intelligent farmers became convinced of the handicaps of village life and have settled upon their holdings; in thirty years the average number of persons per village has decreased one-half.101 During these last years the isolated establish- ments practicing cultivation of many crops have been successful; these examples urge the Russian peasants to desert the commune. This transition is expensive, however, for it is necessary to move all the buildings to the new location.102
In Egypt the village is no longer in harmony with certain require- ments of the new economy. With the perennial irrigation and cultiva- tion of summer crops like cotton, it was to the farmers' interests not to remain in the villages but to live closer to their land. Thus ensued the construction of rural houses on the land cultivated so as to avoid too long journeys for men and beasts in going to the fields for work; for
69 See L. de Lagger, op. cit., pp. 438-444; W. Gotz, Das Donaugebiet, 1882, pp. 266- 277; A. Kain, La Hongrie, 1910, p. 103.
100 Bernhard, of. cit., p. 31.
101 A. Woeikof, op. cit., passim.
102 See Das heutige Russland, 1923, p. 117.
EDITORS* NOTE. — The present-day situation is different. See Prokovitch's and Soro- kin's papers.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 297
a quarter of a century these isolated farms have multiplied, particularly in the Delta.103 In certain villages in southern Italy, for example Mai- lur, in order to decrease the inconveniences of the many small plots the proprietors exchange land, each attempting to group his holdings. When they have succeeded, they construct a cabin or field hut which usually is only a shelter for their implements and a place to rest dur- ing the work season but which sometimes becomes a comfortable cot- tage, a small farmhouse. Mallur has a score of these huts and the fam- ilies living in five of them have left the village. This is, says Slater, the beginning of an evolution similar to that of the enclosures in Eng- land.104
Returning to France, we observe in the southern parts the loosening of the bonds which held the people so closely grouped in the villages. De Ribbe 105 shows that since the sixteenth century certain villages of Provence which were erected in high places have lost a part of their inhabitants who have gone down into the plains in order to establish isolated farms. Mouralis 106 studied the movement which led the vil- lagers of Baronnies toward the valleys. "The fortress village perched on a height tends to be transformed into a scattered village in the val- ley." They emigrate by degrees in order to establish themselves in little hamlets of three or four houses lying near their fields. "Of more than one hundred of these elevated villages which offered shelter to the population of Baronnies during the Middle Ages only fifty are in- habited today; and of these fifty few shelter more than half of the com- munal population. Most of the inhabitants of the region, nearly 54 per cent, are distributed in hamlets and farms." The same tendency toward dispersion has been noted in Basse-Provence . . .107; the peasant feels himself confined in the village, he wishes more spacious buildings, so he constructs a new house along the road and near his fields.
The secondary type of dispersion is often a systematic reconstruction. These efforts to transform the ancient arrangement often began in the distant past. Gradmann 10S shows that during the course of the last four centuries there has been accomplished in Haute-Souabe an exten- sive rearrangement whose object was to join the scattered holdings of each village cultivator into independent unified farms; the grouped habitats have been destroyed and the isolation of farmhouses into the
108 A. Demangeon, "Problemes et aspects actuel de la vie rurale en Egypte," Ann. de geog., 1926, XXV, 155-173.
104 Slater, op. cit., pp. 19-20.
105 De Ribbe, La societe provenfde h la fin du moyen dge, 1898, p. 455. 100 Mouralis, op. cit.t pp. 589 et scq.
107 G. Sarmant, "La Basse-Provence interieure," Ann. de geog., 1925, XXIV, 313-320.
108 R. Gradmann, op. at. (Forschungen) , pp. 36-37, 129 et seq.t and Petermanns Mitt., pp. 185-186.
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corresponding properties completed. This tendency to dismemberment, beginning with the abbey of Kempten about the middle of the six- teenth century had not ceased to spread by the beginning of the nine- teenth century; it represents the thought of an agricultural economy which is conscious of the advantages of the isolated farm. In Schleswig- Holstein a parallel transformation was accomplished between the beginning of the seventeenth century and 1766; blocks of land with fences were established independent of the rules of the village com- munity, and the farmhouse was rebuilt on each piece.109
The establishment of the solstyjt in Sweden in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had led to the organization of the village com- munity with its system of divided and rotated fields. From the begin- ning of the seventeenth century the disadvantages of this organization were felt keenly; in certain villages the property of a score of owners was divided into five or six thousand parcels; the strips were so narrow that one could not turn with a carriage without entering his neighbor's land.110 In addition, by a series of laws enacted during two centuries the storsfyft or large holding was realized; that is, the division of the village land among the proprietors, composition of large plots which were within reach and easy to till, and sometimes the uniting of all of each man's holdings into one piece.111 Certain peasants left their vil- lage in order to construct their dwellings on their own land. The Swedish villages are now, only small groups of five, ten, or fifteen houses, surrounded by a swarm of individual farms.
In Russia the agrarian reform of Stolypin in 1906 led to a true revo- lution in habitat. It was concerned with the division of the common property, with the regrouping of scattered plots, with the dissolution of the villages and the establishment of individual farms. Bern- hard 112 points out that in (a certain village in) Minsk, of thirty-four families, twenty-two had obtained holdings of 30 hectares on which they had constructed their house and their farm buildings; not more than a dozen families remained in the village. If this reform had been general, it would have been able to effect a total transformation of the rural habitat. It is proper to ask, in connection with certain countries where the dispersed habitat appears to be very old, whether this dis- persion has resulted from a systematic operation similar to that of Souabe and of Sweden. Would it not also be the case for the fields of Flanders and Lombardy, which have long been reputed for their
109 A. Meitzen, op. tit., I, 58.
110 L. Grandeau, "Rapports du jury international. Exposition de 1900," Agriculture, 1905, p. 386.
111 L. Beauchet, op. cit., p. 58.
112 H. Bernhard, op. tit., p. 31.
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advanced economy and their intensive culture? Historic research alone can give us the answer.
The most curious example of an inversion of habitat by systematic reconstruction oÂŁ the rural systems of cultivation is found in Great Britain. So long as the system of open-fields with its three fields and community customs persisted, the houses of the English cultivators were grouped in villages. Wherever the agrarian rearrangement which resulted from the enclosures gathered the scattered holdings into single farms, the farmhouses became established in the midst of their hold- ings. This succession of individual cultivation was associated with an extensive upsetting of rural homes. The historic documents enable us to measure the magnitude of this revolution in habitat.
The triumphs of enclosure, which was accomplished by the destruc- tion of the villages and the substitution of dispersion for grouping, are chiefly divided into two periods, the one in the fifteenth and sixteenth and the other in the eighteenth and ninteenth centuries. The most profound changes occurred in the earlier period. Certain manuscripts show that from 1485 to 1517 in Berks the enclosure of 6,615 acres led to the eviction of 670 persons and the destruction of 119 homes.113 A more detailed illustration is that of Stretton Baskerville in Warwick- shire. At the end of the fifteenth century enclosure caused four houses and three cottages and later an additional twelve houses and four cot- tages to disappear, with the result that eighty peasants were forced to emigrate and the ruined church was transformed into a stable.114 All documents emphasize the disappearance of the villages.115 In the eighteenth century the same phenomena were repeated. In a Midlands parish, twenty farms and land belonging to sixty cottages were united into four farms with pastures which were adequately cared for by four shepherds.116 In Wiseton (in Notts), following the enclosure of the lands, a proprietor built seven brand-new farmhouses on the central location.117 In Leicester and Notts certain villages which had a hun- dred houses and families under the open-field system had only eight or ten houses by the end of the eighteenth century and only 40 or 50 inhabitants instead of 500 to 600.118 In 1803 a certain Cambridgeshire parish was indicated where 43 hearth fires had been extinguished and as many houses demolished in order to allow for doubling the size
™J. S. Leadam, The Domesday of Enclosures, 1517-1518, 1897, I, 90-95.
115 W' CunninSham> The Growth of English Industry and Commerce, 1890, I, 399. On a map of the manor of Whadborough (in Leicestershire) dated 1620 and reproduced m Tawney, The Agrarian Problem, one reads these significant words: "The place where the town of Whadboroughe stood,"
HT G< Slater' "Tlle Inclosure of Common Fields," Geogr. foitrn., 1907, p. 55.
W. H. R. Curtler, The Enclosure and Redistribution of our Land, 1920, p. 168. ibid., pp. 173-174.
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of a farm of 200 acres.119 Thus the evolution of a modern type of commercial agriculture terminated in the substitution of the dispersed for the grouped habitat over a great part of the territory.
D. PRIMARY DISPERSION, OF RECENT ORIGIN
When no necessities of protection, defense, or of cultivation are imposed upon rural establishments, modern colonization nearly always follows the dispersed type by developing isolated farms. This independ- ence seems to be the necessary condition of an efficient economic functioning.
Wherever the possession of powerful modern materials of civilization permits the rural dwellers to battle natural forces, the isolated habitat is preferred. In countries menaced by water, the perfection of a defense frees the people from the necessity of living in groups. In the maritime plain of Belgium and most of the Netherlands polders the farms are separated; they multiply in proportion to the process of drying out the land, and each farm is the personal work of one man or of a group whose efforts and capital have saved them from the waters, In addition, one can say that dispersion actually prevails, since at other times the houses become clustered on the dikes. The security of territory well drained by modern engineers permits the location of habitations in open fields; such is the case in the polder of the sea of Haarlem, which is kept dry by powerful pumps. The farms are scattered and sur- rounded by their fields.
The same economic concern of expending the minimum of effort for the maximum of freedom and return is at the basis of the tendency for rural establishments which are made at the present time to adopt the isolated farm. The Russian emigrants in Siberia, even those who come from villages, establish separate farms.120 Even in the Far East the village occasionally seems to be an abandoned form; the Japanese authorities have deliberately adopted the system of isolated dwellings in the colonization of Yezo. Plots of land, in geometrical forms, are laid out in areas, of 5, 30, or 270 hectares, designed respectively for small, moderate, and large-scale exploitation and each farm receives a colonist.121 Many new countries are settled in the same manner: South Africa, Australia, Argentine, Canada, the United States. There are exceptions only in those cases where, despite the advantages of the isolated farm, the settlers have been obliged to gather together to fight the hostile natives (e.g., French villages in Algiers, German villages in Argentine) .
"•/&/., p. 227.
120 J. St, Lewinski, op. cit,t pp. 22-24.
131 H. Bernhard, op. cit., p. 21.
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 301
In the United States this dispersion of homesteads forms one of the most original traits of the social structure of the rural civilization. This condition creates many problems of organization which were solved long since by our older European civilizations but which are still discussed in these young regions. If we examine a map of the Topo- graphical Survey we note two territorial divisions: the county and the township. Each county is divided into a certain number of districts of geometric form, the townships, whose boundaries are set at the time of settlement. It is within these official and impersonal frameworks that the hosts of farms are distributed. One family after another settles in the solitude wherever fancy dictates; they are not divided among any administrative districts smaller than the townships, which would be comparable to our communes or our parishes, which are living unities based on local proximity, and on the solidarity of social life. It is these small unities that they today desire to create in America; they will be the elementary social cells among which the* farms will be divided. What should be the unit of this crystallization and on what should it be based? In order to know this, it is necessary to know what "social areas" are able to furnish the elementary framework. Mr. Dwight San- derson 122 has made this study for Otsego county, New York. He rec- ognizes many social areas whose limits do not coincide; some are based on topographic proximity (houses in the same valley), others on com- mon use of a social institution (the same church or school), others on the common patronage of an economic institution (same merchants, mill, cooperative creamery, railroad station, or industrial plant), and still others on common ancestry. How should one choose the proper element with which to unite all of these dispersed human parcels into communes (rural communities) ? In the same manner as the medieval church was chosen to be the center of our rural communes since it was the spiritual center of the parish, it is the school, another spiritual cen- ter, which it appears ought to serve as the center for the future organi- zation of the rural communes of that part of the United States.
CONCLUSION
This geographic study of the rural habitat is only a synthetic essay, A complete synthesis will be possible only when one will be able to make a map of the types of habitat for each country. But this is yet im- possible for we lack the local analyses and correlations. It yet remains for us to clearly determine our methods of procedure and to make our terminology more precise. Between the two types of agglomeration and
123 Dwight Sanderson, Locating the Rural Community, Cornell Reading Course for the Farm, 1920, pp. 413-436; Dwight Sanderson and Warren S. Thompson, The Social Areas of Otsego County, 1923.
302 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
dispersion the facts show intermediary types; between the village and the isolated farm there is the hamlet. Is the hamlet to be considered as a small village or as a group of individual farms? In the first case it should be regarded as a closed form, a variety of agglomeration; in the second case as an open formation, a type of dispersion. The study and observation of places and the knowledge of their past will alone permit us to explain them and to classify them. The definition of the rural habitat will scarcely be a question of statistics only, of the number of houses and inhabitants; it chiefly implies that one analyze the relation- ships between the dwelling and its agricultural land; one should not separate these two aspects. Following the example of Meitzen and Gradmann, it is necessary to take as a basis of analysis the interpreta- tion of the plans on a large scale; the registers of deeds are of inestima- ble value, for when one can use them one has, so to speak, an indi- vidual picture of each house and of each field.
The knowledge of habitat, of its forms and of their distribution, clearly belongs to geography, as do all the facts relating to the surface of the earth. This grouping and scattering of rural houses are universal traits which nearly everywhere reveal the imprint of humanity; in themselves and by the very fact of their existence they constitute ele- ments of the landscape, and that is sufficient justification for our under- taking their description. But this does not limit their geographic inter- est, for differences in habitat are associated with natural, economic, and social distinctions.
Field and grove, champaign and enclosure, are old words in French and English which express certain contrasts between landscapes origi- nating in difference in habitat. In all places, when the peasant lives in isolation, he builds an enclosure; it is a means of protecting himself, of guarding his cattle, of separating fields and pastures, of marking the boundaries of his property. Whether this boundary be a hedge, a ditch, or a wall of earth, the enclosure contains some trees; there are rows of trees, often planted close together, which give the appearance of a grove. The grove is a human product, an artificial arrangement of nature, which indicates a particular mode of occupation. Direct contact between the house and the individual field thus ends in a transforma- tion of the landscape by this association of trees and occupation of the land. The tree, which is the enemy of cultivation when it exists as forest, becomes its collaborator, it is the sign of man. Some regions which were formerly cleared, such as the fields of central and eastern England, have taken on again the appearance of woods by virtue of dispersion of habitat. In certain parts of the North American prairies which were once vast grassy treeless surfaces the landscape has been
ECOLOGY OF RURAL HABITAT 303
slowly changed as the farms have multiplied. Each farm is surrounded with trees or small groves, which dot the vast plain, each grove shad- ing a rural establishment; the domain of the tree expands and is more complete where the colonization is older. On the contrary, when grouped habitat prevails, the cultivated fields of an entire village are held together and united into an unenclosed area which, once the harvest is finished, resembles a steppe. These are the lands known as champaign to the English medieval writers, the campagnes and plaines of France, open landscapes where the trees are clustered about the occa- sional villages. All types of fields, wheat or rice, are mixed together in the same space from which the cultivated herb has driven the tree.
From the economic point of view the isolated and grouped habitats offer additional contrasts. Some rural regions where all the plots of land are limited by permanent enclosure possess a greater fixity and solidity than regions without the enclosure and the internal division which characterize the village horizon. In the latter, development of piecemeal plots is easy and inevitable; the land is cut into strips and reduced to morsels, and these small bits easily pass from hand to hand by inheritance; the estate vanishes and exploitation is divided among tens of small fields widely separated from one another. Under condi- tions of dispersion, on the contrary, the estate is coherent and difficult to divide and has chances of surviving, and it keeps its original bound- aries. It remains adjusted to the means and needs of the family, repre- senting a more vital economic unity, more insured against crises, more independent. Does it not seem that the isolated farms in the woods of western France which have long been considered as poor estates today hold many advantages over the scattered holdings of the ancient vil- lages which formerly were considered as abundant granaries? The history of the village, however, reveals the role it has played and still plays in the development of those occupations which require agree- ment and cooperation. While the isolated farm is only the framework for a single family life, the village often has hundreds of families; thanks to this large population where certain families and individuals can specialize in one occupation, the village has furnished the back- ground of a true industrial workshop. In France and in western Eu- rope, in Germany, in Russia, as in China and India, one observes that the village formerly and even yet has been the means by which indus- trial life has interpenetrated rural life.
The description of the social differences between countries of vil- lages and countries of isolated farms has become nearly classic.* Each
* EDITORS' NOTE. — We regard the subsequent characterization of the psychology of vil- lage and isolated farm neither typical nor generally applicable.
304 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
type of habitat furnishes a different framework for social life. The village is marked by proximity, contact, community of ideas and senti- ments; with dispersed habitat, "everything bespeaks separation, every- thing marks the fact of dwelling apart." 123 From this results the dif- ference between the villager and the peasant that has been so clearly indicated by Vidal de la Blache: " Among the rural populations gathered around villages is developed a characteristic mode of life which obtained its importance and influence in ancient France, the life of the village. Limited as the horizon may be, feeble as may be the pressures from outside, the village forms a small society open to gen- eral influences. Instead of being scattered in bits, the population forms a nucleus; and this rudiment of organization suffices to give it unity. In Lorraine, Burgundy, Champagne, and in Picardy the rural in- habitant is primarily a villager; in the West, he is a peasant,"124 There are additional profound differences between a scattered and a grouped population as regards mentality and psychology as has been ingeniously noted by A. Siegfried.125 In regions with farms which are "greatly isolated behind hedges or rows of trees" there are "suspicious indi- vidualism," hostility towards the stranger, and a sort of impermea- bility toward outside ideas; in countries of villages, there is readiness for collective enterprises, a feeling of association, and a penetration and diffusion of external influences. Thus the social structure which de- pends so largely on intellectual and moral influences frequently re- flects the structure of the rural habitat.
EDITORS' BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
This problem in the United States has been discussed most recently in the following works:
GILLETTE, J. M., Rural Sociology, revised ed. (New York, 1928). SIMS, NEWELL L, Elements oj Rural Sociology (New York, 1928). NELSON, LOWRY, A Social Survey of Escalaute, Utah, Brigham Young University (1925),
, The Utah Farm Village oj Ephraimf Brigham Young University (1928).
SOROKIN, P., and ZIMMERMAN, C., Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology (New York, 1929), chaps, vii, xxii.
123 P. Vidal de la Blache, op. cit., p. 187.
124 P. Vidal de la Blache, Tableau de la geographic de la France, p. 311. '25A. Siegfried, Tableau politique de la France de I'ouest (1913), pp. 381-389,
CHAPTER VI
DIFFERENTIATION OF THE RURAL POPULATION
INTO CUMULATIVE COMMUNITIES AND
FUNCTIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
1. The objectives of the morphological analysis of rural social organization— K morphological study of the social organization of a population is an analysis of the fundamental forms of its social differentiation, stratification , and mobility. An analysis of the forms of social differentiation within the rural population gives an idea of the horizontal aspects of rural social organization, while an analysis of the forms of social stratification gives an idea of its vertical aspects. Finally, a study of the mobility of the rural population furnishes an idea of the elasticity of the group's struc- ture. This chapter deals mainly with the forms of social differen- tiation within the rural population, while the next chapters deal with the forms of its social stratification and mobility.
An analysis of the forms of rural social differentiation must answer the following questions: (1) What are the general bases of the differentiation of the rural population into a series of real collective unities or groups ? (2) What are the principal types of groups? (3) What are the further subdivisions of these groups into subgroups, and what are the dominant characteristics of each of these groups? (4) What have been the essential changes in the forms of rural social differentiation in the course of time, and especially with the growth of urbanization ? An outline of the solution to these problems constitutes the main task of a study of social differentiation in a general work such as this.
Before we turn to a brief analysis of each of these problems, we must answer a few preliminary questions. What is a social group, a community, an association, or a collective unity? What are the bases of their existence? What are their types? If we turn to con- temporary sociology for the answers, we find only very great con-
[305]
306 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
fusion. Hence we are forced to enter briefly into an analysis of these problems in order to make our subsequent statements com- prehensible.
2. Group-creating bonds. — We know that the totality of indi- viduals engaged in agriculture has not been existing in an atom- ized form where each individual has been equally isolated from or connected with all other agriculturists. As a matter of fact, in the past as well as in the present, individuals have been united into family groups and these families have been organized in some manner into larger super-family groups or communities. Each family group has been a collective unity. And the totality of the families who have composed a super-family group have functioned as a social unity of a larger caliber. These families have been bound by a series of ties into a super-family unity whose members have been acting as parts of a larger social body and have been much more interdependent upon one another than upon the families who have not belonged to the same super- family unity.
The problem to be considered now is the determination of the factors that have produced a family unity out of its individual members, and a "community" or super-family social unity from a number of separate families. What have been the bases or the factors of this unification ? When this problem is answered, what have been the principal types of the rural aggregate according to the nature of their ties ? Such are the problems to be dealt with now. They are different from the ecology of the rural habitation because, as we shall see, there may be several farm families widely scattered within a given territory, and yet they may belong to and be united into one super-family rural community; on the other hand, there may be many families living in spatial proximity in the same village, and yet they may not compose a real rural com- munity. The same is true of individuals composing and not com- posing a super-individual group, be it the family group or some other social unity.
Let us note, first, that when we say "group" or "aggregate" or "association" or "community" we mean a real and not a ficti- tious social unity. In Russia, according to the census of 1897 there were 168,682 male infants from two to three months of age. Sta-
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 307
tistically they are classed as "the group of infants from two to three months of age." But it is evident that they do not form a real group from our point of view, for these children are not united into one social body. Among these babies there is no rela- tionship in the sense of group solidarity, no functioning as one social unity, and not even any particular mutual interdependence of their lives and behavior. The group is purely "statistical" or "fictitious." Such aggregates as "the group of persons who wear glasses," and "the group of persons who do not wear glasses"; "the group of American citizens who wear blue pajamas," and "the group of American citizens who wear brown pajamas," etc., would also be fictitious.
The real social group, as distinguished from these and similar fictitious groups, exists only when it lives and functions as a unity.1 In order that a group of individuals may live and function as a unity the individuals must be bound by some ties or bonds, either elected or compulsory, which unite them into one social group in life and not on paper only. These bonds make their lives and behavior closely interdependent, and infuse into their minds, in some form and to some degree, feelings of oneness, solidarity, and community of interests. Now what conditions have usually played the role of unifying bonds in rural communities or groups ? What are the roles of the factors that have created a real super- individual group from several individuals or a super-family com- munity from several families ? That is the question we face now.
The principal factors or ties have been as follows: (1) physio- logical kinship and community of blood or origin from the same physical or mystical (totemic) ancestors; (2) marriage; (3) simi- larity in religious and magical beliefs and rites; (4) similarity in native language and mores; (5) common possession and utiliza- tion of the land; (6) territorial proximity (neighborliness) ; (7) common responsibility (sometimes imposed by other groups) for the maintenance of order, payment of taxes, discharge of duties, etc., and common acquisition of certain privileges; (8) community of occupational interests; (9) community of various
1 See the developed theory of real and fictitious social groups in P. Sorokin, Sistema Soziologii, II, 16 ff.; A. A. Tschuprow, Ochcrkt po tcorii statistiki (Studies in Statistical Theory} (Russ.), pp. 75 ff.; B. Kistiakowski, Geselhchaft und Einzelwesen, pp. 130 ff,; see also R. M. Maclver, Community, pp. 22 0,; N. L. Sims, The Rural Community, pp. 133ff.
308 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
types of economic interests; (10) subjection to the same lord; (11) attachment, either free or compulsory, to the same social insti- tution or agency of social service and social control, such as the same police or political center, school, temple and church, trade agency, military authority, electional bureau, hospital, or any one of various other agencies; (12) common defense against a com- mon enemy and common dangers; (13) mutual aid; (14) general living, experiencing, and acting together.2 Each of these factors or conditions has been playing the role of a tie which has united a number of individuals into a real social group or number of families into a super-family group and hence has contributed to the unification of families into larger groups. When all of these binding conditions are lacking in any given group of individuals, they do not function as a social unity and hence do not constitute a real group. At least one of these bonds must be present in order that individuals may be united into social groups, whether that unification be strong or very slight.
3. The elementary and cumulative groups. — Since these are the "group-creating bonds" we can classify rural groups into a series of classes according to the number and the character of these ties. In the first place, we can classify them according to the number of the bonds that unite the individuals or families into one social group. From this standpoint it is possible to distinguish two main types of social groups. The elementary social group is one whose members are unified by only one of the above binding
3 Compare C. J. Galpin, Rural Life, 1918, chap, iv; Sanderson and O. Thompson, The Social Areas of Otsego County, Cornell U. Agric. Exper. Station Research Bull. No. 422; J. H. Kolb, Rural Primary Groups, U, of Wise. Agric. Exper. Station Bull. No. 51; J. H. Kolb and A. F. Wileden, Special Interest Groups, ibid., Bull. No. 84; E. H. Mor- gan and O. Howells, Rural Population Groups, U. of Mo. Agric. Exper. Station Research Bull. 74; C. C. Zimmerman and C. C. Taylor, Rural Organization, N. Carolina Agric. Exper. Station Bull. No. 245; P. P. Denune, Some Town-Country Relations in Union County, Ohio, Ohio State U. Studies, Sociol. Series No. 1 ; E. A. Taylor and F. R. Yoder, Rural Social Organisation, State College of Washington Agric. Exper. Station Bull. No. 203; N. L. Sims, Elements of Rural Sociology, chap, xxii-xxiv; W. H. Baumgartel, A Social Study of Ravalli County, Montana, Montana Agric. Exper. Station Bull. No. 160; B. L. Hummel, Community Organization in Missouri, U. of Mo. College of Agric. Circular 209; E. A. Wilson, Social Organization and Agencies in North Dakota, N. Dak. Agric. Exper. Station Bull. No. 221; L. Nelson, Escalaute, and The Utah farm Village of Ephraim, Bngham Young University Studies, Nos. 1 and 2; J. W. Badger, Rural Com- munity Halls in Montana, U. of Montana Agric. Exper. Station Bull. No. 221; H, J. Bun:, Contacts in a Rural Community, U. of Missouri Agric. Exper. Station Bull. No. 125, 1929; B. L. Melvin, Rural Population of New York,, and Village Service Agencies, New YorÂŁ, Cornell U. Agric. Exper. Station Bull. No. 493, and Uemoire, No. 116, 1928, 1929.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 309
ties, such as blood relationship, territorial proximity, or subjection to the same lord and so on. The cumulative social group is one whose members are bound together not by one, but by two or more binding ties (see Scheme 1). These cumulative groups or communities may be of various degrees of complexity or integra- tion: twofold, threefold, fourfold, etc., according to the number of the ties that bind the members together. For instance, we may have a group of cultivators who dwell in the same village (terri- torial tie) ; who are kinsmen (blood tie) ; who have the same reli- gion (religious tie); who are tenants of the same lord (subjec- tion tie); and who are collectively responsible for the mainte- nance of order in the village (collective responsibility tie), In this particular case the rural cumulative community is bound together by five ties — those of territory, blood, tenancy, religion, and responsibility. We may have another cumulative community of the fifth degree of complexity but bound together by ties of a dif- ferent nature. Likewise we may have various bonds combined to produce cumulative groups of the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and even of a higher degree of complexity. From this standpoint we have a great variety of types of com- munities according to both the number and the nature of the cumulated ties.
Schematically the elementary and cumulative groups may be represented as follows:
SCHEME 1
•H-H
Eie, mentarq ^roup Camcilahve §rc>up
This method of analysis enables us to comprehend the fact that possibly the most complex of all the cumulative groups has been the family. Its members are united into one community by a great number of ties of the most effective type— blood and ancestors; the same house; the same religion; the same mores; the same
310 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
points of attachment to social, political, and other centers; the permanence of mutual aid; the identity of practically all economic interests; collective, factual, or juridical responsibility; collective solidarity; the most intensive consciousness of oneness, etc. This very high degree of cumulative integration of the family even today has been the reason why the family, among a multitude of other groupings, has been easily discernible in all societies. The fact that the family has the highest degree of cumulative integra- tion has made it the social unity among all other social unities. The family is an "integrated cell" in the multitude of social groupings, always easily discernible, always tangible, "springing into the eyes" with its "concentrated cumulated unity."
From the above discussion it follows that, as soon as a part of the multitude of individuals living in the same locality are bound together by, say, five ties, while all the other individuals are bound together by only two of these five ties, such a multitude of indi- viduals represents a real social group (bound by two ties), but is subdivided internally into two groups, a part of its members being still more intimately bound together by three additional ties. Gen- erally, as soon as the number or nature of the bonds uniting indi- viduals is different for different parts of the population of a given locality j there results a further subdivision or social differentiation and stratification of the given population. The multitude of indi- viduals united constitute a real social group in regard to other groups, but under the conditions assumed above, they are further differentiated into subunits whether the group in question be the family, the owner, the tenant, or laborer subgroups, or what not.
In Scheme 2 each vertical line represents a farmer or a family of a given locality. The 30 farmers compose one group, A, all being united by one bond, the territorial. But within this group of individuals or families, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 30, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 26, and 25 are united by an additional tie (say a community of religion) and thus compose another unity, B. Within this unity B individuals or families 2, 3, 4, 30, 15, 16, 26, 25, and 29 are united by a third bond (say community of affiliation with the same politi- cal party), and thus constitute an additional unity, C. Finally this unity C is split up into two subgroups, D and E, the mem- bers of D perhaps coming from Norwegian stock, and the mem- bers of E from Italian stock. Members of these two subgroups
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION
311
will then be unified by an additional tie. Thus as the number of cumulative ties increases there appears a social unity within an- other social unity. There is, in other words, a division and subdi- vision of a given social group into two or more subgroups.
SCHEME 2
10
In this chapter we are interested only in the general aspect of the differentiation of rural populations into separate super-family communities or aggregates. An inner subdivision or differentia- tion and stratification of each of these communities or aggregates into further subgroups will be analyzed in another chapter. We may summarize this discussion as follows: first, the existence of any real social group presupposes (besides the condition of inter- action) the presence of one or more ties that bind the individuals into a social unity; second, the conditions that play the role of unifying bonds have been enumerated above; third, we can dis- criminate elementary and cumulative groups of various degrees of complexity according to the number of unifying bonds. These groups will also be of various types according to the nature of the binding conditions,3 In order that we may understand the morphological structure of any real social group or community
8 See the theory of elementary and cumulative social groups, with all their variety and complications, in P. Sorokin, Sistema Soziologii, Vol. II, passim.
312 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
we must know its composition from these standpoints. If we do not know these factors, we scarcely can obtain any clear knowl- edge of the structure and composition of a community or group.
4. The rural "cumulative community' and "rural junctional association!' — After the establishment of the above guiding prin- ciples in the morphological analysis of real social groups, we can proceed to a more detailed analysis of rural groups. A study of these groupings as they appear in various localities and at various times shows that some of the rural groupings have been elemen- tary, united by only one tie, such as territorial proximity, eco- nomic interests, blood relationship, religious unity, subjection to the same lord, a collective responsibility for the payment of the taxes and discharge of imposed duties, or gravitation to the same school, trading center, social service center, recreation center, etc.; while some other communities have been cumulative, differing according to the number and nature of the ties which have char- acterized the community.4 A consideration of these facts makes it plain that it is hopeless to try to view various rural communities and groupings as uniform in their structure and composition everywhere and at all times.
Stressing this variety of the morphological structure of various rural groupings, we believe at the same time that it is possible to discriminate two quite distinct morphological types of rural social organization, other types being intermediate between these two extreme forms. The first type is represented by many ancient rural groups which kept their clan organization when they set- tled on the land. The second type is represented by the contempo- rary farm population in many regions of the United States of America and in some other countries. We know that a clan was a manifolded cumulative group whose members were united into one "inseparable" body by the community of descent from real or totemic ancestors, by real or totemic kinship, by community of religious and magical beliefs, by community of rites and cere- monies, by common need of mutual protection, by a common moral code and common mores, by community of the most vital interests, by the same language and the same authorities, by com- mon action in war and vengeance, by common actions in procur-
4 The binding power of the above ties is not equal : some of them, such as blood rela- tionship, as a rule bind more intensively than others, such as residence in the same school district.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 313
ing their means of subsistence, etc. In other words, the tribe or clan was a social group very closely united by a multiplicity of the most vital ties. The result was a great engulfment of the indi- vidual or of a separate family by the super-family social body. We know that many early rural communities were merely clans set- tled on the land, and that the close integration of the clan con- tinued to exist in the early territorial groups of the cultivators. Even later, when this extreme integrity of the community was considerably weakened, there were still numerous and vital ties in many communities such as: kinship; community of land posses- sion; collective responsibility for the maintenance of order and payment of taxes; community of governing institutions; and often an attachment to the same manor or subjection to the same lord; similarity in language, religion, and mores; self -sufficiency in the satisfaction of vital needs; and, finally, territorial proximity of the members and their geographical and psycho-social isolation from other groups. These bonds kept the integration of the com- munity at a high point.
Let us glance now at the opposite type of social organization of the rural population. In the highly urbanized and industrial- ized countries many of these bonds weakened and disappeared. Consequently the rural cumulative group began to disintegrate more and more. The improvement of roads and means of com- munication destroyed the geographical isolation of the rural com- munity and merged it in the larger sea of the human population. The growth of the division of labor between the city and the country eliminated the self-sufficiency of the country and robbed the rural community of the tie of economic unification. The divi- sion of labor among the cultivators melted and reduced the ties of collective work and activity; the transition from community landownership to private landownership broke the bond that had been imposed by community land possession; the scattering of the cultivators from a village community to dispersed farms led to the disappearance of the tie of close territorial proximity; kinship, as a social tie, has been practically obliterated; increas- ing religious, moral, and social heterogeneity of the cultivators weakened the ties that had previously existed by virtue of their homogeneity in these respects; the abolition of serfdom and lord- ship liberated them from the binding chain of attachment to the
314
SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
same lord and master; equalization of the rights and duties of the cultivators with those of other citizens made them less distinct as a special group, as did also the annulment of the collective respon- sibility of the members of rural communities. These and simi-
SCHEME 3
Commcinitcj C
lar processes carried away one after another the majority of the ties that had previously made the members of a rural group a highly integrated social unity.
Because of the factors we have mentioned and others similar, the majority of the bonds that had united the rural group were cut, and as a result the cumulative community has been more and more disassociated, disintegrated, atomized, and weakened. Such was the process of this disintegration in a schematical and rough form. In many places such as contemporary United States of America, it has brought a situation in which we find only
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION
315
slight traces of the existence of a cumulative rural community among the cultivators. In fact, American investigators have had great difficulty in determining whether or not "the rural com- munity" actually exists. In many places all that we find is the existence of several overlapping and overcrossing elementary groupings of the farmers (groupings around the trading or school centers, or so-called "special interest groupings," in the ter- minology of Kolb). These two extreme types, "communities" and "groupings," are depicted schematically and in a very simpli- fied form in Schemes 3 and 4.
SCHEME 4
In Scheme 3 we see clearly the three different communities, each of which is "a world in itself," the members of each of which are bound into a unity by several cumulative ties.
In Scheme 4 we see practically no cumulative community, but a mere network of overlapping and fancifully overcrossing ele- mentary groupings. In Scheme 4 let grouping A be religious affiliation; B, political party; Q cooperative organization; D, the school affiliations. Each of these groupings embraces only a part of the farmers of a given locality and unites even that part by one or at most a few ties. In the first type (Scheme 3) the community
316
SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
usually has clear-cut territorial boundaries, which, together with the other ties, makes it easy to determine the location of the community or its center, and the boundaries between communi- ties. The factual situation is, of course, in many instances, more complex. Sometimes (among the dispersed rural population) there are no visible territorial boundary lines which separate one cumulative community from the others. However, since amidst such a dispersed population there are families united by several specific cumulative ties with one another, while they are united with other families only by one or two bonds, it is always pos- sible to find such a cumulative community and separate it from other cumulative communities or elementary groups of a given lo- cality. Territorial proximity is only one of the ties and does not necessarily have to be present in order that a cumulative com- munity may exist. Scheme 5 depicts the situation.
SCHEME 5
Cumulative comma nihj A
Cumulative
I x|'*^"I3J..Z!lII.*.;i I TVV Cumulativ
J- — _ , /iFiih 4-THjt M, "T"1"
-
Cumulative commanitq C
In such a community as represented by Scheme 3 the individ- ual members are united very closely, with the result that each community appears as an island in the sea of human population. On the other hand, the community itself is tangibly separated from other communities and from the world outside itself. In the second type of groupings (Scheme 4) it is difficult to deter-
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION
317
mine the location of the community, or the boundary line be- tween communities. The reason for this is that no one grouping embraces all the farmers of a given locality; in addition, each of the groupings in which some of the farmers of a given locality
SCHEME 6
Remap" Catholics I
i_— - All Methodbb
/ Ail
/ — Greek- / Orthodox
are involved has many members from other farming localities as well as from nonfarming groups and extends over an area far beyond that of the locality, sometimes over the whole coun- try or over the world. For instance, 150 of 250 farm families of a given locality are affiliated with the Methodist Church, 50 fami-
318
SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
SCHEME 7 All Republicans
Iv
/ ' \— R AU
f \ Farmer-
\
Laborites
All Democrat's
lies with the Roman Catholic Church, and the remaining 50 families with the Greek Orthodox Church. In respect to religion, the entire group of farmers of this locality is split into three groupings, but each of these groupings is affiliated with world religious organizations and by virtue of this fact is in indirect contact with all those countries and areas in which such religious organizations exist. The same thing may be said with regard to the political affiliation of the farmers of a given locality, for here again they are divided and have no general tie. Each faction,
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 319
through its affiliation with its party, comes into contact with an organization of far greater extent than the locality of the farmers. The lines of this political differentiation will not coincide in the main with lines of differentiation according to religious affilia- tion. A similar phenomenon is observed if we consider groupings on the basis of nationality, cooperative organization, tax payment, school affiliation, or many other forms of groupings. Schemes 6 and 7 depict the situation.
In these schemes each vertical line depicts a farmer and the totality of the lines represents all the farmers of a given locality. Scheme 6 shows their differentiation on a religious basis into three groups and the connection of each of these local groups with the world organizations of the three religious bodies. Thus the local group does not constitute a unity, but each differentiated group is linked with other people scattered throughout the world. Scheme 7 shows the same phenomenon in regard to the political differentiation of the farmers. A comparison of the two shows that the religious and the political groups do not coincide. If to these schemes are added schemes that would depict the affiliations of the same farmers with nationality groups, with trade centers, with schools, with cooperative organizations, etc., the differentia- tion of the local group would appear still greater and the con- trast to the cumulative groups discussed previously would be still more conspicuous.
Under such conditions it is difficult to determine where the community is, where its boundaries are, and which individuals constitute its membership. The question arises as to what is to be taken as the basis of the community. If we take gravitation to the trade center, the community map will be of one kind; if we take as the basis, gravitation to the schools, the recreation hall, the church, or the cooperative organization, the map of the communi- ties and their membership will be different in each case, and will differ from the results secured when we took as the basis gravi- tation to the trade center. In each of these cases there will be many different elementary groupings, and no cumulative group with a definite territorial abode, or with a membership composed of all the neighboring farmers. Several investigators have tried to find the location of the community on the basis of the name with which the farmers who were questioned styled the locality
320 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
in "which they lived.5 But it is rather evident that the mere fact that there is a name given to the locality in which several farmers live does not necessarily mean that there is any real integration or grouping of these farmers into one community. As a rule, the farmers residing in a locality of the same name compose either a fictitious, statistical community, or at the best such a community may represent only some territorial grouping of the farmers, and territorial grouping is only one of the elementary groupings among many others, no one of which will probably coincide in its entirety with the boundary lines of the territorial grouping. In addition, the membership of any one of these other elementary groupings will be considerably different from the totality of farm families living in a locality that is designated by one name.6
The territorial proximity remains; but since the farms are not clustered into villages with an uninhabited space between them, mere territorial proximity does not indicate where one com- munity ends and another begins. It is true that the mere fact of territorial proximity constitutes a bond of union between terri- torial neighbors, but, if this territorial tie is not reinforced by other ties, it remains weak arid, what is more important, does not indicate in itself the boundary lines between various communi- ties.7
8 See the studies cited of C. J. Galpin, Dwight Sanderson, E. H. Morgan, J. H. Kolb, C. C. Taylor, C. C. Zimmerman, Lowry Nelson, B. L. Hummel, W. H. Baumgartel, and others.
"This has been found in practically all these studies. In 121 local groups studied by Kolb, 6 of the names of the farmers' neighborhoods were "accidental," 1 was due to the economic institution, 3 were due to the educational institution, 40 were the names of previous settlers or of the families questioned; 8 were due to the nationality of the settlers, 39 were due to natural phenomena (Blue Valley, The Ridge, Spring Valley, Hundred Mile Grove, etc.), 4 took the name of the post office, 5 were due to various social institutions, and 15 took the name of the official township. The other investigators mentioned found somewhat similar results. The testimony of these results is clear. First, the name with which several farmers designate their locality does not mean that a real grouping exists among these farmers; second, these localities with a name do not compose a real cumulative group, but, instead, the farmers are united only into a series of heterogeneous and overlapping elementary groupings of various kinds and with different membership.
7 This is one of the reasons why some of the investigators, for instance, B. L. Hum- mel, introduce as a criterion of the community, the Aristotelian concept of self-sufficiency. Hummel distinguishes a community from a neighborhood by regarding as communities only such territorial aggregates as are self-sufficient as communities. (B. L. Hummel, op. cit., p. 2.) But it is evident that in this case only the whole country or only the whole of mankind would compose Hummel's "community," because under the present conditions of division of labor, neither large inhabited areas nor even many nations are self-sufficient, that is, satisfy by themselves all their needs.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 321
The tie of the territorial neighborhood is often reinforced in some way by other ties, for instance, by grouping the population on territorial bases into counties, townships, congressional dis- tricts, state electoral districts, school districts, and so on. If the lines of these various territorial constituencies should coincide more or less, the population embraced by them would com- pose a variety of the cumulative community. If, however, these lines do not coincide, as is true in many cases, then the ter- ritorial proximity of dispersed farms remains a very weak ele- mentary tie and does not indicate the boundary dividing one community from another. There exists a mere aggregate of ter- ritorial neighbors, divided into several groupings of special in- terests, rather than a cumulative community composed of the total population of a locality.
This discussion indicates that the structure of the above two types of rural groupings is different. Since these two types of groupings are different, it may serve to clarify future discussion if we designate them by different names. The name "cumulative community" is more suitable for the designation of the cumula- tive and territorially outlined rural groups of the first type; the name "functional association" or "differentiated grouping" is proper for the designation of the rural population groupings of the second type. Other groupings of the rural population are in- termediary between these two types.
5. Other characteristics associated with the cumulative com- munity and functional associations. — The difference in the struc- ture of the rural cumulative community and the rural aggregate with functional associations or differentiated groupings is natu- rally connected with a series of other differences between the cumulative community and the population differentiated into functional associations. The most important of them may be given in schematical form as follows:
(a) The population of the cumulative rural community is more strongly attached to the community and less strongly attached to the world outside itself. The population with differentiated rural groupings is attached to a less degree to the territorial neigh- bors and is attached in a greater degree to the members of the same groupings even though they may be outside the locality, sometimes even in different countries.
322 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
(b) The solidarity of the population of a cumulative rural com- munity is concentrated and localized within it. The community embraces all the members but it does not extend much beyond the local group. The solidarity of the rural population with the differentiated groupings does not extend over all the rural neigh- bors but is limited to the neighbors who are members of the same groupings; on the other hand, it extends beyond the boundary of the locality to all members of the same grouping even though they are far away (to members of the same nationality, cooperative or- ganization of a national character, religious organization, etc.). Since these groupings are several and different the solidarity is dif- fused and pulverized along these different lines; for this reason it is less concentrated and less intensive.
(c) The network of differentiated groupings and their solidari- ties is, in general, more flexible and changes more often than the network of the cumulative community. The former is similar to the complex network of telephone lines in a city in which the network of "connections" changes incessantly. One group of per- sons is talking at a given moment; another group at another mo- ment. Some persons who were talking a moment ago are discon- nected, and new persons are now included in the system. The result is that the network of telephone talkers changes kaleido- scopically all the time. Affiliating with, and resigning from, the majority of the elementary groupings is voluntary. In this re- spect we may contrast the present economic, recreational, educa- tional, cultural, and similar ties with the prevalent bonds of the cumulative community, such as common blood, community of race, comomnity of land possession imposed by the state, etc. Since the nature of the ties in these differentiated groupings or functional associations is such that they may be put on, and taken off, like a suit, the greater flexibility of such groupings, the more fluid composition of their membership, and even the shorter duration of life of many of the groupings themselves is naturally facilitated. Differentiated groupings may appear and disappear. (See Professor Kolb's analysis of the duration and changes in the "special interest" groupings as an illustration of this point.) Many of the cumulative communities are and must be less flexible in the number and fluidity of the individuals who compose them. They must also be more durable. Since their mem-
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 323
bers are bound by many ties, and since some of these ties, espe- cially mythical or blood kinship, are such that they cannot be put on or taken off easily and depend but little on the free volition of the individual, the community is rigid, stable, and relatively durable. It often appears naturally (clan-villages) and, rather than being dissolved artificially, it usually requires a funda- mental change in the existing social and economic conditions to produce maladjustment, disorganization, and death.
(d) "Neighbor" in the cumulative rural community means all the members of the community; that is, practically all those who dwell in the same locality and who are bound by cumulative ties. "The neighbor" means a man who dwells in territorial proximity and who, at the same time is "like-minded" in his religion, occu- pation, and language, is often a kinsman, and is a copartner in land possession and in the totality of rights and privileges. "Neighbor" in the rural population differentiated into various functional associations means either a territorial neighbor and nothing more, or else another member of the same elementary grouping who may be outside the locality entirely. Territorial neighborliness here is much weaker than in the cumulative rural community, for it is not reinforced by as many other bonds. The neighborliness of the functional groupings excludes many terri- torial neighbors. It amounts to not a great deal more than the neighborliness of two neighboring roomers in the city who are near spatially, but who, nevertheless, often do not know the name, life history, or anything else concerning each other, and who, moreover, do not care to know each other. As the groupings in this latter type of rural population are different and numerous, the group's neighborliness is again somewhat split, pulverized, and, through this, weakened in intensity.
The contemporary village in the United States and Canada gives an example of this. That the modern American rural aggre- gate, and to a less degree, the modern European one, is not a cumulative community (as it was supposed to be by several in- vestigators) but a differentiated aggregate holds true. In spite of the small size of the aggregate (from 250 to 2,500 population) and the territorial proximity of the villagers, the American vil- lage of today has very little in common with a cumulative com- munity. In the first place, it is not so much an agricultural ag-
324 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
gregate as a business, manufacturing, and trading agglomeration. The largest occupational group of such villages is not the agri- cultural group, but those engaged in manufacturing and mechani- cal pursuits. The next largest group consists of those engaged in trade (with the exception of the Far West, where the agricul- tural group is second). In the Middle Atlantic region, the third largest occupation is transportation, while in the South and Mid- dle West the third place is occupied by agriculture. With the ex- ception of the above regions agriculture occupies only the fourth place and is followed by professional service as the fifth largest occupational group.8
Thus, occupationally, the contemporary American village is not predominantly agricultural, but represents a melting pot of vari- ous and quite different occupational groups. Socially it is also very heterogeneous, less so than the large cities but much more than any cumulative community. It is differentiated and stratified to a considerable extent. Its male population contains from 28 to 31 per cent of laborers; from 18 to 25 per cent of proprietors, managers, and officials; from 14 to 19 per cent of skilled work- ers; from 9 to 14 per cent of clerks; and from 8 to 16 per cent of semiskilled workers. Among the females the variation is still greater. Further, from the standpoint of national and economic (income groups) composition, or religious, political, and cultural affiliations, the village population again shows a great hetero- geneity, which has proceeded so far in some respects that the vil- lage aggregate appears over organized and over differentiated. The population of a small village often happens to be differen- tiated into too many functional associations. On the average one village has 5.6 churches, about 16 church organizations, from 6 to 8 lodges, several civic organizations, 27 social organizations, and from 8 to 10 economic associations. On the average there are 21.1 village organizations and 16.1 church organizations, or all to- gether about 37 different organizations per village.9
Such a superabundance of various functional associations is a significant symptom of the great differentiation of the village population into specified groupings, and indicates that the village
8 See C. Luther Fry, American Villages, New York, 1926, pp. 77 ff.; also B. L, Melvin, Rural Population of N. Y., 1928; Social Relationships of Slatfrville Springs, Cornell University, 1930.
"Edmund Brunner, Gwendolyn S. Hughes, and Marjorie Patten, American Agricul- tural Villages, New York, 1927, pp. 175 ff.; see also Fry's work cited; H. P. Douglass,
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 325
as a whole is not a cumulative community. It is true that the tie of territorial proximity remains and it binds the villagers together into a sort of neighborhood group.10 However, it is a weak neigh- borhood, since its members are bound together only by this tie and are differentiated in regard to other binding characteristics. It is true the village aggregate still remains nearer to a cumu- lative community than the population of a large city, but this does not mean that it is really a cumulative community. In this respect it is perhaps farther from the real, clear-cut, and many- bonded cumulative communities than from the urban aggregate of a large city. On the contrary, the Mexican Ejidos, the American Quaker Hills of some time ago, and the earlier agrarian vil- lages were certainly cumulative groupings.11
(e) It is easy to see that the organization of the rural popula- tion differentiated into several functional groupings is much near- er to the social organization of the city than to the organization of the cumulative rural community. We have seen that the city population is much more heterogeneous, differentiated, and strati- fied (chapter iv). Hence, the aggregate of the city population is differentiated along many lines into numerous functional group- ings and has very little in common with a manifold cumulative community whose members are bound together by many ties and isolated from the population of other cities by a ditch of many cumulative differences. Such cumulative communities are melted in the city population and replaced by the most differentiated elementary groupings, which interlace in the most fanciful way. The differentiated groupings of the rural population are becom- ing similar to the differentiated organization of the city, though the urban network of differentiated groupings is even more dif- ferentiated, complex, and fanciful than that of the rural popula- tion.
(f) From the standpoint of the social affiliation of the mem- bers, the cumulative community type of social organization is quite different from the differentiated grouping type. A member
The Little Town, 1927; B. L. Melvin, Village Service Agencies, New York, 1929; J. W. Badger, The Rural Community Chtb in Montana, Montana U. Exper. Station Bull, No. 224, 1930.
10 See H. P. Douglass, op. cit., p. 54.
"See Warren Wilson, Quaker Hill, 1905; F. Tannenbaum, The Mexican Agrarian Revolution, 1929; N. L. Sims, A Hoosier Village, 1912; J. M. Williams, An American Town, 1907; and also dozens of European and Asiatic community monographs cited elsewhere.
326 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
of the cumulative community may be compared to a man who carries all his insurance policies and all his investments in the same insurance-investment company— his cumulative community. A member of the aggregate with differentiated groupings is similar to a man who carries his life insurance in one insurance company, his accident insurance in a second, his insurance against theft in a third, his insurance against fire in a fourth; one part of his savings in one kind of bonds, a second part in another, a third part in one bank, a fourth part in another, and so on. The mem- ber of the cumulative community may be said to be bound to it for life and death; if the community fails, he is ruined; if the community prospers, he prospers. Hence he is organically at- tached to his community and very devoted to it; it molds him into the same form as his fellow members; his personality, desires, and volitions are those of his community. For this reason the members of the cumulative community are quite similar and highly like-minded, with a well-developed consciousness of the community and with a feeling of oneness and solidarity that is organic and deeply rooted. Under such circumstances there is a natural collective responsibility and collective consciousness. The fault of a member is the fault of the community; the achieve- ments of a member are the achievements of the community; the community rather than the individual is the social unit that bears the responsibility. The community engulfs the individual and makes him an integral part of itself.
The member of the population split into differentiated group- ings is in quite a different position. Since he is insured in many companies, and since his savings are distributed among many dif- ferent banks and firms, he is attached to some extent to all of them but is not attached for life and death to any one. He can- not give all his zeal and devotion to any one of them for he knows that if one company fails there are other companies and banks. His personality and interests are, therefore, divided among all these different companies. Each of them stamps his personality to some degree, but no one of them wields a monopolistic power in its formation. Hence the personality of such a member is a mosaic, as are also his volitions, desires, ideas, and interests: there is a little bit from this grouping, a little bit from that group- ing, another bit from a third grouping, etc. He is not engulfed
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 327
entirely by any single grouping, but, being separate from all of them, he is said to be an "individualist," a center connected with many, but not dissolved by any, or in any, of these groupings. His solidarity, split among these various groupings, is relatively weak with reference to any one of them, and may be compared in this respect to the love of a man attached to many women. Under such circumstances his solidarity and relationships with his numerous partners in various groupings is not organic but artificial, or contractual. It does not arise naturally but orig- inates from a weighing of his interests, profits, and payments; it assumes the form of a contract in which the respective rights and duties of the parties are definitely agreed, have definite limits, and are outlined clearly in order that one party may not deceive the other.12
Such are the positions of the members within the cumulative community and within the aggregate which is differentiated into many functional groupings. The structure of the two aggregates themselves and the character of the personality and behavior of the members are conspicuously different in the two cases. Other existing rural aggregates occupy various positions intermediate between the extreme types which we have described.
The question as to which of these types has predominated in the past or which one predominates in the present cannot be an- swered in too simple a manner. Although the progress of the division of labor together with increased urbanization has facili- tated the disintegration of the rural cumulative communities and promoted the development of the rural aggregates with differen- tiated functional associations, nevertheless, in various countries and at various periods there have been many changes and many types of rural organization which were sometimes nearer to the former, sometimes to the latter type. For instance, we have al- ready called attention to the fact that in many places the earliest cultivators were settled, not in villages, but in the form of scat-
12 See further development of these typological characteristics in F. Tonnies, Gemein- schaft ttnd Gesellschaft, passim; G. Simmel, TJber soztalc Diffcrcnzierung; E. Durkheim, De la division du travail social, pp. 103 fT.; I. G. Ipsen, "Das Dorf als Beispiel einer echten Gruppe," Archiv jttr angewandte Soziologie, 1928, Vol. I, Nos. 4-5. At the same time, it must be remembered that the contemporary American village is nearer to the cumulative stage than the city populations. A study of the investments oÂŁ Minnesota villagers showed that they are closely related to the farmers because they also invest in farm lands either personally or at second hand through local banks. That is exactly why a farm depression affects villagers more than city people.
328 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
tered and separated farmsteads. (See above the paper of A. De- mangeon.) Even though the families of the homesteads of a given locality were probably bound together by kinship, religion, mu- tual need for protection, and other ties, we cannot assume dog- matically that this would be true for all the families of a given locality or for all places where such primary settlements existed. In some cases the ties between different families of such scattered homesteads might be so weak that the totality of the families would not constitute a strongly bound cumulative community. Their totality would resemble rather a mere sum of the families who were territorial neighbors, but who had in common only rare and sporadic relationships, unstable groupings, and insignifi- cant common activities. Such a type of rural population is neither the cumulative community, nor an aggregate with differentiated groupings (because there are no such groupings). Similar inter- mediate types have existed in many places at various periods. For these reasons, it is impossible to depict the evolution of the forms of rural organization in a rigid rectilinear way as a per- petual transition from the cumulative community to the rural aggregate with differentiated groupings, or vice versa. Though the latter type of rural organization has been gaining with the increase of urbanization and industrialization, nevertheless the cumulative community type is still widespread in various coun- tries, especially in the Orient. Further, while in almost all Euro- pean countries the cumulative type is weakening at the present moment, in Soviet Russia it is being fostered; the policy of the Soviet government tends to create so-called "collective farm en- terprises," whose members are bound by the territorial tie, by collective responsibility, by collective work, by collective produc- tion and possession, by community of subjection to the same au- thorities, and so on.13 In addition, in the past there were many types of rural organization which were nearer to the aggregate with many groupings along different lines than to the cumulative community type.
6. Readings. — After this delineation of guiding principles, we present several fragments taken from various sources. The pur-
18 See, besides the sources given in the next two chapters the article, "Soviets in the Districts of the Complete Collectivization of Farms," Isvestia (official paper of the Soviet government), August 31, 1929; and almost every copy of it for the end of 1929 and for 1930.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 329
pose of these readings is to furnish historical cases which show in a more detailed form and with historical concreteness the types of rural organization that we have schematically outlined. They show further the kinds of ties that have bound together the indi- viduals and the families of the rural population in various times and places. In addition to this, they give several types that are in- termediate between the two extreme types analyzed. Finally, they present several additional details which are not mentioned in this introduction but which are worthy of notice. In accordance with this plan the subsequent types of rural organization will be classed into two principal groups: first, cumulative rural communities and second, rural population differentiated into functional group- ings. It should be remembered, however, that various types in each of these groups are not equally cumulative or equally dif- ferentiated, but many are intermediate between the two extremes. In the first part of the readings we give the samples of the rural cumulative communities in ancient Egypt, China, India, early Europe, and relatively recent Europe. The readings of the second part give various specific examples of the rural aggregates differ- entiated into special groupings. In spite of some disagreement (perhaps mostly in terminology) in the conclusions of Amer- ican investigators in the field, practically all the studies give very clear evidence either of the nonexistence or the very slight ex- istence only of rural cumulative groups (in the above meaning of the phrase) in the rural population studied. If Dr. Charles J. Galpin found something similar to such cumulative groups in his sample, he found it only in the sense of "the rurban community" but not for the rural dwellers outside of the city and village centers. Such grouping in itself is an indication of a rather spe- cial but not a cumulative type. Furthermore, his maps of various groupings of the population along the trade, banking, school, church, and other centers do not coincide with one another, or coincide only to a slight extent. This indicates that, even in the sense of "the rurban areas," the groupings of the farm population are cumulative only to some degree and are divergent or special to a considerable degree.14
14 It should be mentioned that in a somewhat different and more integrated form the "rurban1' aggregate existed also in the past. Here are a few examples. In Greece, Rome, and Asia "every city had a large 'territory,' that is to say, a large tract of land which to- gether with the city itself formed a political, social, and economic unit. ... In these
330 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
In the numerous studies cited for the United States—those by
D. Sanderson and O. Thompson, J. H. Kolb, E. H. Morgan and O. Howells, C C. Zimmerman and C. C. Taylor, P. P. Denune,
E. A. Taylor and F. R. Yoder, W. H. Baumgartel, B. L. Hummel, E. A. Wilson, C. Luther Fry, H. P. Douglass, E. de S. Brunner, L. Nelson, and a few others— in spite of the desire of their authors to find the basis and the boundaries of the rural community in America, factually they failed to find the cumulative rural com- munity in any real sense.15 All they found was the existence of the rural population divided into many special groupings with all the characteristics of such groupings mentioned above. If, at the beginning of these American studies, the investigators had some hope of finding a cumulative rural community as a prevalent type of social organization among the American farmers, later on, as the investigations continued, such hope faded more and more. As a result, there have recently been published several studies in this field which have explicitly recognized the disappearance of cumulative communities among the American rural population and the growing replacement of them by the special functional groupings or "interest groups." One of the most conspicuous sam-
terntories the land was in the hands of the city bourgeoisie, those whom Cicero calls the possessors or aratores. , . . The labor employed for tilling the soil and herding the sheep was probably both slave and free labor (furnished by small tenants) for the fields, almost wholly slave labor for the pastures. , . . Besides the land which was divided among the citizens, many of the ancient Greek cities possessed extensive tracts which were cultivated and inhabited by natives who lived in their old-fashioned villages. From the Roman point of view these villages were 'attached' or 'attributed' to the city; from the Greek point of view the villages were inhabited by 'by-dwellers* who never had had and were never destined to have the full rights of municipal citizenship."
This means that in all these countries there were clearly cut "rurban areas"; the culti- vators— free or unfree — of each of these areas were bound together and to the city by many ties and in this way composed an aggregate more integrated than the contempo- rary "rurban aggregate." (M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, pp. 180, 194, 237 and passim.)
The same is true of the medieval cities and their "rurban" areas. Each of the cities had its own trade area, which it kept in monopoly, partly even in a compulsory way: the rural population of the surrounding territory was obliged to buy and to sell, and to pay corresponding duties at the market of the city to which it was "attached." Besides, such a city was an administrative center and the military center and the refuge and the religious and cultural center for its rural territory. Add to this that the rural territory was attached to the city through the landlords of the rural lands who dwelt in the city. The result was that the city and its rural hinterland were bound into one "rurban" com- munity probably much stronger than any "rurban" community of the modern time. See about this in the excerpt from Sombart given in chap. iii. See also H. Pirenne, Medieval Cities, chaps, ii-iv.
15 See the introduction to this chapter and footnotes 2, 8, and 9, where the titles of these studies are given.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 331
pies of these studies is that of J. H. Kolb and A. F. Wileden, enti- tled Special Interest Groups in Rural Society. In 1920 Kolb thought he found cumulative communities in Wisconsin; in 1925 he was sure that such did not exist. Kolb's most recent study shows the following:
At one time the neighborhood was the accepted unit for organiza- tion. It was the face-to-face group. It was an area in which everyone had common concerns. The very proximity of life made for group consciousness. Consequently the school district, the country church parish, the exchange threshing ring, or the alternation of social parties followed neighborhood lines, or, as the case may have been, neighbor- hood boundaries were set by these relationships. There were many common interests; therefore, group organizations could be few, sim- ple, and include most everyone.
By the time this group pattern was well set, factors were at work breaking down these locality arrangements and setting the stage for new alignments. This neighborhood pattern was found in some of its last phases in 1920 when the Rural Primary Groups study was made in Dane County, Wisconsin.
Changes were evident at that time. Since then, a new chapter in the organization history of the county has been enacted. The present study of five other Wisconsin counties shows the same tendencies. Neighborhood groups are no longer the important organization units. Grouping arrangements are along new lines. These groups are more largely determined by the interests, the deliberate intent, the purposive action of people, than by locality relations. Locality groups have lateral or geographic dimensions. Interest groups have perpendicular or psycho-cultural dimensions. Locality groups depend upon common life, proximity, residence in a recognized physical area. Interest groups depend upon polarity, promotion, special concerns, leadership, deliber- ate effort. This polarity implies fields of magnetic influence. When thus released from locality restrictions certain people are attracted to certain of these poles of interest.10
A study of these special interest groupings in five counties of Wisconsin has shown the existence of 351 organizations among the farmers of those counties. The following table shows the character of these organizations or groupings :
14 J. H. Kolb and A. F. Wileden, Special Interest Groups in Rural Society, U. of Wise. Agric. Exper. Station Research Bull. No. 84, Madison, December, 1927. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. See also Badger's study cited, pp. 4-5.
332 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
|
NUMBER |
PERCENTAGE |
|
|
Parent-teacher associations |
. 47 |
13.4 |
|
Farmers' clubs . |
46 |
13.1 |
|
Community clubs |
. 42 |
12.0 |
|
4-H clubs |
34 |
9.7 |
|
Home-makers' clubs |
20 |
5.7 |
|
Cooperative creameries . . |
20 |
5.7 |
|
Spray rings |
14 |
4.0 |
|
Breeders' associations . |
. 10 |
2.8 |
|
Horticultural societies . |
8 |
2.3 |
|
Cow-testing associations |
7 |
2.0 |
|
Cooperative shipping associations . |
. . 7 |
2.0 |
|
Milk producers' associations |
5 |
1.4 |
|
Miscellaneous (63 names) |
. . . 91 |
25.9 |
Total .351 100.0
It is comprehensible further, that not all farmers of a given territorial neighborhood are members of each of these organiza- tions, and each of them embraces only a very small percentage of the total population of a given neighborhood (the average mem- bership of the organizations is about forty). The membership of the organizations is naturally fluid or changing in its composi- tion. The average length of life of the organizations is limited and rather short (two years or less). In brief, the study shows that the rural population studied is not a cumulative community but an aggregate divided into many functional groupings with all the fundamental characteristics of such a confused aggregate (indi- cated above).
The factual results of the preceding American studies were very similar. At the best they showed the existence of only slight traces of the cumulative community among the farmers studied.17
The situation in Europe is somewhat similar. There also the cumulative rural community tends to disappear and to be replaced by the functional associations of the farmers and peasants. The subsequent readings about European countries give two examples
17 In view of a wide circulation of these studies among the American specialists, their accessibility, and the well-known character of their conclusions, we do not give them in the subsequent readings. But we estimate their scientific value very highly and regard this type of study as indispensable for anyone engaged in an investigation of rural organization. The principal conclusions about the contemporary type of rural organiza- tion among the American and, partly, among European farmers and peasants as given in this introduction, arc based primarily upon the results of these studies.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 333
of groupings of the intermediate types between the two extreme types outlined.
As an introduction to the papers which outline the types of the differentiated rural aggregates, some fragments from the famous work of F. le Play are given. These fragments depict Le Play's theory of the general characteristics of agricultural social organi- zation as such has existed in all prosperous societies.
Two other papers give a picture of the transition from the cumulative rural community to the aggregate with functional groupings among the rural people of Germany and England. With slight variations, a similar process is taking place among the rural populations of almost all Western (and, in a less degree, Eastern) countries.
ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADAMS, H. B., Common Fields in Salem, Johns Hopkins University Studies
in History and Political Science, Vol. I, Nos. 9-10. AUGE-LARIBE, MICHEL, L' evolution de la France agricole (Paris, 1912).
, Le paysan francctis apres la guerre (Paris, 1927).
BABEAU, A., La vie rurale dans I'ancienne France (1885).
, Le village sous I'ancien regime (1882).
BEAUCHET, L., Histoire de la propriete -fonder e en Suede (Paris, 1904).
BENE, L., Gesellschaft des Dorfes (Budapest, 1925).
BLAHA, A., Sociologie Sedlaty a delnika (1924).
BOGISIC, V., De la form dite ino\osna de la famille rurale chez les Serbes
et Croates (Paris, 1884). BRANSON, E. C., Farm Life Abroad (1924). BRANTS, V., Histoire des classes rurales aux Pays-Bas (1880). BRTJNNER, H., Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte (1906), Vol. I. BUJAK, F., Zmiaca, Studya Ekonomiczno-Spoleczne (Krakow, 1902).
, Limanowa (Krakow, 1902).
BULL, E., Vergleichende Studien uber die Kulturverhdltnisse des Bauern-
tums (Oslo, 1930).
CAGGESE, R., Classe e commune rurali nel media evo Italiano (1909), 2 vols. Codex for National Life and Customs of S. Slavs, published by the South- Slavonic Academy (Zagreb, 1896-1929), edited by A. Radic and D.
Boranic, 21 vols.
Cvijic, JOVAN, La peninsule bal^anique (Paris, 1918). DENIS, E., Huss et la guerre des Hussites (Paris, 1878). DITCHFIELD, P. H., Old Village Life (New York, 1920). FUSTEL DE COULANGES, NuMA D., Histoire des institutions politiques de
I'ancienne France (Paris, 1887-1890), Vols. III-IV. GOMME, G. L., The Village Community (London, 1890). GRAS, N. S. B., and GRAS, E. C., The Economic and Social History of an
English Village (Cambridge, 1930).
334 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
GUNTHER, A., Die Alpenlandische Gesellschajt (Jena, 1930).
HANSSEN, G., "Ansichten iiber das Agrarwesen der Vorzeit," in the Neues
staatsburgerliches Magazin, Vol. Ill (1835), and Vol. VI (1837). HORVAT, V., The Croatian Village Community in Yugo-Slavia (Ithaca,
1929). IPSEN, G., "Das Dorf als Beispiel einer echten Gruppe," Archiv. f. ange-
wandte Soziologie (1928), Nos. 4-5.
IRVINE, HELEN D., The Making of Rural Europe (London, 1923). KACHAROVSKI, K., Russian Obschina (Russ.) (1906). KAUFMAN, A. A.5 Russian Obschina in the Process of Its Origin and
Growth (Russ.) (Moscow, 1908). KLUCHEVSKY, V., A History of Russia, 4 vols. KOVALEVSKY, M., Die oJ^onomische Entwictyung Europas (Leipzig, 1896-
1910), 6 vols.
LAVELEYE, EMILE DE, Primitive Property (London, 1878). L'HouET, A., Zur Psychologic des Bauerntums (1905). MACLEAR, ANNE B., Early New England Towns, Columbia University
Studies in Economics, History, and Public Law, Vol. XXIX. MAITLAND, F. W., Domesday BooJ( and Beyond (Cambridge, 1897). MARCZALI, H., Ungarische Verjassungsgeschichte (1910). MAURER, G. VON, Einleitung zur MarJ^- Hof- Dorf- und Staatsverjassung
(Munich, 1854). MEITZEN, A., Siedlungen und Agrarwesen der Westgermanen und Ostger-
manen, der Kelten, Romerf Finnen, und Slaven (Berlin, 1896), 4 vols. NEUMANN, P., Lfempire byzantin et sa situation mondiale (Xe-XIe siecle)
(Paris, 1905).
NOVAKOVITCH, M., La zadruga chez les Serbes (Paris, 1906). OLAFSEN, O., Jordjaellessfyb og Sameie. PEAKE, H., The English Village (London, 1922). PHELAN, JOHN, Readings in Rural Sociology f chap. i. ROLVAAG, O. E., Giants in the Earth.
SANDERSON, DWIGHT, The Farmer and His Community (New York, 1922). SEE, H., Les classes rurales et le regime domanial en France (Paris, 1901). SEEBOHM, F., The English Village Community (London, 1890), 4th ed. SIMS, N. L., A Hoosier Village. STOLARSKI, B., Slugocice (Warsaw, 1925). THOMAS, W. L, and ZNANIECKI, F., The Polish Peasant in Europe and
America (1927), Vol. L VINOGRADOFF, P., The Growth of the Manor (London, 1905).
, English Society in the Eleventh Century (Oxford, 1908).
WEBER, MAX, General Economic History (New York, 1927).
, Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Social- und Wtrtschaftsgeschichte
(Tubingen, 1924).
WEIGERT, J., Untergang der Dorf\ultur (Miinchen, 1930). WIESE, L. VON, Das Dorf als soziale Gebilde (1928). WILLIAMS, J. M., An American Town. WILSON, WARREN H., Quaker Hill
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 335
See also all of Volume IV of the Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science. For other sources see the papers of Deman- geon and Maunier; also the works quoted in chapters vii, viii, and ix, and Part III of Volume II on the family and other institutions.
41. MORET AND DAVY: EGYPTIAN CUMULATIVE RURAL COMMUNITIES*
Among uncivilized peoples the first social organization is not the family, but the clan; all the clansmen believe themselves related, not by blood, but as a result of a mystic communion of all with one totem. In the latter resides the source of a sacred power, of a universal author- ity, which the Melanesians call mana. This authority is diffused among all the clansmen, this regime is equalitarian and communistic. The clan chooses for itself a name and an emblem. . . . Subsequently the clans settle down in stable villages and form territorial groupings. . . . The first village is very often just a totemic clan which has settled on the soil, and then the development of this village and of the tribe or territorial society which contains it results from the interplay of these two factors. The mystico-domestic constitutional law and territorial constitutional law mutually interpenetrate and react upon one another.
Such seems to have been also the early rural organization among the ancient Egyptians. Few features of it can be detected, for writing did not yet exist to leave behind explicit evidence thereof. Still, on clay vases and on the walls of tombs ... we see boats and buildings sur- mounted by heraldic effigies — a falcon, an elephant, a solar disc, crossed arrows. . . . Many of these emblems remained in use down to the close of Pharaonic civilization as the names of provinces or nomes. . . . These ensigns are evidently "ethnic emblems." ... As in all agricultural countries exposed to sudden attacks from nomads, the sedentary peasants did not dwell in scattered huts. By night they gath- ered behind the solid walls of villages, where they left their families and treasures in safety when they went forth to their fields. Each vil- lage planted above its fortified gates an ensign. ... In these villages the hunters and tillers had come together for reasons of defense, mutual aid, and collective safety.
[Besides these bonds — totemic or blood relationship, community of beliefs and ceremonies, and mores, the territorial proximity, commun- ity of the political authority, mutual aidf protection and safety — there were many other purely economic ties which bound the villagers together^] If Nile brings "the water of life" to the soil, we must not
* From A. Moret and G. Davy, From Tribe to Empire, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1926, pp. 62, 354, 125-130. Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, and Co., Ltd., London, the publishers.
336 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
forget that at the moment of the overflow it drowns and destroys everything; hence the need for raising roads and villages above it on causeways. . . . The river must be banked. . . . Yet there were other essential tasks: to drive out the wild beasts from the valley; to choose the animals suitable for taming; to break in ox, sheep, and ass; to till the soil; to select plant species; to obtain barley, millet, wheat, and wine. . . . The [rural population] which had achieved it lived under a social system of which the tribal ensigns are the only marks to tell the tale.
42. LEE, ASAKAWA, Tsu, KULP: CHINESE AND JAPANESE RURAL CUMULATIVE COMMUNITIES
The Tsing Tien System* — The whole history of the government administration of agriculture in China coincides with the history of the Tsing Tien System. . . . What then was the Tsing Tien System? It means fields laid out like the character tsing. . . . For each tsing consisted of a square divided into nine plots. To eight families were assigned the eight exterior plots, and the center plot was reserved to be worked in common. The word tsing also denotes a well, for within the limits of each tsing four roads were open and a well dug in the center. The tsing unit was also known as 1 Lin (neighborhood); 3 Lins = l Pung (friendship); 3 Pungs—\ Li (village). . . .
The advantages of the system were thus enumerated: (1) saving of expense; (2) unifying of customs; (3) improved production; (4) easy exchange of commodities; (5) mutual protection; (6) close social rela- tions; (7) general cooperation. This organization as a social system is readily discerned and understood, as well as its significance as a system of taxation in that the center lot of each tsing was cultivated in com- mon by the adjoining landholders for the government as a tax.
[With some variation the essentials of this system persisted through- out many centuries of the history of China. During the Ming dynasty] ten houses formed a tya, with an additional house of the group-chief; ten \ia formed a It with ten additional houses of heads. Besides there was an elder in each It who at first exercised a considerable moral influ- ence. . . . An important part of the business of the tya was periodi- cally to take the census of its members, in order to ascertain that none were suspicious characters and none adhered to evil religious sects.
*From Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, The Economic History of China, pp. 33-34; see the details of the Tsing Tien System there and in Chen Huan-Chang, The Economic Prin- ciples of Confucius, II, 507 ÂŁÂŁ, Reprinted with the permission of the publisher.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 337
Once in every month, the people in every It assembled at the public hall of the village, where amid solemn music the head read the impe- rial instructions to the people. The instructions were intended to incul- cate the spirit of concord and mutual service among peasant members: obedience to parents, concord in the village, mutual cordiality, assist- ance for the sick, the poor, the orphans, and at funerals, industry, abstention from evil deeds, etc. The village-elder exercised judicial power over minor cases. The li had also a temple for the deity of the earth where, besides other minor rites, sacrifices were offered in spring and in autumn, followed by a feast for the peasants. There was another periodical occasion for conviviality of the village, at which venerated seniors, ex-officials, and scholars were given places of distinction, and the other villagers sat in the strict order of their ages, regardless of wealth. The // had its special granary, to which all the families con- tributed according to their means, and which was open in case of a famine. The village supported a primary school.
Beginning with the year 645, Japan * entered upon the great work of reorganizing her state system largely on the basis of the Chinese institutions of the early T'ang period. The decree of the Reform of 646 contains the following: "For the first time, make a census of the families, a record of financial accounts, and an equal allotment of land. Fifty families shall form a sato (Chinese pronunciation, It), and every sato shall have a chief whose duty shall be to examine the families and their members (persons living in near-by houses and mostly related to one another by blood tie), to promote agriculture and sericulture, to forbid and examine misdeeds, and to collect the taxes and enforce forced labor. Further, the families, the five houses shall be mutually responsible." It was the fixed rule that every inhabitant in the village should belong to some group. . . . The whole or a part of the village was held responsible for the receipt and transfer of the official cir- culars, for the payment and delivery of the taxes, for the good behavior of all the members, for the arrest and surrender of robbers and in- cendiaries, for the maintenance of taxable estates, and for a hundred of other affairs. The entire village was made to be actively interested in the peace and in the maintenance of each household. The peasants should watch and correct one another's behavior, and disputes should be adjusted by mutual conciliations. [In a similar way, there were the ties of the common religion, temple, mores, exclusion of all religiously heterogeneous persons, and dozens of other ties which made the village a real, many-bonded community.]
* K. Asakawa, "Notes on Village Government in Japan," The Journal of American Oriental Society, XXXI, 192-195, 170, 161; XXX, 275. See also K. Asakawa, "The Early Sho and the Early Manor," Journ. of Econ. and Business History, February, 1929.
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Contemporary Chinese village* — After the clan solidarity the next simplest expression of social consciousness is what we may call "local spirit" or localism. It is, primarily, an attachment to a locality, and, secondarily, the attachment of members of the locality to one another. In a village community the members are conscious of an attachment for the place, created and strengthened by generations of residence, by associations of childhood, and by identification of economic inter- ests. The occupation of a common locality becomes a basis upon which the members build their social intercourse. Solidarity may be strength- ened by intermarriage among the different clans, by the recognition of common interests, which are symbolized in the worship of local deities. The village is a self-governing group. . . . The headmen of the village are elected by the members of the village. Their public duties consist in the maintenance of roads, supervision of fairs, building and upkeep of public edifices, sinking of wells, engagement of theatrical companies, policing of the place, etc. In the cultural, economic, and industrial life of the village, cooperation is expressed in the conduct of markets and fairs, in the communal "village hunts," in the associations for the watching and gathering of crops, in the communal education of the young, and in public maintenance of religious worship and theatricals. For charitable purposes there are local societies for the care of found- lings, poor families and their children, mutual loan associations, and mutual providential associations.
Phenix y/7/fl^.f— The area of the village proper, that portion of the land occupied by the houses, is very small, about seven hundred feet wide and two thousand feet long. To this must be added two other areas: the extensive plots of land comprising farming interests, pasture and fruit orchard. The fields contiguous to the village are now cut into strips that belong to the inhabitants of Phenix Village. . . . There is a total of one hundred and ten buildings, large and small, in the entire village. There are two buildings that belong only to Phenix Village, of a strictly public nature. They are the village temple and the Scholars' Hall. There are four buildings of a semi-public nature: the chief ancestral hall of the entire village; the ancestral halls and schools belonging to two different branches of the village group; and the small temple. , . . The population of Phenix Village in 1919 amounted to six hundred and fifty (pp. 11-13). The early settlers belonged to the same kinship. At the end of the sixteenth century the whole 'kinship group was moved and established in its present location. At present,
* Yu Yue Tsu, The Spirit of Chinese Philanthropy. A Study in Mutual Aid, Colum- bia University Studies, New York, 1912, pp. 83-85.
t From Daniel Harrison Kulp, Country Life in South China, Teachers College, New York, 1925. Reprinted with permission oÂŁ the author.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 339
with the exception of the few shopkeepers, all the inhabitants have the same surname and worship a common ancestor (pp. 68-69). There are two types of spoken language in the district, the Ha^a tongue and the Holo tongue. Phenix Village people use the latter almost exclusively. When exogamous marriages with Ha^a girls bring these new brides into the village, they are faced with the neces- sity of learning a new language (p. 79). The villagers look upon the Hakfa somewhat as they do upon foreigners. . . .
Besides the common observances and cooperations growing out of the ancestral worship and blood relationship, this clan (the population of the Phenix Village) maintains its unity and differentiation from other clans in the rural district by the fact that one of the two public temples in the village is reserved exclusively for the worship of Phenix Village folk, while the other temple is shared with two other villages in the immediate vicinity. There are also the annual processions for the local village gods in which the villagers alone take part with respect and enthusiasm. Certain taboos also reenforce clan distinctions and familist unity. So do the people of the village preserve their conscious unity of blood relationship, maintain their line of inheritance intact, establish a feeling of superiority over surrounding villages, and strengthen their own solidarity (81-83) .
Farming is the basic industry for the region. The village has its market. There are three kinds of land ownership: public, the income from which is devoted to interests of the village as a whole, to schools, more public lands, charity, building or repair of roads, and so on; village (sib) ancestral; family ancestral. . . . Theoretically there is private ownership but in reality the head of the moiety holds in stew- ardship for those kin dependent upon him the resources he possesses. Public lands are not communistic. They are not shared equally or according to need on the basis of individuals but of groups. They are owned collectively. They cannot be sold unless the signatures of every male who holds responsibility for other members of the village kin- group is set in approval. . . . The economic system of Phenix Village must be thought of as neither communistic, private, nor socialistic, but jamilistic (pp. 101-102). [Finally, the villagers are united by a series of additional ties, such as a political self-government of their own affairs, partly by collective responsibility, by law— a definite distribu- tion of the rights, privileges, and duties among the members.* Thus,
* EDITORS' NOTE. — For Chinese rural communities see further: Arthur H. Smith, Vil- lage Life in China, pp. 312-315, 30, 44, 49, 179, 200, 204, 205, 226-227 and passim; R. F. Johnston, Lion and Dragon in Northern China, pp. 127-154; a series of papers in the Chinese Economic Journal, 1925, 1927, 1928; A. Poljakow, "Formen der Pachtver- haltnisse in China," Agrar-Probleme, I, Part IV, 691-721; W. Wagner, Die chinesische Landwirtschaft, Berlin, 1926; E. E. Jaschnow, "Die chinesische Bauern-Wirtschaft in
340 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
blood, land, territorial proximity, community of the ancestral worship and religious and ritual practices, community of the temple, the school, charitable and other social institutions, community of the language, collective responsibility, the common and the statutory juridical dis- tribution of the rights and privileges, and so on— such are the numerous ties which created and maintained the cumulative village communities of China and Japan.]
43. R. MAUNIER: VILLAGE CUMULATIVE COMMUNITY OF THE KABYLES (BERBERS)*
The village is a real social unity, the foundation of the Kabyle society. Before the French protectorate the feuds between the villages and the clans were common. So among the Kabyles, as among many other peoples, the village was a place of refuge. The average size of the villages, according to the census of 1921, is about five hundred inhabitants. Each village is separated from the others by a stream or other natural boundary. As a rule the population of each village is descended from the same ancestors and belongs to the same clan. Each clan and each village lives in the main for itself and by itself. It is only when various clans or villages belong to the same larger tribe that they have relationships with one another in the form of intermarriage or a common market place. As a rule the Kabyles marry only within the village community. Hence the village is not only a group of terri- torial neighbors but in addition a group of relatives who believe that they have descended from the same remote ancestors. The village is thus a co-dwelling community which originated from the community of blood relatives. Accordingly, the name of the village is generally a genealogical name which means: "The Sons of. . . ." Each village has its own territory, separated from that of the other villages. It also has public property. Further, it has an economic unity in the form of cooperation, mutual aid, and the collective performance of many tasks,
der nordhchen Mandschurei," Wirtschajthche Abhandlung mit einem Vorwort von G. N. Diki, Charbin, 1926; D. Tarchanow, Abhandhing tiber die sozialo1{onomische Structure von Kwangsi, 1927; S. M. Shirokogoroff, Social Organization of the Manchus, Royal Asiatic Society, Shanghai, 1924, extra volume III, chaps, ii, v; Y. K, Leong and L. K. Tao, Village and Town Life in China, London, 1915, p. viii, and chap, iii; L. Magyar, "Die Okonormk der Bauernwirtschaft in China," Agrar-Problcmc, 1928, I, 267-283; B. Freier, "Die neuesten Etappen der Bauernbewegung in China," Agrar-Problcme, 1928, I, 110-118; H. P. Wilkinson, The Family in Classical China, London, 1926; Yu- Tscht'ang, "System of Land Tenure in China/' Chinese Social and Political Science Re- view, October, 1928; V. A. Riasanovsky, Customary Law of the Mongol Tribes, Char- bm, 1929; V. A. Riasanovsky, The Modern Civil Law of China, Charbin, 1927-1928, 2 vols.
* Adapted from Rene" Maunier, "Zur Soziologie der Kabylen," in Jahrbuch fur So%i- ologie, 1927, III, 316-322, G. Verlag Braun, Karlsruhe.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 341
such as sowing, planting, and the building of houses. Besides its eco- nomic, territorial, and blood unity the village has also a moral unity. Each village has its "Code of Honor," Horma, obligatory for every member of the community. Finally the village is a juridical unity. It has its own laws, its own mores and customs. Thus through its groupings the village is a small self-sufficient, self-governing com- munity. It has its own property, its own interests, its own laws; its own duties and its own honor, It has, so to speak, its own personality.
44. MAINE AND KRAUS: HINDU CUMULATIVE VILLAGE COMMUNITY
At the outset the village communities seem to be associations of kinsmen, united by the assumption (doubtless very vaguely conceived) of a common lineage. Sometimes the community is unconnected with any exterior body, save by the shadowy bond of caste. Sometimes it acknowledges itself to belong to a larger group or clan. But in all cases the community is so organized as to be complete in itself. The end for which it exists is the tillage of the soil, and it contains within itself the means of following its occupation without help from outside. The brotherhood besides the cultivating families' who form the major part of the group, comprises families hereditarily engaged in the humble arts which furnish the little society with articles of use and comfort. It includes a village watch and a village police, and there are organ- ized authorities for the settlement of disputes and the maintenance of civil order. . , . There is the arable land divided into separate lots cultivated according to minute customary rules binding on all. There are the reserved meadows, lying generally on the verge of the arable mark. There is the waste or common land, out of which the arable mark has been cut, enjoyed as pasture by all the community pro indi- viso. There is the village consisting of habitations, each ruled by a paterfamilias. And there is constantly a council of government to deter- mine disputes as to custom.*
The greater part of the rural population of India dwells in closed villages which are more or less sharply separated exteriorly. On the village square there is usually the house of the village chief or head. In the center of the village, in the shade of the trees, there is the village public well. Here the women and girls wash their laundry; from it the water for their daily needs is taken; and here also they chatter and gossip in a peaceful way. At the same well the men talk about their
*From Henry Sumner Maine, Village-Communities in the East and West, New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1876, pp. 176-177, 107. On the ancient Hindu rural com- munities and their self-government and political organization see Benoy Kumar Sarkar, The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus, Leipzig, 1922, pp. 50-60. See also in the next chapters the excerpts from Baden-Powell and Altekar.
342 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
work, crops, prices, and so on. Here, too, the village chief with the elders decides the disputes and conflicts between the members of the village. . . . The greater part of the village population devotes itself to agriculture. . . . But in each village there exists also a certain num- ber of artisans engaged in the trades necessary for agriculture and for the village (a smith, a carpenter, etc.). Some of them belong to the lower castes, while some are outcastes, and have their dwellings and their own separate wells at the outskirts of the village. Where several different castes dwell together in the village, they are separated from one another by streets. The houses of the Brahmins are on the best location and compose the best streets; the houses of the lower castes are at the outskirts of the village. . . . The whole socio-political organ- ization of the village undoubtedly goes back to the clan organization. . . . The clan organization disappeared but the village organization of the settled clan remains, though the villagers are not always con- scious of the common origin. Common life and cooperation are devel- oped among the villagers to a great degree. In all cases at its basis there is a consciousness of a common origin from real or fictitious ancestors who left to their descendants the territory of the village lands. This community consciousness did not, however, hinder a partial subdivision of the property among the descendants. But the waste and the meadows remain a common possession. This consciousness of com- munity finds its expression also in the rule that, before any land is sold to outsiders, the first preference must be given to the members of the village community. . . . The state addresses its demands not to the cultivators as such but to the community of landowners and land- possessors. . . . The community is responsible collectively in many cases.*
*From Alois Kraus, "Das Indische Dorf," Jahrbuch fiir Soziologie, 1927, III, 295-304. See about the Hindu village further in Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community, London, 1896, and Land Systems of British India, Oxford, 1892, 3 vols.; P. Padmanabha Pillai, The Economic Conditions in India, London, 1925; S. Keatinge, Rural Economy in the Bombay Veccan, 1912; Altekar, History of Village Community in West India, University of Bombay Economic Series, No. 5, 1927; P. R. Venkatasu Crahmanyan, Studies in Rural Economics, Madras, 1927; Gopal Advani, ~&tudc sur la vie nirale dans la Sind, Montpellier, 1926; Some South Indian Villages, University oC Madras Economic Series, Oxford, 1918; the Imperial Gazetteer of India, Oxford, 1908; Census of India, 1921; many papers in Indian Journal of Economics, 1919-1929; Agricultural Journal oj India, Pusa, 1905-1929; Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, 1922; H. M. Leake, Land Tenure and Agricultural 'Production in the Tropics, 1927; H. H. Mann, Land and Labor in a Dessan Village, Studies No. 1 and No. 2, Oxford; B, K. Sarkar, Economics of British India, 1927; W. Crooke, North Western Provinces of India, 1897; C. Field, Land holding and the Relation of Landlords and Tenants, Calcutta, 1885. See also the series of Punjab Village Surveys by the Board of Economic Inquiry, Punjab, 1928, and later. The first is a study of Gaggar Bhana conducted by S. Gian Singh under the direction of C. M. King, Lahore, 1928. A dozen others are forthcoming.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 343
45. P. KROPOTKIN: THE RURAL CUMULATIVE COMMUNITIES IN EUROPE AND ASIA*
The Teutons, the Celts, the Scandinavians, the Slavonians, and others, when they first came in contact with the Romans, were in a transitional state of social organization. The clan unions, based upon a real or supposed common origin, had kept them together for many thousands of years in succession. But these unions could answer their purpose so long only as there were no separate families within the gens or clan itself. However, for causes already mentioned, the separate patriarchal family had slowly but steadily developed within the clans. . . . The barbarians thus stood in a position of either seeing their clans dissolved into loose aggregations of families, ... or of finding out some new form of organization based upon some new principle. Many stems had no force to resist disintegration: they broke up and were lost for history. But the more vigorous ones did not disintegrate. They came out of the ordeal with a new organization — the village community — which kept them together for the next fifteen centuries or more. The conception of a common territory, appropriated or pro- tected by common efforts, was elaborated, and it took the place of the vanishing conceptions of common descent. The common gods grad- ually lost their character of ancestors and were endowed with a local territorial character. They became the gods or saints of a given locality; "the land" was identified with the inhabitants. Territorial unions grew up instead of the consanguine unions of old, and this new organization evidently offered many advantages under the given circumstances. . . .
As a rule, it was a union between families considered as of common descent and owning a certain territory in common. But with some stems and under certain circumstances, the families used to grow very numerous before they threw off new buds in the shape of new families; five, six, or seven generations continued to live under the same roof, or within the same enclosure, owning their joint household and cattle in common, and taking their meals at the common hearth. They kept in such case to what ethnology knows as the "joint family," or the "undivided household," which we still see all over China, in India, in the South Slavonian zadruga, and occasionally find in Africa, in America, in Denmark, in North Russia, and West France. With other stems, or in other circumstances, not yet well specified, the families did not attain the same proportions; . . . But, joint or not, clustered together or scattered in the woods, the families remained united into village communities; several villages were grouped into tribes; and the
*From P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, New York, McClure, Phillips fie Co., 1902, pp. 119-152.
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tribes joined into confederations. Such was the social organization which developed among the so-called "barbarians," when they began to settle more or less permanently in Europe. . . . The village com- munity was not only a union for guaranteeing to each one his fair share in the common land, but also a union for common culture, for mutual support in all possible forms, for protection from violence, and for a further development of knowledge, national bonds, and moral conceptions; and every change in the judicial, military, educational, or economical manners had to be decided at the folkmoots of the vil- lage, the tribe, or the confederation. The community being a continua- tion of the gens, it inherited all its functions. It was the universitas, the mir— a world in itself.
Common hunting, common fishing, and common culture of the orchards or the plantations of fruit-trees was the rule with the old gentes. Common agriculture became the rule in the barbarian village communities. . . .
The more we study them the more we recognize the narrow bonds which united men in their villages. Every quarrel arising between two individuals was treated as a communal affair — even the offensive words that might have been uttered during a quarrel being considered as an offense to the community and its ancestors. They had to be repaired by amends made both to the individual and the community; and if a quarrel ended in a fight and wounds, the man who stood by and did not interpose was treated as if he himself had inflicted the wounds. The judicial procedure was imbued with the same spirit. Every dispute was brought first before mediators or arbiters, and it mostly ended with them, the arbiters playing a very important part in barbarian society. But if the case was too grave to be settled in this way, it came before the folkmoot, which was bound "to find the sentence," and pronounced it in a conditional form; that is, "such compensation was due, if the wrong be proved," and the wrong had to be proved or disclaimed by six or twelve persons confirming or denying the fact by oath, ordeal being resorted to in case of contradiction between the two sets of jurors. Such procedure, which remained in force for more than two thousand years in succession, speaks volumes for itself; it shows how close were the bonds between all members of the community. More- over, there was no other authority to enforce the decisions of the folk- moot besides its own moral authority. . . .
There are very numerous tribes which are still living under a social organization almost identical with that of our barbarian ancestors. Here we simply have the difficulty of choice, because the islands of the Pacific, the steppes of Asia, and the table-lands of Africa are real his-
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torical museums containing specimens of all possible intermediate stages which mankind has lived through, when passing from the savage gentes up to the state's organization.*
46. M. KOVALEVSKY: OLD SLAVIC RURAL CUMULATIVE COMMUNITY!
In various parts of the country numerous persons, sometimes amounting to fifty and rarely to less than ten, are to be found united in a common household, living under the same roof and taking their meals at the same table. A family constituted after this fashion is known to English scholars under the name of the "Joint Family" or "House Community.". . . The undivided household of the Eastern Slavs is a very ancient institution. In the so-called Chronicle of Nestor, mention is made of the gens organization of the Polians, a Slavonic tribe. . . . The Polians are stated to live "each ruling his tyndred or gens and occupying distinct localities!' The members of such a terri- torially located gens is styled, in another ancient source, by the term verv. If a crime is committed on the territory of the verv, the whole verv must fay in common a fine similar to that which was inflicted in England in such cases during the reigns of William the Conqueror and the early Plantagenets. A verv, paying in common a sort of pecu- niary composition for a crime supposed to have been committed by one of its members; a verv, possessing its own limits, and therefore its own territorial possession, corresponds to a house community in which sev- eral persons, living under the same roof and owning land in common, are jointly answerable for the crimes and misdemeanors committed within the limits of their possession. . . . All over Russia communities of persons belonging to the same kindred and living under the same roof are still in existence. Among them we find the grandfather and grandmother, the father and mother, grandsons and granddaughters, brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, with other persons as may be united to them by ties of marriage, as daughters-in-law and sons-in- law. Persons incorporated into the family, working for the common good and having shares in the family profits are often mentioned. Be- sides these, others may perchance have become members, as for in- stance persons adopted into it, or children of a widow contracting a new marriage with a member of the community. . . . Blood relation- ship, in the proper sense of the word, is not always required; it suffices
* EDITORS' NOTE. — See further in Kropotkm's work a rich collection of concrete cases of what we style "the cumulative community."
f From M. Kovalevsky, Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia, London, David Nutt Co., 1891, pp. 47-54.
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that the members be considered as relatives; adoption (through various religious and social rites) takes the place of actual descent, and the fact of sharing the daily work very often gives a stranger the rights of a relative. [Besides these ties the members were bound by community of land, general political assembly, elected head of the group, and so on.]*
47. JOSEF HOLECEK: OLD SLAVONIC VILLAGE!
The word ves, village, originally comes from Sanscrit, where it means tribe, family, etc. We find the word ves in the Czech, Polish, Lithuanian, Serbian, Slovene, and Croatian languages. It is common to all the western and southwestern Slavs, but it has ceased to exist with the Serbians. The wide occurrence of the word shows us that in olden times all these Slavs had a common village culture, the founda- tions of which have never been lost. It shows that these Slavonic peo- ples built their dwelling places in the same way and gave them names. They certainly had the same manner of life, the same customs, the same administration, and of course the same faith.
Every nation thinks that the oldest period of its life was a golden age. We cannot secure any answer from the literary documents of those vague times, but we may receive it if we go to the Serbs, and especially to their most conservative branch, the Montenegrins. Until the middle of the last century the Montenegrins lived free in tribes. These tribes, governed by their hereditary or elected dukes and other smaller chiefs, were independent of one another. They occasionally allied against a common enemy, but they also made war on one an- other. Montenegro was never "a country abounding in milk and honey." It was a poor country, but the poverty was the foundation of the liberty and equality of the people. They appreciated this liberty and equality above all else and were always able to defend it by a bravery that made them famous. They did not lock their individual huts, and what was in them was common property for all their inhab- itants. Even their victories over the Turk were in common, not gained by this or that duke, but by all warriors, all brotherhoods, or the entire tribe. Only the trophies borne from the battlefield became the per- sonal property of the man who gained them.
The Montenegrins did not follow written laws. In cases that oc-
* EDITORS' NOTE. — At the present moment these communities have almost disap- peared. With regard to the Russian peasant cumulative community of the sixteenth century see the paper o£ Pushkareff given in the chapter on religion and religious or- ganization. See also Novakovic', Sclo, Belgrade, 1891.
fFrom Josef Holec'ck, Sehtvi (Peasantry), Czechoslovak Academy of Agriculture, Prague, 1928. Translated and published with the permission of the Czechoslovak Academy of Agriculture.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 347
curred frequently they judged according to custom; in new cases they judged according to common sense and conscience. The judges were either chiefs or "good people" who had been asked, men trusted by both parties. There was a tribal or large-family collectivism which lasted in its full strength until the last quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury. The principle of tribal collectivism of all property, both material and nonmaterial, had governed the entire life of Montenegro up to this time. Some are puzzled because there was no zadruga in Monte- negro. As a matter of fact, there was no such community there, but mutuality was carried out in broader social units which had more value. The sense of mutuality is not identical with the idea of a state; it is even contradictory to it. The idea of state only appeared in Mon- tenegro in the middle of the nineteenth century, but even then it was not general. The Montenegrins, satisfied with an ancient social order which had been inherited by them from prehistoric times, did not like the sacrifices that were asked of them by a state or nation, which re- mained to them a vague concept. The idea of a state did not make them enthusiastic when they observed the life of the neighboring states.
The uncompromising faith in the spirit of collectivism by which the Montenegrins had lived since time immemorial proves beyond doubt that they saw the attainment of the ideal social life in the mutuality of all things in both economic and moral life. Of course they did not create this ideal by speculative thinking. It was created of itself by the strength of their social instinct, by the conquest of the thought of the racial genius. Social organization arose from the same source as had language and, later on, the first notion of God. As has been shown they feared no sacrifices in behalf of their social ideal. For its sake they suppressed in themselves not only the desire for wealth and personal ambition, but even the sense of love for woman.
We must also mention the strictness with which they disposed of anything that could corrupt their character or soften their mind and custom. They despised soft clothes and comfort of all kinds. He who distinguished himself by bravery, but had no property other than the shirt on his naked body, lost nothing of his honor on account of his poverty. The Montenegrins rendered him high homage and reproved in this manner those who displayed their fine dress. Their sexual absti- nence was and is unusual up to the present time. This was necessary to preserve the collectivistic organization, which would last as long as the equality, self-denial, and severity with which everybody watched both himself and others.
I have described the Montenegrin collectivism in such detail in order to make it easier to understand that only such a collectivism as this can last and not degenerate into anarchism. Compare the Montenegrin
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collectivism with the communism of Soviet Russia! The Soviet com- munism is of quite a different and contrary type. It denies itself noth- ing, but it takes and appropriates everything. It is hard, cruelly hard, but only to its adversaries or to people who have lost their lives in its eyes because they have something valuable of which a communist de- sires to take possession. Family life was pure in Montenegro. The Soviet communism destroyed the family in order to destroy the liberty of self-determination of woman, whom it urges to be as accessible to all as a harlot. The Montenegrin collectivism was built on voluntary poverty, while the Soviet communism is not disgusted with any crime in order to enable anyone to get rich individually. In Montenegro, there was severe morality; in Soviet Russia, there is abominable de- moralization.
The social morality of the village stood and continued on three prin- ciples: (1) one for all and all for one; (2) an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; (3) unanimity in all collective meetings.
48. W. H. RIEHL: GERMAN CUMULATIVE RURAL COMMUNITY*
Formerly, at least, the neighbors were still reckoned more or less as part of the household. The people of the neighborhood, in accordance with old custom, carried the dead to the grave. In some places if poor people could not pay the boys' choir, the neighbors of the deceased would get together and sing at the open grave as well as at the funeral services. Each event of the household had to be reported to the neigh- bor; he had to be invited to every important festival of the household. Shortly after a successful delivery the neighbors' wives gathered at the home of the recently confined woman and drank the Kindsbier. "Neighbor" is for the peasant the friendly form oÂŁ address which stands next to cousin (Vetter)^ it is a degree higher than "country- man," and two degrees higher than a mere "good friend."
This inclusion of the neighbor in the entire household has its good basis in the history of the German family. In ancient times the more distant members of the clan gradually settled about the estate of the patriarch, and when finally a parish was formed out of the original estate, all the inhabitants were relatives, all the neighbors were at the same time cousins. In the Jachen canton in upper Bavaria the custom of inviting one person from each home in the village to a wedding reigned until most recent times; all members of the parish were counted in the family, all houses to the "household." And today there remain in Germany secluded little villages in which all the families are really related to each other, all neighbors are cousins, and the
*From W. H. Riehl, Die Familic, Berlin, 1904, pp. 165-170. Translated and printed with the permission of the publisher.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 349
"household" has expanded into the whole parish. Not only are most of the original customs preserved in such villages, but the most happy economic prosperity reigns in such places. But when country parishes are expected to adopt every strange tramp into their group without having looked him over, then ordinary people will refuse to look on all neighbors almost as cousins.
One of the most peculiar villages in which the family-like association of all the neighbors in the village makes it nearly an entire household is Gerhardsbrunn on the Sickingen heights in the Palatinate. Lying in the midst of a territory that has been deeply affected by the influence of French domination in eradicating all distinctions, it has been able to preserve its uniqueness, chiefly because of the family solidarity pre- served there. And at the same time it has become wealthy, despite an indifferent location. Nearly all families of the village are related to each other; and for all economic interests the village appears as a closed fraternity. According to law, no closed estates are permitted, neither are primogeniture nor ultimogeniture. But in order that each family may keep its wealth and resplendence, the people of the village stand together as one man and make the law illusory through a well-pre- served custom. The family decides which of the children is to inherit the property. An attempt is made to purchase a piece of land in one of the near-by villages, where land is cheaper, for those who do not inherit; or they find something to do in their home village. If anyone who had come off badly in this disposal of the property wished to bring suit, he could force a division of the property into equal parts. But no one dared bring such a suit, for it would bring down upon him the contempt of the entire household as well as of the entire parish. And that is in the midst of the "enlightened" Palatinate. The parish hangs together so strongly that it has preserved, and practices, a private custom from ancient times, alongside the official parish statutes. In order to have a vote in the parish meeting there, it is necessary to be the father of a family. Until recently the inhabitants made their own provisions for a field constable, who had the right of requiring mod- erate sums from trespassers against the regulations of the field mark without keeping any records of such transactions. It was believed that such internal parish police matters had best be settled quietly and not brought into the publicity of the police court. This family parish built itself a church and a schoolhouse, according to its own plans, with its own labor, and with an almost unbelievably small expenditure of money. It cultivates the fields according to the traditional common plan, and these fields bear as though there were a special blessing upon them. It is the blessing which arises out of family solidarity and good neighborliness in a parish which stands as a united "entire house- hold."
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49. FREDERIC LE PLAY: THE AGRICULTURISTS: GENERAL TRAITS OF THEIR ORGANIZATION*
Among the fundamental institutions (of agricultural peoples), two groups are placed in the first rank according to the order of im- portance: in the first place, the community, individual property, and patronage, that is to say, the three principal forms of rural properties; in the second place, the customs that constrain the proprietors (land- lords) to make good use of these properties or to fortify among the populations security of existence and the practice of a good way of living.
The regime of the "community" confers on a group of agricultural families the exclusive possession of certain territories. These common possessions are very profitable to the agriculturists, but they remain un- tilled; and although sometimes they may have a great importance, they are only the accessory part of the rural domains considered in their entirety. They are the remains of the ancient regime of spontaneous productions. In this capacity they furnish herbs, fruits, game, fish, wood, fuel, and minerals as an accessory resource to the proprietors, usually called "commoners." In many places, their most useful end is to furnish some means of subsistence to poor families completely de- prived of the two other kinds of properties. It is true that there exist in Russia today many tillable territories that are possessed in common by all the families of the village that they surround; but the conditions under which this exception is produced only serve to confirm the accu- racy of the preceding observations. The portions of communal soil are here divided anew, each thirteen or fifteen years in proportion to the number of hands and animals that each family can devote to cultiva- tion at the moment of the division. But two families have never found an advantage in cultivating a single portion in common.
The regime of "individual property'* assigns exclusively to a family the rural domain that it is able to cultivate with the labor of its own members, supplemented, if need be, by that of the servants perma- nently attached to the domestic hearth. With respect to extent, these kinds of properties are in two extreme forms. The smallest are called "borderies": they comprise the habitation together with some rural de- pendencies which are exploited by the women and children and furnish precious resources to the household. The head of the family and his heir, called bordiers [small farmers or cottagers], work outside for wages at diverse industries carried on in the vicinity. The largest prop- erties constitute the "domains." Their extent and composition are fixed
*From F. le Play, Ley owners europeens, Paris, Alfred Mamc 8c Son, 1879, 2d. ed. I. 111-117.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 351
in each rural district according to the dominant customs in regard to the fecundity of the family, the transmission of traditions, the kind of domestic animals, the mode of grouping, or the division of fields and pastures. The domain comprises in some sort what there is that is characteristic in the family type of the agriculturist, the location, and the climate of the country: therefore, the proprietor of this domain is called the "countryman" or "peasant."
The regime of patronage [lordship] is that of the localities where a single family possesses a stretch of land much too large for it to culti- vate, even with numerous servants. The territory of the patron [lord] is usually subdivided into "tenures" constituted like the domains and small farms that in the same district are attached to individual prop- erty. The tenants pay rent to the proprietor in work, money, or in kind, which is in proportion to the importance of the profits that the exploitation of the rented lands procures for them; but, except for that, they enjoy all the rights that individual property would give them, and it is thus, especially, that tenure is entirely transmitted to successive generations in the case of tenants as well as in the case of the proprietors. In a good rural organization the patron is not limited to consigning the soil to tenants. He is held by custom to fulfil cer- tain duties: to reside permanently in the locality; to give at his hearth the example of good manners and morals; to cultivate under manage- ment "the patrimonial domain," where the best methods of working are applied and where thoroughbred animals are kept; to watch over the physical and moral well-being of the tenants, and to extend this patronage to the individual properties of the vicinity around him; finally, to exercise gratuitously the functions of the local government. The best examples of rural organization are those which include in each vicinity a patron and, when communal properties abound, coun- trymen and small farmers in an almost equal number. Each class brings to the local union the qualities that are natural to it. The small farmer keeps his frugality, his simplicity of ideas, and aptitude for the hard working of the land, fecundated by respect for the social superi- ority around him. The countryman possesses the same virtues, raised by a higher notion of the duties incumbent upon him as the preserver of the communal freedom. The patron, finally, is stimulated by the control of the population, to practice his characteristic function: he ministers, then, to intellectual loneliness, which is the principal disad- vantage of rural life; he procures for the neighboring populations the benefits of science and power that the concentration of riches gives to the cities.
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The rural hierarchy always assures this prosperity to a vicinity where and when each class preserves the constitutive elements of a model society: submission to the Decalogue and to paternal authority; respect for religion and sovereignty; stability of the family based on the trans- mission in full of the patrimonial estate. This preservation is assured, and prosperity is raised to the highest degree when the good example is given by the patron. Unfortunately this is not always the case, espe- cially with nations that are rich, lettered, and powerful. History shows us no nation thus constituted that has remained faithful for a long time to these customs of the prosperous societies; and sooner or later it allows itself to be invaded by corruption. The evil always begins with the governors. From there it first spreads to the cities. Then, when the country has in its turn been invaded, the weak point has al- ways been the home of the patron; but the strong point has been the dwelling of the peasant. This characteristic quality exists especially in the agriculturist peasants placed under the regime of the integral trans- mission of the patrimonial domain. It is among them that I have found in my traveling the best examples of a wholesome life and a beauti- ful death. Nothing has touched me more profoundly than the spec- tacle offered by the peasants, who, keeping until the last minute their lucidity of mind, call upon their numerous posterity, brought together at this supreme moment, to subordinate all this life to the conquest of the life eternal. I have still better understood the causes for the solidity of a society upon seeing in Switzerland and in the Basque country the old men recommending to their heirs to unite always in their thoughts aspiration to an eternal life with the solicitude that will assure the temporal well-being of their descendants.
The fruitfulness of this solicitude is shown as well by the observa- tion of contemporary society as by the teachings of history. The ques- tion of the prosperity of nations is summed up in three axioms. Rural life, more than city life, guarantees peace and stability. Rural patrons are necessary to the intellectual development of a society of men, but the peasants are most apt to perpetuate virtue. The benefits of the rural hierarchy are so much the more permanent as the country is less fitted for the production of wealth. One can especially verify the accuracy of these axioms for the regions that constitute the four oases of virtue in Europe at the present time: the mountains and forests of Scan- dinavia, the heaths and woods of the Saxon plain, the Alpine pastures of the six little Swiss cantons of Oberland, the hills and river banks of the Basque provinces of Spain. In these model countries, the cus- toms of the hierarchy harmonize perfectly with the feeling of union arising out of local patriotism. In each locality, public opinion favors
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 353
the elevation of the naturally superior, even though they may be born in the lowest ranks of society. In each class, the families enjoying the best name consecrate, as a matter of honor, at least one of their chil- dren to the ranks of the clergy, who preserve "the peace of God" in their souls, or to the services of the army, which subordinates temporal interests to "the peace of the sovereign."
50. HERBERT RUSSEL: THE VILLAGE NEIGHBORHOOD IN GERMANY (RECENT, PAST, AND PRESENT SITUATION)*
The neighborhood takes an active interest in the individual from the day of his birth.1 As soon as a woman is in childbed the women of the neighborhood come in to look after her affairs. After the child is born the women of the neighborhood lend a hand in the household, attend the christening — in Catholic territory they accompany the mother to the priest for his blessing—, and above all give aid and advice at the christening festival. At less important festivities, such as first communion, confirmation, or engagement, one sends gifts and receives a piece of the festal cake in return. If a villager wants to build his own home, he can definitely expect aid from the neighborhood. As a rule, every person who owns a team of horses brings a load of wood or stones free of charge, others furnish the manual labor for excavating or unloading. And, naturally, all these helpers are present when the hostess brings out the lunch.2
But the neighbors are present not only on joyful occasions; illness and death find them there as well. In such cases the neighbors are notified, and they count it an honor to summon physician and minis- ter. However, shortly before death, they retire to leave the dying per- son alone with his family. After death they appear again in order to assist with preparations for interment and the funeral feast.3
The neighborhood is in evidence in the minor affairs of everyday life as well as in the important events. In nearly all parts of the region covered by this study, the custom of borrowing tools and supplies pre- vails. But Max Weber was correct when he pointed out that this bro- therliness and willingness to lend aid is entirely non-sentimental, and merely a matter of tit for tat.
In a certain sense, the cattle are a part of the village community.
*From Herbert Riissel, "Die Nachbarschaft," in Das Dorf ah soziahs Gebilde, Munchen, Duncker & Humblot, 1928, L. von Wiese, editor. Translated and printed with the permission of the editor and the publisher.
1 Compare W. Diener, Hunsruc^er Vol\s\undst pp. 143E; Adam Wrede, Rhtinische Vol\s\unde, p. 106.
2 Compare W. Diener, op, tit., p. 49; A. Wrede, op. tit., p. 48. "Compare Wrede, op. ciL, pp. 135, 141,
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The aid and sympathy of the neighborhood is directed toward them also, be it at calving time, a time of sickness, or the party given when a pig is killed. Thus, for instance, when a horse of my landlord had broken through the decayed boards covering a hole filled with stale water, the alarm was spread immediately through the entire neigh- borhood, and the men appeared ready to lend good advice, ropes, and muscular effort for several hours to pull the horse out. Generally such a heroic deed is fittingly concluded with treats all around.
Such economic aid to the neighbors is primarily the concern of the man; the familial and household aid is that of the woman; but all those expressions of the relationships existing here that we may designate as village festivals are primarily the concern of youth. All these festi- vals (rifle-matches; the placing of May Poles, or perhaps chaff, before the doors of the girls the night of the first of May; or Kirmes) are neighborhood festivals, a fact that becomes especially evident in the case of Kirmes. On this occasion all former residents who have main- tained some connection with the village return to visit and renew old ties at the happy reunion. The dead are also remembered on such an occasion; their graves are decorated and, in Catholic regions, mass is read for them. Other evidence of the official neighborlmess, such as the spinning room, have been crowded out through the progress of technique. But the frequent discussions concerning them are not en- tirely free from expressions of regret over the fact that they no longer exist. . . .
Of course, not all the relationships of the neighborhood are of a friendly nature. Living together at such close quarters, envy and jeal- ousy are often the causes of embittered enmities. Nevertheless, the power of public opinion is generally sufficient, even in more serious cases, to prevent men from carrying personal matters to court. If we remember the role that gossip plays, in the absence of conversational topics in the village, we need not be surprised that a personal enmity remains purely personal only rarely, but almost automatically affects the families and often splits the village into two inimical parties. Such a split may be continued through several generations. The apparent pettiness of the causes of such conflicts seems worthy of note. There is little room in the village for tragic conflicts but all the more for idle gossip. Frequently the members of conflicting parties have forgotten the reason for the original split.
Our next task will be an attempt to trace the line of development of the neighborhood relations described above. This partially dynamic discussion becomes possible through the fact that villages of the most divergent types were available to us: forest-villages, wine-growing vil-
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 355
lages, purely peasant and markedly industrialized villages, and villages with a pronounced urban character.
In one of the wine-growing villages we found a form of neighbor- hood organization that harks back to a medieval closed corporation, the village corporation, or guild. This has been preserved only in the wine-growing villages of the Rhineland. The following is the charter of such a corporation in Waldlaubersheim. It was recorded in 1925 from the memory of older residents, for, unfortunately, the original has been lost. The village is divided into four guilds, whose names correspond approximately to the names of the village streets. CHARTER OF THE MAIN GUILD (Oberzunjt)
1. Every member must participate in the annual guild meeting, which shall always take place on the last Saturday in the month of February. Ill- ness or extremely important business may serve as excuse. Whoever fails to appear without such an excuse will be excluded from membership in the guild. The master of the guild may appoint two members to determine whether the excuses are true. In case a false excuse is presented the guild assembly determines what action is to be taken.
2. One adult member of every household whose members belong to the guild must attend the funeral of a member of the guild. The master of the guild must invite the members to the funeral, or have them invited, and appoint the pallbearers.
3. If the guild member in a home has died, another male member of the household must perform the guild duties. If there are no males, the persons in the home are freed of guild duties but must pay the sum of one mark at the annual guild meeting.
4. Should a death occur in a home in which no one is a member of the guild, the guild may not bury him. Attendance at the funeral is permitted. If a guild brother participates as pallbearer in such a case, he will be ex- cluded from the guild.
5. Upon being accepted into the guild the new member must pay a bottle of wine to the assembly as an initiation fee. At the conclusion of the meet- ing this will be drunk in common.
6. The master of the guild is required to convene the annual assembly on the last Saturday in February, and to invite the members to it. Every mem- ber must appear at the designated time and place in a clean suit. Every member must conduct himself properly. Offensive language against any guild brother is prohibited. As long as the assembly has not been adjourned, every guild brother must follow the orders of the master of the guild.
7. On every guild day the master of the guild must deliver the charter, in good condition, to his successor. He, in turn, must deliver it to the next guild master on the first of September. In every case, it must be accom- panied by a notation of the names of the pallbearers at the last funeral.
8. It is urgently requested that the members who are participating m the burial of a brother or his relatives, stand as close together as possible at the house from which the funeral is being conducted. This is requested espe-
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daily of the pallbearers that they may be easily accessible. They will be present at the house ten minutes before the ceremony begins, if possible.
9. According to a majority of the guild brothers, any member who loans to a non-member or his relatives, or borrows from him, will be reported to the next guild assembly and fined three marks.
Here follow the signatures and a list of the charter members.
We also gathered from the accounts of early villagers that earlier guild regulations were much more stringent and more binding on the members. For example, these were permitted to address each other only as Herr Zunftbruder, and when a guild brother was visiting an- other, a non-member was not permitted to enter the room. A large share of community activities, such as fire fighting and road building, and economic tasks, such as operating the wine press and transporting wine, were performed by the guild. They also exerted moral censor- ship to some extent.
[This old form was able to persist only in Waldersheim, an isolated and religiously homogeneous peasant village. In other less isolated vil- lages these forms of neighborhood organization have been disinte- grating. The introduction of new economic associations seems to have little influence on the progressive disintegration of these relationships. It is true that the workingmen's associations took over a portion of the work that had earlier been done with the aid of neighbors, but they had no important effect on the attitudes of the villager, for they were purely functional organizations, which were utilized only when abso- lutely necessary.]
A much more important factor for the disintegration of the neigh- borhood communities is the progressive industrialization and the ac- companying mingling of officials and laborers with the original peasant populations. Where there are less than 20 per cent as many laborers as peasants little change is noticeable. The laborers generally adapt them- selves to the peasants and are regarded as neighbors on equal terms. They have more free time than the farmers, but they feel an urge, partly internal, partly external, not to spend this time in idleness. They may spend their time in developing their craft, practicing another, as- sisting the peasant, or cultivating a small plot of ground for them- selves. But when the percentage of laborers rises, they have no oppor- tunity, and frequently no desire, to practice agriculture as a side line. Then the peasant may see the laborer enjoying leisure, while he is still working late in the evening. This makes neighborliness almost impos- sible and stresses the political differences. Not infrequently, also, it accentuates the conflict between youth and age, for youth is constantly more inclined to the views of the seemingly more progressive laborers.
The religious split and its accompanying organizational life must be
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 357
mentioned as the third disintegrating factor. True confessional hatred is on the decline and is met only infrequently. But the Catholic Church attempts to unite all believers into secular organizations, besides the parishes, in order to give the secular social life its supernatural sanc- tion and glorification. It has a negative attitude toward every non- religious organization, even those on so neutral a basis as athletics. Thus the Protestants are indirectly compelled to organize evangelical or neutral organizations. This does not permit the neighborhood to reach its fullest development, especially in view of the fact that the societies, with their frequent activities, tend constantly to monopolize the social life. In all these organizations, however, the inevitable village gossip is perpetuated; jealousy and envy play their disintegrating roles and lead to the founding of competitive organizations. While the or- ganizations grow and prosper, the original neighborhood languishes. In general, one may set up the rule: the greater the religious split, the greater the number of organizations; and the more organizations, the less important the neighborhood.
The same laws of integration and disintegration are repeated in the neighborly relations of villages. An industrialized parish, in which about half of the population consists of laborers and officials, is looked upon with ill will by the surrounding villages. This antipathy is trans- ferred to the peasants of that village, who are termed "white collar farmers" (Manse hettenbauern). And? in general, the relations between villages in which farmers predominate and those in which laborers pre- dominate are unfriendly. The former are accused of reactionism, the latter of levity and extravagance. Villages that differ in their religious affiliation have practically no intercourse with each other. But even where all these drawbacks are absent, where there is a lively inter- course between villages, where persons from one village frequently marry into the other, an undisturbed harmony does not exist. For each village has some degree of local patriotism, which is expressed most generally in calling the residents of foreign villages by jolly nicknames, which often persist from generation to generation. . . .
We do find a certain antagonism: that which is the festival of great- est integration in one village frequently becomes the source of conflict in the relations between villages. These conflicts are often smoothed over by the same factors that have been active in the disintegration of the neighborhood within the village: industrialization, intermingling of peasants with laborers and officials, organizational activities, espe- cially those of the athletic organizations. The line of development is probably toward a greater mutual understanding and adaptation of the villages, but we must not overlook the factors that have an influence similar to the disintegrating factors in neighborhood life.
358 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
51. HAROLD PEAKE: THE ENGLISH VILLAGE OF TODAY*
We have seen that during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the manorial system was decaying throughout the land. In many places the common fields and waste were becoming enclosed and passing from commonalty to severalty, and in these cases the manor courts were no longer necessary and ceased to be held. Even where the en- closure had not taken place the jurisdiction of the courts had become in practice curtailed, and the courts had more and more taken the form of a rent audit. The manorial system as such had disappeared, the vil- lage community system was gone also in some regions, while in others it was but a shadow of its former self.
Up to this time all local government, excepting the business of the county and hundred, had been performed by the manorial lords, either with or without the assistance of their courts, and the administration of the hundreds had gradually become merely a replica of manorial jurisdiction, and the lord of the hundred held a court which was scarcely distinguishable from a manorial court. Thus with the disap- pearance of these courts there was no person or body on which might be thrust the responsibility of dealing with matters of strictly local concern. If some change had not taken place public business of this type would have been at a standstill, or would have been handed over to the earl and the viscount, or to the lord lieutenant and the sheriff, as they were now being called.
Meantime under the Tudor s the population and the prosperity of the country were increasing rapidly, the conditions of society were chang- ing, and fresh problems arose which called for local solution. Thus public business was on the increase, though it differed considerably from that of former centuries.
For instance, in the self-contained manor of earlier times the com- munity had provided for the necessities of all its members. It is true that this meant a bare subsistence only, but under the manorial system no member of the community could be homeless, unclad, or starving. Everyone, save a few outlaws, was a member of a township, be it a vil- lage or a town, and as such a member of its community and dependent on the other members in sickness or old age.
But as the manorial system decayed all this was changed. The peasants were no longer bound to the soil and labor became mobile, and there arose a number of wandering laborers, who traversed the country offering their services to the highest bidder, and so lost their connection with the township of their origin. These became known as
* From Harold Peake, The English Village, London, Benn Brothers, Ltd., 1922, pp. 178482, 185, 203-206, 214-215. Reprinted with permission of the publishers.
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 359
rogues and vagabonds, terms which originally bore no adverse mean- ing but merely indicated the mobile nature of the men to whom they were applied. While some bettered their prospects and became prosperous farmers or traders, others fell upon evil times and, having no community to support them, were frequently on the verge of star- vation. This condition led them, as starvation always does, to be a ter- ror to their more prosperous neighbors and a menace to law and order, and so the terms rogue and vagabond grew to have a sinister meaning.
Many enactments were made between 1390 and 1600 to control the actions of these vagrants and to provide them with at least a bare sustenance; these enactments became the basis of the Poor Law. . . .
Now the original community responsible for the support of the poor was the manor, or more properly speaking, the township out of which it arose. But manors were fast disappearing, and their administrative machinery was decaying even where they survived. The township, too, was losing its community and its communal spirit, and even its bounds were disappearing, except in the west of England, where these units still in a great measure survive.
Yet an area was needed to which these rogues and vagabonds could be sent, and upon which the responsibility of their maintenance could be thrust. As the manor and township became more and more impos- sible, a new area was necessary, and by the close of the sixteenth cen- tury it became customary for this and other like responsibilities to be placed on the parish. Thus by slow degree the parish became a civil unit and succeeded to the functions formerly performed by township or manor, while the vestry, the one meeting of all the parishioners, came to undertake certain public dudes similar to those formerly per- formed by the manorial courts. . . .
As in the case of the manor, the parish was in theory the township, and was and still is frequently coterminous with that area. But just as the township is the area from the community's standpoint, and the manor that from the lord's, so the parish was the same area from the standpoint of the Church and the priest. Though this was the case in theory, it was by no means always so in practice. As in the case of manors, the parish might consist of a number of townships or a frac- tion of one. If the district was poor, the township small or the manors large, it was usual for the parish to contain a number of townships, and this was more particularly the case in the western counties, where forest communities were common, and where parishes exist containing as many as thirty townships. . , .
As the manor decayed and the township lost its communal conscious- ness, the ancient parish gradually took their place and became the ad- ministrative unit. It remains so still, though during the nineteenth
360 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
century there have been some changes, a few amalgamations, and many subdivisions. In some of the western counties, especially in Cheshire, the townships became converted into parishes for adminis- trative purposes and are termed civil parishes, and in some of these cases the bounds have been more recently rectified to provide more compact units. The same change has taken place to a lesser degree in other parts of England, and during the nineteenth century three such civil parishes, Winterbourne, Leckhampstead, and Cold Ash, have been created in the immediate neighborhood of Newbury. . . .
Hitherto we have been tracing the rise and the gradual decay of the village community in England; in the last chapter we left it in a mori- bund condition, and in the nineteenth century we witness its decease. We have seen that since 1730 the economic conditions of the times were encouraging the enclosure of the common fields; the high prices realized by grain during the time of the Peninsular War hastened this process. Few of them were left in 1820, and most of these were enclosed during the next few years; so that, when the General Enclosure Act was passed in 1845 there were scarcely any common fields in existence except in the counties of Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire.
As we have seen, the change was not good for the small owner and the small tenant, as the expenses of fencing were disproportionate in these cases. It is important to ascertain the fate of these two classes of the population.
The more intelligent of the small owners lost no time in selling their land and investing their proceeds in the War Loan, the five per cents of those days, and in the education of their sons. Many had already been engaged in outside occupations and had become in a small way surveyors, lawyers, and bankers; they had sent their sons into liberal professions, which were already growing in importance. They and their sons now definitely entered the ranks of professional men, and their descendants became clergy, officers in the army and navy, bankers, solicitors, and, to a less extent, doctors; many entered the higher ranks oÂŁ the Civil Service, then growing rapidly as department was added to department, and later became civil servants in India and the Colo- nies. . , .
Others again of these small owners, perhaps the less intelligent, re- mained on the land as tenant-farmers, but even now these may be dis- tinguished from their neighbors by a certain indefinable "landowning" tradition. Others in time sank lower and lower in the scale, until they became landless laborers; but the sense of freedom still survived in them, and their descendants may be distinguished from the general mass of farm laborers, They now demand and get small holdings, on which they are successful, and they are leaders of public opinion in
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 361
village society. The small tenant disappeared more slowly. , . . Many of these men and their sons migrated to the towns and joined the ranks of the skilled workers. . . . Some remained in the villages as black- smiths, wheelwrights, thatchers, and hay-tiers. They, too, became lead- ers of local opinion, and sometimes found seats on the Parish Council. When the movement for small holdings began, they, too, applied for allotments, and in many cases have become very successful small holders.
The landless man had long been sinking. The maladministration of the Poor Law at the hands of the parish authorities, the indiscriminate doles and charities of squire and parson, had been sapping his inde- pendence and initiative. . , .
The descendants of these men are the lower type of agricultural laborers, with no stake in the land, no interest in the work they are doing. Wandering from farm to farm, and from village to village, they are hired for the year at the annual fair, and are in some parts known as "Michaelmassers." As each autumn goes by, one may see their small stock of furniture, yearly becoming less from constant moves, being carried from one village to another in a farm wagon. Subject to these constant moves, they never make a home or live on terms of intimacy with their neighbors, nor do they ever cultivate, except most perfunc- torily, the garden attached to their cottage. Their children are ill-nour- ished, and profit little by an education received each year in a different school from different teachers. Altogether their lot is a wretched one, and it is difficult to see what steps are to be taken to mend it. The best members of this type leave for the towns, or sometimes for the Colo- nies, where some of them, perchance, succeed; many end their days in the back courts and alleys of the slums. . . .
Thus with the enclosure of the common fields and waste the com- munity life of the village came to an end. Village society became di- vided into two camps, often two hostile camps; the squire and the farmers in the one, and often the parson too, while in the other were the farm laborers and perhaps a few small holders. Thus there were the Haves and Have-nots, with no bond of association between them but an ever widening gap; this gap yawned still wider as the parish ceased to count as a civil unit. . . .
There is little of such community life left in the villages now. The parish councils were designed to improve matters, and in some villages which are not wholly agricultural they have done something; but in truly rural parishes they are at present valueless, . . . The ordinary farm laborer takes little interest in these attempts to improve village life; he has lost all ambition, and in only too many cases he is, if not actually feeble-minded, at least subnormal.
CHAPTER VII
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION OF THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION
The rural population is not only differentiated horizontally into numerous cumulative communities and functional associations, but there are also various occupational, economic, and political strata superimposed one upon another. The agricultural popula- tion consists of a social pyramid with several economic, occupa- tional, and sociopolitical layers. It is stratified economically from the standpoints of wealth, income, and economic standard of liv- ing; occupationally from the standpoint of domination and con- trol on the one hand and subjection and execution on the other; and politically from the standpoint of social and political privi- leges and prestige.1 Although the rural pyramid is much less stratified than the urban (see chapter iv and the chapter "Farmer- Peasant Class in Its Relationship to Other Classes"), nevertheless stratification has always existed to some extent among the agri- cultural population.
The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the principal forms of rural stratification, to examine the essential fluctuations and trends in the heightening and lowering of the pyramid, and to grasp both the contemporary situation and the probable trends in the near future. An adequate analysis of these problems with their many complex subproblems would give an idea of the vertical aspect of the morphological structure of the rural population. As we shall see, these problems are very closely connected with sev- eral other problems which would require an additional chapter for their analysis. However, in this chapter we shall consider only the fundamental problems of rural social stratification enumerated above.
1 Concerning the fundamental forms and bases of social stratification, see P. Sorokin, Social Mobility, chap, iii and passim.
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SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 363
I. FUNDAMENTAL STRATA OF THE AGRICULTURAL POPU- LATION
The most common classification of the fundamental strata of the rural population is the threefold division of the rural popula- tion into farmer-owners, tenants, and hired laborers. This classifi- cation is based simultaneously on economic, occupational, and socio-political bases, for the farmer or peasant owners are usually more privileged economically, occupationally, and socio-politically than either the tenants or the laborers. The tenants are likewise more privileged than the laborers in all these respects. Although this classification is essentially valid, it is too general and must be developed further. Not all landowners or all tenants or all hired laborers occupy the same social position. A farmer who owns five acres and one who owns five thousand acres are both landowners, but it is quite obvious that they have very different economic, oc- cupational, and socio-political status and occupy very different positions in the social pyramid. Similar distinctions are true for various classes of tenants and hired laborers. Hence it is necessary to discriminate between various groups of landowners, tenants, and hired laborers. Such discrimination can be made easily on the bases of the type of the agricultural enterprise with which they are connected and the role that they play in each type. In the lit- erature there exist several classifications of agricultural enterprises.
Early investigators of the problem took relatively simple traits as a basis of their classification, such as the size of the farm, the value of the cattle and means and instruments of production, the amount of the invested capital, or whether the enterpriser's family hired or lent labor, etc. Enterprises have been grouped into a series of classes on the basis of each of these criteria. At the present moment almost all investigators agree that such a classification on the basis of one of these simple traits is too mechanical and only imperfectly grasps the type of the socio-economic organization of the enterprise. They have begun to use a complex or composite basis for classification. In details these complex bases differ some- what, but in their essentials they are similar and include the same elements, namely: size of farm; the objective of the engage- ment in agriculture (profit or mainly obtaining the means of sub- sistence) ; whether the work is done by the family, or with the help of hired labor, or whether the family lends the labor of some
364 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
of its members; the value of the cattle, machinery, and the inven- tory of the enterprise; the extensive and the intensive type of cultivation, either in capital or in labor or in both, etc. (The purely technical side of the enterprise, what kind of produce it cultivates, etc., is unimportant for us just now.) Combining these criteria, the investigators give several classes of agricultural enter- prises, and, correspondingly, several strata of the agricultural population. In details these classifications are different, in essen- tials they are similar. The following table gives a fairly representa- tive type of these classifications.2
1. Prohtarianizing or decaying farm enterprise. — Very small land holding.
Surplus of labor hands in the family who cannot find application for their labor in the family holding and must look for employment else- where. The consumption needs of the family are only partly derived from the farm. The family supplies hired labor for other agricultural or nonagricultural enterprises.
2. Peasant-consumptive farm enterprise. — The agricultural enterprise em-
ploys all the labor of the members of the peasant family. The family has no surplus of working hands among its members who have to find employment outside the family enterprise. Migration of the members from the farm somewhere else is nil or insignificant. The consumption needs of the family are covered through agricultural family enterprise. Medium size landholding. Good return per unit of land, and low return per units of labor and capital.
3. Farmer-productive farm enterprise. — It is similar to the preceding type,
but differs from it through the fact that it is not only and not so much a consumption farm economy as a production economy. Profit-making is more conspicuously expressed in it. Contact with the market is closer and money economy plays a much greater part than in the peasant consumption economy. Thanks to an investment of a greater capital and the introduction of labor-saving machinery, the farmer- family cultivates, without any hired labor or with an insignificant portion of it, a much larger landholding and has a much better chance to accumulate some wealth than in the purely consumption economy of the peasant. Good return per unit of land and fairly good per unit of labor and capital.
4. Farmer-capitalistic farm enterprise. — Agricultural enterprise cannot be
run with the labor of the family members only, but needs some hired labor. The family not only derives its means of subsistence from farming but besides makes some savings and accumulation of wealth
*For an analysis of the fundamental differences between the farm family and the capitalist types of agricultural enterprise see in Part III the chapter on the economic organization of the agricultural population.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 365
in its economic activity. Landholding is usually above medium size. The objective of the farm activity is partly a satisfaction of the needs of the family, partly profit-making and accumulation of wealth. Better return per unit of labor and capital, but somewhat lower per unit of land.
5. Capitalistic farm economy. — The agricultural enterprise is so large that
the entrepreneur performs only the organizational, managerial, and controlling functions. The whole manual work and subordinate half- manual, half-organizational work is done through hired labor. The objective of the farming enterprise is obtaining the maximum return on the invested capital and the maximum profit for the entrepreneur per unit of capital and labor, and low per unit of land.
6. The latijundia type of farm economy. — The amount of land in the
enterprise is so great that the entrepreneur needs the help of qualified employes for performance of the managerial, organizational, and controlling functions. Usually there are several centers for the man- agement of various and somewhat autonomic estates into which the whole land is divided. The enterprise is a large capitalistic organiza- tion. In rationally organized latifundia (in contrast to extensive and idle exploitation of vast stretches of land in the form of primitive economy) there is a high return per unit of capital and labor, and a very low one per. unit of land.3
The above classification is only one of the several possible. It may have several variations. It also has several intermediary types. But in its essentials it outlines the fundamental types of the socio- economic organization of farm enterprise. Of course each of these types is not equally diffused in various countries. In Russia, for instance (and still more in China and India) the types No. 2 and, in much less degree, No. 3 and No. 4 have been predominant. In the United States, on the contrary, No. 3 and No. 4 have been most common.
In accordance with these types of enterprises it is possible to discriminate the following principal strata of the agricultural population:
8Cf, N. Makaroff, Organization of Farm Economy (Russ.), Berlin, 1924, pp, 20 ff.; P. I. Liaschenko, Outlines of the Agrarian Evolution of Russia (Russ.), Leningrad, 1924, pp. 58$.; N. Lenin, Evolution of Capitalism in Russia (Russ.), Moscow, 1924, chap, ii; N. Lenin, "Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States," Works (Russ,), Moscow, 1925, IX, 183-260; V. Kavraiski and I. Nusinojff, Classes and Class Relationships in the Soviet Village (Russ,), 3929, chap, ii; A, N. Tschelinzeft, Theoretical Foundations of Organisation of Peasant Economy (Russ.), Kharkov, 1919; H, H. Tschernenkofif, The Characteristics of the Peasant Economy, Moscow, 1918; P. Maslov, Agrarian Prob- lem in Russia (Russ.), St. Petersburg, 1908, Vol. I, Part II.
366 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
1. Proprietors of large, latifundia-type, agricultural enterprises.
2. Proprietors of smaller capitalist agricultural enterprises.
3. Managers and tenants of large capitalistic enterprises.
4. Proprietors of farmer-capitalist agricultural enterprises.
5. Proprietors of farmer agricultural enterprises.
6. Tenants of capitalist agricultural enterprises.
7. Tenants of farmer-capitalist agricultural enterprises.
8. Tenants of farmer agricultural enterprises.
9. Higher employes of capitalist and farmer-capitalist enter-
prises.
10. Proprietors of the peasant-consumptive agricultural enter-
prises.
11. Tenants of peasant-consumptive agricultural enterprises.
12. Proprietors of proletarianizing or small decaying agricultural
enterprises.
13. Hired laborers of various types.
Of course, this hierarchy is only approximate. Sometimes some of the tenants of the capitalist enterprises are much more wealthy and have much more social influence and prestige than the pro- prietors of the farmer-capitalist or farmer enterprises. Sometimes there are employes whose economic and social position is more enviable than that of the owners of medium-size holdings. In brief, the relative position of some of these rungs on the agricul- tural ladder may be somewhat different. Nevertheless, in essen- tials their hierarchical sequence is practically that given above, and, what is more important, all these strata actually exist within the total agricultural population of various countries. Each of these strata is divided further into a series of substrata according to the amount of income, prestige, and occupational function. Thus the whole agricultural population gives a rather high pyra- mid of social stratification. Its highest stratum, the largest and richest owners of the capitalist latifundia, and its lowest stratum, the unskilled and poorly paid farm laborers, are separated by an enormous social distance of economic, occupational, and socio- political privileges, rights, and disfranchisements. Passing from the top to the bottom of this hierarchy we find, as a rule, a lower income, a lower standard of living, less education, decrease of the organizational functions and increase of manual work, less pres- tige, less social influence, less domination and fewer privileges, and more juridical or factual disfranchisements.
However, the proportion of the agricultural population that be-
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 367
longs to the first, second, and third strata is quite insignificant in comparison with the total agricultural population. Besides, the individuals composing it dwell more often in the city than in the country. For these reasons we may omit them from our analysis. The bulk of the agricultural population in almost all countries is composed principally of proprietors of the strata Nos. 5, 10, 4, and, in a less degree, of No. 12; of tenants of Nos. 7, 8, and 11; and, finally, of hired laborers (No. 13). This means that, even if we exclude the large capitalist owners, managers, and lessees of such large enterprises from the agricultural population, the bulk of it, composed of the persons and families who participate di- rectly in the work, still remains stratified. More than that, each of these "labor agricultural strata" is again divided into several sub- strata. Not all agricultural enterprises "of the farmer-productive" or "the peasant-consumptive" or "the farmer-capitalist" type are identical in size, amount of income, equipment, number of labor hands employed, etc. The socio-economic position of the various classes of tenants or hired laborers and employes is again not identical. A detailed analysis of social stratification even within the bulk of the "labor classes" of the agricultural population would have to include a consideration of these substrata within each of the above strata.
The existence of these strata is important in two respects, par- ticularly from the standpoint of a sociologist. Since a rural aggre- gate is composed of several strata with division of labor between them, no one of them is self-sufficient but must cooperate with the others. The upper stratum, performing predominantly or- ganizational and managerial functions, needs the cooperation of the lower stratum performing manual work, and vice versa. This binds these strata together and serves as a basis for their mutual solidarity. On the contrary, no one of them, lacking self- sufficiency, could carry on its economic activity and satisfy its needs. Thus, since a division of labor calls forth some "organic solidarity" between the members of an aggregate,4 it is unavoid-
* Studies oÂŁ G. Simmcl, E. Durkheim, F. Tonnies, and others have shown that there are two principal forms of solidarity: that based on similarity of the members of the group and that based on their dissimilarity, or division of labor. The first form of soli- darity is, so to speak, natural: we are inclined to have greater sympathy with those who are similar to us in race, nationality, religion, culture, occupation, economic status, family affiliation, etc. The second form of solidarity flows from the fact that in a group with division of labor between its members, no individual is self-sufficient but needs coop-
368 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
able in the rural aggregate also, though less developed than in the urban aggregate. At the same time, thanks to the fact that rural stratification and differentiation is less developed than urban, vari- ous strata of the rural population still resemble each other more than do the various urban strata. For this reason rural people con- tinue to be bound into a "solid" group by this similarity to a de- gree greater than the urban strata, where the solidarity based on similarity already plays a much less important role in view of the greater development of social differentiation and stratification in the city aggregate. Thus, from the standpoint of the ties of soli- darity, the rural aggregate with its strata is a group whose mem- bers are solidarized by both fundamental factors of solidarity: by the division of labor and by the similarity of its members.
On the other hand, the existence of different social strata with their differences in economic, occupational, and social-political fields, always leads to greater or lesser conflicts of interests and to psycho-social and economic antagonism between these strata. The greater the stratification, the greater become these conflicts and antagonisms. In the city, where stratification is greater than in the country, the antagonisms and class struggles are also greater. But since the stratification exists in the rural aggregate also, it follows that such an aggregate is not entirely free from clash, conflict, and antagonisms in the relationships of the strata that constitute the aggregate. As the social distance between the very top, of the rural pyramid (No. 1 in the above classification) and its lowest stratum of hired laborers or poor peasants is particularly great, the an- tagonisms between these strata are particularly conspicuous. In a latent form it always exists. From time to time it takes the form of an overt explosion in a revolutionary movement of the poorest rural classes against the large landlords and landholders. History is filled with the records of such movements. The difference be- tween the more numerous strata of the agricultural population,
eration with other individuals for the satisfaction of his necessities. The first form of solidarity is more widespread among less complex, less stratified and differentiated socie- ties; the second increases with the growth of the complexity of society. At the present moment, as has been shown, urban society is more stratified and differentiated than rural; therefore, the second type of solidarity is more predominant in the city while it is less developed in the country, where solidarity based on similarity plays a relatively more important part. However, as the text shows, the existence of the stratification and differ- entiation within the agricultural population gives room in it for a solidarity based on division of labor. See also Herbert Spencer's theories of social organization.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 369
for instance layers Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, is much less con- spicuous; they gradually merge one into the other. For this reason the antagonism between them is much milder and less intensive, though it exists to some extent. For this reason the rural areas where the agricultural population has been composed almost ex- clusively of farmers and peasants and where neither the class of big landlords nor that of poor hired laborers has existed, have been marked by a lesser development of antagonisms and class struggle between their members than the areas with big latifun- dia and estates and their satellites, the large stratum of poor peas- antry and hired laborers. (See Siegfried's paper in the readings.) From this standpoint it becomes of primary importance to inquire what tendencies toward social stratification exist in the rural population at the present moment. Is stratification increasing? Are the middle strata of peasants, farmers, capitalist-farmers, and well-to-do tenants tending to decrease in favor of the strata of big landlords on the one hand and landless hired labor on the other ? If such a process of the concentration of land into fewer and fewer hands is taking place, and if the masses of farmer and peasant owners tend to decrease and to be turned into farm pro- letariat, then evidently the class conflicts in the agricultural popu- lation must increase in the future and follow a development simi- lar to that which has occurred in the cities. If the process is the opposite of the one just described, and if the strata of big land- lords and landless laborers are stationary or decreasing, then rural antagonisms may remain stationary or may decrease.
This problem is closely connected with the problem of contem- porary tendencies in the degree of survival of various types of agricultural enterprise. It is evident that if we have a manifest tendency towards a decrease in the proportion of the peasant, farmer, and farmer-capitalist types of enterprises in favor of the large-scale capitalist agricultural enterprises, the result will be a systematic decrease of the middle strata of the agricultural popu- lation, an increase of the landless rural proletariat, concentration of land in the hands of the capitalist entrepreneurs, growth of social stratification within the rural population, and consequently an increase of social antagonisms and class struggle within the agricultural classes. If the process is the opposite, then the results will be opposite also.
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Thus, from both of the above standpoints, we are led to an in- vestigation of the problem as to which types of agricultural enter- prises show themselves as stable and growing and which types tend to be driven out of existence. If a certain tendency exists in this field, what are the factors responsible for it? Investigation of this problem is at the same time an investigation of the problem as to whether the social stratification within the agricultural popu- lation is increasing, or remaining constant, or decreasing. A solu- tion of this problem is, at the same time, an answer to the ques- tion as to whether the class struggle within the rural population tends to grow or not. Let us turn now to the problems mentioned.
II. PRESENT TENDENCIES IN LAND CONCENTRATION AND RURAL STRATIFICATION
Historical remarks.— A. bird's-eye view of the history of many societies, especially those which have lived for a long period, shows the existence of long-time cycles in which a wave of con- centration of land (and consequently a growth of social stratifica- tion) is replaced by a wave of deconcentration (and a decrease of stratification), to be superseded by a new wave of concentration, etc. At one period small-scale peasant enterprises are driven out by large landholdings, exploited either in the form of large capi- talist enterprises or in the form of parasitical leases of portions of the land to free or unfree tenants. At another period the process is replaced by the opposite one, by a growth of the small peasant or farmer landholdings at the expense of the large estates of big landowners. In the history of China there have been several such cycles. The tendency toward latifundia has appeared many times, and many times "it has .been checked by the government with a strong hand" by various means: by a confiscation of the large estates and the distribution of their land among the peasants, by many laws to limit the size of the landholdings, by excessive taxes for the large estates, by the cancellation of the debts of the small peasants and tenants, by a revolutionary seizure of the landlords' land by the peasants, etc.5 For instance, the waves of land con- centration were followed by waves of its disbursement and the consequent checking of the concentration process in the years
cSee particularly M. Ping-Hua Lee, The Economic History of China, pp. 58, 60, 66, 131 and passim. See there especially the selections from the historical records of China, pp. 139-451, where the alternation of these opposite tendencies is shown quite clearly.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 371
140 B.C., 37-32 B.C, 9 A.D., 210 A.D., 220 A.D., and by many similar waves after that time.6
Similar waves have taken place in the history of ancient Greece and Rome. In Greece, to the time of Solon, the concentration of land was conspicuous. "Land was in the hands of few," and "many were in slavery to the few," Aristotle testifies.7 Solon's re- form somewhat checked this process and stimulated the process of the redistribution of land through the cancellation of public and private debts and other measures.8 After Solon the alterna- tion of the process of concentration with that of redistribution and parceling— though the last was always less successful— repeated itself many times (e.g., measures of Pisistratus, Cleisthenes, Peri- cles, and the "equalization and revolutionary measures" of nu- merous Greek politicians).
Similarly, in Rome even during the time of Servius Tullius, there was some inequality in the distribution of land, the differ- ence between the poorest and the richest classes being that be- tween two and twenty jugera of land. In the time of the "Twelve Tables" some measures to check it were again taken. The process of concentration went on and called forth an effort to check it in the form of the laws of Licinius and Sextius, which, among other things such as the cancellation of debts, prohibited one man from possessing more than 500 jugera of land (ager occupatorius}. This period again was replaced by a period of concentration, which was again somewhat weakened by the reforms of the Gracchi and especially by the redistributions of the Civil War of the end of the second and the beginning of the first century B.C. Up to the second century B.C. and during its first part "a rapid concentration of landed property was steadily taking place. The landowners were either members of the senatorial and equestrian classes in Rome or the most energetic, shrewd, and thrifty of .the resi- dents of the Italian towns. . . . These men never intended to take up residence on the farms and work the land with their own hands. From the very beginning they were landowners, not farmers. . . ." This facilitated a reaction against the concentration and stimulated the movement in favor of redistribution of the land. This was the main object of the Gracchi, who "were supported by the rural population of Italy and by the landless proletariat. , . . Redistribution of land and
9 Ibid,, pp. 445-448.
7 Aristotle, On the Athenian Constitution f chap. iv.
8 See ibid., chaps, iv-vi.
372 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
the consequent restoration of the peasantry and of the army formed at once the starting point and the goal of their reforms. . . ." However, "their activity did not produce a redistribution of land on a large scale. Some new peasant plots were of course created, some landless proletar- ians were provided with holdings, some large estates were confiscated. But soon the process was first arrested and then finally stopped." But reaction again followed in the time of the war with the Samnites — in which the land question played an important part, and especially in the time of the Civil War with its many redistributions of land. "Accord- ing to careful calculations, not less than half a million men received holdings in Italy during the last fifty years of that troubled period." 9
After that, such waves were repeated several times, though all the measures of redistribution could weaken the process of concentra- tion only temporarily. Pliny tells that in the time of Nero six landowners possessed half of the territory of Africa.10 Followed by the war cry, "redistribution of land/' this process of concentra- tion, interrupted for moments by various checks, later assumed the form of a concentration in the hands of the government rather than in those of the private landlords. "Land became more and more the property of the state, withdrawn from the market, and concentrated in the hands of the emperors."11
Somewhat similar cycles have occurred in the history of Byzan- tium and medieval Europe. In the early centuries of Byzantium there was an abundance of small agricultural enterprises, stimu- lated and protected by the state. Then came the process of con- centration. Already in the fifth century A.D. there were large estates, like that of a great lady Paula, who owned the territory of Nicopolis in Epirus. The concentration went on with some fluctuations, leading in the tenth century to the appearance of enormous estates, with hundreds and thousands of slaves, tens of thousands of sheep, and hundreds of thousands of cattle. Subse- quently, there were periods in which the concentration was checked, but only temporarily and with limited success, until the disappearance of Byzantium, when the small peasant holdings and the middle peasant farms were swallowed by the feudal lords, the state, the church, and other big landowners.12
9M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, pp. 18-19, 23-24, 33.
10 See ibid., pp. 93-97, 183, 212, 297 and passim.
11 Ibid., p. 297.
12 See P. Boissonade, Life and Work, in Medieval Europe, chaps, iii, xi.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 373
In western Europe the centuries from the seventh to the tenth were marked by the growth of large domains and the decrease of small freeholdings, in brief, by a marked concentration of the land. The centuries from the eleventh to the fifteenth (in some countries up to the seventeenth) were marked by rather an op- posite trend, by dissolution of the large estates., a liberation of the rural classes, an enormous rise of their standard of living, and an extension of their holdings at the expense of the large feudal- private and corporational — latifundia.13 Subsequent centuries up to the nineteenth were marked in the main by the opposite process of the dispossession of the peasants from the land in prac- tically all European countries, especially in England and Den- mark. In some countries, like Italy and England, they lost only the land and did not lose their personal freedom; in other coun- tries of the northeast of Europe they lost their freedom also. Only in France of the eighteenth century were the peasant holdings not falling but rather growing at the expense of the large feudal estates.14
Since the end of the eighteenth and during the nineteenth century the trend was rather reversed. This period, to a different degree in various countries (and not without exceptions), was characterized by a decrease of the large estates in favor of the small holdings. The process went on in different forms in dif- ferent countries but, all in all, it was opposed to the process of land concentration of the preceding centuries. At the end of the nineteenth century and before the World War of 1914-1918 this tendency became still clearer until it assumed the form of a vio- lent dispersal of land in the postwar period. (See W. Schiff's pa- per in the readings.) Such, in the most general form, has been the alternating process of the concentration and dispersion of land and social stratification in various countries, and in the history of Europe up to the present moment.
The next question to be discussed is the situation in the last decade. What is taking place at the present moment, and what are the prospects for the future in regard to this problem ?
Principal theories and recent present tendencies. — As is well
18 P. Boissonadc, ibid*, passim,
" See ^particularly J. L. Loutchisky, Uttat des classes agricoles en France h la vcillr de la Revolution, chaps, i, ii and passim; H. SÂŁe, Esquisse tfunc histoire dn regime agrazre, cited.
374 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
known, theories in regard to present and future prospects in con- nection with the comparative advantages of the large- and small- scale farming have been discussed very extensively.15 Two oppo- site theories have been set forth. One theory recently was set forth in its sharpest form by Karl Marx. Marx believed that the devel- opment of capitalism— in industry as well as in agriculture — tended to a progressive concentration of wealth, including land, in fewer and fewer hands, to a systematic pauperization of the labor classes, to a replacement of the small proprietors by the propertyless and landless proletariat, and to the disappearance of the middle social classes. In agriculture this meant a tendency toward the progressive replacement of small — peasant and farmer — enterprises by large capitalist estates; a systematic and ever increasing stratification of the peasant and farmer population into a small group of capitalists in agriculture and landless prole- tariat, to which class the bulk of the rural population would have to be degraded. This meant that the processes of a progressively increasing stratification and differentiation of the rural population had to be expected as an inevitable outcome of the development of capitalism. As symptoms of such a trend Marx tried to show a decrease of the small independent farmers and peasants among the population engaged in agriculture, and an increase of the tenants and hired laborers. Likewise he believed that the large estates were driving out the small landholdings in agriculture. The reason for such a tendency was, according to Marx, the same that led to a replacement of the handicrafts in industry by the large factory system, that is, the economic advantages of large- scale over small-scale production. (See the readings from N. Lenin and J. Schafir, in which this theory is developed in an orthodox Marxian spirit.)
This theory was accepted by many, and especially by many of the socialist parties of various countries. In their programs they regarded the class of farmers and peasants as the class doomed by capitalism to become a proletariat class, and in the interests of socialism they rather welcomed it as a necessary condition for the realization of socialism itself. (See in the readings, the papers of Tugan-Baranovsky, Sombart, and Schafir, in which the past and the present attitudes of the socialists are described.) According to
"See a survey of the theories in M. Hainisch, Die Landflucht, pp. 1178.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 375
their beliefs, the process of the concentration of the land in fewer and fewer hands was really taking place; the small enterprise could not resist the large capitalist enterprises in agriculture and was doomed; the social stratification and differentiation of the agricultural population into capitalists and proletarians was cer- tain; in brief, Marx's theory was accepted without any serious questioning.
The other theory, supported by a great many economists, states- men, historians, and even by some of the socialist parties of the non-Marxian type, maintained rather an opposite claim. It has contended that the economic evolution in industry and in agricul- ture has been different and that what has been true for industry has not necessarily been applicable to agriculture. It claimed fur- ther that K. Marx's theory of the concentration of wealth has been fallacious even in regard to industry and is still more fallacious in its application to agriculture. Further arguments of the partisans of this theory were as follows. Thanks to the peculiarities of agri- culture, the advantages of large-scale over small-scale enterprises are by no means so great there as in industry. Though existing in some forms they are counterbalanced by many disadvantages, from which it follows that, economically, the small agricultural enterprises possessed by peasants and farmers can resist quite suc- cessfully the large capitalist enterprises. Its adherents have at- tempted to prove this claim by a series of factual data which have shown that in various countries the process of land concentration has not been taking place at all in agriculture for the last few decades. Side by side with this, the adherents of this theory have contended that the Marxian thesis of an increasing stratification of the agricultural population has not been taking place; that the proportion of the peasant- and farmer-owners has not been de- creasing, and that the proportion of tenants and especially of hired farm labor has not been increasing systematically. Proceed- ing in this way they have contended that there are no serious rea- sons to believe that the small and independent producers in agri- culture are doomed to disappear, but rather that the future be- longs to the class of peasants and farmers no less than to the class of the agricultural capitalists. Such being the factual situation, it is to be welcomed from the standpoint of the theory discussed, because of its social and political and other beneficial effects for
376 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
the whole society. (See the readings from Tugan-Baranovsky and Sombart, in which this theory is developed and defended.) Which of these theories is to be recognized as more correct, in the light of contemporary knowledge? If we disregard several sec- ondary traits of each of the theories, the second one seems to be more valid and accurate than the Marxian theory, so far as it, in its turn, does not pretend to be exclusive. The seventy-five years that have passed since Marx set forth his theory have shown that even in regard to the industrial evolution his fundamental claims have not been substantiated. Neither the process of the concentra- tion of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, nor that of a systematic decrease of the middle classes, nor their degradation into the class of the proletariat, nor a progressive impoverishment of the labor classes has been realized.16
If Marx's predictions have failed in regard to industry, they have shown themselves to be still more inadequate as to agricul- ture. Contrary to his expectation (and the claim of Lenin) no definite tendency toward a concentration of land in fewer and fewer hands has been manifest; no trend toward a progressive re- placement of small-scale farms by large capitalist "farm-fac- tories"; no clear-cut trend toward an increasing proportion of farm laborers at the expense of independent farmers and peasants; no systematic increase of social stratification within the agricul- tural population. It is true that some symptoms of such processes have been present temporarily in some countries. But these symp- toms have been successfully counterbalanced by the opposite proc- esses.
If the problem was not quite clear up to 19174920, since that time the situation has been greatly clarified in regard to Europe by the present-day agrarian revolution in the majority of Euro- pean countries. One of the main items of this revolution has con- sisted in a dissolution of the large estates and in a transfer of land from the large landowners to the small farmers and peasants. As will be shown (see particularly the paper of W. Schiff), the post- war years have been the years of an ascendancy of small-scale pro- duction in agriculture over large capitalist latifundia. This has been so clear that, with the exception of the Russian Communist
16 Social Mobility, pp. 38-45, 117-128; see there the literature oÂŁ the problem and principal data.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 377
party, practically all socialist parties had to abandon their previous Marxian standpoint, to recognize that this standpoint was wrong in its essentials, and to replace it by rather an opposite standpoint, very similar to that of the second theory. (See the reading from Schafir, who, being a Communist, recognizes such a change and assails it.) The data and the figures given further in this intro- duction and in the readings of this chapter, among which is Schafir's paper, supply a sufficient basis for the verification of these statements. Though they are not quite complete, neverthe- less they give the essentials of the data. The farmer and peasant enterprise, contrary to the expectation of their disappearance, have shown themselves very stable and capable of competing with capitalist enterprises in agriculture.
What will happen in the future nobody can answer; but so far as the last century and the present moment are concerned, espe- cially in Europe, there is no valid basis to believe in the accuracy of Marx's prediction. All in all, we are not living in an age of the concentration of land in fewer and fewer hands but rather in one of the dissolution of large agricultural estates in favor of peasant and farmer enterprises.
This is rather certain in regard to Europe. And it is important to note that such a tendency did not arise suddenly during the World War period but was manifest in many countries several decades before the war. For instance, since the second half of the nineteenth century in Russia, the land of the landed nobility has been passing systematically into the hands of the peasants and farmers; the large estates have been decreasing while the small peasant farms have been increasing. From 1875 to 1911 the land of the nobility in European Russia decreased from 76.6 millions of dessiatins to 43.2 millions, while the "private" (as distinguished from the land of the peasant land communities, which is taken as constant) lands of the peasants increased from 5.3 millions of dessiatins to 30.4 millions. In a similar way the large latifundia de- creased in their number as well as in the amount of their land.17 The years of the Revolution from 1917 to 1927 only consummated
17 P. I. Liaschenko, "The Economic Pre-Conditions oi: the 1917th," Agrarian Rcvolu« tlon (Russ.)> ed. by V. P. Miliutin, Moscow, The Communist Academy, 1928, II, 51-52. Sec other figures and details in the papers of N, Oganovski in the volume Struggle for land (Russ.), Moscow, 1908, I, 727, 252-253, 264, 319 ft; and P. Maslov, Agrarian Problems (Russ.), I, 226.
378 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
this process and led to the dissolution of the large estates and to the creation of 25 million peasant enterprises, as compared with 15 millions before the Revolution.
Since 1928 the Soviet government has pursued a very violent policy aimed at eliminating the individual peasant farms and merging them into so-called "large collective farms," which will be managed as one unit by the officials and members of the Com- munist party. The peasants who have opposed this dispossession of their land by the Soviet government have been coerced piti- lessly by means of arrests, executions, banishments, confiscation of property, overtaxation, and hundreds of similar measures. This policy has been successful, at least temporarily, in forcing the peasants to follow the orders of the Soviet government and to "collectivize" their individual farms.18 The Soviet authorities expect three-fourths of all the farms to be collectivized by the end of 1930. As the collective farms are large-scale farms, this would mean the annihilation of family-scale production and the victory of large-scale, government-managed production. We cannot enter into the realm of prophecy here, but we can say that it remains to be seen how successful and permanent this policy will be. If, con- trary to our expectations, the Soviet government should be suc- cessful in establishing and maintaining this system for a long period of time, it would have two significant results. First, it would mean the existence of state serfdom, quite similar to that in Egypt under the Ptolemies and in Rome under Diocletian and his successors. Second, it would mean the end of the preceding cycle in the deconcentration of land in Russia and the beginning of the new cycle of land concentration and its correlated increase of social stratification in that country.
The dominant trend in other European countries in the latter nineteenth and the twentieth centuries has been toward the dissolution of large estates and the growth of small and middle- sized farms. This is seen from the following data, which supple- ment those given in the readings. In Denmark during the nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries the number of freeholdings increased from 91,000 to 184,000, mostly at the cost of the previ-
18 See Prokopovitch's and Sorokin's papers in chapter ix of this work. Since March, 1930, however, the Soviet government has been forced to moderate this policy, with the result that by July, 1930, the percentage of "collectivized" peasant farms had decreased by 20 to 30 per cent, as compared with the number in March, 1930.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
379
ously existing latifundia.19 In Belgium from 1910 to 1920 the number of proprietors in agriculture increased from 244,957 to 252,457, while the number of employes decreased from 1,164 to 769, and the number of farm laborers from 270,696 to 224,438.20 In Sweden the situation can be seen from the following table:21
ACREAGE (IN HECTARES) IN FARMS OF SPECIFIED SIZE OPERATED:
|
BY OWNERS |
BY TENANTS |
No. OF |
|||||||
|
YEAR |
Less than 2 |
2-20 |
20-100 |
100 and More |
Less than 2 |
2-20 |
20-100 |
100 and More |
OTHER TENANTS |
|
1890 |
. 61,559 |
183,221 |
23,263 |
2,035 |
10,140 |
27,949 |
9,231 |
1,084 |
164,537 |
|
1900 |
66,348 |
191,109 |
23,219 |
2,042 |
9,429 |
29,745 |
10,074 |
1,175 |
167,652 |
|
1911 |
79,738 |
199,912 |
22,677 |
( 2,046 |
9,229 |
30,565 |
10,512 |
1,117 |
138,677 |
This table shows no decrease in the course of twenty-one years, but rather a more rapid increase of small landholdings operated by owners than of large landholdings. It shows further not an increase but rather a decrease of tenants in comparison with owners.
Somewhat similar is the picture given by the Netherlands, as it is shown by the following data.22
FARMS AND FARM ACREAGE OPERATED BY OWNERS IN THE NETHERLANDS
i P § $ «
O * X O 0
t- fe se H «
ss°ss
H) ° W W ft.
3 o S° £ g g £ S
Pi UCIiNTAGE OF FARMS OF SPECI- PERCENTAGE OF ACREAGE IN FARMS HID SIZE (IN HECTARES) OF SPECIFIED SIXE (IN HEC-
OPERATED BY OWNERS TARES) OPERATED BY OWNERS
* gsS NS5 1(J- 2°-
« Ij5g ggj* 1-5 5-10 20 50
&KQ &<
10» 20- 50- 100
10- 20- 50- 100 1-5 5-10 20 50 100 100
1921 56,0 51,9 50,6 59.3 55.8 47.6 46.1 .. 55.8 57.6 54.1 46.2 46.2 67,5
1910 50.8 47.2 50.4 55.7 52.4 43.9 37,4 ... 50.5 54.5 54.2 42.3 37.8 66.2
1904 54.4 ... 54.3 58.5 56.7 46.9 40.8
1898 56.6 ,,, 57.1 60.5 58.3 49.1 42.3
1888 58.5 ... 59.2 61.7 59.9 51.8 44.7
lttP. Manniche, 'The Rise of the Danish Peasantry," Sociological Review, 1927, XIX, 35-36.
20 Annuaire stattstiqttc de la Belgique, 1924-1925, p* Ixxi.
*lStatistisk Arsbok for Svcrigct 1928, p. 90.
n]aarcijjcrs voor Ncderlanden, 1925-1926, pp. 194-195.
380 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
If before the census of 1921 it was possible to talk of an increase of tenants at the cost of owners in the Netherlands, and of a tend- ency toward the concentration of land in fewer and fewer hands, such claims became impossible after 1921. We see that the census of 1921 shows an increase of owners — their number and their acreage — in all sizes of farms, and in addition the rate of the in- crease in small landholdings (5 to 50 hectares) is not lower than in large landholdings (100 and more hectares).
The data for Germany up to 1920 are given in Sombart's paper in the readings. Here we add the more recent data from 1907 to 1925. In 1907, of all the land cultivated the percentage operated by owners was 86.3; in 1925 it was 86.6; in those years the per- centages of the land operated by tenants were 12.6 and 12.3. Fur- ther, of 100 hectares of the total acreage the acreage occupied by farms up to 2 hectares composed 5.5 per cent in 1907 and 6.2 per cent in 1925; corresponding figures for the acreage of farms from 2 to 5 hectares were 10.7 and 11.4; for that of farms from 5 to 20 hectares they were 33.4 and 35.8; and finally the percentage of the acreage composed of farms from 20 to 100 hectares and of farms of 100 and more hectares were respectively 29.8 and 26.4; and 20.6 and 20.2 per cent. Thus the acreage included in large farms (20 hectares and above) decreased while the acreage of the farms un- der 20 hectares increased from 1907 to 1925. Finally, during that period the number of landowners (entrepreneurs) increased from 2,476,345 to 3,578,839; the number of members of their families steadily occupied in agriculture increased from 4,063,353 to 5,340,447, while the number of unrelated home servants de- creased from 1,368,782 to 1,306,081; the number of temporary unrelated laborers decreased from 1,720,474 to 986,924; only the number of permanently employed laborers increased from 714,271 to 907,054, and that of the managers and superintendents (a small group) increased from 65,038 to 92,700. All in all, the proprie- torial element of the whole population engaged in agriculture increased rather than decreased, while the unrelated labor ele- ment decreased rather than increased relatively.23 These data show clearly that the trend was not a Marxian trend but quite the reverse.
In brief, as we shall see from the readings, in Europe, especially
23 Statistisches Jahrbuch fur das deutsche Reich, 1928, pp. 63-64.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 381
during the post-war period, there has been a tendency to decon- centration and not to Marxian trends in agriculture.24 In a similar way in some of the non-European countries there has been shown nothing pointing toward Marxian tendencies. For instance, recent data for New Zealand show that from 1923 to 1927, of the total number of the landholdings, the landholdings of the smallest size (up to 10 acres) decreased slightly (from 18.07 to 17.76 per cent) ; the percentage of the large and the largest landholdings (from 201 to 640 acres, and from 5,000 to 50,000 and more acres) also decreased slightly; while the percentage of the small and medium landholdings (from 11 to 200, and from 641 to 5,000 acres) in- creased slightly. The percentage of land included in these various landholdings presents a similar picture. The percentage of land in small landholdings (from 1 to 200 acres) increased slightly; the percentage of land in landholdings from 641 to 5,000 acres and from 20,000 to 50,000 acres also increased slightly, while the percentage of the land in the largest (50,000 and more acres) and large landholdings (from 5,000 to 20,000 acres) decreased slightly. On the whole the situation remained without any trend in either direction.25
The situation in Canada and the United States of America has been more complex and less definite. In Canada from 1911 to 1921 the area operated by tenants and part owners and part tenants increased much more (by 85.86 per cent) than the area operated by the full owners (by 22.85 per cent). In a similar way the percentage of farms operated by full owners increased much less (1.86 per cent) than that operated by part owners, part tenants (64.58 per cent), and even by tenants (3.58 per cent).26 Somewhat similar is the picture given by the United States. At the first glance these data seem to support, at least in regard to these countries, the Marxian predictions. However, a closer analy- sis of the situation changes considerably the real significance of these and similar data. Let us see this in the case of the United States.
The partisans of the Marxian hypothesis (see Lenin's paper in the readings) have indicated, as evidences of the validity of their
24 See the readings below, especially W. Schiff's paper. See also Annmire statistique de Finland, 1928, p. 81; Annuaire statistique de la Roumanie, 3925, p. 49; Laur and Konig, Mesures propres a lutter contra la depopulation, pp. 16-17.
MNew Zealand Official 'Year 800%, 1929, pp. 416-417.
*The Canada Year Book, 1927-1928, ]p. 284.
382 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
contentions in regard to the United States, the following things: first, that among the total population engaged in agriculture the proportion of owners has been decreasing while the proportion of hired laborers and tenants has been increasing; second, that the proportion of small-size farms has been decreasing while that of large-size farms has been increasing; third, that the proportion of mortgaged farms has been increasing; fourth, that the standard of living of the bulk of the farmers has been going down: and still other similar proofs. (See Lenin's paper in the readings, where these and similar arguments are set forth.) These contentions were particularly numerous before the census of 1920 and the agricultural census of 1925. The results of these last censuses dis- sipated many of these arguments as evidently fallacious. In the first place the proportion of hired labor among the farm operators has not been increasing since 1910, but has been decreasing. Their number was 3,323,876 in 1880; 3,586,583 in 1890; 4,410,877 in 1900; 6,088,414 in 1910; 4,462,628 in 1920; 3,085,000 in 1925. In percentages of the total population actively engaged in agriculture the wage laborers composed 47.7 per cent in 1880; 46.0 in 1890; 44 in 1900; 48.6 in 1910; 39.4 in 1920.27 Though there are several cir- cumstances which make these figures not quite comparable, nev- ertheless it is certain that there is no reason to believe that the proportion of hired farm labor has been increasing among the population engaged in agriculture. In a similar way there has not been any noticeable trend towards a decrease of the proportion of small-size farms to the total number of farms of various sizes. The essentials of the changes may be seen in the following data 28 :
PERCENTAGE OF FARMS IN EACH CLASS IN SPECIFIED YEARS
|
SIZE OF FARM IN ACRES |
1880 |
1890 |
1900 |
1910 |
1920 |
1925 |
|
Under 10 10 to 19 |
. .. 3.5 . . . . 6.4 |
3.3 5.8 |
4.7 7.1 |
5.3 7.9 |
4.5 7.9 |
5.9 9.2 |
|
20 to 49 50 to 99 . 100 to 499 . . . . 500 to 999 |
19.5 . 25.8 42.3 .. 1.9 |
19.8 24.6 44.0 1.8 |
21.9 23.8 39.9 1.8 |
22.2 22.6 39.2 2.0 |
23.3 22.9 38.1 2.3 |
22.8 22.3 36.5 2.3 |
|
IjOOO and more |
0.7 |
0.7 |
0.8 |
0.8 |
1.0 |
1.0 |
27 See U. S. D. A. Yearbook, 1923, p. 511.
28 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1926, p. 586.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 383
PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL ACREAGE IN EACH CLASS OF FARMS IN SPECIFIED YEARS
|
SIZE OF FARM IN ACRES |
ALL FARM LAND |
IMPROVED FARM LAND |
|||||
|
1900 |
1910 |
1920 |
1925 |
1900 |
1910 |
1920 |
|
|
Under 20 ... |
0.9 |
1.0 |
0.9 |
1.1 |
1.6 |
1.7 |
1.6 |
|
20 to 49 |
5.0 |
5.2 |
5.1 |
5.0 |
8.0 |
7.6 |
7.7 |
|
50 to 99 |
11.8 |
11.7 |
11.1 |
11.0 |
16.2 |
14.9 |
14.4 |
|
100 to 174 . |
23.0 |
23.4 |
20.4 |
20.1 |
28.6 |
26.9 |
25.5 |
|
175 to 499.. |
27.8 |
30.2 |
29.0 |
27.9 |
32.7 |
33.8 |
33.8 |
|
500 to 999 |
8.1 |
9.5 |
10.6 |
10.5 |
7.1 |
8.5 |
9.6 |
|
1,000 and over |
23.6 |
19.0 |
23.1 |
24.3 |
5.9 |
6.5 |
7.5 |
It is necessary to have a great deal of imagination to see in these figures the existence of a definite trend such as that dis- cussed. Not much different is the picture given by the data that show changes in the acreage of all farm land or in that of the improved farm land by size of farm.29
Only in the changes in the distribution of improved land is there a slight tendency toward concentration noticeable, but even there it is very slight and does not affect the distribution of the total of the farm land according to the size of farms. For this reason this evidence of concentration must be dropped also by the partisans of the Marxian theory.
INDEBTEDNESS OF FARM OWNERS, 1890-1925
|
CLASSES OF FARMS OPERATED BY |
DISTRIBUTION BY PERCENTAGES |
||||
|
OWNERS |
1890 |
1900 |
1910 |
1920 |
1925 |
|
Free from mortgage , . . , |
.. 70.9 |
66.5 |
65.6 |
52.8 |
|
|
Mortgaged ... |
27.8 |
30.0 |
33.2 |
37.2 |
36.1 |
|
Unknown |
1.3 |
3.5 |
1.2 |
9.9 |
|
|
Total |
, . 100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
|
Ratio of debt to farm value |
|||||
|
(land and buildings) . . , |
.. 35.5 |
27.3 |
29.1 |
41.9 |
|
|
Average per farm: value |
of |
||||
|
land and buildings |
.,$3,444 |
$6,289 |
$11,546 |
$9,564 |
|
|
Amount of debt |
. $1,224 |
$1,715 |
$3,356 |
$4,004 |
|
|
Owner's equity |
, -$2,220 |
$4,574 |
$8,191 |
||
384 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Among other arguments in favor of concentration only two classes of changes may have some significance. The first is that the proportion of mortgaged farms operated by the owners has been increasing, and the ratio of the debt to the value of farms (land and buildings) has not shown a definite tendency to decrease. Neither did it show a definite tendency to increase. This may be seen from the data given in the table on page 383.30
These data show, to some extent, a tendency toward an increase in the indebtedness of farm owners. But again the sharp increase of the percentage of farms mortgaged in 1920 was a result of the well-known crisis in agriculture, connected with the war and the postwar conditions. As the crisis is passing, the trend is begin- ning to change, as is shown by the data of the census of 1925. Still more irregular is the trend shown by the ratio of the debt to the value of the farms and the data concerning the owner's equity. Besides, the mere fact of an increase or decrease of mortgages in themselves does not mean much; the essential point is the purpose of the mortgage. If it is for an improvement of the farm and its implements and productivity, an increase of mortgage does not mean any tendency toward the dispossession of the farmer but something quite opposite. In addition, the mortgage evidence may have some significance only when it is shown that the large farms are not mortgaged or are less mortgaged. The data for Prussia show that in 1902 large farms were mortgaged much more than the peasant farms. (Hainisch, op. cit., p. 106.) Recent investiga- tion of the largest farms in the United States— mentioned further —shows also that twenty-one of seventy-eight farms had net losses and four had neither gain nor loss for the period of 1925-1928. For these reasons these data do not necessarily mean the dispos- session of the farmers and their degradation into the class of land- less proletarians.
The second category of data that may testify in favor of land concentration are those that show an increase of tenancy in the United States. The proportion of the farms operated by tenants has been increasing systematically, being 25.6 per cent of all farms in 1880; 28.4 in 1890; 353 in 1900; 37 in 1910; 38.1 in 1920; and 38.6 in 1925. Correspondingly, the percentage of farms operated
**lbid., p. 593- see also U. S. D. A. Yearbook, 1923, p. 1157; 1928, p. 394; U. S. Census of Agriculture, 1925, Part I, p. 16.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 385
by the owners and managers was 74.4 in 1880 and subsequently 71.6, 64.7, 63, 62, and finally 61.3 in 1925.31
Taken at their face value these figures may be used as very convincing evidence of the concentration of the land, disposses- sion of the farmers from their land, and the increase1 of social stratification within the rural population. A more detailed analysis of the data given by L. Truesdell ("Farm Tenancy Moves West," Journal of Farm Economics, 1926, VIII, 443-450) shows, how- ever, that the situation is not so simple. First, the figures of ten- ancy itself show a definite slowing up of the rate of its increase after 1890; second, it is well known that tenancy, as such, is not necessarily a sign of the impoverishment of the farmer; third, as Dr. Truesdell's analysis shows, its increase or decrease has been largely a reaction to pioneer conditions and the liquidation of the southern latifundia, and as these conditions are passing, it shows a tendency toward a decline. In those eastern states where pioneer conditions were over by 1910, tenancy has not been in- creasing but decreasing for the last twenty-five years.
The westward movement of farm tenancy has been evident for twenty years, but it stands out with especial clearness in the returns for the 1925 farm census. The total number of tenant farms has increased very little since 1910, and the net gain between 1920 and 1925 was less than 8,000 (an increase from 2,454,804 to 2,462,528). This net increase, however, is the resultant of much greater changes in different parts of the country — of considerable increases in one section almost balanced by decreases in another section.
Specifically, in 23 states, containing slightly less than one-half the total number of farms, the number of tenant farms increased by about 150,000, while in the remaining 25 states the number of tenant farms decreased by about 142,000* The 23 states showing an increase in farm tenancy are nearly all in the West, while the 25 states showing a decline in tenancy are all in the East, except that the three Pacific Coast states are included in this group. The net increase of a little less than 8,000 tenant farms, already noted, carried with it a change in the percentage oÂŁ farms operated by tenants from 38.1 in 1920 to 38.6 in 1925.
The author concludes:
Certainly the results of our latest national farm inventory give no indication of a wave of tenancy sweeping over the country, nor of any general or extensive increase in the area of farm land held by non-
1 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1926, p. 586.
386 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
resident landlords and operated by tenants in whom the landlords manifest no interest beyond the collection of the rent.32
Fourth, the real percentage of tenancy is much lower because, in the above 38.6 percentage of tenant farms, from 26 to 29 per cent of the tenants were relatives of the landowners.33 Finally, it is well known that tenancy for a great part of the tenants is but a stage in the transition to ownership.
These and similar reasons enormously weaken the use of the tenancy data as an unquestionable sign of the progress of capital- ism, the dispossession of the farmers, and land concentration, as was assumed by the partisans of this theory. However, if we can- not claim that the agricultural evolution of the United States for the last sixty years has been towards a concentration of the land and an increase of the stratification of the population engaged in agriculture, at the same time there is no definite evidence that the opposite processes have been taking place.
Among the Asiatic countries that have comparable statistical data, Japan showed a very slight tendency toward land concentra- tion during the years from 1910 to 1920. But the tendency is very insignificant, and the predominant types of landownership and farm enterprises are to such an extent small-scale enterprises that one can scarcely use this tendency as evidence for any sweeping generalization concerning the capitalistic dispossession of the land cultivators or the driving out of existence of small enterprises by capitalistic "grain-factories." (See in the readings the paper of
82 See further, TruesdelFs analysis of the situation by regions, op. cit., pp. 443, 450. See also: C. J. Galpin and Veda B. Larson, Farm Population of Selected Counties, Wash- ington, 1924; L. E. Truesdell, Farm Population of the United States, Census Mono- graph VI, Washington, 1926; L. C. Gray, C. L. Stewart, J. T. Sanders, H. A. Turner, "Farm Ownership and Tenancy," in U. S. D. A. Yearbook, 1923, pp. 507-600; E. A. Goldenweiser and L. E. Truesdell, Farm Tenancy in the United States, Census Mono- graph IV, 1924; E. C. Branson, "Farm Tenantry in the Cotton Belt," Journ. of Social Forces, March, 1923; J. O. Rankin, Farm Tenancy in Nebraska, Neb. Agric. Coll. Exper. Station Bull. No. 196; C. C. Taylor and C. C. Zimmerman, Social and Eco- nomic Conditions of North Carolina Farmers, North Carolina Farm Tenancy Commis- sion, Raleigh, 1922; C. L. Holmes, Relation of Types of Tenancy to Types of Farming in Iowa, Iowa State Coll. Agric. Exper, Station Bull. No. 214; N. S. B, Gras, A History of Agriculture, New York, 1925, chap, xi, xv; R. T. Ely and C. J. Galpin, "Tenancy in an Ideal System of Landownership," The Amer. Economic Review, Supplement, 1919, IX, 180-212; W. J. Spillman, "The Agricultural Ladder," ibid., pp. 170-179; J. M. Gil- lette, Rural Sociology, 1928, chaps, xii-xiv; N. L. Sims, Elements of Rural Sociology, 1928, chap, vii; C. C. Taylor, Rural Sociology, 1928, chap, via; G. A. Lundquist and T. N. Carver, Principles of Rural Sociology, chaps, xiii-xiv.
88 U. S. Census of Agriculture, 1925, Part I, p. 4.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 387
Kawada about Japan.) Neither do the data of China, after long years of agriculture, show such a tendency.
Taken in their totality, the present facts offer less foundation and support to the predictions of Marx and his followers than did the facts of the time of the fabrication of the theory, some seventy or eighty years ago. Our time has been rather a time of the opposite processes, the processes of the disbursement of the large latifundia into small-scale landholdings. If someone should say that this has been achieved not so much through the economic advantages of the small enterprises as through the political action of the masses, one must not forget that the large latifundia in the past were established also not through their economic advantages over the small enterprise but almost exclusively through political coercion and similar non-economic measures of the landlords. And, besides, one must not forget that the large landholdings have not been used by their owners generally in the form of large capitalistic agricultural enterprises but almost exclusively in the parcellation of large tracts into small lots, the leasing of these to small cultivators, and the collection of rent and other forms of income from these small tenants. This fact together with the comparative advantages of the small and the large enterprises in agriculture (discussed further in the readings from Tugan- Baranovsky, Sombart, and others) is sufficient to give one a skepti- cal attitude towards the prophecies of land concentration and similar theories. Viewed from the standpoint of a long-time period, all that we have in this field is an alternation of the long- time tendencies of concentration and deconcentration and con- sequently increase and decrease of social stratification. At the present moment the majority of the European countries are in the stage of deconcentration; other countries, particularly the United States, do not show a clearly expressed tendency in either direction.
III. COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF SMALL-FAMILY AND LARGE-SCALE CAPITALISTIC TYPES OF FARMING
The absence of a perpetual trend in the field discussed is par- tially explainable when we consider the comparative advantages and disadvantages of large- and small-scale farming. This prob- lem has long been discussed from its purely economic aspects, and
388 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
there exists a large body of theories concerning it.34 These theories can be grouped into three classes. The first group of theories maintain that small farms are generally more advantageous than large farms. Dr. E. Laur and the other authors quoted above are the contemporary representatives of this group. The second group of theories contend that large farms are generally more advan- tageous economically than small farms. The old Marxian theory, now held by the Communists, is representative of this viewpoint. The third group of theories believe that there is no general uni- formity in this field; that economic success in agriculture depends on many conditions., such as the ability of the manager, the char- acter of the farming, the soil, the climate, the social, economic, political, and other conditions of a locality; and that these condi- tions are so diverse in different localities that it is impossible to say that either small- or large-scale farming is generally more profitable in all localities and under all conditions. Each locality has its own optimum size of farm enterprise, and this optimum differs for various localities. Large-scale farming may be more ad- vantageous under one set of conditions and small-scale farming under another.
Factually, the comparative advantages and disadvantages of each type of farming are so manifold and counterbalance each other to such an extent that it is impossible to discover any uni- form and universal rule in the field. All these theories and their arguments are developed in the subsequent readings. We shall state now that the third group of theories seems to be nearer to the reality. Indeed, if either one of the extreme theories had been generally valid, the less advantageous form of farming would have been driven out of existence long ago. The struggle "for the survival of the fit" would have eliminated the less advantageous form, but such a thing has not happened. Both forms existed in the distant past and still exist today. The long periods in which we can study the historical changes show us merely trendless alternations in the prevalency and dominance of the two forms. This agrees with the contention of the third group of theories, and also explains why the Marxian trend of land concentration has not been taking place. Neither does it contradict the fact that large farms still exist and show no tendencies to disappear in
"See a survey of these theories in Dr. Hainisch's work quoted, pp. 117 fi.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 389
some countries. Other data and arguments are given further in the readings. Here we will mention only one of the economic differences between the family type of enterprise and the large- capitalist enterprise and the results of a recent study of the com- parative economic advantages of large- and small-scale farming in the United States.30 We know that farm economy is deter- mined by a combination of the three factors of production: labor, capital, and land. Different combinations of the amount of each of these factors create various types of farm economy, particu- larly the extensive and the intensive types. The extensive type of agricultural enterprise is marked by an abundant use of land, and by a small investment of capital and labor per unit of land. The intensive type is characterized by the opposite combination of these factors: by a relatively great investment of capital and labor per unit of land. The intensive types may be either inten- sive in the capital invested per unit of land, or intensive in the labor invested per such a unit, or intensive in both respects.
Side by side with this rough classification, we must remember here also the so-called law of diminishing returns, according to which any one of these three factors brings a decreasing return as greater and greater amounts of it are utilized, assuming it to re- main the same, qualitatively, per unit of the other factor or fac- tors; while any other factor invested or used in relatively constant quantities brings much higher returns because of its full utiliza- tion. In accordance with this law, assuming other conditions to be equal, in an agricultural enterprise that has an abundance of land but a small amount of labor and capital invested, the pro- ductivity of each piece of land will be low while the productivity of each unit of labor and capital will be high. In an enterprise where an enormous amount of labor is used per unit of land, the productivity of each unit of labor (wages per hour of labor) will be low, but the productivity of each unit of land will be high. In a system where an enormous amount of capital is invested per unit of land, or per unit of labor, or both, the productivity of each unit of capital will be low but that of each unit of land or labor will be high. Such, roughly, are the principles we may ex-
38 Wm, Harper Dean and John B. Bennct, Large-Scale Farming, Agricultural Service Dept., Chamber of Commerce of the United States, Washington, July 29, 1929. See also The Mechanization of Agriculture, Chamber of Commerce of the United States, August 17, 1929.
390 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
pect to find in operation wherever the law of diminishing returns is applicable.
The noncapitalistic family agricultural enterprise is character- ized by a relatively small amount of land, by an investment of a proportionately great amount of labor, and, as a rule, by a rela- tively high investment of capital per unit of land. On the con- trary, the large capitalistic enterprise is marked by a larger amount of land and less investment of labor and capital per unit of land. Hence we may expect that peasant or small-farm enter- prise will be marked by a relatively high gross return per unit of land and by a low return per unit of labor and capital invested, while large capitalist economy will be marked by a low return per unit of land and by a relatively high return per unit ,of labor or capital invested. This expectation has been, to some extent, corroborated by a series of factual studies. Some of these results are presented here. Before presenting data from Professor V. Brdlika's excellent studies concerning this relationship between the type of economy and the return to the various factors of pro- duction, we may say that he defines gross return as total return minus all expenses of production with the exception of wages for labor, and that the gross return as thus defined is given in Czech crowns per hectare. In the enterprises from 2 to 5 hectares in size, the gross return per unit of land was 420 crowns (which we shall take as 100 per cent) ; from 5 to 20 hectares, 333 crowns (79 per cent) ; from 20 to 100 hectares, 305 crowns (73 per cent) ; and 100 and more hectares, 265 crowns (63 per cent).36
In Switzerland from 1901 to 1921, according to the studies of Professor Laur, the gross productivity of one hectare in francs was as follows: in farms of from 3 to 5 hectares, 1,179; from 5 to 10 hectares, 1,007; from 10 to 15 hectares, 902; from 15 to 30 hectares, 826; from 30 and more hectares, 708.9. These data show that from the standpoint of the national income, of which the wages of the peasant or farmer comprise a part, the productiveness of the small peasant or farm enterprise is greater than that of the large capi- talistic enterprise — in other words, the land yields a greater re- turn. However, if the extra peasants' labor found a high remun-
86 See Vladislav Brdlika's studies in the Zemed. Arch., for 1919, 1922. See also A, Tschelinzeff, "Land Reform in Czechoslovakia," in Krestianskaia Rossia (Russ.), Prague, 1924, Nos. VTII-IX, p. 130. He means by gross return all the income per unit of land, minus the expenses of production, without, however, wage expenses. Income in- cludes cash income plus the value of the products used at home by the peasant family.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 391
eration in industry, the national income would be higher. Similar data for 1926-1927 are given in the following table.87
|
SIZE OF FARM |
GROSS PRODUCTION |
EXPENSES |
GROSS (SOCIAL) |
INTEREST ON ACTIVE |
|
Per Hectare |
(in Francs) |
INCOME* |
CAPITAL |
|
|
3-5 . . 5-10 10-15 . |
1,611 . . 1,250 1,153 |
2,077 1,541 1,373 |
829 501 369 |
57 77 115 |
|
15-30 . . . 30-70 . |
. 1,034 964 |
1,248 1,107 |
250 135 |
143 126 |
Similar are the data for Denmark ( 1924-1925) .3
|
SIZE OF FARM IN HECTARES |
GROSS PRODUCTION |
EXPENSES |
GROSS (SOCIAL) INCOME |
|
Per Hectare (in Crowns) |
|||
|
Less than 10 |
. 1,428 888 848 |
1,342 833 799 695 644 590 |
633 403 391 342 293 265 |
|
10-20 20-30 |
|||
|
30-50 |
. . . , 729 |
||
|
50-100 |
660 |
||
|
100 and over . . |
591 |
||
The land of the small peasant is made to yield a greater return because of its complete utilization, the investment of a greater amount of labor, the more careful labor of the small proprietor and his family, the more careful and proper use of the means of production, and the more proper use of the products of the land.
Despite the fact that it is more profitable from the standpoint of the national income, the small peasant or farmer enterprise gives a lower return for each unit of labor and capital invested. This is shown by the above tables and by the data of Professor Brdlika.39
37 Statistiche s Jahrbuch der Schtueiz, 1927, p. 152. See also E, Laur and R. Konig, Mesutes propres & hitter centre la depopulation, Brougg, 1919, pp. 115-117. See a summary and analysis of the data of the Swiss Farm Bureau in Edward Reich's Svycarsf{e scmedehtvi; sec also V. Karataicff, "Peasant Farming in Switzerland ,** in Krestians^ata Rossia, Nos. VIII-IX, p. 235; O. G. Lloyd and L. G. Hobson, Relation of Farm "Power and Farm Organization in Central Indiana* Purdue U. Agric. Exper. Station Bull. No. 332, 1929.
* Profit and wages for members of families and other workers.
** Statistisk. Aarbog (Danish), 1928, p. 42.
*° Krestiansfaia Rossia, Nos. VIII-IX, p. 131; No. VII, p. 9.
392
SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
|
No. OF |
COST OF LABOR |
RETURN YIELDEI |
> BY CAPITAL Ii |
•JVESTMENT |
|
|
SIZE OF FARM IN HECTARES |
LABORERS PER HECTARE |
PER HECTARE (IN CROWNS) |
Per 100 Crowns of Labor Expense (in Crowns) |
Per Laborer (in Crowns) |
Per Cent of Net Return |
|
2-5 |
. .57 |
329 |
173 |
933 |
|
|
5-20 . .. |
. .27 |
226 |
205 |
1,670 |
|
|
20-100 |
. .22 |
170 |
260 |
1,891 |
|
|
100 and over |
. .17 |
138 |
286 |
2,400 |
|
|
Less than 10 |
4.2 |
||||
|
10-20 |
6.0 |
||||
|
20-100 |
6.1 |
These data, typical for the results obtained by various investi- gators, show that the theoretical deductions from the law of di- minishing returns are, to some extent, supported by facts. The small peasant enterprise often absorbs or provides an application for a greater amount of labor, brings a higher gross return to the national income from the same amount of land/0 but yields a lower return per unit of capital and labor invested than the large capitalist enterprise. From these data it is concluded by the above investigators that if land is scarce and if it is impossible to find employment in industry for the surplus agricultural population, the small type of farming is more profitable from the three stand- points: of the national income (a part of which consists of wages), the mitigation of unemployment, and the provision of the means of subsistence for the surplus population.41
40 This is manifested also m the greater feeding power of a unit of land in small enterprises: m units oÂŁ food 1 hectare yielded 443 food-days in the farms from 2 to 5 hectares, and 230 and 159 days, respectively, in farms from 5 to 20 and 20 to 50 hec- tares. In crowns, the respective figures were 200, 104, 73. Thus the unit of land in small enterprises yields thrice greater feeding capacity. These conclusions are, however, questioned. See in the readings for this chapter the paper of Dr. M. Hamisch, which contains a criticism of Dr. Laur's theories.
41 From this standpoint it is comprehensible that in the densely populated, but not industrialized, Oriental countries (China, India, Japan, Korea) we have, as a rule, a small peasant-consumptive type of farming, but not a large capitalist type. The first farm, with its greater productiveness per unit of land, permits the squeezing of the maximum means of subsistence from each unit of land and the maintenance of the maximum population, though at the cost of an enormous amount of labor invested in the land and consequently a very low return per unit of labor. "Nearly 500,000,000 people (in China, Japan, India, Korea) are being maintained chiefly upon the products of an area smaller than the improved farm-lands of the United States," says F. H. King, Farmers of Forty Centuries, pp. 17-23. From the standpoint of the yield per unit of land the agricultural system of those countries is the most intensive, exceeding not only American agriculture, which is very extensive from this standpoint, but that of almost all European countries. "The average yield for the wheat crop in the United States is 15 bushels per acre; but in China it is about 25 bushels. And besides this one crop of
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 393
Under conditions where there is an abundance of land, and the possibility of absorbing the surplus population in industry with a better return per unit of capital and labor, the larger or capitalistic farming is preferable.42 And as we shall see from the readings this peculiarity of small farming is indicated as one of the reasons for its successful competition with capitalist enterprises in agricul- ture. Other advantages and disadvantages of small and large farm enterprises are ably discussed in the readings. Here we want to outline briefly the fundamental results of the American study mentioned. The authors studied seventy-five large farms with an average size of 11,797 acres and an average capitalization of $553,743. The following quotation summarizes their conclusions as to the economic differences between the small or family farm and the large or capitalistic farm:
wheat, the Chinese fields are also used to produce other crops sowed in between the wheat crop before the wheat is harvested, thus gaining that much time on the land. Thus the crop and annual yield per acre in China is much larger than those in the United States, yet the yield per man (per unit of labor) is much smaller in China than in this country." Lee, The Economic History of China, pp. 24-25. See in the readings the paper of Prof. Kawada about Japan.
43 Besides those comparative advantages and disadvantages, each of these forms has many other differential effects on the whole social life. Since the capitalist system is in- separable from its satellites, tenancy and hired labor, all the important effects of tenancy and hired labor, stressed by many investigators, are effects of the capitalist system. Of these effects, the most important are: the capitalist system in agriculture facilitates the growth of social antagonisms and class struggle, and thus, social instability; it favors a less careful and more wasteful exploitation of the land because the hired laborer or even the tenant does not have the same stimulation as the owner for careful cultivation; it gives also a lesser incentive for the most intensive improvement of the enterprise and its melioration; it often tends to lower the standard of living of the tenants and laborers — compared with that of an owner — and hinders somewhat their education and mental development. It weakens the spirit of a community and the successful functioning of the community institutions such as the school, the church, the farm organizations, etc. It also lowers the standard and the efficiency of the political activities of the agricul- turists. It leads to a weakening of the independence, initiative, and democratic spirit of the farm tenants and laborers compared with farmer owners. It changes their psycho- social traits, replacing thrift, industriousness, self-reliance, initiative, responsibility, inde- pendence, organizational talent, self-respect, and so on, by dependence, servility, pas- sivity, improvidence, and similar traits.
There is no doubt that many of these effects are really connected with tenancy and farm labor, that is, with capitalism; however, there are many exceptions due to rela- tively satisfactory forms of tenancy. See about these aspects of the direct or indirect satellites of capitalism in agriculture: J. M. Gillette, Rural Sociology, 1928, chaps, xii-xiii; N. L. Sims, Elements of Rural Sociology, chaps, vii, viii; C. C. Taylor, Rural Sociology, chap viii; G. A. Lundquist and T. N, Carver, Principles of Rural Sociology, chaps, xiii- xiv; R. T. Ely and C. T- Galpin, "Tenancy in an Ideal System of Landownership," The American Economic Review, Supplement, 1919, Vol. IX; L. C. Gray, C. L. Stewart, H. A. Turner, J. T. Sanders, and W. J. Spillman, "Farm Ownership and Tenancy," U. S. D. A. Yearbook, 1923; J. D. Black, Agricultural Reform in the United States, New York, 1929; see also the bibliography at the end of this chapter and in the read- ings oÂŁ this and the preceding chapter, and the works cited in this introduction.
394 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Taken as a group, the large-scale farms apparently have been no more, nor any less, successful than the average of the family-size farms. Furthermore, there are fully as great variations in efficiency among the large farms as have been found in numerous surveys of family farms. It appears, then, that mere incorporation or organization of farming enterprises on a large scale will not automatically solve the problems of the agricultural industry. In order to secure greater net returns than are secured from the family type of farming, large-scale farms must achieve an efficiency considerably greater than the average of such farms now in operation. From this study it appears that large-scale farms may have advantages over family farms in superior management organiza- tion, more efficient utilization of machinery, specialization of labor, buying and selling in wholesale quantities, and, in some instances, reduction of overhead expenses. The large farms also have certain dis- advantages. They experience difficulty in securing efficient labor and in securing the degree of interest of the laborers in the success of the business which is found on family farms. The seasonal character of farm work and uncertainties in weather conditions prevent as effective use of machinery and as complete division of labor as is achieved in some other industries (pp. 1-2).
These conclusions are especially significant in view of the fact that the study considered only purely economic factors and en- tirely neglected its demographic, political, and socio-economic aspects. The investigators compared large and small farms only from the standpoint of the net income and the amount of the net return on the net investment. The large farms were not supe- rior to the small or family farms in either respect. The net return on the net investment was less than one per cent in both cases. The net income of the family farms was $793, while that of the large farms was $1,051. Thus, if we remember that the large farms were more than 20 times as large as the typical family farm, their net income was rather poor. Even when all necessary corrections are made, the large farms cannot boast a better income than the family farms. From a purely financial standpoint many of the large farms had only losses and no net income. The social and economic advantages of large farms become still less certain if we take into consideration the national income, the gross pro- ductivity per unit of land, and the comparative number of people who can make their living through exploitation of the same amount of land — the aspects Dr. Laur and others stress so con- spicuously. These latter factors are especially important in coun-
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 395
tries that do not have abundant land resources and where for some reason the surplus rural population cannot find employment in other industries and occupations.
For these reasons one must agree with the conclusion of the study, i.e., that "the future development of large-scale farming in the United States is a matter of conjecture." It may increase some- what or it may not, but it can scarcely replace family farming in the United States. The chances of such a replacement in other countries in which there is a greater scarcity of land are still in- significant. However, this same study shows that a considerable number of these large farms have been quite successful and have had a net income above that of the average family farm. Large farms may be more advantageous than mediocre small farms un- der certain conditions. Hence we do not expect the disappearance or the exclusive dominance of either type of farming in the future.43
Subsequent papers give the development, details, and elabora- tion of the problems discussed in this introduction. The papers by Poljakow, Kawada, See, Siegfried, and Schiff give a survey of the forms of tenancy, landownership, large- and small-scale farm- ing and social stratification in China, Japan, and European coun- tries. The papers by Sombart, Tugan-Baranovsky, M. Hainisch, and W. Schiff analyze further the advantages and disadvantages of the small- and the large-scale farm enterprise, the chances for survival of each of these forms in their mutual competition, and the present and the future situation in this field. Since these present the anti-Marxian standpoint on the problem of land con- centration and stratification of the rural population, they are con- fronted by the papers of N. Lenin and J. Schafir, which present and try to defend the Marxian standpoint. The paper of Lenin was selected because it attempts to present the Marxian standpoint in its most orthodox form in an application to the American agri- cultural situation.44 The personality of Lenin and the character
43 See also O. G. Lloyd and L, G. Hobson's study cited and J. D, Black's Agricultural Reform in the United States.
M Lenin tried to defend the same views in his analysis oÂŁ the Russian agricultural situation developed in his book Development of Capitalism in Russia and in a series of other, more superficial, papers reprinted in volumes III and IX of his Wor\s. We chose his American paper because it was later than other similar works of Lenin and because the American data are better known to non-Russian readers and for this reason they would be better able to discover all the faults in the analysis of the leader of the Communist Revolution.
396 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
of his analysis — it is not worse than any other analyses made by the partisans of the Marxian theory— are sufficient to explain why his paper was chosen. The paper of J. Schafir was chosen because, besides presenting the Communist standpoint on the problem, it gives a concise characterization of the agrarian programs of the contemporary socialist parties, stresses the change which these programs underwent and, trying to defend the Marxian position, gives a series of statistical data which, in their totality, depict the recent tendencies in the field and which, let us say, speak rather against the standpoint of the author. The paper of M. Hainisch gives a criticism of Laur's theories and some data contrary to the data of Laur and other investigators. The paper of Dr. W. Schiff was given because it gives in a concise and excellent manner all the principal changes in the laws and economic reality in the field of agrarian problems that have taken place before and after the war. It acquaints the reader with all the essentials of the contem- porary agrarian revolution in Europe. The paper of Dr. Kawada supplements Dr. Schiff 's paper by depicting the situation in Japan. The readings given in the next two chapters are also closely related to the problems discussed in this chapter and should be consulted. The totality of these papers, together with our intro- duction to this chapter, give the reader a fairly satisfactory orien- tation in the problems discussed.
ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Socio-economic analysis of the capitalistic and non-capitalistic agricul- tural enterprises; social differentiation and stratification within the rural population and the recent tendencies. — In addition to the works quoted see:
AEREBOE, F., Agrarpoliti^ (1928).
• , Allgemeine landwirtschajtliche Eetriebslehre (1923), 6th ed.
, "Ursachen und Formen wechselnder Betriebsintensitat in der
Landwirtschaft," Thunen-Archiv (1909), Vol. II.
-, Die T$evol\crungs\apazitat der Landwirtschaft.
ASMIS, W., "Die nicht spannfahigen landwirtsch. Kleinbetriebe in Preussen,"
Archiv f. innere Koloniz (1918-1919), Vol. XI. AUGE-LARIBE, M., Grande ou petite propriete (Montpellier, 1902). BAADE, F., "Neues Leben in der Agrarpolitik," Gesellschaft (October, 1928), BECKMANN, F., "Der Bauer in Zeitalter des Kapitalismus," Schmollers
Jahrbuch (1927), pp. 49-91. BENNETT, M. K., Farm Cost Studies in the United States (1928), Stanford
University Press. BLACK, JOHN D., Production Economics (1926).
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 397
BLACK, JOHN D., Agricultural Reform in the United States (1929), Business Men's Commission on Agriculture, Report (New York, 1927). CALL, L. E., "The Increased Efficiency of American Agriculture," Science
(January 18, 1929). CARVER, T. N., Elements of Rural Economics (1924).
, Principles of Rural Economics (1911).
CHENON, E., Les demembrements de la propriete jonciere en France avant
et apres la Revolution (1923), 2d ed. CIASCA, // Problema della terra (1921). DAVID, E., Die Siedlungsgesetzgebung (1921). DAVIS, J. S., The farm Export Debenture Plan, Leland Stanford University
(1929). DORAN, H. B., AND HINMAN, A. G., Urban "Land Economics (New York,
1928).
ELY, R. T., Elements of Land Economics (1924). FOVILLE, A. DE, Le morcellement (1885). FROST, J., Bedingungen fur intensiven und extensiven Eetrieb in Deutsch-
land (1903).
, Die innere Kolonisation in den s\andinavischen Ldndern (1914).
GOLTZ, TH., Landwirtschajtliche Betriebslehre (1928), 7th ed.
HANSEN, J., Die Leistung von Klein- und Grossebetrieb in der Kriegswirt-
schajt (1919). HERMES, "Landwirtschaft und Volkerbund," Berichte uber Landwirtschajt
(1929), Vol. VIII, Heft 1-2.
HOLLMAN, A. H., Die Entwictyung der ddnischen Landwirtschaft (1914). HORNY, H., "Bauernlandgefahrdung , . . ," Berichte uber Landtuirtschajt,
Vol. IV, Heft 3. HUSCHKE, L., Landwirtschajtliche Reinerertragsberehnungen bei Klein-,
Mittel-, und Grossbetrieb (1902). IPSEN, G., "Das Dorf als Beispiel einer echten Gruppe," Archiv f. ange-
wandte Soziologie (Berlin, 1928), Jahr. I, Heft 4-5. KACHAROVSKI, K. (editor), Struggle for Land (Russ.) (Moscow, 1908),
2 vols. KAHLDEN, E, V., Beitrag zur Frage der Kon\urrenzfdhig\eit des Kleinbe*
triebe . . . (1898).
KARUTZ, O., "Betriebsgrosse und Erzeugung in der Landwirtschaft," Be- richte uber Landwirtschaft (1927), Vol. VI, Heft 3. KAUTSKY, K., Die Sozialisierung der Landtvirtschajt (1921). KEUP, E., AND MUHRER, R., Die V ol\$wirt$cha]tliche Bedeutung von Gross-
und Kleinbetrieb in der Landwirtschajt (1913).
KNIPOVITCH, B., Differentiation of the Russian Peasants (Russ.) (St. Peters- burg, 1914).
KOSSINSKY, W., Peasant and Landlord Enterprises (Russ.). LARISCH, "Wirtschaft und Landwirtschaft," Agrarpolitische Rundschau
(July, 1928).
398 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
LAUR, E., Wirtschajtslehre des Landbaues (1920).
, Grundlagen und Methoden der Bewertung, Buchhandlung und
Kalfytlation in der Landwirtschajt (Berlin, 1928).
-, "Uber einige neuere Begriffe aus der Wirtschaftslehre des Land-
baues," Zeitschnjt j. schweizer. Statisti^ (1927), Vol. LXIII, No. 6. -, "Untersuchungen iiber den Einflusse steigender Intensitat . . . ,"
Berichte uber Landmrtschaft (1927), Vol. I, Heft 4. LEVY, HERMAN, Large and Small Holdings (Cambridge, 1911). LICHTENBERGER, B., Untersuchungen iiber die neuzeithche Entwicl^lung des
landwirtschajtlichen Maschinenivesens und ihren Einfluss auj die Renta-
bihtdtverhaltnisse der deutschen Landtuirtschajt (1914). LOMBERG, KURT, "Wie steht es urn die landwirtschaftliche Rentabilitat?"
Die Arbeit (January, 1929), MIELCK, O.? "Betriebsgrosse und Erzeugung in der Landwirtschaft," Be-
richte uber Landmrtschajt (1928), Vol. VII, Heft 1. NOURSE, E. G-3 Agricultural Economics (1916). PAGEL, P., Gross- und Kleinbetrieb in der Landwirtschaft (1922). PERVUSHIN, S. A., "Cyclical Fluctuations in Agriculture and Industry in
Russia," Quarterly Journal of Economics (August, 1928). ROSTOVTZEFF, M., A Large Estate in Egypt in the Third Century, B. C.
(Madison, 1921).
SANDERSON, D. (editor), Farm Income and Farm Life (Chicago, 1927). SARKAR, B. K., Economic Development (Madras, 1926). SCHIRKOVITSCH, J., "Ideengeschichte der Agrarwissenschaft in Russland,"
Weltwirtschajtliche Archiv (January, 1928). ScHULLERN-ScHRATENHOFEN, H., Agrarpoliti\ (Jena, 1924). SERING, M., Agrar\risen und Agrarzolle (Berlin, 1925). , Die Politi\ der Grundbesitzverteilung in den grossen Reichen
(1912).
SKALWEIT, A., AgrarpolitiJ^ (Berlin, 1924). STIEGER, GEORG, Der Mensch in der Landwirtschajt (1922), STUDENTSKY, G. A., "Die okonomische Nature der bauerlichen Wirtschaft,"
Weltwirtschajtliche Archiv (October, 1928), STUMPFE, E., Der landwirtschaftliche Gross-, Mittel-f und Kleinbetrieb
(1902).
TAYLOR, H. C., Outlines of Agricultural Economics (1925). THOMAS, E., The Economics of Small Holdings (1927), Cambridge Uni- versity Press.
TSCHAIJANOFF, A., Die Lehre von der bauerlichen Wirtschaft (1923). , "Agricultural Economics in Russia," Journal of Farm Economics
(October, 1928), TSCHERNENKOFF, N. N., An Analysis of the Peasant Enterprise (Russ.)
(Moscow, 1905), TSCHERNOV, V., Peasant and Laborer as Economic Categories (Russ.)
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 399
WANTERS, A., "L'avenir de la petite propriete* agricole," L'avenir social
(April, 1928).
WYGODZINSKI, W., Agrarwesen und Agrarpohuf( (Berlin, 1920), 2 vols. YODER, FRED, Agricultural Economics (1929).
For further English and American bibliography see the references in George O'Brien, Agricultural Economics (1928).
2. Modern agrarian reforms and peasant movements. — A systematic review of these phenomena from the Communist standpoint is given in Agrar-Probleme, published in German since 1928 by the International Agrarian Institute of Moscow. The following are samples of the papers published: G. Wermenitschew, "Die Agrarreform in Mittelasien," Agrar- Probleme, 1928, I, 58-81; W. B,, "Die Lage der Landwirte und der land- wirtschaftlichen Arbeiter in den englischen Afrikabesitzungen," ibid., 159-177; Julio Mella, "Die Bauernbewegung in Mexiko," ibid., 213-215; A. Nikolau, "Der Bauernaufstand in Rumanien," ibid., 215-217; Abuzjam and Ali-Tarik, "Die Agrarfrage in Syrien und Palastina," ibid., 217-219; S. Timow, "Die Agrarfrage in Rumanien vor und nach dem Kriege," ibid., 324-352; Banderas, "Das Agrargesetz und die Bauernbewegung in Mexiko," ibid., 363-374. (All papers published in the A grar -Problems view the situation from the Communist standpoint).
Another publication that systematically gives papers devoted to modern agrarian movements and reforms is the "Bulletin du Bureau International Agraire (published in Prague, in several languages, since 1924). Each vol- ume contains several papers on this problem. As a sample see N. Lupu, La panic paysanne roumaine, 1926, I, 3-6; G. Volkoff, "La reforme agraire en Bulgarie," ibid., 17-21; K. Krofta, "Le progres social dans Thistoire de la classe paysanne Tcheque," ibid., 21-30; Sempronius, "La reforme fon- ciere en Allemagne," ibid., 30-33; P. V. Kobyzeff, "La legislation des Soviets sur la terre et ses resultats economiques," ibid., 34-48; H. Stahli, "Le parti Bernois des citoyens, agriculteurs et artisans," ibid,, 1927, II, 59-68. Without enumerating a great many similar papers given in all the volumes of the publication, it is sufficient to say that each copy contains much well- founded description and analysis.
A third publication that devoted much attention to these phenomena was Peasant Russia (Krestians\aia Rossia), published in Russian in Prague, during the years 1923-1926 (about ten volumes). Each volume contains several informational papers and many substantial analyses of the problems discussed. Similarly, among German journals, see the Agrarpolitische Rund- schau and, especially, Berichte uber Landwirtschajt (8 vols. published), and, in French, the Vie agraire et rurale. In the United States of America, see the Journal of Farm Economics and Rural America. In the Berichte uber Landwirtschajt each of the eight volumes of a new series published since 1924 contains many papers devoted to the agrarian situation, reforms, and movements of the present time in European and the non-European coun- tries, as well as to several problems of rural sociology.
A detailed current bibliography of these topics is given in a special Index bibliographique de la question agraire and Yearbook of Agrarian Litera-
400 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
ture, published by the Soviet International Agrarian Institute in Moscow since 1927. Possibly the best bibliographical compendium for Germany is the Literature zu den Vorlesungen uber die Wandlungen der deutschen Volfawirtschaft (Kiel, 1927), compiled in the Institut fiir Weltwirtschaft und Seeverkehr of Kiel University. For special monographs and other articles see:
ANTONIN, A., La question agraire en Roumanie (Paris, 1925). AUGE-LARIBE, M., L' agriculture pendant la guerre (Paris, 1927).
, Le paysan fran^ais apres la guerre (1927).
BAADE, F., Entwicl(lungsmdglich^eiten der europdischen Landwirtschajt
(Berlin, 1927). BANNERJEA, D. N., "Landwirtschaft in Indien," Berichte uber Landwirt-
schajt, Vol. IV, Heft 3. BERGSTRAESSER, A., "Landwirtschaft und Agrarkrise in Frankreich,"
Schmollers Jahrbuch (1928), Vol. LII.
BLACK, JOHN D., Agricultural Reform in the United States (1929). BOLSHAKOFF, A. M., Soviet Village for the Years 1917-1924 (Russ.) (Lenin- grad, 1924).
BOUROFF, J., Village on the Crossroad (Russ.) (1926). BOYLE, JAMES, Farm-Relief (New York, 1928). BRUTZKUS, B., Agrarentwicfyung und A grarr evolution in Russland (Berlin,
1924).
BURGESS, EUGENE, La "Non-Partisan League" (Paris, 1928). CARR, LEWIS F., America Challenged (1929). Committee on Land Settlement in Scotland, Report (1928). DAMASCHKE, Bodenrejorm (Jena, 1923). DAMPIER-WHETHAM, C., Politics and the Land, Cambridge University
Press. DANIEL, A., "Das Vordringen der Agrardemocratie in Europa und die
Lage des Grossgrundbesitzes in Ungarn," Archiv f. Sozialwissenschajt
(1929), Band LXII, Heft 3.
DECARIS, A., Die Agrarjrage Dalmatiens (Leipzig, 1928). Deutsche Bauerntum (Berlin, 1928-1929), 4 volumes devoted to discussions
of important problems of rural sociology by various authors. EVANS, IFOR L., The Agrarian Revolution in Roumaniat Cambridge Uni- versity Press. FINES, N., Labor and Farmer Parties in the United States (New York,
1928). FRANCES, O., "La reforme agraire dans les pays du sud-est de 1'Europe
(Hongrie, Roumanie, Bulgarie, Albanie, Grece)," Societe beige d'etudes
et dr expansion (February, 1928). GAISTER, A., Agriculture of Capitalistic Russia (Russ.) (Moscow, 1928).
, Differentiation of the Soviet Village (Russ.) (Moscow, 1928).
, Achievements and Difficulties of Collectivization of Farms
(Russ.) (Moscow, 1929). GARGAS, SIGISMUND, Die Grune Internationale (Halberstadt, 1927).
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 401
GORDEEF, G. S., Agriculture in War and Revolution (Russ.) (Moscow,
1925). GREEN, F. E., A History of the English Agricultural Laborer, 1870-1920
(London, 1927). Handbuch der Landwirtschaft, edited by F. Aereboe, J. Hansen, and Th.
Roemer (Berlin, 1928), 5 vols. HOLLMAN, A. H., "Die Agrarreform in Rumanien," Berichte uber Land-
mrtschajt, Vol. I, Heft 1.
IVSCHITSCH, MILAN, Les problemes agraires en Jugoslavie (Paris, 1926). JAKOVLEFF, }., Village, As It Is (Russ.) (Moscow, 1923). JESSEN, JENS, "Das Agrarproblem in Argentina," Jahrbuch /. Nationalofyn.
und Statisti^ (July, 1928). JONKHART, L., Die EntwicJ^lung der niederlandische Landwirtschaft sell
der Agrar\rise der 1870er Jahre bis zum Ausbriiche der Welikrieges
(Zurich, 1927).
KOUBANIN, M., Splitting of the Peasant Farms (Russ.) (Moscow, 1929). LANDMANN, J., Die Agrarpolitik der schweizerischen Industriestaaten (lena,
1928).
LARIN, J., Soviet Village (Russ.) (Moscow, 1925).
MENDIETA Y NUNEZ, L., El problema agrario en Mexico (Mexico, 1926). METZGER, "Zur Landfrage in Finnland," Berichte uber Landwirtschajt,
Vol. I, Heft. L MICHAEL, L. G., Agricultural Survey of Europe. The Danube Basin
(U. S. D. A., Washington, 1924 and 1929), Parts MI. MILIUTIN, V. P. (editor), Agrarian Revolution (Russ.) (Moscow, 1927-
1928), 2 vols.
, Agrarian Policy of the U. S. S. R. (Russ.) (Moscow, 1929).
PASVOLSKY, L., Economic Nationalism of the Danubian States (New York,
1928). PHIPPS, HELEN, "The Agrarian Phase of the Mexican Revolution," Political
Science Quarterly (1924). RADUCANO, T., "Les consequences de la reforme agraire en Roumanie,"
Revue economique Internationale (January, 1928). RETINGER, J. H., Tierro Mexicana (London, 192"8). ROSE, ADAM, Le probleme agraire en Pologne (Varsovie, 1926). Royal Commission on Agriculture in India, Report (London and Simla,
H. M. S. O., 1928). SCHMIDT, "Die Landwirtschaft in Polen," Berichte uber Landwirtschajt,
Vol. VIII, Heft 1-2.
SELIGMAN, E. R. A., Economics of Farm Relief (1929), Columbia Univer- sity Press. SERING, M., "Die Umwalzung der osteuropaischen Agrarverfassung," Ar-
chiv fur inner Kolonization (1921), Vol. XIII. SERPIERI, A., "Le classi rurali nello stato corporative," Vita nuova (1928),
. Vol. IV.
STERN, W., Die Agrarreform der RepubliJ^ Polen (Krakau, 1927). TAN-BOGORAS, B., Revolution in the Village (Russ.) (Leningrad, 1924).
402 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
TANNENBAUM, F.} Agrarian Revolution in Mexico (New York, 1929).
TEXTOR, L. E., Land Reform in Czechoslovakia (London, 1923).
THOMSON, HANS, Die Verteilung des landwirtschajtlichen Grundbesitzes in Sudajrify (Jena, 1927).
VOSSBERG, G. H., "Die Agrarreform in Polen," Preussische Jahrbticher (December, 1927).
WESTERMANN, W. L., "Egyptian Agricultural Labor under Ptolomy Phila- delphus," Agricultural History (July, 1927), Vol. I.
WILLY-RUMER, Die Agrarreformen der Donau-Staaten (1917-1926) (Inns- bruck, 1928).
52. ANDRE SIEGFRIED: THE INFLUENCE OF THE REGIME OF LANDED PROPERTY ON THE FORMATION OF POLITICAL OPINION*
The general problem. — Landed property always exerts considerable if not decisive influence on the formation of political opinion. This in- fluence, where found, tends to diminish or destroy the material and moral liberty of the elector in so far as it creates the exceptional inde- pendence of a social landed class or accentuates the dependence of the non-landed on other classes. Since the regime of property in a given society indicates the general type of the social structure, it enables us to comprehend the characteristics, temperament, and tendencies of a so- ciety. We will first consider the influence of small holdings, then of large holdings, and last, that of the average and intermediate types. In our conclusion we will then be able to determine the role of the factor of property in the political evolution of western France.
Influence of small properties. — Property is the most solid foundation of political liberty, and wealth is, in a general way, synonymous with independence. Among the peasant people particularly, the owner alone, in so far as he possesses a relatively high standard of living, enjoys complete political liberty. In contrast to the tenant, who incessantly fears the displeasure of his landlord, the small cultivator living mod- erately on his own property demands nothing of anyone and is little influenced by pressure. When the time arrives for him to cast his vote, he is able to do so without injuring his essential interests: he is a citizen in full, effective possession of his rights. This rule does not always automatically apply to all proprietors. In order that they may be truly independent it is necessary that their production be sufficient to main- tain them and enable them to balance their budget, otherwise they are obliged to hire out as day laborers or even become recipients of relief, and thus relapse into a semisubjection. I will make an analo-
* From Andre Siegfried, Tableau politique de la Trance de V Quest sous la troiiiemc republique, Librairie Armand Colin, Paris, 1913, pp. 370-379. Translated and printed with the permission oÂŁ the publisher.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 403
gous observation regarding the mill worker who possesses a field. At first glance it would appear that this possession would give him the independence he deserves, but it serves rather to bind him to his patron, for the worker is bound to the soil and it is practically impos- sible for him to seek other work. Therefore, it is the full cultivator- proprietor especially who will achieve full political liberty.
At this point we must beware of drawing conclusions from indi- vidual cases. In order that economic liberty may create a corresponding sentiment of political liberty, it is necessary that a certain collective atmosphere prevail. A small, isolated proprietor among a group of tenants or day laborers will not at all necessarily be a spirited citizen, immune to influence. This is frequently observed in French Brittany, where the small and great owners are almost everywhere in unanimity. At the same time it may occur that an isolated tenant in the midst of free proprietors may be as free in spirit as they. It is important to know if the social structure of the group is equalitarian or hierarchical. If the mass of the people feel perpetually under the hand of those upon whom they are directly or indirectly dependent, it is very evident that it will be difficult for them to attain political liberty, and they will fre- quently lose it entirely. But if, on the contrary, the foundation of a population is composed of independent and equal people, a democratic spirit will almost inevitably develop between them. Almost certain proof of this lies in the fact that an equalitarian society habitually selects for the mayoralty, not the nobles nor bourgeoisie, but the peasants.
The political reverberations of a regime of small owners is naturally deduced from the preceding. It is, without exception, a rule that regions of small holdings — at any rate when they are not the clergy—- are associated with the principles and the work of the French Revolu- tion (the Republic) and irrevocably hostile to the Ancient Regime (the Empire). The Royalists have no strength there; these regions be- long to the Republican-Democratics or Bonapartists.
The republican regions (I should say republican in principles) are those of small rather than of average holdings, and the property there produces political effects of independence much more than social ef- fects of conservatism. This is observed even in regions where the com- forts of life are not numerous, or, in other words, where the small proprietors are relatively poor. As a result, we have a political type that is clearly defined: equalitarian people, jealous of the nobility and gen- erally anticlerical, but at the same time hostile to all new revolutions. The common formula, "Neither reaction nor revolution," upon which the Republic lived for forty years, well summarizes the tendencies of
404 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
the French peasants when considered in their totality and applies ex- actly to their idea of the state.
The small holding creates, therefore, from a political point of view a democratic atmosphere, but from the social point of view its effects are more complex and rather different. In a general way it produces independence and at the same time tends to make the individual con- servative, because it is necessary that the whole group are jointly and severally liable for the existence of the social order. The peasant- proprietors who are enemies of reaction are likewise enemies of revolu- tion. Property is, therefore, a balancing element in the social equi- librium.
This evolution toward a sort of social conservatism, which still is often ignored, is much more vital than one would be tempted to be- lieve. It suffices the French peasant to possess a few acres and thence to become primarily interested in the care and the enlargement of them. Thus he becomes very easily a partisan of a strong government that maintains order and tradition and guarantees him the conserva- tion of his possessions. When there are menaces of social revolution in the air, such revolution is little in favor with the peasants we have been describing. Rather, we see the origin of the Bonapartistic idea, which, in the country, is essentially an idea of peasant well-being, equalitarian, neither reactionary nor clerical, but above all conservative.
The political and social influence of the small proprietor would be very clearly marked and homogeneous if there existed no cases where its effects were completely annulled. When a population of small owners is clerical, it becomes neither radical, Bonapartist, nor con- servative, but it remains altogether clerical, and the people follow the advice of the priest. It is evident that the social factors resulting from the landed regime can be reduced to nothing or almost nothing by moral factors more powerful. Take for instance Cornouaille and Leon, the two analogous regions of average small holdings. Cornouaille is rather anticlerical and was the birthplace of the Republic in Brittany. However, in Leon, this theocracy never accepted the republican idea of government. Similar observations might be made for Breton Marais (Vendee), wh'ere the land was parcelled out, but the people were Catholic. They resisted the civil authority so much that the Marais Poitou, which had Bonapartist tendencies, has passed very quickly from its Bonapartism of yesterday to a definite radicalism today.
But this important exception being made, we are able to maintain as a general rule that the parcelling of the land carries with it a pro- found transformation of interests, of temperament, and of political and social conceptions. Everywhere, where the soil is divided, the
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 405
atmosphere of the Ancient Regime disappears, permitting free expres- sion to that of the French Revolution (the Republic).
Influence of large properties. — While small holdings create inde- pendence and equality, the great holdings tend to fashion hierarchical societies where the classes who do not possess the land are dependent upon those who do. Here one may perceive a remote reflection of feudalism. However, this general proposition, which should be con- sidered true in its entirety, has numerous defects and must be modified because of two supplementary factors that are never absent from the situation. These are the regimes of cultivation and of residence and that of the absenteeism of proprietors. It is the study of the multiple combinations of these three factors (landed regime, cultivation, resi- dence) that will alone permit us to determine with some precision the political effects of large holdings.
We will first examine the cases where the domination of the land- lord is developed to the maximum degree. This occurs when the great estates coincide with the small cultivation by tenants or laborers and when the proprietor resides on his land. The union of these three con- ditions is irresistible. One may very well comprehend that the situation may be thus: the richer the landlord, the more modest the tenant, the greater the differences between them, the greater will be the authority of the former over the latter. It frequently happens in the West that the same person possesses ten, fifteen, or twenty farms. At the time of the renewal of leases (especially in periods of prosperity), this signifies ten, fifteen, or twenty peasants who are anxiously waiting to ascertain if they will retain their farms. This also signifies ten, fifteen, or twenty voters who dare not put forth an opinion capable of displeasing the landlord. I do not exaggerate in saying that, in a great number of cases, this will be ten, fifteen, or twenty clients who will seek a word of order from the landlord, or at least who will receive it. Popular lan- guage reflects this dependency. In speaking of his farmers, the Vendeau noble says, "My boys"; in Lannion one speaks of them as "subjects" of such or such a "Monsieur"; in all the territory of the West the peasant calls his proprietor "our master"; and in rural Anjou one hears like- wise this altogether feudal expression, "I am of the subjection of Mr. X. or Y."
It is true that the authority of the proprietor singularly diminishes when he is not a resident. He is then no longer in his commune and becomes somewhat of an outsider. In such cases his rather unexpected interventions lose much of their efficacy. But if he resides all year upon his land, as do the majority of the nobles of the West, he is truly rural in tastes, habits, and temperament, and he naturally occupies a pre- ponderant position in the political sphere. It is very important in this
406 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
respect to observe whether the large landlords are noble or bourgeois. The bourgeoisie are much more apt to be absentee owners, and the nobles are much more active in politics, effectively placing the peasants under constant surveillance. This supervision is reinforced further when the farmer is replaced by the metayer (cropper), for the lessor who holds the contract of metayage (a holding the rent of which con- sists of giving half or more of the produce to the landowner) also has the right of unceasing penetration upon the estate, and of mixing into the most trivial acts of the cultivator. ... In the West the metayage is the form of cultivation that invokes the greatest amount of social and political dependency of the cultivator.
At the beginning I have pointed out the necessity of guarding against the formulation of too simple generalizations. We are going to consider what occurs when cultivation on a large scale coincides with large holdings of property (large farms with large-scale tenants). Under these conditions an entirely new social and political atmosphere is created. In the first place the electoral dependence is diminished , until at times it entirely disappears or, in other words, the large tenant of fifty or one hundred hectares of land considers himself an equal of his proprietor. It is no longer a question then, as before, of a "master" and of "his farmer," but rather of a capitalist and an entrepreneur of agriculture, that is to say, two bourgeois, who in the political struggle are generally "on the same side of the barricade."
In my opinion it is necessary to extend the problem in a measure and to consider the status of the authority o£ the master upon the day laborers on the farms operated on a large scale. But we must not be misled. The relations between employers and employes are not identi- cal with those between noble and metayer that we have just discussed for the West. If the patron employs many workers — and this is the case in almost all centralized agricultural enterprises — he can no doubt sub- mit them to a very strong material discipline, very military, but the political and moral influence he will be able to exert upon them will always remain inferior to the quasi-patriarchal influence of an Angevin noble on his metayer. He will have to deal, at least during the harvest, with a group of individuals often unknown to him, artificially concen- trated at a given point, and so aware of these conditions that they are able to align themselves collectively against him. These circumstances are no longer truly or traditionally rural. They rather resemble, when the culture is industrialized, that of the industrial worker. Similar to the workers of the great industries, and for the same reasons, these agricultural workers are susceptible to either an agrarian socialism or a demagogy of a nationalistic character.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 407
The political effects of large holdings may be summarized by the following double conclusion: coexistent with small-scale operation, it tends to maintain the supremacy of social authorities, and as a conse- quence an atmosphere of hierarchy; but combined with large-scale operation, it does not provoke the same dependency of the cultivators on their proprietors, and at the same time there is a risk that an • agrarian proletariat may arise that may become a dangerous enemy of the proprietor. The second alternative is clearly observed in the West, but the former is the rule. More than anything else this political hier- archy gives this part of France its political personality.
Intermediate types of property. — So far we have been considering only very definite types of property, and we are able to ascertain that these types tend to create equally definite types of political societies. But the phenomena are not always so simple, and intermediate types are extensively found in the West. We must, therefore, consider them, but one may guess that as a result of the relative uncertainty of their pattern, the reverberations that originate with them will be infinitely less clear and especially less decisive. It is in effect in this sphere of transition that other factors of political opinion, and notably the some- what deceptive factor of personal influence, tend to occupy a pre- ponderant place.
Is it necessary to speak of the average property as a special type? I hesitate to do so, thinking that it might rather be considered as a continuation of the small property type. Especially when encoun- tered in the West, it corresponds to a class of fairly large cultiva- tors, proprietors of their cultivation, but managing it themselves and hardly ever renting it out to others. Practically it is, in totality, a form of peasant property. This is the case in Cornouaille, Leon, Breton, Marais, Auge, Bessin, and Cotentin, In all of these regions, with the exception of the clericals, it is observed that the average proprietors emphasize conservatism. They are independent, moderate, willing re- publicans, but not reformers, and never partisans of the Ancient Re- gime. None the less they are adversaries of all democratic orientation that is a trifle advanced. In saying that the Lower-Normandy spirit very well represents that of the average proprietor, one has mentioned the essentials of the subject.
The situation is more uncertain in the groups where the different kinds of property are coexistent. Here, particularly, it is necessary to recall that the political reverberations of the landed regimes are col- lective, not individual. We must not imagine that in a mixed region the proprietors will all be free and the tenants all dependent. No! There will develop, rather, a general spirit where the dominant tend- ency will absorb the other. Occasionally the presence of some landed
408 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
seignors, especially if they are nobles, will be sufficient to give the group a particular atmosphere of dependency in political opinion rather than of liberty. At other times, on the contrary, a united resist- ance of small tenants and of small landholders will develop a powerful influence. Many examples establish the fact that instability and political incoherence are a direct result of the indefiniteness of the landed regime.
53. S. KAWADA: THE TENANTRY SYSTEM AND MOVEMENT IN JAPAN*
The structure of Japanese agriculture. — People who are acquainted with the conditions of Japanese agriculture know that small farming prevails, and that large farming represents a very rare exception. The very small size of the farms, the so-called pygmean agriculture, pre- sents a great obstacle to the development of agriculture in Japan. The most intensive cultivation, often of a grade of intensity absolutely un- known to western countries, is the outstanding characteristic of Japanese agriculture.
The publications of the Department of Agriculture and Commerce give the following data concerning the average acreage per household by years from 1910 to 1920, based on the total amount of land culti- vated.
|
RICE (TAN)f |
DRY PLOUGHLAND (TAN) |
TOTAL (CHO) |
|
|
1912 |
5.32 |
5.22 |
1.054 |
|
1913 |
5.34 |
5.25 |
1.059 |
|
1914 |
5.35 |
5.27 |
1.062 |
|
1915 |
5.37 |
5.33 |
1.070 |
|
1916 |
5.39 |
5.36 |
1.075 |
|
1917 |
5.41 |
5.43 |
1.084 |
|
1918 |
5.41 |
5.52 |
1.093 |
|
1919 |
5.44 |
5.58 |
1.103 |
|
1920 |
5.46 |
5.59 |
1.105 |
The following table gives, in percentages, the ratio of farms of speci- fied sizes (in tan) to the total number of agricultural enterprises dur- ing the period from 1910 to 1920.
From S. Kawada, "Die Pachterbewegung in Japan," Archiv f. Sozialwissenschajt fiber Sozialpolitik, 1925, LIV, 424-445. Reprinted with the permission oÂŁ the author. 1 1 tan=0.245 acres, 1 cho=2.450 acres, and 10 tan=l cho.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 409
|
UNDER 5 TAN |
5TAN- ICno |
1-2 CHO |
2-3 CHO |
3-5 CHO OVER 5 CHO |
TOTAL |
||
|
1910 |
37.5 |
33.0 |
19.3 |
6.0 |
2.9 |
1.3 |
100 |
|
1911 |
37.1 |
33.1 |
19.7 |
6.0 |
2.9 |
1.2 |
100 |
|
1912 |
37.1 |
33.3 |
19.6 |
6.0 |
2.8 |
1.2 |
100 |
|
1913 |
36.8 |
33.4 |
19.8 |
6.0 |
2.8 |
1.2 |
100 |
|
1914 |
36.6 |
33.4 |
19.9 |
6.1 |
2.7 |
1.2 |
' 100 |
|
1915 |
36.5 |
33.4 |
20.0 |
6.1 |
2.7 |
1.3 |
100 |
|
1916 |
36.4 |
33.3 |
20.2 |
6.1 |
2.7 |
1.3 |
100 |
|
1917 |
36.1 |
33.3 |
20.4 |
6.1 |
2.7 |
1.3 |
100 |
|
1918 |
35.8 |
33.2 |
20.6 |
6.3 |
2.8 |
1.3 |
100 |
|
1919 |
35.7 |
33.1 |
20.5 |
6.1 |
2.8 |
1.7 |
100 |
|
1920 |
35.6 |
33.2 |
20.5 |
6.2 |
2.8 |
1,7 |
100 |
These two tables enable one to see clearly the very small size of Japanese agricultural enterprises. This conclusion remains valid not- withstanding the fact, shown in the second table, that there was a gradual decrease in the percentage - of all farms under 5 tan and a gradual increase in the percentage of all farms over 5 tan. However, these increases and decreases are very insignificant.
An analysis of the degree of concentration of land property leads indirectly to somewhat similar conclusions. The concentration of land property does not always parallel the size of the farm enterprise, for large estate owners may lease their land in small lots to tenants. The result of such a situation would be the simultaneous existence of small farms and large. However, in a country where the greater part of the land is owned by the peasants, small-scale farming always prevails and the above concentration of land does not take place.
According to the official statistics of land property, the average size of the estates in 1908 was 11.43 cho; in 1913, 11.82 cho; and in 1918, 12.37 cho.
In the official statistics there is also a comparison of the number of landowners possessing property of various sizes with the total number of agricultural enterprises. The size of about two-thirds of all the enter- prises is less than one cho. These data also indicate that small-scale farming is typical for Japan.
Let us glance at the composition of the population engaged in small agricultural enterprises. Three different groups are to be distinguished: (1) peasant owners, (2) small tenants, (3) peasant owners who are also tenants.
The following figures show the proportion of each of these groups the total number of agricultural households:
410 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
|
PEASANT OWNERS |
SMALL TENANT |
OWNER AND TENANT |
TOTAL |
|
|
1910 |
33.4 |
27.4 |
39.2 |
100 |
|
1911 |
33.1 |
27.4 |
39.5 |
100 |
|
1912 |
33.0 |
27.3 |
39.7 |
100 |
|
1913 |
32.7 |
27.6 |
39.7 |
100 |
|
1914 |
32.4 |
27.6 |
40.0 |
100 |
|
1915 |
32.1 |
27.7 |
40.2 |
100 |
|
1916 |
31.7 |
27.6 |
40.7 |
100 |
|
1917 |
31.6 |
27.8 |
40.6 |
100 |
|
1918 |
31.6 |
28.0 |
40.4 |
100 |
|
1919 |
31.6 |
27.9 |
40.5 |
100 |
|
1920 |
31.3 |
28.1 |
40.6 |
100 |
From the above table it is possible to conclude that an increase of small tenantry and a decrease of peasant ownership are recent tenden- cies in Japanese agriculture.
The following table shows the relative proportions of the total amount of land of various types cultivated by the owners and by tenants:
PERCENTAGE OF LAND CULTIVATED PERCENTAGE OF LAND CULTIVATED BY OWNERS BY TENANTS
Under Rice Dry Ploughland Under Rice Dry Ploughland
|
1908 |
50.01 |
59.61 |
49.99 |
40.39 |
|
1913 |
49.02 |
60.22 |
20.98 |
39.78 |
|
1918 |
48.43 |
59.37 |
51.57 |
40.63 |
|
1921 |
48.38 |
59.07 |
51.62 |
40.93 |
This table enables us to conclude that from 1908 to 1921 the amount of land cultivated by tenants increased slightly while that cultivated by owners decreased.
The above analysis gives some idea about certain peculiarities of contemporary Japanese agriculture. These are briefly summarized as follows: (1) Small farming dominates over large farming. (2) Small farming is done in a great many cases by tenants, whose number is increasing at the same time that the number of peasant owners is de- creasing. Thus, from economic and sociological viewpoints it is com- prehensible that the movement of tenantry in Japan is beginning to occupy a prominent place.
Compared with the fundamental tenantry systems of western coun- tries, the tenantry system of Japan has several peculiarities. In the first place, the land in Japan is divided into small holdings and is leased in
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 411
small lots to tenants. Large estates, like those of England and other countries, do not exist in Japan. . . . The most common and general form of tenancy is land-renting for a definite length of time. But this form has some peculiarities that distinguish it from similar systems in the West. In the western countries the tenant is obliged to pay the stipulated yearly rent regardless of whether the crop is good or bad. In Japan the proprietor can claim the full stipulated rent only when the crop is good; if it is bad he can claim only a part of the rent agreed upon. This custom, styled Kebifyi is quite common and regularly prac- ticed. It is based partly on an old tradition, partly on numerous prece- dents in tenancy contracts. ... It is not a juridical prescription but a manifestation of the good will of the owners, based on patriarchal mores.
Now let us turn to the tenant himself. The specialists and the prac- tical social workers have been confronted with a problem: Should the Japanese tenant be regarded as a laborer or as an entrepreneur ? At the International Conference for Labor Protection (Geneva, 1921), the problem aroused a lively discussion. The representatives of Japanese labor assumed that the tenant was a laborer, the representatives of the Japanese government and entrepreneurs that he was an entrepreneur. The representatives of other countries also had different views. Cer- tainly, the problem is not easy to decide. Indeed, the living conditions of a small tenant do not differ from those of the farm or industrial laborers; the tenants' situation is perhaps even more uncertain and poor than that of the laborers. Nevertheless, from the juridical and economic standpoints, tenants cannot be classified as laborers because there is no labor contract between tenant and landowner, and hence the tenant's income is not labor. With the exception of the rent that the tenant has to pay to the owner, the entire entrepreneurial risk falls on the shoulders of the tenant. Therefore it was rightly decided that the Japanese tenant belongs to the class of the entrepreneurs and not to that of the laborers.
The principal types of tenancy are hereditary tenure, intermediate tenure, and pint tenure?* Hereditary tenure originated in the remotest past. Now it either remains indefinite as to the length of time or, ac- cording to the Civil Code, with a duration of twenty to fifty years. During this period, the owner cannot raise the yearly rent, but neither is he obliged by law to lower it in the years of a poor crop. The tenant is entitled to bequeath his property, status, and right of renting and mortgaging. Intermediate tenure exists in some provinces with ab- sentee landowners. The "middle man" rents land from the owner in large tracts and leases it in small lots to lesser tenants. Joint tenure of
* EDITORS' NOTE. — Subsequent parts are abstracts from the paper of Kawada.
412 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
an owner's land is the joint renting by several tenants from the same village who are collectively responsible for the payment of the rent. They usually divide the land among themselves according to the amount of the labor forces of each tenant family.
Though the length of the tenure varies greatly, the most typical length is from two to five years. The predominant form of rent is a certain share of the produce of the land (usually rice) ; the most common rate is about or below 50 per cent of the total produce of the land rented. However, this rate fluctuates greatly from place to place and from period to period.
It is natural to expect that the tenant-owner relationship is not free from conflicts. In the period of the Shogunate (the Tokugawa re- gime), the government usually favored the owners against the tenants in such conflicts. Before the World War the majority of these conflicts appeared in connection with the matter of lowering the rent in years of a poor crop and were decided by private agreement between the owner and the tenant. Sometimes these conflicts assumed a sharp form. After the war the situation changed. The mind of the lower classes — the laborers and the small tenants — became imbued with 'liberty and equality," Socialism and Bolshevism. In some places the "small tenants movement" appeared as a result. The program of this movement is not clear. Sometimes it is styled a program for the nationalization of land. But none of the leaders of the movement have set it forth clearly. More often the movement manifests itself in an organized pressure of the tenants, perhaps in the form of violent measures, to lower the rent. The number of conflicts has become greater than before the war. There were 85 conflicts in 1917; 256 in 1918; 326 in 1919; 408 in 1920; 1,680 in 1921, and 1,578 in 1922. In 1922 in these 1,578 conflicts 29,077 owners and 125,750 tenants were involved. In 1,469 of these 1,578 conflicts the cause of the conflicts was the tenants* demand that the rent be lowered; in 22 cases it was the tenants' opposition to any increase of the rent; in the remaining 87 cases the causes were miscellaneous. In connection with these conflicts several unions of tenants and several of owners appeared, having for their purpose the protection and promo- don of the interests of their respective class.
Taking all the relevant circumstances into consideration, it is possi- ble to contend that the real objective of the movement is "the elimina- tion of the class of large landowners and the transformation of the small tenants into small peasant proprietors." In regard to the means and ways of realizing this objective opinions differ. Up to this time it remains undecided as to whether the government should perform this transformation in a compulsory way or whether it should be achieved through the private initiative oÂŁ both classes involved. Likewise, it is
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 413
unknown to what extent landowners should be hurt. The future will decide whether this reconstruction will be realized through evolution or through revolution.*
54. A. POLJAKOW: FORMS OF TENANCY IN CHINA!
Introduction. — Despite manifold minor modifications and differ- ences, conditions of tenancy in China are essentially similar in .form and economic content throughout the eighteen provinces and Man- churia. First of all, we shall discuss the rent with a fixed payment in %indt in which the entire capital belongs to the tenant and the rental is paid in a fixed amount of products. Further, we have partial rent, in which the tenant furnishes only a portion of the capital, the owner furnishing the remainder, and in which the crop is divided between the two in a fixed ratio. We meet similar forms of tenancy in Europe and in America. Share tenancy, which plays a prominent role in China, is differentiated in its economic content from the French metairie sys- teme, which Marx considered the classical form of tenancy, from the Italian mezzadria, and from the American share renting system. In the Chinese share tenancy, as well as in the metairie systeme, the mez- zadria, and the share renting system, the tenant generally furnishes a portion of the working capital in addition to his own labor or that of others. The owner furnishes the other portion of the working capital (i.e., the cattle) in addition to the ground. The products are divided between them in a fixed ratio that varies from country to country.1
"If one considers further the rent in fixed payments in %indt which is the most common form of the tenancy agreements in China, one sees that this form is practically identical in economic structure with
* EDITORS' NOTE. — For Japansee also: K. Asakawa, The Early Institutional Life of Japan, 1903; G. Liebscher, Japan's landwirthschaftliche und allgemeiniuirthschaitlichc Verhahnisse, 1882; F. H. King, Farmers of Forty Centuries, New York, Harcourt, Brace Co.; S. Kawada, Study on Rural Communities (in Japan), 1925; K. Yanagida, History and Agricultural Policy (in Japan), 1910; S. Nasu, Rural Social Problems (in Japan), 1928; K. Mori, Rural Social Problems (in Japan), 1919; R. Ota, Rural Social Problems (in Japan), 1925; Ch. Ogawara, Rural Sociology (in Japan), 1917; T. Ono, Lectures on Rural Community (in Japan), 1925; J. Yokoi, Reorganization of Rural Communities (in Japan), 1925; E. Yamasaki, Rural Planning (in Japan), 1927; S. Kawada, "Tenant Sys- tem in Japan and Korea," Kyoto Univ. Economic 'Review, 1926, No. 1, I, 38-74; S. Ka- wada, "The Tenant System of Formosa," Kyoto Univ. "Economic Review, 1928, No. 2, III, 86-147; Iku-Okuda, Das Verteilungssystem des Wald- und Old-landes in Japan, Stuttgart, 1928; K. Asakawa, "The Early Sho and the Early Manor: a Comparative Study," Journal of Economic and Business History, February, 1929; T. Ono, Peasant Movements in the Period of the Tofagawa (in Japan), 1927; Fesca, Die landtvirtschajt- lichen Verhaltnisse Japans und die ^Colonisation Hokaidos, 1887.
fFrom Agrar-Problemet published by the International Agrarian Institute, Moscow, 1928, No. 4, I, 690-721. Translated and reprinted with permission of the publisher (Paul Parey).
''Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 4th ed., Hamburg, 1919, Parts II, HI, pp. 336-337,
414 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
the American standing rent system, which is widespread throughout the southern cotton-growing regions of the United States of North America.2
The fundamental difference between the agricultural conditions of China and those of Europe and America is indicated by the fact that the Chinese tenant is in need in the majority of cases, possesses only a minute piece of land, is entirely at the mercy of usurers, and is de- pendent on the owner of the property. He cannot be designated as a tenant in the true sense of the word, especially if he is compared with European and American tenants. But one must not forget the fact that there are well-to-do middle classes among Chinese tenants, and also that the majority of tenants in Europe and America — tenants of parcels of land — are tenants from necessity. In the southern states of America in 1925 there were one and one-half million half -en slaved share tenants (according to Lenin).* In Germany in the same year, 88.6 per cent of the farms that consisted entirely of rented land com- prised less than 2 hectares apiece (about 5 acres).3 Finally, the Italian mezzadro, who . . . comprise 64 per cent of the tenants of Italy, are also tenants from necessity in the large majority of cases.
FORMS OF TENANCY EXISTING IN CHINA AT THE PRESENT TIME
Payment of a portion of the products as rent. — The owner places terre mailer e} terre capitals, the buildings, and the remainder of the capital (animate and inanimate inventory, seed, fertilizer, and work- ing capital) at the disposal of the ploughman. At the end of the year the ploughman, who also may be said to be a share tenant, receives a portion of the goods produced on this "rented" piece of land (30 per cent of the products in Manchuria, Tschili, and Kiangsu, and 50 per cent in Mongolia). It must be pointed out that this form of "tenancy relationship" is not tenancy in the true sense of the word, but repre- sents a transition between hiring and renting.
Share tenancy. — The owner places terre matiere, terre capitale, the buildings, and a portion of the remaining capital at the disposal of the tenant. The tenant furnishes the remainder of the capital, and the products are divided among them in a fixed ratio (either 5:5 or 6:4 in Manchuria, Tschili, Schansi, Kiangsu, and Ytinan).
3 Tenancy with fixed payments in kind naturally has nothing in common with the "produce rent,'* which presupposes a produce economy. The "produce rent" persists in backward regions as a survival.
* EDITORS' NOTE. — We leave the specific terminology of the Communist author. Lenin refers to the "croppers." For an analysis of this cropper system see "Farm Ownership and Tenancy," in U, S. D. A. Yearbook 1923, pp. 507 ff., by L. C, Gray, Charles L. Stewart, Howard A. Turner, T- T. Sanders, and W. ]. Spillman. The cropper system itself is primarily a step towards landowncrship by the former slaves. Ibid., pp. 515fE.
* Wtrtschaft und Statistik, Berlin, May, 1927, No. 9, p. 403.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 415
Tenancy with payment in a portion of the products. — The owner furnishes terre matiere, terre capital?, and the buildings (not always the latter). The tenant furnishes the remainder of the capital and sometimes the buildings. The owner receives a portion of the products for the use of the land (30 per cent in Schansi and Tschili, and from 30 to 40 per cent in Kiangsu) .
Tenancy with fixed payments in %ind. — The owner turns over to the tenant terre matiere and terre capitate, while the tenant furnishes the remainder of the capital. The buildings may belong to either. The owner of the land receives payments in kind, the exact amount of which is determined when the contract is made. (This is the most widely spread form of tenancy in China, being diffused throughout the entire country.)
Tenancy with a fixed payment of money, — The owner furnishes terre matiere, terre capitate, and only rarely the buildings. The tenant, generally the owner of the buildings, furnishes the remainder of the capital. The owner receives a fixed sum of money agreed upon when the contract was made, and generally paid in advance. This form is most 'frequently met with in the leasing of truck gardens, gardens, mul- berry plantations, etc.
Tenancy with ownership of the "terre capitale" vested in the tenant. —The owner furnishes only the terre matiere. The tenant is owner of the terre capitale (the fertilized surface soil), the buildings, and, in addition, furnishes the remainder of the capital. The owner receives rent for the leased ground as such — the foundation of the soil, the ground on which taxes are levied. According to the agreement at the time the contract is made, the rent may be either a fixed amount or a fixed share of the produce. The only places in which this form exists are a few of the provinces of middle China.
The eternal lease. — For some reason or other the owner does not enjoy possession of the property which the "eternal tenant" leases from him, but possesses only the right to a definite rent, fixed once for all time. In this form the tenant not only furnishes the entire capital and owns the buildings, but he is also the real owner of the terre matiere and the terre capitale. This eternal lease may be divided into the fol- lowing forms: (a) hereditary lease, whose value approaches the value of the property (found in Kiangsu and Kwangtung), (b) eternal leas- ing of the ground which has been sold under certain conditions (found in Anhui and Kiangsu). The eternal lease, like the first form of this classification, is not a lease in the true sense of the world. If the rela- tionship of the owner to the ploughman and share tenant verges on
416 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
the usual wage relationship, the eternal lease is on the borderline be- tween tenancy and ownership.*
Private persons compose the majority of the owners who lease their land, although clans, cloisters, and the central government may be owners. The private persons leasing land include both those who live on their estates and practice agriculture, and those who live in the cities. The only relationship of the latter to the village is through the agents from whom they draw the rental. The number of absentee owners is very large, and it seems that the majority of them are mer- chants. Alluvial land and other land belonging to the state govern- ment, as well as land belonging to the clans and the temples, is gen- erally leased in large tracts, and then sublet in smaller parcels. In Kuichow the lands of minor foreign nobles are generally rented to the "elder"; he parcels it out among the "chief tenants," they in turn parcel it out among the tenants who will cultivate the land. This system of subletting is applied only to the largest of the private estates. However, it is related to the system of eternal tenancy, for the land subject to that arrangement is often sublet to the tenant who will cultivate it.
The tenants who work the soil may be divided into those who lease from necessity and those who lease for gain. Undoubtedly the great majority are tenants from necessity. But the other class is not unim- portant, and includes owners who rent an additional strip of land.
Terre capitate is especially important in irrigated lands, where its value includes the costs of the complicated irrigating system, levelling, terracing, etc. The value of terre capitals is increased also by the in- tensive fertilizing system. As was pointed out, in both cases in which it was possible to secure information as to the value of rent, the land farmed by the owner himself commanded a higher price than that which he let out.
Products of the soil when used in the payment of rent are generally the basic products of the region. For instance, of the products paid as rent on establishments studied in northern Manchuria, more than 50 per cent was in beans alone, while in Kauliang and Gudzi 96.5 per cent was in beans. The tenants in the southern provinces frequently add some "presents," such as chickens, ducks, pork, wine, etc. The rela- tive importance of this practice is small, although it has persisted rather rigidly. Occasionally, however, these "presents" assume greater importance, either when they are brought at the time of important festivals, or when they are specified in some detail. "The rent in products is either hauled to the warehouse of the owner by the tenant (occasionally he is paid for transporting it) or is taken from the gran- ary of the tenant by the owner or his agent. The former method seems
* EDITORS' NOTE. — Subsequent part is an abstract from the same paper.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 417
to be much more widespread than the latter." The payment of rent in products takes place after the harvest, that is, twice a year in southern and middle China, once a year in the northern portions. When the rent is paid in cash, payment is made at the time the contract is signed and in the monetary units agreed upon.
It is a common practice in China to deposit security for leased land. Ordinarily the security is used to cover any arrears in the rent, and the balance is returned at the expiration of the lease. In some few cases the value of the security approaches the value of the land (fifty to seventy Mexican dollars in Kiangsu), a practice that seems to occur only in the case of the eternal lease.
In general the rental price ranges from 10 to 15 per cent of the value of the land, although it is 8 per cent in Kiangsu and 18 per cent in Shantung. Since the owner furnishes a portion of the capital in most of the share arrangements, he also receives interest on capital, but this has been deducted from the original data in order to secure the rent figures given above.
The contract may be made either orally or in writing. In the latter case, only one copy is made and that one is deposited with the owner. The contract assumes that the inventory furnished will be returned in its original condition. Sometimes it also includes provisions regarding the buildings, irrigation system, etc., besides specifying the size of the tract, the amount of the rent, the time of payments, and the security, if any. If the rent is paid in shares, the leases are generally for one year. In other forms, they run three to ten years. Throughout China, the poorer soil is generally leased for the longer periods of time.
If the term of the lease is more than a year, the owner generally raises the rent at the end of the term. If the tenant is unable to pay the higher rent, he is driven off the land, and receives no compensation for any improvements he may have made. He may be driven off the land before the end of the term if he has failed to meet the payments, either at the stated time or within the extension that is occasionally granted. The tenants for one year, who are generally share tenants, may be driven off the land at the end of the year. Eviction before the end of the term is generally unprofitable for the owner. If the tenant leaves voluntarily before that time he may be sued in the courts.
"The most widespread form of tenancy in China is that in which payment is a fixed amount of the products. Share tenancy occupies second place, and cash tenancy third place. The role of such survivals as 'labor-rent' and 'products-rent' is quite unimportant. Of these lat- ter, only the second is found in a more or less pure form, and that only in the most backward and isolated corners of China." One may say definitely that the most widespread form of tenancy leaves uncondi-
418 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
tioned ownership in the terre matiere, terre capitate, and the buildings to the owner, whereas the tenant has full ownership of any other means of production. In share tenancy the owner may have owner- ship rights in a portion of the means of production (cattle, inanimate inventory, fertilizers, seed, etc.), in addition to the items mentioned above. Rights of ownership in the terre matiere only, as well as the eternal lease, and conditional ownership in the terre matiere and terre capitale are becoming less common.
In share tenancy, the owner generally receives a portion of the basic products as his share, whereas all other products, by-products, and the like fall to the share of the tenant. In some places the straw also is divided. The conditions vary. We find all products divided, only the first harvest divided, or the entire first harvest taken as rent and the remaining ones turned over to the tenant. In some cases the propor- tion in which the division is to occur is fixed at the time the contract is made. In others it is fixed according to the condition of the crop immediately before the harvest. This is most frequently done by the owner, although it may be done by an official board, or a committee of the association of landlords.
A transitional form between payments in shares and payments in fixed amounts is found in Soochow. "The amount of the rents in Soochow is determined on the basis of the price of rice, which is deter- mined from year to year. Money is simply a substitute for the payment in rice. The prices determined for rice are therefore designated as con- version prices. The price for rice, at which the rent will be received, is generally fixed by the landlord's association in Soochow, and is lower than the actual market price of unpolished rice."4
In those cases in which ownership of the terre cafitale is vested in the tenant, the relationship of the price of that to the terre matiere varies between 5:5 and 3:7. As a rule the owner of the subsoil may purchase the surface soil and evict the tenant. The value of the surface soil is generally determined by current market values.
Mention was made above of the relatively unimportant "labor-rent" and "products-rent." In the case of the former, the tenant is bound to execute any orders of the owner, and to work on his estate, when com- manded to do so, with no remuneration beyond the three meals per day which are furnished him. This arrangement has persisted in its most crass form on the estates of minor alien nobles in Kuichow. "Products-rent" is found on these same estates as well as in South China. Under this arrangement, the tenant is required to pay a share of all products, generally in the form of "presents." When the land has been sublet, it is a common practice for the immediate lessor to retain
* "Farming in Soochow," Chinese Economic Journal, 1927, p. 189.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 419
these "presents" and transmit only the required share of the basic products to the original lessor.*
55. HENRI SEE: AGRARIAN REGIMES IN EUROPE IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND THE NINETEENTH
The landed and agrarian regime of France was rather exceptional in Europe. Before the Revolution the system in France had the fol- lowing characteristics: the practical nonexistence of serfdom, properly speaking; the existence of peasant proprietorship, which was quite im- portant in certain regions despite the general existence of burdening services and taxes; a preponderance of small or medium-sized hold- ings, which offered grave obstacles to agricultural progress; and no appreciable concentration of rural property because of the inability of the proprietary nobles to monopolize completely the village com- munity lands.
When one studies the countries that enjoyed a similar system, par- ticularly southeastern and northeastern Germany, but which had a few differences, particularly a greater prevalence of serfdom, one ob- serves that it was also in eastern France that serfdom persisted in the attenuated form known as mainmorte. In Germany going eastward the Grundherrschaft, the feudal regime, gradually gave way to the Rittergut of eastern Germany, that is, to the large noble holdings di- rectly operated by the feudal lord. At the same time peasant services there were more extensive, the most characteristic of which was the Gesindedierst or the obligation of the sons of peasants to work on the lordly domain.
England had a unique agrarian regime; the peasant was free even to a greater degree than in France. In the Middle Ages the course of social evolution was similar to that in France; serfdom was abolished and peasant ownership gradually consummated. In the modern period during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, there was a progressive dispossession of the peasants, due chiefly to the enclosures, the extension of ownership by the nobility together with its increase and concentration. This resulted in the development of a class of free
* EDITORS' NOTE. — On the rural socio-economic organization in China see also the works quoted in the preceding section. Besides these works see: Takharoff, Land Prop' erfy in China (Russ.), 1910, 2 vols.; Li Kolu, "Die Chinesische Agrarverfassung," Eerichtc uber Landwirtschajt, Berlin, 1924, Vol. I, Heft 3-4; Makay, "Das Agrarproblem in China," Zcitschr. /. Agrarpolitik, Berlin, 1913; Grosse, "Wirtschaftsverhaltnisse in alten China," Qstasiatische Rundschaw, 1928; F. Otte» Wirtschajtspolitische Lande$\unde (China), 1927. See a very good bibliography in V. Riasanovsky, Bibliography in Chinese Law (Russ.); see also the bibliography given in this and preceding chapters.
t From H. See, Esqutsse d'une histoire du regime agraire en Europe aux XVIU et XIX sticks, Paris, Marcel Giard & Co., 1921, pp. 3-8, 269-272. Translated and printed with the permission of the publisher.
420 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
agricultural laborers, which became increasingly dependent economi- cally upon the noble proprietors. The latter did not operate their own holdings but turned the management over to large farmers. These are to be distinguished from the "general farmers" of an earlier period in France who were not independent cultivators as were the English, and also from our peasant farmers, for the English superintended large operations and belonged to the bourgeois class by virtue of their wealth and type of life.
The economic results of this economic revolution have been serious. England produced increasingly less of cereals, for the tillable land was transformed into pasture in order to simplify exploitation; the crops came to be insufficient for the consuming needs. At the same time the dispossession of the peasants greatly contributed to the development of industry since it made an important class of laborers available. It is interesting to observe that the causes of this economic revolution were not solely of an economic nature. It was especially stimulated by the political power held by the landed aristocracy, which controlled the local administration and was ruler of Parliament; the two parties, Whig and Tory, were equally aristocratic, being equally composed of great landed proprietors.
The reign of large holdings has had particularly serious results in Ireland. The conquest resulted in dispossession and landlordism; while the Irish population was reduced to the state of tenants who were sub- ject to arbitrary eviction by the owners. As it was impossible to operate the clearings and to alleviate the overpopulation existing in the rural parts — for the population was too numerous and industrial develop- ment too tardy— the agrarian question has become one of great acuity in Ireland, the sufferings of the peasants being only alleviated by mass migration.
In certain countries of northeastern Europe— East Prussia, Poland, Denmark, and the Russian Baltic provinces — there was a considerable extension of serfdom of a particularly noxious kind; the serf was bound to the soil and had to render so many services of corvee ("la- bor") to the lord that these occupied the greatest part of his time. Serfdom was here of recent origin, dating only from the end of the Middle Ages. In these regions of settlement the landlord devoted him- self to operating his land; noble ownership was extensive and concen- trated and formed a coherent whole (Rittergut) , The lord was a large- scale entrepreneur and exploited his own holdings in the course of which he had need of the free labor of his subjects. We thus observe an inverse evolution in these countries as compared with France; the holdings of the feudal lords have become rooted at the expense of
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 421
peasant ownership and of the village common lands (the Bauern- legen).
The economic causes of this regime were doubtless primary* These countries were large producers and exporters of grain; they were not dealing with a limited market as in France but with a large external commerce carried on by means of the Hanse and Holland. The pro- prietary noble at the head of a large holding of a capitalistic nature was not content with living from his feudal revenues as was the case in France. The political causes are more difficult to determine. One does not fail to see, however, that the political influence of the nobility was a powerful factor in maintaining their economic domination; the Estates (Stande) persisted everywhere and were in the control of the aristocracy. In Poland the political preponderance of the nobility was more marked than elsewhere; it was there that the agrarian regime we are discussing reached its highest development and there the peasant class suffered the most complete subjection. In Prussia the situation was different in that the royal power was strong enough to impose restrictions upon the agrarian omnipotence of the Junker. In the eighteenth century the government made some partially successful attempts to prevent the dispossession of the peasants and succeeded in weakening the Estates. As the ]un\er formed one of the primary forces in the Prussian state they were spared and their economic power allowed to persist.
Russia had an entirely different system. It is true that serfdom was of recent origin here also and that there were many large estates; but these estates were frequently too large to be directly exploited by the owner. Certain unfavorable physical conditions tended also towards the cruder methods of cultivation; the system was clearly that of ex- tensive farming. In southern Russia, where the black earth is so fertile, the soil was not fully utilized until the nineteenth century, at which time large-scale exportation of wheat began. In the Russian Empire the owners of the nobility had available the full labor of serfs by means of the corvees; but because of an abundance of land, they granted a con- siderable plot of land to the peasants. This was not granted to indi- viduals but rather under a collective form in return for rents paid by the mir.
There were certain other peculiarly Eastern customs. Many servants lived in the house of the feudal lord, which gave rise to domestic serf- dom. The master had entire control of the person of his serf; he could keep him for use in the house, or sell him independently of the land. The serf who worked outdoors owed rent or fee to the lord. Russia was the only country in Europe having serfdom of personnel. In southern Russia there was a totally different system from that pre-
422 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
vailing in Great Russia proper. Slowly colonized, it had for long been occupied by soldier-laborers, Cossacks. The system of individual own- ership marked by the appropriation of the land by the nobility was only slowly established; serfdom was much more exceptional here also. The movement of emancipation at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century took different forms according to the particular agrarian regime and the condition of the peasants of the several countries. This movement began in western Europe, and in France particularly, where the peasants actually enjoyed the greatest economic independence. For these peasants it resulted in freedom from the oppressive charges of the feudal regime and in full autonomy of ownership. It was an absolute ruler, the Duke of Savoy, who set the example in emancipation. In France, in general, a serious political revo- lution was necessary before the freedom of the peasants was assured; action was forced upon the assembled revolutionaries by violence. With the complete abolition of the feudal regime, the peasant owner- ship was fully established; it is certain that, without the Revolution, the dissolution of this system would have taken a much longer time and greater effort. The Revolution again increased the peasant owner- ship and struck a blow at privileged property without ruining it com- pletely, however. One understands the implications of the French Revolution when one observes the more or less complete emancipation in all the countries subject to its influence; this was true in both its annexed regions and in the subject nations. In the countries on the left bank of the Rhine the ancient regime was completely abolished; on the right bank, in the Grand Duchy of Berg in the Kingdom of West- phalia, opportunist measures were used and emancipation went only halfway. Southeastern Germany had been but indirectly influenced by the French Revolution. Peasant freedom was obtained by the liberal constitutions granted by the rulers to their subjects in return for the opposition they had offered against Napoleon. Greater freedom was achieved through the influence of the Revolution of 1830 and especially that of 1848, which, in this connection, was of primary importance. In no place has the social influence of the Revolution of 1848 been more striking than in the countries of the Austrian monarchy. The work of Maria Theresa and the radical reforms of Joseph II met with deter- mined resistance from the nobility; this reaction was so violent that the old order was maintained nearly intact from 1790 to 1848. The Revolution of 1848 abolished it, and the emancipation of the peasants has been more complete and more beneficial than in the other eastern countries. On the other hand, in the eastern part of the Prussian mon- archy freeing the peasants improved the situation of the prosperous cultivators and granted juridical liberty to all agrarian classes; but it
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 423
especially served the interests of the noble proprietors by increasing their domains. It also contributed to the expropriation of tenants, often transforming them into salaried workers, thus permitting the great proprietors to exploit these lands directly. The Prussian state felt that it must care for the interests of the Junker.
In the duchies, especially in Denmark, this emancipation had a dif- ferent character. Peasant ownership was re-established, while the aris- tocracy lost its political power as the state yielded to democratic de- mands. In Lithuania servitude had been so complete that its effects have disappeared but slowly. Russia possessed an agrarian regime so original that this movement of emancipation could be expected to take a unique form here. In no country of Europe has the movement been more tardy. Russia is also the only country where freedom was im- posed by the despotic authority of the sovereign. It was a particularly difficult task, for it was necessary at the same time to abolish serfdom and to give the peasants the land to which they previously had no title, The peasants were required to buy the land they needed, but the condi- tions were so stringent that peasant ownership was acquired slowly. True individual ownership was not established, for in most cases the rural community periodically distributed the land by lot among its members. Then, too, the peasants received an insufficient amount of land, with the result that this emancipation contributed to the develop- ment in Russia of an industrial proletariat at the same time that it introduced the germs of capitalism. It indeed provoked the birth of a new Russia which, although undertaken by the government, was a true revolution whose significance seems as great as that of the French Revolution.
The example of Russia shows that the transformation of the agrarian regime has been able to exert a definite influence on the development of modern capitalism. In England the concentration of real property has also contributed without a doubt to the progress of industrial capi- talism. Conversely, the increase in wealth and the appearance of capital have exerted some influence on the development of agricultural organi- zation beginning with the concentration of landed property. The Prus- sian Junkers, by establishing breweries, distilleries, and sugar refineries, have performed the work of capitalists and have been stimulated to increase the intensity of their agricultural exploitations. One can also observe a reciprocal action of economic and political phenomena. If the agrarian reform in France was possible in France only by means of a political revolution, it is to the peasant problem that the political revo- lution owes its original character. On the other hand, in a large part of Europe the Revolution of 1830 and especially that of 1848 determined the definite abolition of the agrarian system, especially of the feudal
424 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
regime. In countries such as Prussia where the aristocracy possessed strong political authority, the transformation of the agrarian system was made to the profit of this class. In countries such as Denmark, where the aristocracy had lost its power, peasant ownership was re- established. Even in England it was the progress of democracy which had provoked measures destined to reform peasant ownership or opera- tions; this could only be done at the expense of the rights of the no- bility. Thus the struggle of the Irish people for the freedom, of their land led the English government to endeavor to solve the agricultural question.*
56. WALTER SCHIFF: THE LEGISLATIVE AGRARIAN REFORMS IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE WORLD WAR|
A. BEFORE THE WAR
I. GREAT BRITAIN
Three traits are characteristic of the land system of Great Britain: the almost complete absence of a real peasant class; the concentration of the greater part of the land in the hands of a few large landowners; and the cultivation of this land, not by the landlords themselves, but by tenants to whom they lease it. As late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Great Britain was still principally a peasant coun- try, where peasants had their fields side by side with those of the land- lords. However, in the eighteenth century the landlords succeeded in appropriating the land of the peasants through division of the land of the communities and enclosures, and through favored treatment by law and government. In this way the still existing latifundia origi- nated. At the end of the nineteenth century in Great Britain, whose
* EDITORS' NOTE. — See also I. Loutchisky, L'etat des classes agricoles en France a. la veille de la Revolution, Paris, 1911; C. Bloch, Etudes d'histoire economique de la France, 1900; M. Kovalevsky, La France economique a la veille de la Revolution (French trans.) , Paris, 1909; N. Kareiev, Les pay sans et la question paysanne en France (French trans.), Pans, 1899; Th. Knapp, Gesammelte Eeitrdge zur Rechts- und Win- schaftsgeschichte, Tubingen, 1902; G. Slater, The English Peasantry and the Inclosure of Common-fields, London, 1907; Th. Rogers, A History of Prices and Agriculture in England, 1902; Barbara Hammond, The Village Laborer, London, 1919; V. Semevski, Russian Peasants under Catherine II (Russ.); Kcussler, Zur Geschichte und Knti\ des bauerlichen Grundbesitzes, 1876-1882, 3 vols; P. I. Liaschenko, Essays in the Agrarian Evolution of Russia (Russ.), Leningrad, 1924. (Ocherki agrarnoi evolutzii Rossii.) N, S. B. Gras and E. C. Gras, The Economic and Social History of an English Village, 1930. For other literature see the references in the work by H. See and in these other works. See also the bibliography given in this chapter and that given after each of the readings of this, the preceding, and the next two chapters.
t From Walter Schiff, "Die Agrargesetzgebung der europaischen Staaten vor und nach dem Kriege," Archiv fur Sozialtvisscnschaft und Sozialpohtik, 1925, Vol. LIV, 87-131, 469-529. The paper is given in an abbreviated form. Lines in parentheses are abstracts of the more detailed parts of the original
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 425
population numbered about 40 millions, there were only about 320,000 landowners, which means that 99 per cent of the population had no right to the land. According to the new Domesday Book of 1874-1875 the following number of persons each owned a fourth of the land :
|
AVERAGE AREA OF |
PERCENTAGE OF |
|
|
No. OF PERSONS |
LANDHOLDING IN |
TOTAL No. OF |
|
HECTARES |
LANDOWNERS |
|
|
1,200 |
6,550 |
0.4 |
|
6,200 |
1,270 |
2.0 |
|
50,800 |
155 |
16.0 |
|
261,800 |
30 |
82.0 |
Thus 7,400 landlords owned about one-half of the land, and 58,200 owned three-quarters of it. . . . Moreover, the number of landowners was still decreasing at the end of the nineteenth century. The concen- tration of land in Scotland was particularly great. In England and Wales estates above 200 hectares occupied about 57 per cent of the total land cultivated; in Scotland they occupied about 97 per cent of the total land cultivated. In England 874 persons owned about one-fourth of the land, while in Scotland 580 estates occupied four-fifths of the total land, 170 about one-half, and 12 estates with 1-75 millions of hec- tares occupied one-fourth of the land.
These large land properties were exploited by the landlords them- selves only to an insignificant extent. In 1887 about 86 per cent of their land, and in 1912 about 90 per cent, was leased to tenants. The predominant type of tenancy was middle and large tenancy; the tenant farm enterprises of above 20 hectares occupied 84 per cent of the entire land, while those of over 120 hectares occupied only 25 per cent of it.
The laws of land ownership were quite liberal. Juridically, the owner was free to exercise his rights of ownership. However, since the seven- teenth century there have already appeared several practical limitations of this freedom. In the first place, there were the entails, according to which the owner had to use his freedom in such a way as to secure juridically transmission of the undivided part of his property to one heir for two generations. As such free bindings were renewed in each generation the result was the same as that which is secured in Germany through the institution of the Fainilienfideifyminisse. The land under these entails was about two-thirds of the total land area in England and Wales, about one-half in Scotland, and about five-sixths in Ireland. Thus through the entails the greater part of the land was barred from commercial circulation. This also kept the price of land very high. In so far as the juridical relationship between landowner and tenant is
426 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
concerned, the same liberal principle of a purely contractual order dominated up to the interference of the agrarian legislation. The own- ers tried to exert some influence on the management of the farms in order to secure a better produce. However, in spite of this, the condi- tions of tenure, at least in England, were not unfavorable.
The tenure contracts were generally concluded for only one year; but they were almost always renewed. According to the letter of the law, the improvements, buildings, and various arrangements made by the tenant went to the landowner; but according to common practice, these juridical rules were softened in favor of the tenant. The tenure rent was fixed very low, and, according to the tradition, the land- owners customarily helped the good tenants in years of a bad economic situation. For instance, during the agricultural crisis of 1875 the rent was usually abated from 25 to 50 per cent.
The agrarian legislation moved in two directions: toward an im- provement of the juridical status of the tenants and toward the creation of a class of small landowners. It is noteworthy that these laws were enacted without the existence of a strong agrarian movement.
(a) Protection of the tenants. — This was the objective of many laws enacted during the years from 1875 to 1909. They attempted to give the tenants a greater independence from the owners; the time of the tenure was prolonged; the owners' influence on the management was abol- ished; the owner was obliged to compensate the tenant for any dam- age or loss which resulted from an unjustifiable cancellation of the contract by the owner, delayed renewal of the contract, or an increase of the rent; finally, the tenant was entitled to claim compensation from the owner for various improvements on the land that were still of value to the new tenants and for meliorations that had been made with the agreement of the owners.
In Scotland these protective laws went still further: cancellation of the contract by the owner was prohibited as long as he was paid his rent, while such a right of cancellation on a year's notice was recog- nized for the tenant; the amount of the rent to be paid was to be fixed by a special commission; finally, the right of tenure could be taken for life or even transmitted to the next generation within the same family. These reforms, started in 1886 for the small tenants in the north of Scotland, were extended in 1911 over the whole of Scotland for all farms up to 50 acres and produced important and beneficial results.
(b) Promotion of small holdings. — The object of the law of 1892— the first of this type—was to promote small ownership of land through the creation of cheap state credit. The law entitled the county commit- tees to buy land freely where they found it desirable, divide it into peasant holdings of from 0.4 to 20 hectares, and sell them or, in excep-
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 427
tional cases, rent them to the peasants. For this purpose the state gave credit at 3% per cent interest. The settler had to pay only 20 per cent of the price, the remaining part being paid by installments distributed in 100 half-year portions; but one-fourth of the price might be left as eternal rent. As long as something remained to be paid, and at least during the first twenty years, the buyer was somewhat limited in his property rights to the land: without the consent oÂŁ the county commit- tee he could neither divide, sell, nor lease his land, and was obliged to farm it himself. This law remained entirely ineffective. Only in 10 out of 96 counties was it applied at all. Up to 1907 only 385 hectares were divided in this way. The causes of this ineffectiveness were nu- merous. . . . The ineffectiveness called forth the law of 1908, which tried to improve the situation and did help somewhat. ... By 1914, 12,600 small farms with a total area of about 80,000 hectares were cre- ated. Of these only 200 hectares were bought by 50 settlers, the remain- ing being given in tenure. In addition about 3,000 hectares were leased to 63 small-holdings cooperative organizations, which subrented them to 1,450 members. . . .
All in all the objective of these laws — to create a peasant class of landowners in England — was not achieved. The principal effect of the Small Holdings Acts was merely to replace large tenants by small ten- ants, and private proprietors as large leasers by the county committees. But even these effects were limited. In Scotland a similar law of 1911 did not have much greater effect. The outbreak o£ the war brought the small-holdings movement to a standstill, while interest on state credit was raised to 4l/2 per cent. After the war a law of 1919 tried to stimulate the small-holdings movement through the introduction of further facilities for prospective settlers. According to it, the govern- ment itself was entitled, especially in counties where the county com- mittee was indolent, to buy or rent land and turn it into small hold- ings. The small tenants are entitled to turn their tenure into property in the course of time, and the price of the land has to be fixed regard- less of the improvements made by the tenant. The actual effects of this law remain unknown as yet. It seems that many allotments have been created, but only a few small holdings have appeared as yet.
Of other agrarian measures we must mention the settlement in agri- cultural colonies of the soldiers and sailors who returned from the war. Its motives were to relieve unemployment in the country, give soldiers and sailors the possibility of making their living, increase the production of food in the country, and make it more independent of the import of food from foreign countries. . . . However, this act has had only very limited importance.
To sum up: the efforts of the English agrarian laws to suppress the
428 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
large estates have remained unsuccessful; only limited success has been obtained in the way of the creation of new independent small tenants. However., these laws have notably improved the juridical status of the tenants in England and Wales and especially in Scotland.
II. IRELAND
In contrast to Great Britain the agrarian reform in Ireland has been followed by much greater success and has changed fundamentally the system of land relationship. There also up to the end of the nineteenth century the system of the large latifundia dominated. Half of the land belonged to seven hundred English owners who usually lived in Lon- don. They did not burden themselves with the management of their lands but only received their tenants' rent, forwarded to them by their managers.
As in England, the laws concerning the disposal of landed property were liberal in regard to owners. But, also as in England, the greater part of this land was tied by entails (see above). The land owned by the English landlords was cultivated by Irish small tenants. They rented it in small lots, either for one year, or for a length of time, ac- cording to the will of the owner. The latter could cancel the tenure contract at any moment as soon as the rent was not paid. The tenant was not given the right of compensation from the owner for any im- provements made by him on the land rented. ... In the years from 1844 to 1859 about 50,000 tenant families were deprived of their tenure because of their failure to pay the rent.
This hard situation among Irish tenants was due to historical circum- stances. Celtic and Catholic Ireland was treated by its Protestant Eng- lish conquerors as an enemy country. Under the pretext of felony, the land—about 11,000,000 acres— was taken from Irish peasants and given to English colonists. The former owners were deprived of their prop- erty and debased to the position of tenants with a very insecure status and with a high rent to be paid to the new owners. In this way not only economic, but also a sharp national, religious, and social antago- nism arose between these two classes.
The economic conditions of the tenants were miserable. The high rent to be paid to landlords left the tenants scarcely anything to satisfy their most elementary needs. The potato was almost the only food, and a bed was a luxury. The terrible poverty led to an enormous mortality. This and strong emigration greatly depopulated the country, which previously had been densely populated. In 1844 the population of Ire- land was about 8 millions; in 1901 it had decreased to 4.4 millions. Chronic famines, combined with these other conditions, aroused grudges and feelings of hatred in the Irish population against the Eng-
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 429
lish owners. This resulted in a general unrest, frequent disorders, and agrarian crimes. Such a permanent state of revolution forced the Eng- lish to pass radical land reforms. Only in Protestant Ulster was the situation different. . . .
Agrarian Reforms
(a) The reform of the tenure.— -By the laws of 1870 and 1896 the three "F's" [Fixity of tenure, Free sale, Fair rent] of Ulster were ex- panded over all Ireland. From now on the tenure could be cancelled by the owner only for certain important reasons, such as nonpayment of the rent, breach of the tenure conditions, or neglect of the owner's property. The tenant was entitled to compensation by the owner for improvements and buildings. Likewise he was entitled to sell his ten- ure at will. By the law of 1881 he was entitled to obtain through court "the statutory rent," or lower rent, for fifteen years. This law was re- newed in 1896. As even these laws did not prevent the danger of tenure cancellation by owners for the nonpayment of the rent in due time — the danger that menaced more than 100,000 tenants— the law permitted small tenants who were ready to pay the rent but were unable to do it in time, and who had paid at least one year's rent, a delay in the rent payment, while the state itself guaranteed the owners the rent for an- other year. This provision was applied in 130,000 cases. In this way the formerly deprived tenants acquired a firm right of land possession, which approached a kind of limited ownership. From 1881 to 1896, 382,000 of the 500,000 tenants, renting about 11,300,000 of the total 20,000,000 acres rented, applied for the establishment of the lower "statutory rent." The rent was lowered by approximately 20.7 per cent, while for the other tenants the possibility of an appeal to the courts proved equally advantageous. In 1896 the second 15-year period began. The rent of 143,000 tenants, which originally amounted to 3.2 million pounds, and had already been decreased to 2.54 millions, was lowered to 2.1 million pounds, that is, by an additional 17.3 per cent. Since 1881, their rent had been lowered by 34,4 per cent.
(b) Creation of peasant owners. — The above effects were, however, insufficient to pacify Ireland. The Irish demanded full ownership of the land which previously had belonged to them and of which they had been robbed. In order to end the socially and politically unsup- portable relationships, and thus suppress the state of inner war in Ire- land, the English lawgivers had to undertake a fundamental modifi- cation of the Irish agrarian, regime and a division of the large land- holdings. Corresponding steps were made somewhat indecisively at the beginning, later with an increasing determination. After some only slightly effective attempts to induce the tenants to turn their tenure
430 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
into property through the credit of the state, which loaned first two- thirds (1870) and later three-quarters (1881) of the price of the rented farm at 5 per cent interest, to be paid by installments during 35 years, the land commissions obtained 5 million pounds from the state in 1885, 5 millions in 1888, and 33 million pounds in 1891, to extend as credit to the tenants who achieved an agreement with landowners concerning the price of the land. The new possessor had to pay off the loan at 4 per cent interest during 48 and later 49 years. The law of 1890 pro- vided for a reduction in the rate of interest every ten years, and in addi- tion prolonged the time oÂŁ payment up to 70 years. Until the whole price of the purchased tenure was paid, any division or mortgage of it was prohibited. These measures, however, had only limited results. About one million hectares were bought in this way, and 73,807 tenants turned into owners. During subsequent years, from 1900 to 1919, new laws were enacted with the same intention and objective. They stimulated further the process discussed.
These measures have had great results. At the time of the outbreak of the war, 379,000, or 75 per cent of the total of 500,000 tenants, had become peasant owners. Of 18.8 million acres of tenure land, 11.4 mil- lions or 61 per cent had passed into the ownership of former tenants. . . . After the war the movement was resumed in 1923 in order to secure peasant ownership of the remaining tenure land. The rent that had existed up to that time was lowered by from 30 to 35 per cent. Thus in a short time all the Irish tenants will acquire the right of own- ership of the land rented. If this land reform does not cure entirely all defects of the Irish agrarian relationship, it at least represents the most artful agrarian reform carried out before our eyes. In the course of one decade Ireland has become a country of farmer-owners, who peace- fully and safely live on their farms; emigration from Ireland is decreas- ing; cattle-breeding progresses while the acreage of cultivated land is increasing; and the standard of living of the people is improving. Eco- nomic independence achieved, political independence is naturally com- ing as its fruit.
III. FRANCE
In France no great social or economic contrasts exist in the field of the agrarian regime; therefore, there are no difficult politico-agrarian problems to be solved. Landownership there is quite liberal and does not know any limitations. It is interesting to note that French law favors the division of the land property among the heirs of the owner. . . . Large landholdings occupy an insignificant part of the land, the greater part of it being in the hands of small peasant owners who
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 431
cultivate their holdings by themselves. In 1892 about 53 per cent of the land cultivated was in the hands of owners; about 37 per cent was rented; and 10 per cent was in hands of part-owners— part-tenants. Sev- enty-eight per cent of the owners operated their land by themselves and 22 per cent of them leased it to tenants. Tenancy has played some part but has not led to any notable class conflicts. We have not heard of any significant agrarian movements in France. For the same reason legisla- tion directed either to the modification of the agrarian regime or to the parcellation of the large landholdings has not appeared. (Several laws enacted concerned only some secondary traits of the land system.) In addition it is to be mentioned that the postwar tendency of legislation has been in the direction of a further multiplication of small land- ownership. The law of 1919 empowered the departments and com- munities to buy land and whole farm properties and to sell them in parcels to laborers and poor people, the price, payable in cash, not to exceed 10,000 francs. The buyer is obliged to cultivate the land himself with his family and cannot sell or alienate it during 10 years after its purchase. The law of 1921 created a cheap state credit for this purpose.
IV. GERMANY
The agrarian relationships and policy were different in various parts of Germany. As to landowner ship, there were three different regions: the northeast, where large estates predominated; the south and the middle of Germany, where middle and relatively large peasant hold- ings predominated; and the west, where small peasant farms predomi- nated. This is shown by the following table, based on the data of 1907.
|
AREA OF CULTI- •n VATED LAND IN REGION MILLIONS OF HECTARES |
PERCENTAGE OF LAND IN SPECIFIED SIZE HOLDINGS IN HECTARES |
|||
|
Up to 5 |
5 to 20 |
20 to 100 |
100 and More |
|
|
East of the Elbe 13.9 Rhine, Main, Thiiringen 5.6 Remainder of Germany 12.3 |
8.5 35.4 15.1 |
22.7 46.4 37.9 |
28.5 13.6 37.3 |
40.3 4.6 9.7 |
Total for Germany 31.8 15.8 32.7 29.3 22.2
In reality the percentage of the land in large landholdings was still greater, especially in the first region, than is shown by the table, be- cause many latifundia were divided into small parts and in this form were leased to small tenants. However, the predominant system in
432 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Germany was the cultivation of the land by the owners. Only 13 per cent of the land area was leased to tenants. A portion of these tenants were also part owners. Only 7 per cent of all agricultural enterprises were operated by tenants.
The agrarian legislation in Germany was that of the separate states of the German Empire, and hence there were different laws in the various states. Here we can mention only the most important features of these legislative acts,
(a) Division of land communities. — Division of the land owned jointly by the peasant land communities into the individual property of its members began in Prussia in 1821. Soon other states followed this lead. The Allmenden (common pastures) survived only in southern Germany, and here they still occupy an important place.
(b) Prevention of parcellation of landholdings into small strips scat- tered over a wide area. — Side by side with the division of the land pos- sessed by the land communities, juridical measures were taken to pre- vent division of individual holdings into strips scattered at various places over a wide area. These measures were particularly successful in Prussia where, in 1908, 18.8 million of a total of 32.6 million hectares of farm and forest land were consolidated into landholdings free from such scattered strips. . . .
(c) Meliorations. — In various states a series of laws were enacted in order to facilitate the improvement of the land in various ways through voluntary or compulsory cooperative organizations.
(d) Family entails. — In the first half of the nineteenth century many German states prohibited the establishment of entails; later on, how- ever, the prohibition was annulled, especially in regard to the land- lords' estates. The number and area of the entailed estates began to grow. In Prussia in 1917 there were 1,369 entailed estates containing 2.5 million hectares, an area constituting 7.3 per cent of the total land area. . . . The entails had a tendency to grow at the expense of the free, especially the small, landholdings. In several states the right to entail their land property was given to the peasants also, but since the peasants did not use the right at all, the law had no effects. (Several other laws were issued, directed toward the prevention of land specu- lation and excessive mortgaging, the facilitation of cheap and accessible credit for the peasants, etc., but they were of secondary importance.) Some of the more important of the other measures were the attempt of Prussia to buy or obtain the land from the Poles in the Polish prov- inces of Germany and to transfer it into the hands of the German peasants and the attempts to help the peasants become the owners of land purchased from large owners through specially created land
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 433
banks (RentenbanJ^en) . Though these measures had some effects, nevertheless they made no significant change in the existing agrarian regime and the existing distribution of land property.
v. AUSTRIA (FORMER BOUNDARIES)
The distribution of land property in Austria was different in its dif- ferent regions. In the Alpine regions small peasant holdings were en- tirely predominant; southern Austria was an area of fairly large peasant holdings with a considerable number of large estates and lati- fundia. In the Carpathian region large estates predominated and were exploited by renting parcelled lots to tenants. All in all the system of cultivation of the land by owners was predominant. . . .
(As a rule the land property regime was liberal. . . . Only a few limitations such as the institution of entails, land-community owner- ship, and so on, restrained somewhat the freedom of disposal of the owned land.) The agrarian laws enacted before the [World] War at- tempted to regulate several land relationships but in the majority of cases they either had insignificant positive effects or in some cases were even directed against the interests of the peasants. An example of the latter type was the law concerning land servitude. Since olden times small peasants had a right to use the forests, willows, and pasture lands of the landlords for the needs of peasant enterprises. Such servitude hindered somewhat the development of more intensive agriculture on the lands of the lords. For this reason the law of 1853 terminated this right of the small holders. The result was favorable for the landlords but very unfavorable for the peasants. Many of their small enterprises could not exist without such servitude and had to be forsaken. They were bought up by the great landlords and were turned for the most part into forests or reserves for hunting by the nobility. The whole country thus lost rather than gained from such a reform. Other laws concerned the dissolution of the peasant land communities, the regula- tion of the land inheritance, and various meliorations, but their effects were very limited.*
VI. RUMANIA
Among the Balkan states before the war, Rumania alone had ex- tensive, though not universally effective, agrarian legislation. The coun- try was characterized by the simultaneous existence of a considerable number of latifundia and small peasant holdings with the mediation of very few middle-sized holdings. In 1905 the situation was as follows:
* EDITORS' NOTE. — See the details in the original. Still greater details are given in W. SchifFs "Die Agrarprobleme in Osterreich," Agrar-Probleme, Berlin, 1928, Vol. I, 82-109, 284-323.
434 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
|
No. OF OWNERS |
ACREAGE OWNED |
|||
|
SIZE OF LANDHOLDINGS IN HECTARES |
In |
In |
In Millions |
In |
|
Thousandths |
Percentages |
of Hectares |
Percentages |
|
|
Less than 10 |
. 921 |
95.4 |
3.2 |
40.3 |
|
10 to 100 |
39 |
4.0 |
0.7 |
11.0 |
|
More than 100 . |
5 |
0.6 |
3.9 |
48.7 |
Total 965 100.0 7.8 100.0
The average size of the small peasant holdings was only 3.5 hectares, and was insufficient for the maintenance of a family. Relatively well-to- do farmers, in the central European sense, were practically unknown to Rumania. On the other hand, one-half of the land belonged to only 5,000 landowners, and 2,049 of these owned 2.2 million hectares, or 28 per cent of the total land cultivated. Such a situation was the result of the liberation of the peasants from serfdom in 1862-1864. This libera- tion was carried on one-sidedly in favor of the landlords; . . . 516,000 peasants received only 2 million hectares of land. . . . Under such cir- cumstances the peasants were forced to rent land from the landlords under the most unfavorable conditions. Cash tenure was a rare excep- tion; as a rule there was a share tenure or labor tenure. Share tenure was mostly of the "fifty-fifty" type. In labor tenure, for each hectare of rented land the tenant had to cultivate entirely throughout the whole year a hectare for the owner. Another result of the liberation from serfdom in this manner was that the peasants had to hire as laborers to the owners under the most unfavorable conditions. The result was that the peasants, either as tenants or as hired laborers, furnished the labor for about three-fourths of the land of the great estates. Besides, they had to furnish their own cattle, implements, and inventory of produc- tion. Of the total inventory of the country the peasants had nine-tenths, the landlords only one-tenth; the latter had only 8 per cent of the working cattle while they owned 76 per cent of the grazing lands! Naturally the peasants fell in debt to the landlords. Through these con- ditions in spite of their liberation the peasants remained almost as un- free as they were before their liberation. They were forced to do com- pulsory labor. It was not rare for them to be coerced to it by military troops called by the lords.
This situation was still more aggravated by the appearance of large tenure trusts. They rented the land of the landlords in large tracts and subrented it to the peasants in smaller lots for a higher price. For in- stance, in 1905 there existed one such trust that had at its disposal five million hectares!
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 435
The peasants' situation was terrible. The rent was rising all the time. The rapidly increasing population was causing the scarcity of land to become even greater. All this resulted in great peasant unrest, which made necessary a series of agrarian reforms in the years 1907 and fol- lowing. The principal regulations were as follows: Labor tenancy was prohibited. Special regional commissions were to determine the maxi- mal rent for land, minimal farm-labor wage, and maximal rent for use of the landlords' grazing land. Communal pastures were ordered established for the peasants from state, corporation, and privately owned lands. Tenure trusts were prohibited. . . . Further, establishment of peasant cooperative tenure organizations, supported by state credit, was stimulated. They were to be financed through the People's Banks. The cooperative organizations could rent large tracts of land in order to sublet them to their members in small lots of 10 hectares. In 1912 there were about 500 such cooperative organizations with 100,000 members and 400,000 hectares of land. Special rural banks, similar to the Russian Peasant Banks, were created in order to buy land from the landlords and to sell it in parcels of 5 hectares to the peasants. Up to 1912, 2,726 holdings with 12,426 hectares of land were created in this way. . . . Some meliorative measures were also carried on. However, up to the time of the war these measures did not alter much the formerly exist- ing situation. The census of 1913 showed that at that time the land dis- tribution was about the same as it had been in 1905.
VII. RUSSIA
About 80 per cent of the population of Russia belonged to the peas- antry. This explains why the agrarian problem was the most vital prob- lem for Russia. . . . After the liberation of the peasants (in 1861) Russia had large estates side by side with small peasant holdings, while middle-sized farms were almost absent. In 1903, 16 to 20 million peas- ants had only about 150 million desiatins,* while 20 to 30 thousand landlords had about 40 million desiatins. The remaining land belonged to the state, the Czarist family, the cities, monasteries, churches, etc.
However, during the second half of the nineteenth century there was a considerable shift of the land of the landlords into the hands of the peasants. The land of the nobility was about 79 million desiatins in 1860; about 73 million, in 1877; about 65, in 1887; and continued to decrease subsequently. However, the progressive increase of peasant land did not lead to an increase of the average size of their holdings but only to an increase in the number of peasant holdings, because the peasant population grew even more rapidly than the amount of the peasant land. While the latter increased by about 20 per cent during
* EDITORS' NOTE. — A de&iatin is 2.7 acres.
436 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
forty years, the peasant population increased by 90 per cent. For this reason the size of the peasant holdings was practically cut in half. The large landholdings were managed only in part as large capitalist enter- prises; the greater part of them, as well as the state and the church lands, were rented to the near-by peasants, who operated them with their own inventory. In 1905 these rented lands amounted to 30 mil- lion desiatins. Eighty-one per cent of the peasant land belonged, not to individual peasant proprietors, but to the mir. Only 19 per cent of the peasant land was the private property of individual peasants. The prin- cipal regions of individual peasant proprietorship were in Russian Poland, Lithuania, and Little Russia (Ukraine) .
Under such circumstances the peasants had to look for an additional source of income in the form of work outside their farms, either in the city or on the estates of the landlords. Many were forced to rent addi- tional land from big landowners. This naturally led to their exploita- tion and the accumulation of debts to the landowners.
Agrarian laws. — Before the great agrarian disorders of 1902-1906 the laws enacted concerned only secondary points of the agrarian regime. In 1881 the peasant payments to their previous lords were lowered, in 1905 they were decreased by one-half, and in 1907 they were abolished. In 1882 a Peasant Bank was created under the guarantee of the state for the purpose of buying land from the landlords and reselling it to the peasants. Up to 1903 about 9 million desiatins were sold to the peasants in this way. The law of 1893 prohibited the redistribution of land in peasant land communities more often than once in every twelve years. In this way peasant land possession was made somewhat more stable. At the same time the law prohibited the separation of a member of the land community from such a community, unless it was sanctioned by two-thirds of the members. This naturally limited somewhat the eco- nomic freedom of the peasant. In 1904 the collective responsibility of the peasant community was abolished, thus increasing the individual liberty of the peasant.
The unsatisfactory conditions of the peasants created a state of un- rest among them. This led to the outbreak of the peasant revolution in 1905-1906, with its demand for the division of the landlords' land among the peasants. This revolution started a fundamental agrarian reform of the whole land regime in Russia.
Stolypins agrarian reforms.— The reforms of 1906-1911 were directed toward saving the large estates from annihilation by the peasant revo- lutionary movement; increasing agricultural production; dissolving the mir; freeing the peasants from bondage and transforming them into individual landowners; improving peasant farming both technically
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 437
and economically; and organizing the migration of the peasants from regions where land was scarce to regions where land was abundant.
The Russian regime of landownership was throughout bonded, pe- culiar, and complicated. Its central point consisted in the mir or peasant land community. The liberation of the peasants in 1861 * was seem- ingly carried on in favor of the peasants, but in fact it was in favor of the landlords. It gave them the possibility of remodelling the manage- ment of their estates along the lines of modern capitalistic enterprises. It gave a little economic independence to the peasants. They were still bonded to the mir. They did not receive private ownership of the land that was given to them, for the land was still the property of the mir. The peasant was only a co-owner of the peasant community land and received a certain portion for his use, according to the number of "souls" in his family. At the moment of liberation one "soul" received on the average about 4 desiatins. Later on, owing to a rapid increase of the peasant population, this portion decreased to 2.6 desiatin per "soul"
Under the technical conditions of Russian agriculture this amount was insufficient for even the most moderate maintenance of the peasant family. Besides, the peasants had to pay (through the state) a large amount of money to their previous lords for their land and liberty. This payment continued up to 1905 when, under the influence of the revolutionary movement, it was terminated. In addition the peasants were overburdened with high taxes. The normal needy situation of the peasants was often aggravated by famines, which happened, for instance, in 1891-1892, 1897, 1898, 1901, and 1907-1908. The government had to spend about four million rubles yearly for famine relief of the peasants.
Consequently, in all villages where there was no redistribution of land between the village land-community members during the last twenty-four years, the mir system was abolished automatically, and the peasants were made the private owners of the land that they had in their possession at that time. In villages where the redistribution of land was still practiced, the mir could be abolished by the vote of the majority of the members of the village-community. But every indi- vidual peasant was also entitled to take the land that was in his posses- sion out of the land community as his private property and in this way to "go out" of the mir. (Several other laws were enacted in order to prevent such individual peasant proprietors from being dispossessed of their land by land profiteers and to make this great substitution of the private property regime for the mir land system orderly.)
* EDITORS' NOTE. — See Maklakov's paper about the conditions o£ the liberation of the peasants and the mir.
438 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
The reform was carried on with great energy. However, up to the outbreak of the war only the smaller part of the reform was carried out. Up to 1912 only 827,000 peasants with a total area of 8.4 million desiatins of the former mir land and 2.6 million desiatms of the former state land had become private owners. Qualitatively the reform was successful: where it was realized, the technique of agricultural produc- tion was intensified, the three-field system disappeared, and the situ- ation of the peasantry improved notably. Under the circumstances, however, the reform could not solve the peasant problem because it did not increase notably the acreage of the poor peasants; on the other hand, it facilitated a sharpening of social antagonism between the rela- tively well-to-do and the poor peasants in a village, and it also saved the large land estates of the nobility.
VIII. SUMMARY
Leaving aside the reforms of a technical and secondary character, the above discussion may be summed up as follows:
1. Before the war the agrarian legislative reforms tended at the be- ginning to enlarge, and later on to limit, the large landholdings.
2. The majority of the laws tended to improve only the juridical status of the small peasants — the tenants, land laborers, and small part owners. Deeper and more fundamental land reforms were promul- gated only under the pressure of revolutionary movements.
3. These measures for the most part changed the landownership regime and the juridical conditions of the peasants rather than the size of the landholdings. Before the war there was no serious attempt to abolish the large land possessions in an obligatory way and to replace them with small peasant landholdings.
4. The division of the large landholdings took place only in a purely voluntary manner, in so far as it was agreed upon by the landlords, with no compulsion by law. It had relatively insignificant results.
5. The results were also ineffective in those countries that tried to limit the complete liberty of landownership through freely introduced limitations of the landowners' rights of disposal of their lands (entails, etc.)
The agrarian reforms which have taken place in Europe since 1917 give quite a different picture from the above pre-war reforms. These postwar reforms will be depicted in the second part of this paper.
B. AGRARIAN REFORMS DURING THE WAR
Despite the fact that the activities of the states during the war were concentrated mainly on the work of the war, some agrarian legislative measures were brought forward during that period. However, these
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 439
were not intended to become permanent laws, but were intended to fit the extraordinary circumstances of the war period. The legislative acts of the transition period immediately after the war were enacted under somewhat similar conditions. We can distinguish three principal groups of agrarian measures enacted during the war:
1. Limitations of amortization and alienation. — Certain countries, namely Germany and Austria, limited the alienation and leasing of land in order to avoid both speculation in land and the concentration of land in the hands of people of different nationality, such as the Czechs.
2. Compulsory cultivation. — The urgent need of food caused the Central Powers to compel the farmers to increase their production. In England and Ireland similar measures were enacted, but they were much more stringent in character, as the state secretary could order the remission of an enterprise if its productiveness was not up to a certain standard.
3. Encouragement of the cultivation of grain. — In these measures, the state either established and guaranteed fixed prices for the cultivated grains, increased their prices, or gave premiums for increases in pro- duction.
C. AGRARIAN REFORMS AFTER THE WAR
In the victorious countries, such as Great Britain and France, the war and postwar periods have produced very few changes in agra- rian policy. After the war Great Britain continued her previous policy of facilitating the diffusion of landownership and the increase of small landholdings. In addition she sought the creation of [land] in the colonies for those who returned from the war. Ireland has proceeded in her policy of converting the remaining part of the tenants into owners. France has continued her policy favorable to a further increase of small landowners.
The situation was quite different in central and eastern Europe. More or less radical attacks against the existing political, social, and economic conditions have led to new and oftentimes entirely different forms of agrarian relationships. The revolutionary movement has manifested itself first of all in a more or less successful attack on large landownership, and, particularly when owner-managership does not exist, on large agricultural enterprises. Large landownership has been considered as an obstacle to equality, democracy, and the natural rights of at least the majority of men to the land that nature has given in limited amounts to the people. Political and ethical considerations, partly also national, social, and even military considerations, have united themselves to the agrarian policy and the problem of agrarian
440 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
reforms that may more adequately satisfy the land hunger of small farmers, peasants, hired laborers, and other propertyless classes. All this has led to the disintegration and possibly even to the abolition of large landownership through division and inner colonization.
Naturally the movement started first with the rural population— par- ticularly with the peasantry. But the city proletarians, who have been strongly inclined toward socialism, have also given considerable sup- port to the movement rather than attempting to hinder it.
During the years of 1917-1922 fourteen states have initiated new agrarian reforms. These states were: Germany, all the states formerly included in Russia, the states of the previous Austria-Hungarian mon- archy, and the Balkans states (with the single exception of Albania).
These reforms have produced fundamental changes in the economic and social structure of the greater portion of Europe. The states that have carried out agrarian reforms occupy 7.1 million square kilometers and have a population of 267 millions. In other words, these states rep- resent 71 per cent of the total land of Europe and 59 per cent of its total population. Over an area comprising 54 per cent of the total land area of Europe and containing 33 per cent of its population, large land- ownership has been either completely abolished or will disappear very soon. This annihilation of large private land property has been accom- plished partly with and partly without compensation to the owner.
In different states the agrarian reforms have differed considerably in both nature and content. Their character has depended to a large ex- tent upon the degree to which large landownership previously existed in the country. The most radical agrarian reforms took place in Russia and the mildest in Austria.
The following short characterization gives the type and the essence of the agrarian reforms in all the countries mentioned.
Russia* — An abrupt and direct confiscation of all private large estates, with no compensation. About 24 million hectares, 17.6 per cent of the total amount of land, were confiscated and passed to the peas- ants. At first the peasants received a personal indefinite right to the cultivation of land; later this right was transformed into a fixed family right to the utilization of land without ownership.
Finland. — Provision for possible alienation of from 2 to 50 per cent of the land of those large estates consisting of 200 or more hectares of cultivated land. In all about 3.1 million hectares, 17.6 per cent of the total cultivated land area, were alienated. This was permitted, however, only where land for small farms could be obtained in no other way.
* EDITORS' NOTE. — See the papers of Prokopovitch and others in the next chapter concerning the revolutionary land reforms in Russia,
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 441
The compensation for the alienated land was fixed at its market price, and new farms formed from it could not be larger than 20 hectares.
Estonia. — Immediate and final confiscation of all large land posses- sions. These comprised 2.4 million hectares, or 58 per cent of the total land area. There was no compensation for the land confiscated. The size of the new farms was to be regulated according to the size of the family and the number of its working hands.
'Latvia. — Confiscation of large land possessions without compensa- tion. These large land possessions comprised 3 million hectares, or 48 per cent of the total land area. Only from 45 to 100 hectares were to be left to the owner, while the new farms formed were not to be larger than 22 hectares,
Lithuania.— Recognition of the right of expropriation of large land possessions above 80 hectares. The new farms were to be from 18 to 20 hectares in size.
Poland. — Expropriation of the large land possessions above 60 to 180 hectares. These large possessions comprised 13 million hectares, or 35 per cent of the total land area. The new farms were to be not larger than 15 hectares. Compensation to the original owners was to be half the market value of the land.
Rumania. — Expropriation of all large land possessions above 25 to 250 hectares. Compensation was given according to the price of the land in 1912-1916. In addition to these large land possessions, the pos- sessions of the state and of "dead hands" were to be given for peasant farms. In all, 6.4 million hectares, or 21.8 per cent of the total land area, were alienated. New farms were to be from 5 to 7 hectares.
Greece. — Recognition of the right of expropriation of large land pos- sessions above 100 hectares. Compensation was given according to the pre-war prices, and new farms were to be from 7 to 16 hectares in size.
Bulgaria.— Expropriation of land possessions larger than 80 hectares. Compensation was given according to land prices of 1905-1915. New farms were not to be larger than 80 hectares.
Jugoslavia. — Complete expropriation of possessions over 56 to 280 hectares. Compensation was to be received for the time being in the form of rent. The sizes of the newly formed farms should be regulated according to the size of the family and the number of its working hands.
Hungary. — Possibility of partial expropriation of large land posses- sions where land for small farms was not available in any other form. These large possessions comprised 1.4 million hectares, or 40 per cent of the total amount of cultivated land. Compensation was given ac- cording to the present value of the land. New farms were not to be larger than 65 hectares.
442 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Czechoslovakia.— Sequestration of all large land possessions of more than 150 hectares of cultivated land and 200 hectares of land altogether. Compensation was given according to the prices of 19124915. New farms were not to be larger than 15 hectares.
Germany. — In cases of real need, land possessions above 100 hectares to be admitted for expropriation provided such large possessions com- prised more than 10 per cent of the total land of a district (Bezirt(). Compensation was to be according to the actual cost, and "self-support- ing farms" were to be created.
Austria. — Admission of the right of expropriation of land that had previously belonged to peasants, when peasants intend to return to farming.
It is evident from these short characterizations of the agrarian re- forms of different countries that there is a correlation between the type of reform and the particular agrarian conditions. The radical cast of the agrarian reforms has been proportional to the degree to which the previous distribution of land was unfavorable, to the extent of the previous domination of the landlord class, and to the degree of strength of the revolutionary movement itself. Some other factors, which are not strictly economic in their nature, have also had considerable influence on the type of agrarian reform.
D. SUMMARY
After the war and revolutions, the agrarian policy of several Euro- pean countries assumed an entirely different character. We can distin- guish three principal types of reforms, which are connected with one another to a greater or less degree. They are as follows: division of large land possessions; improvement of the rights of tenants, some- times resulting even in converting tenure into property ownership; compulsory unification and melioration of land.
All these reforms have been connected to some extent with a viola- tion of the rights of private property. Before the war the lawgivers did not dare to touch this right. However, the violations as outlined above have not been a denial of the right of private property in the socialistic sense, but merely a change in landownership produced by economic, social, and political conditions. These reforms have not disturbed in any way the principle of the private ownership of land. On the con- trary, they have increased the proportion of the population who are landowners and in this way have reinforced the institution oÂŁ the pri- vate ownership of land.
1. The agrarian policy connected with the unification and meliora- tion of land was known before. It was sometimes carried on even against the will of a part of the landowners. After the war certain states have carried on these meliorations quite independently of the
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 443
will of the owners, basing them only on a consideration of their gen- eral economic usefulness. In Prussia and Austria governmental officials were given power to make such meliorations, regardless of the wishes of the owners. Because such reforms do not change the size of the land possessions and are very profitable both from a private and a social standpoint, they naturally have been carried on more energetically where the need has been greater, so that they have appeared to be more justifiable. Moreover, the war and its correlated phenomena have shown us the great economic importance of such meliorations and of a rationalized scientific agriculture. These same factors have made the people less sensitive toward justifiable interference with the existing rights of private ownership.
2. The postwar reforms of tenancy have differed in both content and degree in various states. The following are some of the reforms adopted in various states: governmental fixation of tenure rent; length- ening the time of tenure; elimination of the right of cancellation by the owner; conversion of tenure into private ownership of the prop- erty by the tenant, even against the will of the owner. Examples of such reforms occurred in Great Britain and Ireland even before the war. These reforms protected tenants from exploitation on the part of the landowner, especially through profiteering due to sharp fluctuation in the value of money; they gave tenants greater independence from landowners and also the right to convert their tenure into property ownership. These reforms were based only partly on purely economic motives. The deepest of these reforms, the right to convert the tenure into the property of the tenant, sprang entirely from social motives rather than from economic ones. It has been carried on without any regard to its eventual economic consequences, without even any con- sideration of the old controversial question as to the relative advan- tages and disadvantages of tenancy compared to ownership. These changes in the juridical relationship of the cultivator to the land have been carried out on a reasonably large scale in many states, such as Roumania and Czechoslovakia. Their real effects on the national eco- nomic life can hardly have been so important as to admit an objective measurement in the presence of so many other factors.
3. The compulsory division of large land possessions is the reform specifically characteristic of, and most decisive in, the postwar land reforms. What there was before the war had quite a different character. The pre-war measures, such as the land reforms in Ireland and Stoly- pin's reform in Russia, did not attempt the compulsory division of large landholdings. In contrast to this, the postwar agrarian laws have been directed toward a compulsory parcellation of the large estates, not only those that have been rented to tenants but also those that have been managed by large landowners themselves. Hence these
444 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
reforms mean the dissolution of large land possessions of all types, in- cluding large capitalistic agricultural enterprises, in favor of small farms.
This fundamental and deepest interference with land relationships was a direct or indirect result of the revolutions and social upheavals, or was at least intended to prevent threatening disorders. It has not been, or has been only to a small extent, caused by economic considera- tions and motives, such as the greater economic advantageousness of small farm enterprises in comparison to large ones. Quite different mo- tives decided the reforms: the land hunger of the rural population; the struggle against the reactionary elements; ideological factors such as the ideologies of Democracy, Equality, and Justice; purely political purposes; nationalistic tendencies; ethical motives (gratitude for par- ticipation in the war), etc. All these have worked their way so much the more easily because the traditional authorities, the tendency to accept what existed, and respect for the sacredness and inviolability of the institution of private property were already lost.
The beginning was made by Russia, with its wild, violent, and an- archical seizure and division oÂŁ the estates by the peasants, a step that was later sanctioned by the legislation of the Soviet government. This example exerted a contagious effect, first on the neighbors of Russia and second on other countries. The country population was stirred up; similar laws with similar tendencies were issued, although nowhere have these laws been as extreme as those in Russia.
The radical character of the agrarian reforms has been greater ac- cording to the nearness of the country to Russia, the proportion of peasants in the population, the strength of the political power of the peasants; the less the development of industry; and the greater the proportion of landowners who have been of foreign origin. All these factors together give specific characteristics to the agrarian reforms of each country.
Because the character of the agrarian reforms has been a direct con- sequence of the social and political ideologies and the relative political power of the social classes involved, the forms of their execution have also borne the marks of these two factors. This refers in particular to the character of the land division. While the laws usually prescribed a definite minimum size for the new landholdings in order to make them economically self-supporting, actually, contrary to the intention of the laws, the land possessions created were much smaller than had been expected. It was advisable from a political standpoint to give less to a greater proportion of the population.
For the above reasons, these agrarian reforms should not be consid- ered or evaluated as purely economic in their nature, motives, and effects.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 445
57. WERNER SOMBART: PEASANT ECONOMY*
I. WHAT CONSTITUTES A PEASANT FARM (BAUERNWIRTSCHAFT) ?
A peasant (Bauer), in the broad sense in which the term will be used below, is a man who supervises an agricultural enterprise, gath- ers the grain or other crops into his own granary, and himself follows the plow. The peasant farm is that agricultural enterprise which this man works with his family (as will be described in detail below).
II. THE DISTRIBUTION OF PEASANT FARMS ON THE EARTH
In view of the incomplete and varied statistics on the subject, it will be impossible to get more than an approximate picture of the spread of peasant farms. However, this picture will be sufficient to enable one to evaluate the importance of this form of economy with com- parative correctness. I am indebted for the following figures to the valuable compilation of W. Woytinski, Die Welt in Zahlen (Bk. Ill, 1925).
The result of a survey of the spread of peasant farming throughout the world and the changes in farming during the era of advanced capitalism is this: During this period peasant farming has made not unimportant gains in spread and importance, and today is still num- bered as by far the most important form of economic organization.
Among the peasantry of the entire world, we may distinguish three groups :
1. The East — the culture areas (Kulturlander) of Asia, China, Japan, and India, to which Russia may be added.
2. Europe.
3. The West— America and Australia.
The Orient is a purely peasant territory in which the same organi- zations have persisted since a period antedating human memory. The number of farms is estimated at :
COUNTRY No.
China 50,000,000
Japan 5,000,000
India 30,000,000
Russia 22,000,000
Egypt 2,000,000
* W. Sombart, Das Wirtschaftsleben im Zeitalter des Hoch^apitalismus, Munchen, Duncker & Humblot, 1927, II, 967-972. Translated and printed with permission of the author, and the publisher. •
446 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
These countries, in which other forms of agriculture hardly exist, contain about 110,000,000 farms on which between 600,000,000 and 700,000,000 persons make a living.
The number of peasant farms in Europe did not in any case decrease during the nineteenth century, and it has been increased considerably since the end of the World War. Among the larger peasant countries Germany has about 5,500,000; France 5,000,000; Italy 4,500,000; Aus- tria and Poland each 2,500,000; Hungary 2,000,000; and the other coun- tries a total of between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 in all between 27,000,000 and 28,000,000 peasant farms throughout central and western Europe, on which live about 150,000,000 persons. Fully three-fourths of the total area of this continent is worked by peasants. Germany reaches this average; some countries, as England, Hungary, and Poland, fall below it; others, as Italy, France, and Ireland, exceed it.
The West has struck out different lines of development in differ- ent countries. Because of the predominance of cattle-raising in South America and Australia, they have become the prey of large-scale management to a great extent, although a peasant class has been de- veloping there also for some time, notably in Argentina. On the other hand, the two parts of North America, Canada and the United States, have always been true peasant countries (Bauernldnder) up to the present time. In establishing that fact obviously we may not use European concepts of the limits of size of a peasant establishment. We include as pure peasant establishments, the enterprises of 175 to 500 acres (70-200 hectares), which included 33.8 per cent of the cultivated land in the United States in 1920.
We find also that more than four-fifths (84.9 per cent) of the land in the United States is peasant land. The proportion is probably even greater in Canada. These 6,000,000 to 7,000,000 peasant farms covering North America have been added to the previous total of peasant estab- lishments in the world during the past century.
The number of peasant farms in the advanced countries of the three continents would therefore total from 145,000,000 to 150,000,000, and the number of persons living on them from 750,000,000 to 900,000,000. If we include primitive peoples, among whom we find only "peasants," in so far as there is any individual economy, we secure a total of at least 200,000,000 peasant farms with a total of one to one and a half billion persons in the world. That would include about two-thirds of all humanity.
III. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PEASANT ECONOMY
(BAUERNTUM)
1. Constancy. — Regarding the characteristics of the peasant econo- my, we may establish first of all, a trait that has been found in all
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 447
countries and at all times: it manifests a great persistence, a certain constancy of its nature, so that it maintains itself as such particularly in regard to size. It is the "stable pole in the flight of phenomena." The reason for this is to be found in the fact that large-scale capitalistic management cannot threaten the existence of peasant farming, for it is not at all, or only slightly, superior to it.
2. The manifoldness of its forms. — Contrasted to this constancy of its nature, there is a great variation in the types of peasant establish- ments, as we have noticed in other places. There are rather important differences between an Egyptian fellah and an American "farmer," between a German Rordebauer and an Italian mezzadro, between a Russian mouji\ and a French jermier.
The differences lie, first of all, in a difference in economic motives. We shall probably find all gradations of economic thought in the vari- ous types of peasant economy; from the pure principle of need to that of a more or less purely developed principle of gain, from a world- removed traditionalism to a highly developed economic rationalism, from true community spirit to an impudent individualism. In the most modern forms of peasant economy, as in Denmark, the United States, or Australia, we meet an economic person (Wirtschaftssub^ect) who has incorporated important characteristics of the capitalistic spirit. But one may not speak of capitalistic entrepreneurs in these cases. They still lack the most important characteristic for that, namely, the capi- talistic enterprise.
Variations result also from the varied formations of the social order in which the peasants of different countries live. Here we find a whole range of dependency relationships, from partial serfdom to complete freedom. We find great variations in the conditions of property and ownership all the way from pure tenancy, through share tenancy, to pure ownership. And we find varied conditions of sale, etc.
Finally, the technique differs fundamentally in various countries and portions of one country. There are variations in the plants cultivated, the intensity of cultivation, the implements used, etc.
This manifoldness of the economic forms of peasant farming stands in contrast to the uniformity in all other economic fields, just as the constancy of its nature stands in contrast to the variability in the organization (Betriebsformeri) of the others. Handicraft must give way to capitalistic, large-scale production, but wherever they appear, both forms of economic organization reveal an almost complete simi- larity of form. As has been said, just the contrary is true in agriculture.
If we ask for the causes oÂŁ the manifoldness of agricultural enter- prises, we become aware of them most readily when we remember the remarks I made concerning the causes of the uniformity of modern in-
448 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
dustry. For we find neither the psychological nor the factual need for uniformity in peasant farming since the motives remain manifold, and the means of securing success in agriculture are by no means so uniformly determined as in the other branches of economic life. But we find, and that is probably the most important fact, no compulsory uniformity of structure, because agriculture, and especially the peas- ant economy, can withdraw itself from dependence on the market more completely than any other form of economy. Thus one cause making for uniformity drops out or is considerably weakened in its effects. Hence all the other components of the economic complex of causes may develop their influence: nationality, soil, climate, and his- tory. They are those which would always be active, but are over- whelmed in the other fields of economic life by the mighty and con- stant dependence on the market.
3. The uniform economic situation of the peasants. — Under this head we shall consider the degree of wealth, the amount of goods that is placed at the disposal of the individual peasant farm as its return, and therefore the amount of the income.
First of all we shall have to establish the fact, certainly not expected by many, that during the illustrious past century, the peasantry in the mass has found itself in oppressed circumstances throughout the en- tire world, as far as we can follow the traces of capitalism. Nowhere do we find material improvement of their living conditions, or an up- ward swing of their situation that might be compared to the progress of the wage-earning class or even with the growing wealth of the bourgeoisie.
In order to understand the peculiar position of the peasantry within the frame of advanced capitalistic economic life, we must secure a clear picture of the circumstances that determine its economic situation. It is clearly dependent on the combination of the following three variables:
1. The size of the return in crops of every establishment. Holding natural factors equal, this is the result of: (a) the size of the land area under cultivation, (b) the grade of perfection attained by the man- agement, (c) the amount of auxiliary income.
2. The size of the share of this return that the peasant receives. This is decreased in proportion as he is required to pay more (a) taxes to the state, (b) services or rent to the owner of the land, (c) interest to the money lender.
3. The prices that the peasant receives in the market for his prod- ucts.
Although the entire peasant class of the world is in need, this need is naturally not of the same magnitude in all places, and above all, its
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 449
causes are not everywhere the same. It may be well, therefore, to ex- amine these conditions in various territories separately. We will find three such territories with relatively uniform conditions, the same three that we have constantly distinguished in the course of this discussion: western and central Europe, the old civilized countries, and the co- lonial West.
IV. PROBLEM OF CONCENTRATION OF LAND*
First, we can state very decidedly that there is no trace whatever of a general tendency toward concentration in this, still the most impor- tant, of economic fields. When we survey the conditions of operation in agriculture during the capitalistic era, we perceive that some indi- vidual countries have at no time experienced such a phenomenon as a movement toward concentration or even a tendency toward enlarg- ing the average establishment. Among these are France and the United States of America. In other countries, however, we find an absorption of small and middle-sized establishments during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; but since the middle of the nineteenth century, large-scale production has made no progress in these coun- tries as against the small and middle-sized enterprises, nor has it in- creased its average volume. We might mention Germany and Great Britain among these countries. But to explain increasing indebtedness as a form of the movement toward concentration as some orthodox Marxians do, is unjustifiable, and a procedure that ought not be per- mitted in scientific lines of proof. When Marx believed himself able to prove that the same "laws" of concentration existed in agriculture as in other forms of economic life, and when he prophesied the dis- appearance of small-scale production in agriculture, he was, stated simply and without reservation, mistaken.
Statistics thoroughly refute this point of view.
Germany: The distribution of the total area devoted to agriculture has been as follows.1
SIZE OF ESTABLISHMENT
IN HECTARES 1907 1895 1882
|
5 . . |
15.7 |
15.1 |
14.9 |
|
5-20 |
32.0 |
29.0 |
28.6 |
|
20-100 |
29.3 |
30.4 |
30.9 |
|
Over 100 |
23.0 |
25.5 |
25.6 |
|
Over 200 |
17.8 |
20.1 |
20.8 |
*W. Sombart, Das Wirtschaftsleben im Zeitalter des Hochkapitaltsmus, Duncker & Humblot, 1927, II, 822-826.
des deutschen Reiches, 112, II, 12. (A hectare is equal to 2% acres.)
450 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
United States of America: The average amount of cultivated land per farm:
ACRES
1850 78.0
1880 71.0
1890 78.3
1900 72.2
1910 75.2
1920 . . 78.0
The following table shows the distribution of the land for establish- ments of various sizes:
SIZE OF ESTABLISHMENT PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL NUMBER
|
IN ACRES |
1880 |
1890 |
1900 |
1910 |
1920 |
|
Under 10 .... |
3.5 |
3.3 |
4.7 |
5.3 |
4.5 |
|
10-19 |
6.4 |
5.8 |
7.1 |
7.9 |
7.9 |
|
20-49 . . |
. . 19.5 |
19.8 |
21.9 |
22.2 |
23.3 |
|
50-99 |
25.8 |
24.6 |
23.8 |
22.6 |
22.9 |
|
100-499 . . |
42.3 |
44.0 |
39.9 |
39.2 |
38.1 |
|
Of these, 100-174 |
24.8 |
23.8 |
22.5 |
||
|
500-999 |
1.9 |
1.8 |
1.8 |
2.0 |
2.3 |
|
Over 1,000 |
0.7 |
0.7 |
0.8 |
0.8 |
1.0 |
The next table shows the percentage of cultivated land in each of the classes according to size.
PERCENTAGE OF CULTIVATED LAND SIZE IN ACRES
1900 1910 1920
|
Under 20 |
1.6 |
1.7 |
1.6 |
|
20-49 |
8.0 |
7.6 |
7.7 |
|
50-99 |
16.2 |
14.9 |
14.4 |
|
100-174 |
28.6 |
26.9 |
25.5 |
|
175-499 |
32.7 |
33.8 |
33.8 |
|
500-999 |
7.1 |
8.5 |
9.6 |
|
Over 1,000 |
5.9 |
6.5 |
7.5 |
We see that the majority of farms are between 50 and 500 acres, for this class includes 77,5, 75.6, and 73.3 per cent. The large-scale establishments are only a small proportion and have increased slightly during the last
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 451
twenty years, approximately reaching again the point which they had reached thirty years before. These fluctuations are correlated with fluctua- tions in the settlement and mode of agriculture in various portions of the United States. Hence the average for the entire country does not yield a true picture of the development. It is the average of separate figures which indi- vidually represent very different movements. Thus the slight increase of the size of the average farm in 1900-1920 is a result of equal tendencies toward increase and decrease. Four of the groups of states into which the country is usually divided for statistical purposes show a tendency toward an in- crease in size, while five show a tendency toward a decrease. States with a tendency toward an increase in the size of the average farm:
DIVISION 1900 1910 1920
East North Central (wheat territory) 763 79.2 81.0
West North Central (wheat territory) 127.9 148.0 156.2
West South Central . . . . 52.7 61.8 64.4
Mountain . 82.9 86.8 123.3
States with a tendency toward a decrease in the size of the average farm: DIVISION 1900 1910 1920
|
New England |
. . 42.4 |
38.4 |
39.1 |
|
Middle Atlantic |
63.4 |
62.6 |
62.5 |
|
South Atlantic |
47.9 |
43.6 |
41.9 |
|
East South Central |
44.5 |
42.2 |
42.2 |
|
Pacific |
132.5 |
116.1 |
102,2 |
NOTE. — Statistical Abstract of the United States,
If we ask concerning the reasons for the absence of any tendency toward concentration in agriculture, we will find them apparent to an unprejudiced observer and judge. As far as I can see they are primarily as follows:
1. Capital has no great preference for productive activity in agri- culture. (This is also the reason for the small number of joint-stock companies in agriculture.) And . . . that is probably due to the fact that the chances of gain, especially of pure profit, are smaller in agri- culture than in other industries, due to the decreasing returns with intensive cultivation. To this must be added the fact that capitalistic ground rent has so increased the price of land that one can hardly expect a large profit on the capital invested in a newly acquired piece of land. And finally the difficulty oÂŁ securing laborers in agriculture, due to the seasonal character oÂŁ the demand, may play a r61e.
2. Agriculture is not under the compulsion of competition to the
452 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
same extent, partly because agricultural enterprises are largely self- sufficient and thus entirely independent of the market and partly be- cause the prices of products are determined by the most inefficient establishment rather than by the most efficient. . . .
3. In addition to all this, the large-scale enterprise offers either no advantages, or else very unimportant ones, which the smaller enter- prise cannot also procure for itself, whereas the smaller enterprise in some respects proves even superior to the larger one.
The reason why large-scale management offers fewer advantages in agriculture than in other economic fields is based on two characteristics of agriculture: the succession of the individual production processes and the expansion of its field of enterprise. The former makes the profit- able utilization of specialization as well as the economic exploitation of machinery impossible, or at least very difficult; the latter has the same effect on large-scale application of cooperation, as well as on the unification of the source of power. Specialized workers cannot be trained, for they could be utilized for only a short time during the year; and machines are only incompletely used for the same reasons. Cooperation on a large scale, as well as the concentration and piling up of power, are impossible because tasks are performed in entirely dif- ferent places at various times. That is true especially of seeding and the care of plants. It has been rightly said that the agricultural laborer must go everywhere because the object with which he works is spread ' over a huge shop. He can deal with only one plant at a time. He cannot throw several plants into a heap — the processes of combining the materials is not applicable — and the plants cannot move along before him. If there are ten plants that require ten minutes of one laborer, they will require one minute each of ten laborers. If the beets in two fields are to be removed, the one field containing 1 hectare and the other 10 hectares, the ratio of the number of laborers will be 1 : 10, if the work is done at the same time and with the same intensity. In both cases the performance will be the same. Cooperation may begin only when the product has been removed from the soil, when the harvest is brought in. But even here its expansion is subject to very narrow limits. Because of the size of the field of work, the agricultural machines, up to the steam plow, are built small enough to be moved about by draft animals, and hence reach the optimum of their utiliza- tion in a small enterprise.
According to G. Fischer (Die soziale Bedeutung der Maschine in der Landwirtschaft, 1902) the limits of utility of machines drawn by draft animals is as follows:
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 453
HECTARES
Drills, 3.7 meters wide . . 17.0
Drills, 1.8 meters wide 8.8
Chopping machine . . . 0.23-3.7
Grain mower that deposits the grain . ... 7.1
Grain mower with which the grain is collected by hand .... 5.1
Grain mower with binder . ... .... 24.3
Steam plows . 1,000.0
Two steam plows are profitable when used 38 % days, and one machine when used 48/4 days. Even an individual large enterprise rarely reaches this optimum, and hence we find that steam plows are frequently loaned out. Only 415 of 2,995 enterprises that used steam plows owned their own machines.
The steam thresher is more economical than hand threshing only if it is used 12.1 days. But one could thresh 121,000 kg. of grain in 12.1 days. Not even very large establishments thresh as much grain as that, and hence again we find much borrowing of this machine. (Compare also A. Lang, Die Maschine in der Rohprodufyion, Part II, 1904.)
It is possible that the spread of electricity and of benzine (gasoline) motors will bring about a change in this situation. In the period just past these sources of power have not evidenced their revolutionary effects.
But the small enterprise is able to appropriate many of the advan- tages of large-scale enterprise, especially with the aid of the cooperative society. . . .
And, finally, large-scale management loses its advantage, as com- pared with small-scale management, through the previously mentioned fact that the latter is in many respects even superior to the former. That is the case in every instance where intensity of labor and interest in the labor are decisive for the productivity of the enterprise. Both these factors are more operative in the small enterprise, in this case the peasant enterprise, than in the large-scale one. To this must be added the fact that the manager of a small enterprise will suffer privations more readily, and if necessary will evaluate his labor lower, than the wage worker in large-scale industry, if the latter can be secured at all. In his independence of the wage worker lies the final decisive reason for the superiority of the peasant farmer.
V. ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE FUTURE*
If craftsmanship maintains in the economic order of the future the modest position that it possesses today, small-scale agriculture will
* EDITORS' NOTE. — Parcellation of large estates into small farms.
454 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
probably continue to grow in extent and importance. The peripheric peasant class will become stronger, for it will free itself from the economic dependence in which western European capitalism has held it. The peasantry of western and central Europe, however, will de- velop all the more. "Internal colonization" * will make further progress. The share of agriculture in the total economic life will grow consid- erably, as the overpopulated portions of our continent will barely be able to maintain life by means of it. It may no longer be doubted that a cutting back (Ruc^bildung) of the European tumor is necessary in order to maintain the life of the organism. Once the capitalism of the Negroes has begun to develop itself, the days of Europe as the exploiter will be past. Such malformations as the English economic structure, in which only 8 per cent of the population is engaged in agriculture, will then no longer be possible. The nations will have to get back to an agricultural basis, and with the dominance of democratic trends this will be possible only through an increase in the number of peasants. The agrarian reform program of Lloyd George will be a model for all European countries in which agriculture has been too much neg- lected.
From the changes that large sections of the peasantry have experi- enced in the advanced capitalistic epoch, we may conclude that the peasant of the future will not be the same as he is today. The process of modernization, and, in the broader sense, rationalization, will con- tinue to progress. At the end of the development we find the American farmer with telephone, Ford car, bank account, and silk hose for his wife. The peasant of the type of Andreas Hofer, or the Buttnerbauern, or of Jorn Uhl has passed for all times (some will say unfortunately; others, fortunately). Nevertheless peasant agriculture will always be a portion of economic life that will permit the full development of the soul, for it can never be completely captured by capitalism or socialism. Its internal essence is proof against that. The spirit of the peasantry can never be a purely capitalistic one, for the exclusive pre- dominance of the striving for profit is excluded. It is out of the ques- tion because agriculture will never be evaluated solely from the view- point of rentability; love for agricultural pursuits, loyalty to the soil, desire for independence, and self-sufficiency, the hunger for land, family tradition, and other entirely irrational motives play a role in ad- dition to the purely economic ones. Where those irrational, noneco- nomic motives predominate, men are governed by the need for sub- sistence rather than the desire for gain. TschajanofFs remarks on this
* W. Sombart, Das Wirtschajtsleben Im Zeitalter des HockfopitaHsmus, Miinchen, Dunckner & Humblot, 1927, II, 1019-1022.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 455
subject in his book Die Lehre von der bauerlichen Wirtschajt (1923) are worthy of attention.
We must also constantly remember that agriculture is the only eco- nomic activity that may be carried on for its own sake and is therefore not necessarily the means to an end. That is true of peasant manage- ment, but in greater degree of the management of an estate, which similarly can never be completely dominated by the spirit of capitalism. 'One may practice agriculture for the sake of agriculture, may acquire land for the mere pleasure of possession. But this obviously is not ap- plicable to a business establishment, a steel mill, or a sulphuric acid factory.
But even if the individual peasant (and agriculturalist in general) should wish to devote himself entirely to the capitalist spirit because of personal preference, it would never be possible for him to make his enterprise a purely capitalistic one, for the complete rationalization (V ergeistung) of the enterprise is impossible in agriculture. . . . [There has been a discussion of this point in another section of the book; the following is offered as additional material.]
1. The agricultural enterprise is opposed to systematized manage- ment, because neither the individual work nor the management of the enterprise can be completely reduced to norms.
Thus piecework is much less applicable in agriculture than else- where, chiefly because the individual task cannot be qualitatively evalu- ated. It cannot even be evaluated in the work connected with harvest- ing, and thus not at all in that connected with seeding, for the results appear only much later, and one may never know whether poor crops are to be attributed to weather or to labor. All agricultural labor is only partially routinized and capable of being reduced to norms. It must therefore be individualized. It has rightly been said that the less an agricultural task is performed according to a priori rules, the greater will be its success.
In directing an enterprise, however, the manager must select in each case the correct one from among various possibilities. "The science of farm management is able to set forth only general points of view and guiding principles; their application to the concrete problems of man- agement is left to the discretion, yes, the feeling, of the individual agri- culturalist." (Scruff.) This is due largely to the fact that the processes of nature, as they are manifested in the growth of plants and animals, can never be predicted exactly. Hence decisions must be reached and executed or changed at every moment. Hauling home the harvest may serve as an example.
2. Agriculture does not permit of a complete accounting system, for
456 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
a complete evaluation in monetary terms is impossible because oÂŁ the widespread use of farm products, the intertwining of farm economy with household economy, and the complex relationships among the various branches of the enterprise. Walter Scruff has attacked this prob- lem with great energy, and has succeeded in throwing some light on its vital points. Accounting systems cannot be applied to the entire agri- cultural enterprise, chiefly for the following reasons.
(a) The agricultural industry is a unit which utilizes many of its own products. Thus raw, auxiliary, and waste products of one branch of the industry are utilized for production in another branch; as ma- nure, straw, feed.
(b) The agricultural industry is a unit of management. Thus most of the agents of labor (machinery, tools, buildings, teams), human labor, and the soil serve various parts of the industry either concur- rently or successively throughout the year.
(c) The agricultural industry is a unit for the exploitation of the soil. The expenses are distributed over a number of economic periods; the yield of a crop in one year is determined in part by the crop that was cultivated on that plot the previous year and in turn influences the crop that will be planted there the following year.
3. The agricultural industry is not suited to the introduction of com- plete mechanization.
Our greatest scientific agriculturalist, Friedrich Aereboe, states, in somewhat different words, the thesis which I have developed here, that agriculture is not susceptible to rationalization (Vergeistung). In his Allgemdne landwirtschajtliche Betriebslehre (3d edition, pp. 219-220) he reports the conclusions of his investigations in boldface italics, as follows: "A progressive industrialization of agricultural economy may increasingly deprive agriculture of the improvement of products of the soil, but the growing of these products itself can never be industrial- ized. Agriculture will always remain that portion of the national econo- my which precludes a far-reaching division and combination of labor; but it tends toward a combination of energies on a cooperative basis when it is on a high level of development/'
58. M. I. TUGAN-BARANOVSKY: SMALL AND LARGE ENTERPRISES IN
AGRICULTURE*
SPECIFIC TRAITS OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION ACTIVITIES
In agriculture, biological processes in their natural milieu are sub- jected to the activity of human beings. For this reason the agriculturist
*From M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky, Foundations of Political Economy (Russ.)» Riga, 1924, chap. vii.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 457
has to deal with nature according to its own laws, which cannot possibly be modified to suit human desires. There is no continuous labor in agriculture; during winter the work must inevitably stop. Time, tempo, speed, and the general surroundings of work are deter- mined by external conditions. The results of agricultural labor depend, to a great extent, upon natural conditions that are not under man's control, and upon elementary forces whose action cannot be foreseen (weather). According to the season, agricultural labor must undergo changes in its type. Plowing and sowing must be done m the spring; harvesting in the summer. Since change in the type of operation is an adaptation to the biological processes of plant development, it cannot be altered nor speeded up, neither can it be shifted to, or postponed until, another time of the year. It is true that in industry also there exist certain sequences of the processes of production in time, but this sequence does not hinder the possibility of a simultaneous performance of these processes. For instance, several persons may simultaneously spin, weave, and dye textile materials. In agriculture, on the contrary, each season of the year requires its specific types of work, and these types must follow one another in a definite order.
In industry the human being can improve and elaborate the means of production indefinitely; in agriculture his influence on the principal means of production, the earth, is very limited. In industry an increase in the application of labor is not followed by a decrease in the pro- ductiveness of labor. In agriculture, on the contrary, we find a specific natural law of diminishing retttrns in agricultural labor. This law rests on the fact that, beyond a certain limit, a further increase in the amount of labor spent in cultivation on any given piece of land is fol- lowed by a decrease in the productiveness of each unit of labor spent. Increasing the thoroughness of the cultivation of the soil beyond this limit is not followed by a proportional increase in the amount of product yielded by the land.
ADVANTAGES OF LARGE- AND SMALL-SCALE PRODUCTION IN AGRICULTURE
Large-scale capitalistic production as contrasted with small-scale pro- duction does not have the same advantages in agriculture as it has in industry. This is due to specific peculiarities of agriculture. It is true that in agriculture a large-scale production also has some very import- ant advantages. Agricultural enterprise, for instance, needs buildings. In a big enterprise the buildings are of larger size and, if calculated per unit of capacity, they are less expensive than in the small enterprise* The large agricultural enterprise is also more advantageous in regard to the means of production.
458 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
According to certain German calculations, one plow can be utilized on a farm not smaller than 30 hectares, one sowing and harvesting machine on a farm not smaller than 70 hectares, one steam threshing machine on a farm not smaller than 250 hectares, and one steam tractor on a farm not smaller than 1,000 hectares. Similarly, the large agricultural enterprise can utilize to greater advantage the force of working cattle, etc.
However, these and similar advantages of the large agricultural enterprises must face some disadvantages: large capitalistic enterprise (we do not know at the present time of any other kind) requires hired labor, and a hired laborer does not take such good care of the machin- ery and cattle as the small owner. Similarly for buildings: a small owner can himself participate in the work of building and thus reduce his building expenses. It is true that in industry also hired labor is not interested in taking good care of the instruments and means of pro- duction. In agriculture, however, this point has far greater significance as compared with industry, because in agriculture the process of labor is taking place on a large territory and, therefore, is less accessible to the supervision of the owner; in addition, the living stock, especially the cattle, requires particularly good care.
The most important advantage of a large industrial enterprise in comparison with a small one lies in an enormous increase of produc- tivity through the substitution of machines for hand labor. It is for this reason that the factory has conquered the artisan. This advantage, again, does not have such great significance in agriculture. The essen- tial function of all machinery is to furnish a substitute for human labor. But in agriculture the result of production depends, to a greater extent, upon nature, which cannot be replaced by machines. The best plow cannot transform unfertile soil into fertile. Further, in agricul- ture, a machine has to operate in natural conditions that are often so complex, peculiar, and variable as to make any complete adjustment of a machine impossible (irregular surface, weather conditions, etc.). For this reason the machine has not played such a revolutionizing r61e in agriculture as it has in industry. The steam plow, for instance, did not achieve much importance in agriculture and, contrary to the expec- tations of Marx and Liebknecht, did not cause such a revolution there as did the mechanical weaving loom in industry. "The use of the steam plow requires certain natural conditions, which do not exist every- where. It cannot be used on sandy soil and in districts with irregular, rough, and very uneven surface."
Furthermore, in the factories machines are stationary; in agriculture, they have to be moved from place to place. Hence agricultural ma- chines have to be small, and therefore less productive. At the same
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 459
time in agriculture (due to the temporary use of machines by each farmer) an arrangement for the cooperative use of machinery can be made quite easily. Several small owners can buy machinery for a com- mon use and in this way derive the advantages of a large capitalistic enterprise.
In general, the saving of labor through use of machinery is much more limited in agriculture than in industry. According to the com- putations of Fischer for Germany, the mowing of one hectare by ma- chine is only eight marks cheaper than mowing by hand. The cultiva- tion and harvesting of wheat by machinery decreases the expenses only seventeen marks per hectare. This reduction of the expenses of produc- tion through machinery is relatively insignificant.
One of the very important ways of increasing efficiency in industry is through specialization of labor. In agriculture, again, specialization of labor is very much restricted because the changes of the seasons call forth seasonal changes in the type of labor demanded. For instance, an agricultural workman cannot specialize in mowing, for under such circumstances he would have work only a few weeks a year. For this reason we see only very limited specialization of labor in agriculture; the larger agricultural estate that employs a considerable amount of workmen cannot increase the efficiency of its work by using the labor of specialized workmen.
The larger agricultural estate unquestionably has an advantage in that it does not lose much space in roads and boundaries, and requires less expenditure for fencing the land. But these advantages are rather small. As to the advantages of the larger estate in carrying on big operations because it has the facilities of credit for buying and selling- all these advantages are available to the small owners through coop- eration.
In big industry the possibility of employing scientific experts for the guidance of the enterprise and at the same time for preserving its secrets is of great importance. For a large estate this advantage is of small significance, because the fields are open for everyone and cannot hide any secrets. Agricultural productiveness in its nature is an open and demonstrative productiveness; every intelligent peasant can learn its secrets from his neighbor, a large estate owner. As for the advantage of scientific guidance, public agronomy and public specialists in agri- culture can give information and are making this advantage fully as accessible to farmers and peasants as it is to a large landlord.1
The other advantages and disadvantages of the large and small enter- prises in agriculture are not as clear and unquestionable as in indus-
1 See a sketch of the organization of social agronomy by A. Tschuprow, Small Agri- culture and Its Principal Needs (Russ.), 1907, chap. iv.
460 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
try. Small farming has one conspicuous advantage, the great interest of the producer in the process of his work, which is of special signifi- cance and which is less in a capitalist agriculture. Farming requires very careful work since it has to deal with living organisms. It is not surprising, therefore, that the best breeds of cattle were produced by small farming (Swiss, Bavarian, Dutch, Jersey).2 Generally the more intensive the agricultural production, and the more work and care invested in it per unit of land, the greater are the advantages of smaller farms as compared with larger agricultural enterprises. Every agricultural enterprise is adjusting itself to a certain amount of land. In the process of agricultural production heavy loads have to be carried over from one place to another (manure, agricultural machinery, har- vested products), and hence the distance from the dwellings to the fields plays an important role. The longer the distance, the greater the labor that must be spent in the transportation of the loads.
A German economist, Thiinen, has made a computation of how the factor of distance between the piece of land and farm buildings influ- ences the rent, that is, the net profit from a lot of land after subtracting all the expenditures of production and interest on the capital invested. According to his computations, if the above-mentioned distance is equal to zero, the land rent will be 23 marks from one hectare, the yield from the hectare being equal to 25 hectoliters of rye. If the land under cultivation is at a distance of 1,000 meters from the -estate, the rent will be equal to 17 marks; if at 2,000 meters, 14 marks; at 3,000 meters, 10 marks; at 4,000 meters, 5 marks; at 5,000 meters the rent is equal to zero. The greater the distance between the cultivated land and the estate, the smaller is the rent of the landowner; at too great a distance transportation swallows all the rent.
But with an increase in the intensity of farming more loads have to be transported per land unit; consequently the expenditure for trans- portation per unit of distance becomes greater.
Indeed, facts indicate that large capitalistic enterprises are found for the mast part in the field of extensive agriculture. For instance, lum- bering, in which capitalistic enterprise results in an extermination of the natural forests, permits the largest enterprises. In fact, in colo- nies with small population the lumbering enterprises are of very great
2 The best analysis of the peculiarities of agricultural production and the comparative advantages of large and small farming is given in the well-known book of David, So- riahsmus und Landwirtschajt., 1903. See also S. Bulgakov, Capitalism and Agriculture (Russ.), 1900; Hertz, Agrarische Fragen, 1899; Bychovsky, "Limits of Capitalism in Agriculture," in Eorba za zemlu (Russ.), 1908; N. Sukhanov, On the Problem of the Evolution of Agriculture (Russ.), 1909. This last book is of special interest as in it, as well as in other works of the same author, a clear separation of the economic and tech- nical aspects of the different forms of agricultural enterprise are given. In most of the books on the agricultural problems there is a confusion of these two aspects.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 461
size. The condition is similar in countries with extensive cattle grazing. In Australia certain large ranchers have several hundred thousand sheep. Agriculture, using the term in a strict sense, requires some- what smaller enterprises. The largest agricultural enterprises were the American wheat farms of the far West, which carried on very ex- tensive exploitative farming with the aid of most elaborate machinery. Some of these farms reached as many as 10,000 or even more hectares, and represented regular wheat factories.
After agriculture has reached the intensive stage, such large farms cannot exist. In England, for example, farms larger than 500 hectares are a very rare exception. The majority of the farms are considerably smaller, consisting of only a few dozens of hectares.
Aside from natural obstacles, a large capitalistic enterprise in agri- culture has to meet certain social obstacles which hinder its growth. Capitalistic farming has considerable difficulty in finding farm labor- ers; this constitutes the labor problem in agriculture. It is not profitable for an agricultural enterprise to employ a large number of workmen permanently, since they are needed only temporarily; on the other hand, the city laborers cannot be utilized. Hence capitalistic farming is deeply interested in the coexistence of small peasant farming, which would furnish working hands to the capitalistic entrepreneur. Mean- while the number of farm laborers is decreasing in practically all capi- talistic countries (migration to the city).
However, the principal basis for the stability of the small agricul- tural enterprise is not its economic advantages as contrasted with large farming, but the fact that, while large farming as a really capitalistic enterprise exists for the purpose of rent and profit, small farming exists to provide the means of subsistence for the producer. A peasant will continue his farming even if conditions are such that he receives noth- ing but an average wage; capitalistic farming, on the contrary, ceases if conditions are such that the income covers only expenses and yields no profit or rent. Small farming, therefore, can exist and develop with a considerably smaller gross income than would be essential in capi- talistic enterprise. In addition to these facts, small farming depends less upon the fluctuations of the market prices on agricultural products than does large capitalistic farming, for the small farmer produces partly for family consumption while the large enterprise produces ex- clusively for the market. The lowering of the prices of agricultural products, which very often ruins large farming, is not as destructive to smaller farming, as a small producer consumes a considerable propor- tion of his products on his own farm.
In drawing up the balance between the comparative vitality and sta- bility of large capitalistic as against small-labor farming, we have to
462 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
conclude that at the present time this balance is rather in favor of small farming. The fact that in several countries capitalistic agriculture is practiced to a great extent and that in certain countries, notably in England, it is almost the only type of agriculture, does not contradict the above conclusion. As a matter of fact, the development of capital- istic agriculture has not been the result of a greater economic power as compared with peasant-labor agriculture, but has been merely a direct result of large estate ownership, which in its turn originated through political violence and coercion. The concentration of the ownership of land in the hands of a small group of the ruling classes was not due to any greater economic power of the large agricultural enterprise as com- pared to the small. The land was taken by force by the ruling classes, together with the peasant, who was turned into a slave or serf. Later the peasant received his freedom, but a considerable portion of the land remained in the hands of the landlord. This is the origin of large capi- talistic landownership as it exists in all countries of Europe; the logical result has been capitalistic agriculture.
Large landownership originated very long ago when, during the period of very extensive types of farming, the ruling classes took the land. At the present time, when intensive farming is gradually replac- ing the extensive type, conditions are less favorable for the develop- ment of large agricultural farming. And yet we do not see any radical changes and substitution of one form of agricultural farming for the other. This can be explained by the fact that all agrarian relationships are very conservative.* In order to increase the extent of an agricultural enterprise, it is necessary to increase the land space. This could be achieved either by renting or by buying the necessary land. However, renting land is not always possible. Buying and selling is also accom- panied by considerable difficulty. Due to primogeniture entails and other juridical restrictions, it is very often impossible to sell land under any conditions; in England three-fourths of the privately owned land is bound in this manner to the owners.
On the other hand, similar restrictions exist in regard to small land- holdings. The selling of land is very heavily taxed in favor of the state. These factors, as well as some others, cause agrarian relations to be very stable and subject only to very slow changes.
Generally speaking, there are no universal laws of the development of agricultural enterprises that would be true for all countries. In in- dustry large enterprise is growing faster than small; in agriculture the reverse situation exists, for there has been a noticeable growth of small farming at the expense of large. In general the agrarian relationships
* EDITORS' NOTE. — This was written before the World War and the accompanying revolutions.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 463
and agrarian development cannot be described in any universal formula because they are extremely individual and peculiar, varying from coun- try to country and from time to time. Most unusual combinations of various forms of agriculture are found in different countries. At least, it is impossible to deny that peasant farming has not been retreating, as contrasted with capitalistic farming, but has been gaining at the expense of the latter.
This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that, contrary to the situation in industry, the percentage that the workmen employed in agriculture form of the total population engaged in agriculture has been decreas- ing rather than increasing, and the percentage of independent farm owners has been increasing. This is shown by the following German data:3
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION OCCUPIED IN AGRICULTURE
|
NUMBER |
PER CENT |
||||
|
Owners |
Upper Employes |
Hired Workmen |
Owners |
Upper Hired Employes Workmen |
|
|
1895 1907 |
2,568,725 2,500,974 |
96,173 98,815 |
3,724,145 3,400,437 |
40.3 41.7 |
1.5 58.2 1.6 56.7 |
A somewhat similar condition is observed in other countries. In the United States, for instance, the percentage of employes and workmen in the total population engaged in agriculture has changed as follows* :
1870 1880 1890 1900
52 43.3 41.4 34.6
In 1870 the number of farm laborers in America exceeded the num- ber of independent owners. In 1900 the owners constituted two-thirds of all the agricultural population of America.
Social relationships connected with agricultural production are pecu- liar to a great extent and do not permit any generalizations such as can be made for industry. The reason for this fact is that the human being in agriculture is more dependent upon the environmental factors. In management in agriculture there are fewer specific laws that are inde- pendent of the laws of the material environment than there are in in-
* Official data of the German census give entirely different figures for agricultural laborers. It is necessary to remember, however, that German statistics compute as work- men all the members of the farm owner's family if they are helping the owner in his work. To determine the number of real hired laborers it is necessary to subtract all these helping members of the family from the total number of workmen. See Albert Hesse, "Berufhche und sociale Gliedenmg im deutschen Reich," Jahrbiicher /. Nationalo^ono' mte uber $tatisti\, III. F., Band XL, Heft 6.
* EDITORS' NOTE. — Though the trend was that indicated by the author, later data give somewhat different figures. See U. S. D. A. Yearbook, 1923, p. 511.
464 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
dustry. Therefore, it is not surprising that the economists have studied industry proper much more than agriculture. In the field of industry an economist feels himself more competent than in the field of agricul- ture, for in the latter case the laws of the surrounding nature, exceed- ingly difficult to investigate, control the situation.
As a result of this situation economists developed a tendency to sub- stitute laws obtained from the study of industrial conditions for those that might have been obtained from an independent investigation of agrarian relationships. This tendency was especially strong among those economists who did much toward transforming political econo- my into an exact science, for only on the basis of the study of relation- ships in industry could such a science be built. Karl Marx, in particu- lar, gave no more or less careful study to agrarian relationships. He was quite familiar with English industry, particularly with the cotton industry. Sombart rightly remarks that when Marx is talking about a factory in general, he has always in mind one particular type of factory, namely the cotton mill. He was not deeply interested in agrar- ian relationships and his factual knowledge of this field was very lim- ited, as is clearly shown in the third volume of Capital, a volume devoted to a great extent to agrarian problems.
Nevertheless, agrarian relationships play too important a role in modern social life to be ignored or neglected, even by Marx. Marx, without a special study of agriculture, simply extends his conclusions about industry boldly into agriculture; hence his generalizations con- cerning agriculture result. In industry there has been a tendency to- ward concentration of production and the replacement of handicraft manufacturing by the capitalistic factory. He thought that, in a similar way, peasant farming was bound to be driven out and replaced by capitalistic agriculture.4
There is no question now that this was the viewpoint of Marx, in spite of the denial of some of his followers.5 Following their teacher,
4 See, for instance, "the existing lower and middle classes, small producers, merchants, rentiers, craftsmen, and peasants — all these classes are becoming proletarians," Com- mumst Manifesto, 5th ed., 1891, p. 15, In volume III of Capital Marx expresses some- what similar ideas. "The causes for the decrease xn small farming are as follows: the annihilation by the large industry of home manufacturing, which was a normal supple- ment to small farming; decrease in the fertility of the soil, exploited in small farming; concentration in the hands of larger estate owners of the communal land, which every- where forms the second supplement of small farming and which gives the possibility of keeping cattle; the competition of large agricultural estates, which may be either of the plantation or the capitalistic type." (Das Kapital, 1894, III, 341.)
6 Konstedt, the author of the book Agrarfrage und Social democratic (1906), whose historical analysis is recognized by Kautsky as "all in all spotless," indicates that, accord- ing to Marx, the peasant's property and peasant's farming have passed their time. Marx believed that not only the future of agriculture but also its present (namely, the middle of the nineteenth century) belongs to large-scale capitalistic production.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 465
all Marxians up to the present were of the same opinion. I. Ekkarius in his book Eines Arbeiters Widerlegung der nationalofypnomischen Lehren von /. S. Mill (1869), which was read by Marx before printing and which was to some extent edited by him; Liebknecht in his work Zur Grund und Bodenfrage (1870) ; Kautsky in his famous commen- taries on the Erfurt program; all these authors expressed similar belief in the inevitable conquest of peasant by capitalistic agriculture. This belief is also expressed in the program of the German Social Demo- crats, which was accepted at the Erfurt congress in 1891 and which has been the official party program to the present time.0
Facts have shown, however, that agriculture has been developing in an entirely different way from that of industry. This had to be accepted more or less by the Marxians, and as an expression of the new view- point of Marxism on the agrarian problem there appeared Kautsky's book Die Agrarfrage (1899). In this book Kautsky denied his previous conclusions and accepted the fact that, under existing conditions, small farming is stable. He explains this stability by the suppressed status of peasants and by their ability to endure a pauper's existence on their own piece of land rather than to give it up. In his work, however, Kautsky does not hold that a peasant agriculture will ever reach the technical level of capitalistic agriculture.
The book of Kautsky caused a big controversy. In this dispute the victory was not obtained by the partisans of Marxism. The German Social Democratic party formally retained the previous uncompromis- ing attitude which it had taken at the Breslau congress in 1895. It re- jected the project of the agrarian program, which favored the develop- ment of peasants' agriculture. In reality, however, the members of the Social Democratic party of southern Germany systematically supported all the bills that were directed toward improving peasant farming; and the resolutions of the Breslau congress remained only on paper.
The Social Democrats of other countries are depending upon the peasants for their votes and, therefore, their attitude toward them has to be more favorable. Agricultural cooperation is often mentioned in a series of Social Democratic programs as a means for increasing the standard of peasants' agriculture. This is true for the programs of the
0 In order to restrict citations, only the Erfurt program is given. The program begins with the following words: "The economic development of bourgeois society leads with the necessity of natural laws to the annihilation of small production. It separates the workman from his means of production and makes him a proletarian, while the means of production become the property of a small group of capitalists and large estate owners. For the proletarians and the perishing middle classes of society — the small bourgeoisie, peasants — this change means a continuous growth of the insecurity of their existence and poverty, of suppression, dependence, and exploitation." (Cited after Kon- stedt, 136.) EDITORS' NOTE. — After the World War the German and other socialist par- ties gave up this viewpoint. See further, the paper of Schafir.
466 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
French, Italian, Danish, Belgian, Austrian, Swiss, Finnish, and other Social Democratic parties.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Agrarian problem in general. — CHODSKY, Land and Land- owner (Russ.) (1895), 2 vols.; BUCHENBERGER, Fundamental Problems of Agricultural Economy and Politics (1901); VON DER HOLZ, Agrarian Prob- lem (1902); A. SKVORZOV, Influence of Steam Transport on Agriculture (Russ.) (1894); A. SKVORZOV, Fundamentals of Economics of Agriculture (Russ.) (1900-1905), Vols. I and II; SOBOLEV, Mobilization of Land Prop- erty and New Tendencies in Agrarian Politics in Germany (Russ.) (1899); LEWITSKY, Agricultural Crisis in France (Russ.) (1899); KAUTSKY, Die Agrarjrage (1899); F. HERTZ, Agrarische Fragen (1900); S. BULGAKOV, Capitalism and Agriculture (Russ.) (1900), 2 vols.; N. KABLUKOV, Labor Problem in Agriculture (Russ.) (1884); N. KABLUKOV, Conditions for the Development of Agriculture in Russia (Russ.) (1908), 2d ed.; DAVID, Sozialismus und Landwirtschajt (1903); VANDERVELDE, Socialism and Agri- culture (1907); KRJIVITSKY, Agrarian Problems (Russ.) (1906); KOSSINSKY, Agrarian Problem (Russ.) (1906); GATTI, Socialism and Agrarian Prob- lem (1906); A. TSCHUPROW, Small Agriculture and Its Needs (Russ.) (1907); V. ILJIN, (LENIN), Agrarian Problem (Russ.) (1908); Struggle for Land (Russ.) (1908), Vols. I and II; N. SUKHANOV, The Problem of the Evolution of Agriculture (Russ.) (1909); The Agrarian Problem and Marxism (Russ.); KONSTEDT, Agrarjrage und Socialdemo\ratie (1906); TCHERNOFF, Marxism and the Agrarian Problem (Russ.) (1906); SHISHKO, The Labor Movement and the Agrarian Program in Germany (Russ.) (1906); Agrarian Programs of Socialistic Parties in Western Europe and Russia (Russ.) (1906).
59. MICHAEL HAINISCH: CRITICISM OF DR. LAUR'S THEORIES*
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION. — M. Hainisch, like many others, agrees that the large farm has several advantages over the small farm from a purely technical standpoint. In a large farm a smaller proportion of the land is wasted for roads and boundaries; the expenses for buildings are relatively lower; there is a better opportunity to use good machinery; division of labor may be more appropriate; there is a better and a larger use of farm animals; and better and more diversified crops may be cultivated. How- ever, these purely technical advantages have their own drawbacks and often are theoretical rather than real, since a series of social and other influences often annul them. First, many large land properties are not managed as one agricultural enterprise but instead are rented in small lots to tenants. In this case large landownership is not associated in any way with large, capi- talistic farming and hence does not possess its advantages. Further, in order for the large agricultural enterprise to possess the above advantages the owner must be a competent manager, whereas actually a considerable pro- portion of the big landowners are quite incompetent. Then a large enter-
*From M. Hainisch, Die Landftucht, Jena, Gustav Fischer, 1924, pp. 154-191. Trans- lated and printed with permission of the publisher.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 467
prise must be carried on with hired labor, and the laborers will probably work less efficiently and carefully than would the farmer or peasant owner. Inasmuch as the care of cattle and other stock is of very great importance for agricultural success, this greater care and efficiency of the working force constitutes one of the advantages of the small enterprise of a small landowner.
A series of other circumstances also makes the advantages of large agri- cultural enterprises very questionable. Machinery can be used in agricul- tural enterprises to a lesser extent than in industrial enterprises. Large farm enterprises can exist only as long as the profit of the entrepreneur and the interest on the capital invested is sufficiently high, while the small enter- prise may be continued even when these are low. Actual data show that large enterprises often fail to realize these high profits and interest. As a result they carry heavier mortgages than the small peasant farms. In 1902 in the eastern provinces of Germany 41.4 per cent of the small farms were not mortgaged, while only 9.4 per cent of the enterprises of the largest land- owners were free from mortgage.
These and similar conditions show that the technical advantages of the large farm enterprises are often nonexistent and that when they do exist they often possess their own drawbacks. Hence one can make no uniform generalization concerning trends in the size of the farm enterprise. The general conclusion to the above discussion may be stated somewhat as fol- lows. Whether a large or a small farm is more advantageous depends on many local and personal conditions; in one place and under one set of cir- cumstances a small enterprise may be more advantageous, and vice versa. For each locality and each set of conditions, there is theoretically an opti- mum size of farm, neither too small nor too large and most advantageous under the existing conditions. (Hainisch, Die Landflucht, pp. 74-119.)
Let us now turn to the question as to whether a small or a large farm enterprise yields greater gross revenue, net revenue, and proportion of the marketable products. Dr. Hainisch is inclined to believe that the large enter- prise yields a greater net revenue and a greater proportion of marketable produce per unit than the small enterprise. This conclusion is rather com- monly accepted. Hainisch questions the conclusion of Laur and other in- vestigators that the gross produce per unit of land is greater for a small enterprise than for a large one. He also criticises Laur's data and presents a series of data that show that Laur's conclusions are not invulnerable. This criticism follows in the subsequent translated fragment.
I believe that important objections may be raised against the con- clusions of Laur.
If we now study the elements out oÂŁ which, according to Laur, the gross proceeds are composed, we come first to the rental value of the dwelling. I will admit that there is much to be said in favor of consid- ering this rental value as income. But on the other hand, there is this noteworthy condition: through this treatment the more luxurious the dwelling, the greater becomes the gross earning of the establishment.
468 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
To include as income the benefit that a farmer's wife derives through a direct disposal to the consumer could be allowed only if it were not included as a part of the community or social income. Because the com- munity income will not be increased through this direct contact with the consumer, but only postponed. One absolutely cannot credit the income from the apiary to the acreage in possession, since the bees do not gather pollen exclusively from the area of one estate. No less a per- sonage than Albert Thaer has therefore asserted that bee culture is not a branch of agriculture. In the country not a few public school teachers keep a few beehives. I myself am personally acquainted with a cabinet- maker living in the Vienna district of Dobling, in which the houses extend to the Vienna forest and the vineyards. This man carries on bee culture from a garret window. And therewith I come to the de- cisive point. Laur himself points out the fact that the high gross income of the small producer is derived from the converting of raw material into a finished product. The small farmers buy hay and grain foods in order to use them for feed. These farmers are therefore completely de- pendent, are compelled to purchase hay, straw, and bedding from others.
The Swiss peasant farm establishments, which practice this refine- ment process also buy feed. There are many small producers, however, who receive permission from neighboring large estates to herd geese on their fields, to mow grass along the field edges, and similar things.1 The proceeds of these small producers should therefore in part, at least, be added to the proceeds of the large establishments.
Attention has already been called to the fact that Laur has made the assertion that small establishments have derived not only a higher gross income, but also a greater market production. It is unusually praise- worthy that the present farm secretariat (Bauernsefyretariat) under Laur's direction has calculated the market production not only in money, but also in calories. This is given in the following table.
NUTRITIVE VALUE OF THE RAW MATERIAL (IN CALORIES, PER ONE HECTARE)
|
SIZE OF FARM IN HECTARES |
SELF- CONSUMPTION |
MARKET- PRODUCTION |
TOTAL PRODUCTION |
|
3-5 5-10 |
1,038,354 677,479 |
1,384,263 1,622,156 |
2,422,617 2,299,635 |
|
10-15 |
. . . 518,549 |
1,514,504 |
2,033,053 |
|
15-30 |
. . . . 447,150 |
1,538,437 |
1,985,587 |
|
Over 30 .... |
313,092 |
1,387,536 |
1,700,628 |
1 Dr. Emil Wehriede, "The Gross Proceeds of German Agriculture during the Last Generation," Thick Jahrbuch, 1907, XXXVI, 161.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 469
According to this table the large farming establishments make a poor showing. But these are in the majority of cases, it will be noted, moun- tain and grazing establishments. Fully 85 per cent of the land in these farms is meadow land, and in fact in the greatest part nothing but grazing land. Of the 2,674 Swiss farms with over 70 hectares specifi- cally only 585 contained arable land, and 1,085 had meadow land. It is clear that such large farms situated in the high mountains cannot com- pare with smaller farms on the level ground. Under more favorable conditions these large establishments could probably easily increase their proceeds by two-tenths, and thereby equal the best categories of the small producer. And we must remember that two large-scale farm- ers achieved the largest gross income per hectare in money.
Moreover, it is not without interest to observe what shifting took place when the market production was determined in calories instead of in money. The small establishments, which received the highest market payment in money, are dropped back to the last place. At the same time the differences in the market production of the larger farms are noticeably reduced. This may incidentally serve as proof to show the waste of foodstuffs with which the transformation of grain and pota- toes into meat products is carried on. Since agricultural production in Switzerland is decreasing and the larger establishments, instead of selling more actually sell less grain than the smaller, these facts do not appear so prominently. It is entirely different in those places where, as in Germany, the large producers are chiefly engaged in plant produc- tion.2
In an article that appeared in the Vienna Landwirtscha-ftliche Zei- tung I have moreover computed how unproductive the operation of the Swiss small-scale farm is. In order to bring one million calories to market from one hectare of agricultural land the following amounts of calories were consumed by the producer:
SIZE OF FARMS r
rr CALORIES
IN HECTARES
3-5 750,000
5-10 418,000
10-15 .... 342,000
15-30 . . 291,000
Over 30 .... 226,000
2 As far as I have read the literature, Gamp first pointed out the waste occurring in the transformation of food products.
470 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
It is easy to compare the small farm with a machine that works for the market with the least efficiency.3
As regards the productions of the various large estates much atten- tion has been given to the delivery of produce during the war. The report oÂŁ Hansen, oÂŁ the Agricultural Institute of the University of Konigsberg, deserves special attention. This report is based on data taken from six East Prussian regions, including 13,969 small farms, and 617 large farms, making a total of 449,969 hectares. On the basis of this report the following table was compiled.
PRODUCTION PER HECTARE OF FARMS
|
KILOGRAMS |
NUTRITIVE VALUES |
|||
|
Under 100 Ha. |
Over 100 Ha. |
Under 100 Ha. |
Over 100 Ha. |
|
|
Grains . ... Legumes . . . ... Edible potatoes Edible and distillery potatoes . Hay and straw (per hectare of agricultural land) Cattle, live-weight Butter |
205.9 4.3 255.9 257.8 69.6 39.5 2.1 24.9 |
413.7 10.0 418.0 603.9 60.3 34.3 45 5.5 |
143.2 2.9 5.4 50.8 |
285.4 6.9 82.3 118.9 |
|
Esf9"s (per each) |
||||
Hansen has neglected to calculate the nutritive value for hay and straw as well as for animal products. There can be no doubt, however, that the general production of the large producer is much larger in nutritive value than that of the small producer. Also in Austria during the war the large establishment delivered much more, at least of grain, than the small farm. Thus, for example, according to Medinger, in Bohemia the 1917 production of farms larger than 100 ha. averaged 5.56 q. per ha., while on the other hand farms of less than 100 ha. pro- duced 2.29 q. per ha.
A similar superiority of the larger producers over the small pro- ducers is revealed in upper Hessia, where, to be sure, the large farms are far behind those of East Prussia in extent. Here a farm with an area of about 40 ha., situated in the vicinity of the town Friedberg and bordering on two communities that enjoyed better soil, produced much more than the peasants of the latter. The production in 1918 was as follows;
*The French writers who, under the influence of Law, defend the small farm are asked by Auge-Laribe1 how it happens that, in a country in which the small establishment is so prominent as in France, it should produce so little in comparison with other coun- tries. (Auge-Laribe, Lc paysan jran$ais . . . , p. 253.)
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 471
|
THE FARM |
THE COMMUNITY |
|
|
Potatoes, per hectare |
170 Mtz. |
98 Mtz. |
|
Grain, per hectare |
. 26.83 Mtz. |
16.90 Mtz. |
|
Sugar beets, per hectare |
. 278 Mtz. |
256 Mtz, |
|
Milk, per cow |
. 1992 litres |
236 litres |
|
Butter, per cow . . |
. 31.50kg. |
~kg- |
|
Slaughtering cattle, per 100 hectares: |
||
|
Beeves |
.. 15.20 Mtz. |
8.00 Mtz. |
|
Calves |
11. 80 Mtz. |
15.20 Mtz. |
A comparison was also made between large farms and 178 small farms of from 10 to 15 Morgen and 179 farms of 15 to 20 Morgen in the region of Friedberg. This showed that the large farms, with full consideration of the self -supporters, produced respectively from 105.10 to 88.83 per cent more than the above-mentioned small farms. Farms under 10 acres produced practically nothing. Similar conditions pre- vailed in the region of Holstein called Plohn. Here the production of grain on the part of the large farms exceeded that of the peasants by far.
The estates also produced more milk than the small farms. Milk was produced in Hesse in 1918 as follows:
ESTATE SMALL-FARM
PRODUCTION PRODUCTION IN LITRES IN LITRES
Per cow .. . 1.819 .524
Per 100 hectares 68.783 24.830
The superiority of the large estates in milk production is shown also in the milk supplied to the city of Frankfurt. This was produced by 14 communities with 3,016 cows and 34 estates with 1,187 cows. The com- munities sent to the city 1.73 litres per cow, but the large estates sent 5.13 litres per cow,4 In the comparison of the supply delivered during the war, or market supply in peace time, one must always bear in mind how many children and young people were self-supporting or were supported by guardians. In the larger peasant farm establishments, in which unmarried help is employed, the percentage of children and young people among the dwellers on the farm can be smaller than on the large estates with their married employes.
One must point out regarding these tables, especially those of Han- sen, that the purchase of produce and nutritive values is not considered
* City Supply and Farm Production, Reformbund dcr Gutshofe, 2d ed., 1920.
472 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
and that accordingly a complete balance of nutritive values is lacking. Furthermore, the delivery during time of war can give no complete information regarding the market production. According to Gutknecht from one-fourth to one-third of the entire production was sold under- handedly. There is no doubt that the peasant farms, because of the smaller possibility of their control, participated to a large extent. Be- sides, factors of a social nature may have operated, so that the larger landowner was more often called upon for deliveries than the smaller. Doubtless this was the case in the requisition of cattle. It would not do to take the only cow from a small farmer, even though this procedure from the standpoint of production was of doubtful wisdom. Thus the safeguarding of the small owner resulted often in the sparing of less valuable cattle and the leading of the valuable animals to the slaugh- terhouse. We must accordingly endeavor to find other points for the consideration of the achievements of farms of different sizes.
It may therefore be pointed out that in the Hessian region, Blidin- gen, the threshing yield in four estates and five communities was de- termined by sworn, weighmasters. According to these figures each hectare earned as follows:
|
THE ESTATES MTZ. |
THE COMMUNITIES MTZ. |
|
|
Wheat |
27.2 |
19.6 |
|
Rye |
30.6 |
15.7 |
|
Barley |
23.4 |
14.3 |
|
Oats |
28.7 |
15.9 |
The differences in the threshing yields are so great that the superiority of the large estates could hardly have been essentially influenced by falsification of the figures. Furthermore, let us refer to Dade, who in- forms us that the agricultural establishments of over 100 ha. sold 1,850,000 tons of small grain, and the farms of less than 100 ha. sold 2,800,000 tons. Since the farms of over 100 ha. comprised only about a fourth of the German farm land area, the market production of the large producer in grain was disproportionately large. The small deliv- ery of bread grains on the part of the small farms is now doubtless explained by the larger self-consumption as well as the larger amount of feeding the cattle. The productivity of grain on the large estates appears to be constantly greater than on the small farms. According to Ballard there were produced by 100 agricultural operators:
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 473
TONS OF GRAIN
Ostelbien 342
South Germany 191
West Germany ... .- 264
Central Germany 386
Pommerania and Mecklenburg . . . . 470
The German realm 281
Even if one thinks that grain production does not play the same role everywhere, one would still have to admit that human labor in the production of grains was more profitable on large estates than on small farms.
As in the German Empire, so also in old Austria, the large farm was noticeably superior to the small farm in the production of grains and vegetables (Rac^jruchten) . Medinger estimates that the large farm produces from 20 to 40 per cent more.5 In lower Austria, according to Strakosch, the production per hectare in 1910 was as follows:
|
AVERAGE FOR THE COUNTRY MTZ. |
LARGE-SCALE OPERATOR MTZ. |
|
|
Wheat .... Grain |
11.6 12.3 |
19.8 18.4 |
|
Barley |
10.2 |
22.7 |
|
Oats |
... 9.2 |
18.0 |
The superiority was accordingly great, even if one allows for the errors in computation.
In Germany the study commission for the preservation of the peasan- try, for small farms and farm labor, has undertaken investigations in the manner of Laur, upon the results of which Ehrenberg reports. The small establishment, he explains, delivers indeed more animal products on a similar area, and the gross proceeds of the same are in proportion to the area very much larger than those of the large producer; but not in proportion to the labor used and the total population. The small producer employs on a similar area more people than the large pro- ducer. In that fact consists the social significance of the small establish- ment and the small holding. But they cannot produce enough grain for the nourishment of the denser population of town and country.
0 Franz Schindler, Die Getreideprodufyion Qsterreich-Ungarns im HinUic\ auf Krieg und Volkserndhrung, 1916; Dr. Wilhelm Medinger, "Land Reform Plans in the Czecho- Slovakian State," Die osterreichische Volfytvirtschajt, 1920, Vol. XII, No. 33.
474 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
The more dense the population becomes, on the one hand, the more necessary, on the other hand, becomes the large estate and the large peasant production of grain. Southwestern Germany, although it has not for a long time had so many industries as the North, needs never- theless a considerable addition of grain, which only the North or foreign countries can deliver. The report of Ehrenberg reminds one of the result of Laur's investigation. In addition the statement that a greater money value in gross proceeds is on hand in the small farms of Germany is disputed by authorities.
At the meeting of the German Agricultural Society in February, 1919, Dr. Burg reported regarding the collecting of records in the Rhine province. Burg used 108 farms as the basis for study. He did not consider those of less than two hectares, since, according to his opinion, they failed to be self-supporting. He divided the farms into six classes: those from 2-5, 5-10, 10-20, 20-50, 50-100, and 100-250 ha. He is chiefly interested in determining the intensity of management, wherein he considered as a measure of intensity the money spent per hectare. By the amount of these expenditures he is able to establish a scale of in- tensity. On the other hand he is interested in the total income, which consisted of the cash income together with the value of the produce consumed in the home. I consider that the cash income is a net in- come and am strengthened in my opinion since Burg excludes the expenditures for cattle. The result of this comparison is that the high- est intensity as well as the largest total production took place on the farms of from 20 to 100 hectares. The greater intensity of the smaller producer, especially the farms of from two to five hectares is followed by no correspondingly high total production; the small farms are excelled in this respect by the large farms. This is even more true of the market production.
On the basis oÂŁ these results Burg points out with emphasis that the opinions defended on various sides, especially by Laur, to the effect that the production of raw material was greatest in small establish- ments and fell with the increase of larger producers, are especially not tenable in this generalization, at least not regarding the Rhine prov- ince. The experiences of Switzerland could not be applied to other regions with intensive agriculture. He could have added that the condi- tions in Germany were also in other respects different from those in Switzerland. In Switzerland the large peasant establishments are gen- erally located in mountainous regions; in Germany, however, large tracts of fertile ground find themselves, through the influence of trie former political conditions of power, in the hands of the large land- owners. Burg believes that conditions similar to those in the Rhine province prevail also in central and southern Germany. Perhaps few
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 475
changes would be shown by more extensive management. Burg as- sumes that further investigation will show the following to be the rule: The final gross production (money value of raw products per unit of land area) of the farm — similar conditions of production being taken for granted — is determined by the quality of the methods used and the intensity of expenditure (size, form, and most effective manner of application of capital and labor), not by the size of the farm. The greatest intensity results in the largest gross production. In view of the comparatively large number of men and working animals per unit of land area in the small establish- ments, the latter as a rule have a very large expenditure of capital and labor. On the other hand, the more efficient farm equipment and the better meth- ods (better general and professional training) are present in the larger peasant farms and the smaller estates. The better farm manager, with a smaller expenditure of capital and labor, is able to produce the same or a larger gross yield than the less capable operator with a larger expenditure. The high expenditure for capital and labor on the small farms and peasant establishments is often in a measure unproductive, since there the labor capacity of both men and animals is not utilized, due to the average ineffi- cient management. It is self-evident that fewer but more capable catde, more rational breeding, keeping, and feeding of the working animals guar- antees a similar or greater gross return than the thoughtless breeding, keep- ing, and feeding of a larger number of less capable working animals. Often excessive expenditure of capital for building in the small establishments raises the cost but not the gross receipts.
The cost of production, continues Burg, stands, as a rule, in a rela- tionship corresponding to the total expenditure. Over against the high total expenditure of the small farms, however, stands a high cost of production. Because of rational management large peasant farms and estates produce intensively under normal conditions with a smaller cost of production per unit of land and of goods produced. The farms with the largest yield of raw material show the highest market supply, and they themselves use comparatively little to support the enterpriser's family and employes in the shape of board, pensions, and rent. For this reason the small establishments cannot have the highest market supply, but rather the intensively operated large peasant farms and estates. As a rule the estates produce more largely plant products, the small farms more animal products. Intensive large-scale farming would be able to produce the same in animal products as the small farm but significantly more of plant produce. Burg brings his reflections to an end by stating that the increase of production which Germany so seri- ously needs cannot be reached through parcellation of the large estates. One must not destroy, but must develop the farms from a politico- economical point of view and along practical lines. There are neces- sary measures to be taken against the small farms in the same way as against the large estates, thus against the two extreme forms. Not force
476 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
but progressive measures themselves in the course of time can bring to pass the desired development in the most suitable form without de- stroying politico-economic values. Large estates and peasant farms complement each other. It is too bad that internal colonization (that is, parcellation of the estates in Germany) has become the fashion. "One might almost say that what is now being planned, especially by incom- petent parties, is in large part a gross nuisance." Hansen agrees with Burg in so far as he explains that large amounts of field products for the provisioning of other classes of people could be produced only by estates or large establishments. But he cannot prove his assertion in the same measure as Burg has done, on the basis of records.
From the economic standpoint, accordingly, we must stress the ques- tionability of the superiority of the small farm with reference to the raw materials, especially with reference to market production. From the data which we have discussed above, it seems to me rather to be shown with much more certainty that the large estates, with reference to market delivery, were remarkably superior to the small farms. Where this was not the case, as for example in the delivery of meat products in Germany, the cause lay in the insufficient profitability of keeping live stock. An improvement in the conditions of profitability would also have increased the market supply of animal products.
In the meantime the question is not open to discussion whether or not the large estate is in general always to be preferred to the small farm. Our landownership distribution is the product of a century of development. Internal displacements of this distribution are brought to completion very slowly. It is very true that at present the prevalent tendency is toward parcelling rather than toward concentrating areas of land. This division of large estates is done artificially in part, as was the case, for example, in East Prussia and in New Zealand. Even with this forceful development of internal colonization larger estates and peasant farms will still for a long time occupy a considera- ble share of the land area. Through this inner colonization only the proportion of the individual estates managed on a large scale could gradually be changed. Even there, moreover, where any influence of open force was lacking in the distribution of landownership, the in- crease of small farms at the cost of large estates and large landholders is in no way a result of agricultural technique, but exclusively and entirely of social conditions. It is the equal division by inheritance and the low investment return in agriculture, which does not allow the pay- ment of such high wages to the laborers as to cause the principal mo- tive of migration to fall away — it is these which menace the greater estate. I should consider a further division of estates in Austria and in large parts of Germany to be so much more dangerous because the
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 477
large establishments in no wise predominate. On the other hand, Aus- tria as well as Germany possesses a disproportionately large urban and industrial population. To supply it with the products of native agricul- ture seems even more imperative than before. We find ourselves in a condition similar to that which existed in England at the time of Arthur Young. In judging of the advantage and disadvantage of land distribution we must put the main emphasis upon market production, and this latter could be considerably increased by the guaranteeing of sufficient profitableness. Therefore I consider the efforts to diminish the possession of large estates to be exceedingly dangerous. The large estates should not be destroyed, but rather legally and economically so endowed that their technical possibilities may be utilized. But if the large estates and especially the large and medium-sized peasant farms are conserved, the labor question still remains. The problem could be solved by internal colonization only if one took the whole land area and completely divided it into small farms which could be worked by the farmer himself with his wife and children. Such farms would be small since, as we have seen, the full-grown children can no longer be kept on the farm. After all that has been said, even if the small pro- ducers should be permanently satisfied with their lot, in consideration of the unproductiveness of labor and the small market delivery, not disputed even by Laur, I would very much deplore this division of land into farms of less than five hectares.6
60. N. LENIN: CAPITALISM AND AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES*
INCREASE OF CAPITALISTIC ELEMENTS IN AMERICAN AGRICULTURE
It is customary to judge whether an agricultural enterprise is or is not capitalistic on the basis of the size of the farm, or, for a group of farmers, on the number and importance of the large farms. It is neces- sary to point out, however, that the size of the farm does not always indicate that the enterprise is really large and capitalistic in its nature.
Data concerning the amount of hired labor are unquestionably more significant for this purpose. Agricultural censuses of recent years (Aus- trian of 1902 and German of 1907, for example) show that the use of
*Kautsky is also of the opinion that, after the solution of the labor problem, the large establishment will come into its own and will become a very dangerous competitor of the medium-sized farm. On the other hand he sets forth the assertion that there is no remedy for the scarcity of labor ( Arbciternot] in the capitalistic social order. (Karl Kaut- sky, The Agrarian Question, 1899, pp. 228 ff.) Konig correctly emphasizes that the large English estates, with halfway tolerable prices, would produce more and be more profitable than the small farms.
* From N. Lenin, Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States, Vol. IX oÂŁ (Russ.), Moscow, 1925, pp. 198-202, 212-218, 245-251, 259-260.
478 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
hired labor in contemporary agriculture, and especially in small farm- ing, is considerably larger than was customarily believed. These facts invalidate the common opinion of the middle classes that small-scale agriculture is "laboring" agriculture.*
In American statistics there has been collected abundant material con- cerning this problem. In some questionnaires sent out to farmers there was a special question as to whether or not the farmers spent any money for hired laborers, and, if so, how much. The figures for 1900, which are somewhat better analyzed, will be considered later. Here we give the figures from the 1910 census, referring to the years 1899 and 1909.
|
DISTRICTS |
PERCENTAGE OF FARMS WITH HIRED LABOR |
PERCENTAGE OF INCREASE OF EXPENDITURE FOR HIRED LABOR FROM 1899 TO 1909 |
EXPENDITURE FOR HIRED LABOR CAL- CULATED PER ACRE OF CULTIVATED LAND (DOLLARS) |
|
1899 1909 |
|||
|
North South West U.SA. |
55.1 36.6 52.5 45.9 |
+ 70.8 + 87.1 +119.0 + 82.3 |
0.82 1.26 0.69 1.07 2.07 3.25 0.86 1.36 |
From these figures we may make the following conclusions. The capitalistic type of agriculture is most prevalent in the North, with 55.1 per cent of all farms using hired labor; the second place is occu- pied by the West with 52.5 per cent; and the third place by the South with 36.6 per cent. Such a result is to be expected because it is normal to find the percentage of farms utilizing hired labor higher in populous industrial districts than in pioneer belts or in regions in which share tenancy (croppers) prevails.
In the North and West, which include two-thirds of all the culti- vated land and two-thirds of all the cattle of the country, more than half the farmers are using hired labor. In the South the percentage em- ploying hired labor is lower only because a half-feudal exploitation of labor still exists in the form of cropper tenancy. The poorest farmers in America, as in other capitalistic countries, are obliged to sell their labor. However, American statistics do not give data that would enable us to depict this situation. German statistics, on the contrary, give all the data, analyzed very thoroughly. According to the German data, 1,940,867 of a total of 5,736,082 farm owners (including the very small- est owners), or more than 30 per cent, are but farm laborers if they are
* EDITORS' NOTE, — These censuses included among "the laborers'* helping members o£ the farmer or peasant family. If these are excluded from the laborers, Lenin*s state- ment loses its significance.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 479
classified according to their principal source of income. These farm laborers who also have their own piece of land are naturally among the lowest class of agriculturists.
In the United States small farms under three acres generally were not registered. If we suppose that only 10 per cent of all farmer-owners are selling their labor, we may assume that the number of farmers directly exploited by landlords and capitalists is greater than one-third of the total number of farmers (24 per cent of croppers who are ex- ploited in a feudal manner by previous slaveholders and 10 per cent exploited as hired laborers by the capitalists give a total of 34 per cent). This means that only a minority of the total number of farmers, one- fifth or one-fourth, neither hire labor nor are themselves hired. Such are the conditions in the country with a "perfect and advanced" type of capitalism, in the country with millions of acres of land given free of charge. As a result, the existence of a so-called "labor" or "non- capitalistic" small agriculture in the United States is but a myth.
What is the number of hired laborers in agriculture in the United States? Is their number steadily decreasing or increasing as compared with the total number of farmers or with the total number of the rural population? All these questions are not answered by American statistics. Let us try to find some approximate answers.
The census oÂŁ 1910 makes an attempt to throw light on the situation, to correct some errors, and to separate that part of the laborers who are working "out" from those who are working on the home farm. Ac- cording to the census data, the number of hired farm women not working on the home farm was 220,248 in 1900 and 337,522 in 1910, an increase of 53 per cent. The number oÂŁ male farm laborers was 2,299,444 in 1910. If we assume that the percentage relation of farm laborers to the total number of males engaged in agriculture was simi- lar in 1900 to what it was in 1910, the number of hired men in 1900 would have been approximately 1,798,165. In this case, we would ob- tain the results indicated in the following table.*
|
1900 |
PERCENTAGE 1910 OF INCREASE |
|
|
Number of farmers . Number of hired men . . Total number of people in agriculture |
5,674,875 . . , . 2,018,213 occupied 10,381,765 |
5,981,522 5 2,566,966 27 12,099,825 16 |
This shows that the percentage of increase of hired laborers from 1900 to 1910 was five times as great as the percentage of increase of
* EDITORS' NOTE. — How these figures in the text and in the table are obtained by the author and how they are to be reconciled with one another is not clear.
480 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
farmers. The proportion of farmers tn the total agricultural population decreased while the proportion of hired laborers increased. The pro- portion of independent owners decreased while the proportion of dependent and exploited increased.
In Germany in 1907, of a total of 15,000,000 people engaged in agri- culture, 4,500,000, or 30 per cent, were hired laborers.* According to the computations given above, in America of a total agricultural popu- lation of 12,000,000, 2,500,000, or 21 per cent, were hired laborers. It is possible that the existence of unoccupied land and the large percentage of share tenants results in some lowering of the total number of hired laborers in America.
In addition, the figures for the expenditures for the hired laborers in agriculture in 1899 and 1909 are significant. For the same period the number of hired laborers in industry increased from 4.7 millions to 6.6 millions, or 40 per cent. Their wages increased from 2.008 millions to 3.247 millions of dollars, or 70 per cent. (It is necessary to remember that this increase in wages is rather fictitious because there was also an increase in the cost of living.)
If the relationship between the increase of wages and the number of laborers in agriculture is the same as in industry, then with an 82 per cent increase in the expenditures for hired labor in agriculture between 1900 and 1910 we would have a 48 per cent increase in the number of hired laborers. And, assuming this relationship to be the same in agriculture as in industry, we secure the following estimates for the three regions of the United States.
PERCENTAGE OF INCREASE FROM 1900 TO 1910
|
DISTRICTS |
TOTAL RURAL POPULATION |
No. OF FARMS |
No. OF HIRFD MEN |
|
North |
3,9 |
0.6 |
40 |
|
South |
14.8 |
18.2 |
50 |
|
West |
49.7 |
53.7 |
66 |
|
U. S. A. |
11.2 |
10.9 |
48 |
These computations show that the increase in the number of owners for America as a whole was less than the increase in the total popula- tion, and that the increase in the number oÂŁ hired men was greater than the increase in the total rural population. In other words, the percentage of independent farmers was decreasing and the percentage of the dependent workers was increasing, a fact that shows again the progress of capitalism in American agriculture.
The conspicuous difference between the estimated increase in the number of hired laborers according to the two methods of computation
* EDITORS' NOTE. — See the note at the beginning of this paper.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 481
(27 per cent by the first and 48 per cent by the second) is easily ex- plained. In the first computation, only regular farm laborers were in- cluded, while in the second computation every case oÂŁ the employment of hired"' labor was included. In agriculture the use of hired labor for a shgrt time is of great significance. The division of the laborers into Jje*manent and temporary is not sufficient, but for a correct represen- tation of the facts the total expenditures for labor should really be given.
At any rate both computations show that in the United States the increase of capitalism in agriculture is accompanied by an increase in farm labor and that this increase is greater than the increase of either the total population engaged in agriculture or the number of farm owners.
DRIVING OUT OF SMALL BY LARGE FARMS (CONCENTRATION OF LAND)
Amount of land cultivated. — We have considered the principal forms of the development of capitalism in American agriculture and have seen that the ways of this development are many and various. The disintegration of the slave system (latifundia) in the South, the growth of large farm enterprises in the extensive regions of the North, and the rapid growth of capitalism in the smallest farms in the inten- sive region of the North are the principal types of capitalistic develop- ment in agriculture. The facts show that, according to the region, the growth of capitalism may manifest itself sometimes in an increase in the size of the farms, and sometimes in an increase in the total number of farms. For this reason the average size of the farms in the entire country does not give an adequate representation of the actual situa- tion.
What is the general result of various local agricultural peculiarities in this respect? Taking various factors into consideration, the general trend of the process in the United States is shown by the following data:
|
SIZE OF FARMS IN ACRES |
No. OF FARMS IN THOUSANDS |
No. OF FARMS IN PER CENT |
INCREASE OR DECREASE |
||
|
1900 |
1910 |
1900 |
1910 |
||
|
20 and under 20 to 49 |
674 1,258 1,366 1,423 868 103 47 |
839 1,415 1,438 1,516 978 125 50 |
11.7 21.9 23.8 24.8 15.1 1.8 0.8 |
13.2 22.2 22.6 23.8 15.4 2.0 0.8 |
+1.5 +0.3 —1.2 —1.0 +0.3 +0.2 |
|
50 to 99 |
|||||
|
100 to 174 175 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 and above , |
Total 5,738 6,361 100.0 100.0
482 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
The number of latifundia as compared with the total number of the farms remained the same. The changes in the relationship of the re- maining groups were characterized by the elimination of the middle groups and by the increase of the extreme groups. The middle groups, 59 to 99 and 100 to 174 acres, decreased. The greatest increase is found in the smallest farms and also in the large capitalistic enterprises (175- 999 acres).
The total amount of land in farms of various sizes is given in the next table. In the first place we notice here a considerable decrease in the proportion of the land occupied by latifundia. Let us remember that the absolute decrease of land is restricted by the South and the West, where the percentage of uncultivated land in the latifundia in 1910 was from 77.1 to 91.5 per cent.
|
TOTAL AMOUNT OF |
TOTAL AMOUNT OF |
||||
|
SIZE OF FARMS IN ACRES |
LAND IN THOUSANDS OF ACRES |
LAND IN PERCENTAGES |
INCREASE OR DECREASE |
||
|
1900 |
1910 |
1900 |
1910 |
||
|
20 and under . . |
7,181 |
8,794 |
0.9 |
1.0 |
+0.1 |
|
20 to 49 |
41,536 |
45,378 |
5.0 |
5.2 |
+0.2 |
|
50 to 99 |
98,592 |
103,121 |
11.8 |
11.7 |
—0.1 |
|
100 to 174 . . . |
192,680 |
205,481 |
23.0 |
23.4 |
+0.4 |
|
175 to 499 |
232,955 |
265,289 |
27.8 |
30.2 |
+2.4 |
|
500 to 999 |
67,864 |
83,653 |
8.1 |
9.5 |
+1.4 |
|
1,000 and above |
197,784 |
167,082 |
23.5 |
19.0 |
—4.6 |
|
Total . . . |
838,592 |
878,798 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
There is a very insignificant decrease in the proportion of the total land area in the upper of the small groups (0.1 per cent in the group from 50 to 99 acres). The greatest increase is seen in the large capi- talistic groups (from 175 to 499 and from 500 to 999 acres). The in- crease in the amount of land in the small farming groups is insignifi- cant. In the middle group (from 100 to 174 acres) there is practically no change (0.4 per cent).
The table on page 483 presents data concerning the amount of land cultivated.
With some exceptions the amount of land cultivated is the only adequate indicator of the size of the farm enterprise. We see that the proportion of cultivated land in latifundia increased in proportion to the total amount of the land cultivated in spite of the fact that the proportion of land in latifundia to the total amount of land decreased. All the capitalistic groups of enterprises increased, and most of all the
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 483
|
SIZE OF FARMS |
CULTIVATED FARM LAND IN THOUSAND |
PER CENT OF CULTI- VATED FARM LAND |
INCREASE OR |
||
|
IN ACRES |
OF ACRES |
DECREASE |
|||
|
<S~ |
1900 |
1910 |
1900 |
1910 |
|
|
f |
|||||
|
20^fid under . |
6,440 |
7,992 |
1.6 |
1.7 |
+0.1 |
|
Sff to 49 |
33,001 |
36,596 |
8.0 |
7.6 |
-0.1 |
|
50 to 99 |
67,345 |
71,155 |
16.2 |
14.9 |
—1.3 |
|
100 to 174 |
118,391 |
128,854 |
28.6 |
26.9 |
—1.7 |
|
175 to 499 |
135,530 |
161,775 |
32.7 |
33.8 |
+1.1 |
|
500 to 999 |
29,473 |
40,817 |
7.1 |
8.5 |
+1.4 |
|
1,000 and above |
24,317 |
31,263 |
5.9 |
6.5 |
+0.6 |
|
Total |
414,498 |
478,452 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
group from 500 to 999 acres. The middle groups showed the largest decrease (1.7 per cent). It was followed by the decrease of the smaller groups, with the exception of the smallest— 20 acres and under— which showed an insignificant increase (0.1 per cent).
The general results of the preceding analyses lead to an unquestion- able conclusion, namely: an increase of the large farms and a decrease of small farms. Or, in other words, as far as it is possible to judge about capitalistic and noncapitalistic elements in agriculture on the basis of the amount of land, the United States definitely showed a general growth of capitalistic enterprises at the expense of small farms during the decade studied.
Some additional evidence concerning the same phenomenon is given in the table on page 484, which shows an increase in the number of farms and an increase in the amount of land cultivated. These figures make the above conclusions still more certain.
The greatest increase in the amount of land cultivated is found in the last two largest groups. The smallest increase of the amount of land is found in the middle group and the small group that is next to it (from 50 to 99 acres). In the two small groups the percentage of increase in the land cultivated is smaller than the percentage of in- crease in the number of farms.
EXPROPRIATION OF THE SMALL LANDOWNERS
The problem of expropriation of the small landowners has great importance for a correct understanding of capitalism in agriculture. It is very typical of contemporary political economy and statistics, satu- rated as they are with bourgeois tendencies, that the above problems either have not been studied at all or have been studied carelessly.
Data for all capitalistic countries show an increase in the growth of
484 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
|
SIZE OF FARMS IN ACRES |
PERCENTAGE OF INCREASE, 1900-1910 |
|
|
No. of Farms |
Amount of Culti- vated Land |
|
|
20 and under |
24.5 |
24.1 |
|
20 to 49 . . |
12.5 |
10.9 |
|
50 to 99 |
5.3 |
5.7 |
|
100 to 174 . . |
6.6 |
8.8 |
|
175 to 499 |
12.7 |
19.4 |
|
500 to 999 |
22.2 |
38.5 |
|
1,000 and above . |
63 |
28.6 |
|
Total |
10.9 |
15.4 |
the urban population and a decrease in the growth of the rural popula- tion. There is a migration of people from the country to the city. In the United States this migration proceeds steadily. The percentage of the urban population has increased from 29.5 per cent in 1880 to 36.1 per cent in 1890, to 40.5 per cent in 1900, and to 46.3 per cent in 1910. The urban population has been increasing faster than the rural popula- tion in all parts of the country. From 1900 to 1910 the rural population of the industrial North increased by 3.9 and the urban by 29.8 per cent; in the South, where slavery previously existed, the rural popula- tion increased by 14.8 per cent and the urban by 41.4 per cent; in the western pioneer belts the rural population increased by 49.7 per cent, and the urban by 89.6 per cent.
Such an important problem should be studied carefully by the agri- cultural census. The main problem here is to discover which strata of the rural population migrate most intensively to the city, and under what conditions they migrate. The most detailed data, often about the most insignificant details of agricultural enterprise, are collected by the census. Hence it seems as if it should have been easy to include ques- tions concerning the number of farms sold or rented by people migrat- ing to the city, how many members of the family leave the farms, and whether they leave permanently or temporarily. Yet such questions have not been included, and thus the corresponding data are usually lacking in agricultural censuses. Census investigators do not go back of such routine information as: "The rural population decreased from 59.5 to 53.7 per cent between 1900 and 1910."
The investigators apparently do not suspect what enormous misery, exploitation, and ruin is hidden behind these figures. And the bour- geois or semi-bourgeois economists do not even want to notice the direct connection between the migration of the population from the country to the city and the ruin of the small farmers.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 485
In order to clarify this problem there is but one way. We must try to put together the scanty figures of the 1910 census concerning the expropriation of small farm owners.
We have figures as to the type of ownership of the farms; the num-
ber/of owners, divided into those who own the entire farm and those
«who own only a part of it; and, further, the share and cash tenants.
These data are given by regions but are not distributed according to
the classes of farm enterprises.
The figures for 1900 and 1910 give the following distribution: total farm population increased by 11.2 per cent; the number of farms in- creased by 10.9 per cent; the number of all owners increased by 8.1 per cent; the number of owners of the entire farm increased by 4.8 per cent.
These data indicate very clearly the increasing expropriation of the small agriculturist. The rural population grew more slowly than the urban. The number of farmers increased less than the total rural population; the number of farm owners increased less than the num- ber of farmers; and the number of owners of the entire farm increased less than the number of farm owners in general.
The percentage of farm owners among the total number of farmers has decreased steadily during the last decades. This is shown by the following figures:
YEAR PERCENTAGE
1880 . . . 74.0
1890 .... . 71.6
1900 . 647
1910, . . 63.0
The percentage of tenants has been correspondingly increasing, the number of share tenants increasing more rapidly than the number of cash tenants. The percentage of share tenants among all tenants was 17.5 in 1880, 18.4 in 1890, 22.2 in 1900, and 24.0 in 1910.
That this decrease in the number of farm owners and increase in the number of tenants meant a progressive ruin of the small farmers is evidenced also by the following figures:
PERCENTAGE OF FARMS WITH
|
TYPES OF FARMS |
Cattle |
Horses |
|
1900 1910 |
1900 1910 |
|
|
Owner |
. . , . 96.7 96.1 |
85.1 81.5 |
|
Tenants |
94.2 92,9 |
67.9 60.7 |
486 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
The owners, according to the data, are economically better off than the tenants, and the lowering standard of the tenants declines more rapidly than that of the owners.
The capitalistic tendency toward the expropriation of the small agri- culturist has been going on so intensively in the northern region of America that the number of farm owners there has been decreasing, in spite of the fact that tens of millions of acres of free land have been given away.
Two factors still counteract this tendency in the United States: first, the presence of undivided plantations in the South with their sup- pressed and exploited Negro population; and, second, the sparse popu- lation in the West. It is evident, however, that these two factors are at the same time the source for the future growth of capitalism and the basis for its further and faster development. The social antagonism be- tween the large- and small-scale farming, and the elimination of the latter by the former, are not permanently avoided, but merely post- poned. The capitalistic conflagration is only "slowed up" at the price of the preparation of a new, much larger, and more inflammatory fuel.
The increase of the expropriation of small farmers is also shown by the number of mortgages on the farms.
PERCENTAGE OF FARMS MORTGAGED DISTRICTS -
1890 1900 1910
|
North |
40.3 |
40.9 |
41.9 |
|
South |
5.7 |
17.2 |
23.5 |
|
West |
23.1 |
21.7 |
28.6 |
|
U.S.A. |
28.2 |
31.0 |
33.6 |
The percentage of mortgaged farms has been steadily increasing in all parts of the country, and it has been the highest in the populous and industrialized capitalistic North. American statisticians point out that the increase in the number oÂŁ mortgaged farms in the South can prob- ably be explained by the disintegration of the plantations, which are being divided into lots and sold to Negroes or to white farmers. Only part of the value is paid in cash, the remaining part being settled with a mortgage. Therefore, we see a peculiar transaction of selling, due to the slavery system of the South. In 1910 Negroes in the United States owned only 920,883 farms, or 14.5 per cent of the total number. During the period from 1900 to 1910 the number of farms owned by the white people increased by 9.5 per cent, and the number owned by Negroes increased by 19.6 per cent, or twice as much. The desire of the Negroes to be freed from the planters is still very conspicuous, notwithstanding
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 487
the fact that half a century has passed since the time of "victory" over the slave masters.
A mortgage on a farm does not necessarily indicate poverty and need,,ds is indicated correctly by American statisticians. It is sometimes buj/a means for obtaining money or capital for melioration and so on. iiowever, this remark should not hide the fact that only a small pro- portion of comparatively wealthy people are able to obtain money for melioration and other improvements in the way indicated. The greater majority, on the contrary, become still more impoverished and become a victim of capital in its new form.
The dependence of the farmers upon financial capital could and should attract more attention from investigators. This side of the prob- lem, however, notwithstanding its importance, is still at the present time completely overlooked.
The increase in the number of farms mortgaged is an indication of the transition of control into the hands of the capitalists. Of course it is understood that, outside of the farms that are mortgaged officially through the notary public, there are many farms which are heavily mortgaged to private people and therefore are not included in the census as mortgaged farms.
SUMMARY AND RESULTS
The general laws of the development of capitalism in agriculture and the diversity of form among them may be studied very conveni- ently by using the United States as an illustration. The above-men- tioned study leads to conclusions that may be summarized briefly as follows:
Manual labor is more predominant in agriculture than in industry. Machinery, however, is steadily progressing, gradually improving the technique of the enterprise and making it more and more capitalistic. If machinery is employed in agriculture at the present time its use is only in capitalistic enterprises.
The principal indication of capitalism in agriculture is the use of hired labor. The use of machinery has increased considerably in all parts of the country, as well as in different branches of agriculture. The use of hired labor has increased with the increase in the use of ma- chinery. The increase in the number of hired laborers is more rapid than the increase of both the rural and the total population of the country. The number of farmers is increasing more slowly than the total rural population. Class distinctions become more prominent and conflicting.
The small enterprises in agriculture are decreasing and large enter- prises are being substituted for them. A comparison of the figures for
488 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
1900 and 1910 shows this tendency quite clearly. The real significance of the decrease has not been shown by American investigators, how- ever, since in the study of 1910 they were satisfied by classifying enter- prises on the basis of the amount of land alone. With the increase in the intensity of agriculture the amplification and undermining men- tioned above become more conspicuous.
The growth of capitalism is manifest not only in the development of large enterprises in the districts with extensive agriculture, but also in the creation of larger enterprises, which produce more, in the dis- tricts with intensive agriculture. As a result of the concentration of pro- duction in the large enterprises., the elimination of small enterprises is going on faster and deeper than is indicated in figures concerning the amount of land alone. The figures of the census of 1900, which are bet- ter elaborated and more scientific, leave no doubt as to the above con- clusions.
The expropriation of small agriculture is steadily advancing. The percentage of owners as compared with the total number of farmers has been steadily decreasing during the last ten years. The percentage of the latter as compared with the total increase of population is also smaller. The number of farmers is decreasing even in the North, which is the main district for agricultural production. And in the North we do not find either traces of slavery or pioneer conditions. The percentage of farmers who own cattle has decreased during the last decade. As contrasted with the increase in the percentage of farm- ers who own dairy farms and cattle, the percentage of farmers who own horses has decreased. This latter decrease is larger than the in- crease of the first group and is found mainly among the small farmers.
In general the comparison of corresponding figures in agriculture and industry for the same period of time indicate that, though the former is still at a very primitive stage of development, the laws that control both agriculture and industry are identical, the principal tend- ency in both being toward the substitution of large enterprises for small ones.
61. J. SCHAFIR: CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGRARIAN PROGRAM OF THE SOCIALIST PARTIES OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL*
NEW SOCIALIST AGRARIAN PROGRAMS
The years following the [World] War were characterized in a number of countries by a fundamental change in the point of view of
* From J. Schafir, "Zur Characteristik der Agrarprogramme der Parteien der Zweiten Internationale," Agrar-Ptobleme, Berlin, 1928, Band I, Heft 4, 617-639. Translated and printed with permission of the publisher (Paul Parey),
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 489
the social democratic parties concerning the role and significance of the peasantry and the general trend of agriculture. Many of the most important parties belonging to the Second International formulated agrarian programs. In 1925 the Austrian Social Democratic party de- veloped and adopted an agrarian program which has served many Bother social democratic parties as a model. In 1925 the agrarian pro- gram of the English Labor party was adopted, and in 1927 the Con- gress of the German Social Democratic party in Kiel adopted its agrarian program, which differs only in minor details from that of the Austrian Social Democrats. In the same year the French Socialist party drafted the sketch of a general program whose essential part consisted of a special agrarian program. At approximately the same time the agrarian program of the Czechoslovakian Social Democratic party was worked out.
In these new agrarian programs of the social democratic parties there remains little of Marxism. More than that, the agrarian programs of many parties of the Second International are bare even of Marxian phraseology.
Let us review in a few words the former general attitude of the social democrats toward agrarian programs. It was as follows. Every agrarian program of a party of the labor class had to aim primarily at a specified objective: the deepening and strengthening of the class war between the proletarian and the bourgeoisie, of the rural labor- ing class against the middle class and feudalistic elements in the village. Only in so far as the demands of the program met this funda- mental objective were they acceptable to the party of the proletariat. The class war constituted the highest criterion for an evaluation of the program. For this reason the orthodox Marxian of former times op- posed a revisionistic attempt to produce a program whose object was the "protection of the farming interests" or the "betterment of rural culture," etc. The orthodox Marxians pointed out that by such a gen- eral formulation the class character of the socialist movement would be destroyed; that such general objectives as "the raising of culture," "protection of farming interests," lacked the class distinction, and that these objectives always served as a cloak for favoring the promotion of capitalistic principles in the village. Out of just such considerations the German Social Democrats in their time repudiated the revisionistic agrarian programs of David, Vollmar, Schonlank, and others. This criterion for the evaluation of socialist agrarian programs was gener- ally accepted by orthodox Marxians.
At present the general trends of the new socialist agrarian programs are diametrically opposed to the old usage of the orthodox Marxians. The Austrian socialist agrarian program begins with the following
490 SOURCE BOOK IN KURAL SOCIOLOGY
words : "Increase of the productivity of agricultural labor is one of the most important presuppositions in bettering the economic conditions of the masses in the country as well as in the city."1
Still more clearly formulated is the general preface to the agrarian program of the English Labor party. In the program adopted in 1925 it is stated:
The soil is the foundation of life. The most complete and practical utili- zation of the soil is therefore a question of the greatest importance as well for the city as for the rural community. Until now the soil (and the major agricultural industries that depend on it) has not returned the material income nor the far-reaching social results that the nation has a right to expect from it. The village suffers until the present day under the anti- quated soil cultivation and the inefficient methods whose junction is to hasten the creation of its prosperity. The nation can decidedly no longer be satisfied with the present condition of things. We must check the descent, which has made itself noticeable in the last fifty years, and through a strong constructive policy achieve a three-fold ideal: "Better soil cultivation; better management; better conditions of life." The labor movement stands for the ownership in general of the soil and a reorganization of agriculture for the community welfare. It is not satisfied with the continued misuse of the soil, or the present living conditions of the agricultural laborer. The object of its policy is to transform agriculture into a blooming industry and the vil- lage into a village society which enjoys all the benefits and luxuries to which all the citizens are morally entitled.2
The German Social Democratic agrarian program repeats, in spite of the present Marxian phraseology, essentially the same general suspen- sion of the above-quoted program. The question which concerns us is confirmed by the following quotation from the German agrarian pro- gram:
The increase in the productiveness of manual labor through the con- stantly increasing application of science and technique is the mutual con- cern of the laboring class in city and country. . . . The capitalistic laws of exchange regulate the technical and organizational progress of agricultural production in a much more limited measure than in the industrial pursuits. Therefore the well-known influence of society and its organs must displace the influence of the market laws upon the increase and intensification of agricultural production.8
In all mentioned programs the fundamental criterion consists of the "increasing of productiveness and of agricultural labor." The "increas- ing of productiveness" is the interest of "the entire nation," oÂŁ "the
1 Das Agrarprogramm der deutschosterrcicheischcn Sozialdcmokratic, Wicn, 1925.
2 Report of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Conference of the Labor Party, London, 1926, p. 336.
8 SoziaUcmokrarischer Partfttag, 1927. tn Kiel, Berlin, 1927, p. 273.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 491
entire society," and all its organs (the German program), or again of "the masses," as it is called by the Austrian Social Democracy.
This general position stands in sharpest contrast to what the ortho- dox Marxians have said and written on this question for many years. Already in such a general formulation one must recognize a radical revision of the fundamental position of the social democracy on the agrarian question. Indeed, an increase in the productiveness of labor may be the general aim of all classes and all parties. In so far as the social democracy now regards the question from this viewpoint, it em- phasizes from the beginning the thought that the solving of the agrarian question is dependent not upon class war and its outcome, but upon the raising of the general level of culture in the village by all possible agronomic and technical measures or by reforms acceptable to the majority of the bourgeois parties.
This general position of the new agrarian programs receives a fur- ther development in the formulation of the principles. As is known, one of the most important questions in the field that concerns us is the problem of large- and small-scale husbandry, its role and significance for agriculture. With reference to the most important of these ques- tions the new agrarian programs repudiate completely the old view- point of the Marxians and locate themselves decidedly on the side of the revisionists.
THE QUESTION OF CONCENTRATION IN AGRICULTURE
Until recently the orthodox Marxians had decided views concerning concentration in agriculture. They were of the opinion that agriculture must gradually be subjected to the general industrializing and concen- tration process. The small husbandmen, in one way or another, gradu- ally had to come under the control of the bank and business capital; their role and importance in the entire political economy, measured by the large producers, had to dimmish. The great agricultural enter- prises, organized on capitalistic principles, were bound to displace more and more the countrified, technically backward, small and medium- sized farming enterprises. This general concentration process in agri- culture must lead to a sharp differentiation in the village — within the peasant class — and to an intensification of the class war.
Such a war between the strata of landowners and nonowners in the village was bound to increase. It could be brought to a close only after a socialistic revolution and after the grasping of power by the laboring class. Such was the standpoint of the orthodox Marxians, and such it is of the present Communists*
The revisionists, on the other hand, generally assumed that in agri- culture no concentration was taking place; that small-scale farming
492 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
was not backward compared with large-scale farming; that in many cases the former was even superior. The standpoint of the revisionists until recently was not -officially accepted by the social democracy. We now possess a complete, unequivocal declaration of an opposite nature. Fritz Baade, reporter for agrarian questions at the Kiel Social Demo- cratic Congress, declares that in the dispute between Kautsky and David in matters pertaining to small and large farm enterprises, right was completely on the side of David. He refers to the figures of Ger- man statistics, which ostensibly prove that the small enterprises are in- creasing, while the number of large estates is decreasing.
Likewise Otto Bauer, in his report at the Vienna Socialist Congress, expresses the thought that the concentration process has no permanent place in agriculture. With reference to the same he says as follows:
Marxian socialism has taught us a different method. It has taught us ... that the new society will be prepared through the objective development of capitalism itself; that we have to socialize only that which, through the great process of concentration of capital within the capitalistic social order, and under the command of the capitalists themselves, is already socialized. We have only to break the capitalistic shell of such a society by the anni- hilation of private property in order to pass from a capitalistic to a so- cialistic organization of society. Indeed, this is true for industry, for whole- saling, for the banking system, but not for the domain of agricultural economy. In agriculture such a process of labor socialization does not take place within the capitalistic social order. It would be a relapse into Utopian socialism if we were to assume that society could be socialized with a simple powerful stroke where such a stroke is opposed not to a capitalistically con- centrated exploitation of property but to individual property of numberless peasants, among whom property and labor, means of production and pro- ducer, have not been separated through the process of economic develop- ment. In opposition to this, today, when we (Marxians) understand the developing trends of agriculture to be entirely different from what we un- derstood them to be in the nineties, we (Marxians) must .look at the prob- lem in quite a different light.4
In a similar way Fritz Baade, the reporter on the agrarian program of the German Social Democrats, says:
Even in early times the criticism was raised within the socialistic move- ment against the too literal application of the laws of industrial develop- ment to agriculture. It was known that the agricultural pursuit, through its being bound to the soil, could never, through a combination of all pro- ductive powers in a single place, attain to a similar superiority of mass production as in industry. It was known further that in agriculture the smaller establishment, especially in the form of peasant family production, had certain advantages over large-scale establishments and that the advan- tages of a large-scale production, such as the use of machinery and the
4 Protocol! des Sozialdemokratischen Parteitages, Wien, 1925, pp. 308-309.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 493
application of recent scientific improvements in the field of artificial fer- tilizing, animal husbandry, feeding, and cultivation oÂŁ plants, are also largely applicable to the peasant enterprise.5
In continuation, Baade gives statistics from the census of 1925 con- cerning the composition of the present German village, with reference to the division of establishments according to their size, and compares them with the statistics for 1907,* from which he arrives at the follow- ing conclusion:
With these statistics at hand, there can no longer be any doubt that a de- velopment of large grain-producing farms, and a replacement of the peasant enterprise by the large enterprises in agriculture, at least for those decades in which we now live, is entirely out of the question; the develop- ment going on in agriculture is very different from that in industry.
Thus Baade accepts the anti-Marxian viewpoint of those who are of the opinion that in agriculture a tendency toward concentration is lacking; that there the small enterprise is superior to the large enter- prise. Baade develops his "socialistic" perspective even so far as to rec- ommend a parcelling out of the large estates and the creation and mul- tiplication of peasant family farms. This is simply a complete return to David. The old revisionistic theories of David are completely re- stored.
It is hardly to be believed that at present, in the epoch of monopo- listic capitalism, in the age of powerful trusts and gigantic mergers, people who call themselves Marxians can express such platitudes as this, that the small, peasant farms can technically be compared with the capitalistically equipped large-scale producing estates.
Even the greatest nonsocialist authorities, such as Laur, Hainisch, and others regard the technical superiority of large-scale farming, con- trasted with small-scale production, to be indisputable. The small farm has to sustain comparatively enormous building costs. The small farms can use agricultural implements only in a limited way, and in addition the machines used by them are technically inferior to those employed on the large estates. Many machines (as, for example, the steam-plow, milking machines, and others) can find use only in large establish- ments. In the realm of grain and hay production a peasant farm of less than ten hectares can use very little machinery. Only farms of more than ten hectares can use machinery to a comparatively large extent, but the use of such in small establishments will cost much more than in the large establishments. The latter liquidate the cost of the machinery more quickly, while the small" establishments are compelled to pay interest on the machinery much longer. This condition explains
*F. Baade, Sozialdemokmtischc A$rarpoUtit(f Berlin, 1927, p, 4,
* EDITORS' NOTE. — These data arc given in the introduction to this chapter.
494 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
the fact that in agricultural large-scale production the machine invest- ment on a hectare basis is much less than in small-scale production.
The above-mentioned Hainisch, in his book The Flight from the Land analyzes in a very detailed manner all positive and negative aspects of large- and small-scale production in agriculture. He studies this question very thoroughly from the technical and socio-economic standpoints. As a result he comes to the following conclusion 6 :
After all the investigations I feel myself justified in considering the good interest and profit of the small farm to be a fable that could originate only because neither the products of the soil that were used in the household nor the value of the services rendered by the family in producing the same were included in the reckoning. The peasant farms are not investments of capital, but places of labor, on which the owner can hope to exist only through industry and frugality.*
Hainisch sees this question from the point of view of the large pro- ducer, and it is not to his interest to formulate the truth clearly re- garding the condition of the small producer. All the more notable, therefore, is the fact that he is compelled to substantiate the almost complete hopelessness of the small-scale farmer. His words with ref- erence to "industry and economy" are simply a confirmation of the old assertion of the Marxians that the small peasant establishment exists only at the cost of an unheard-of exploitation of the members of the family (including the children), the labor performed by them, and their undernourishment.
Since the social democrats rely upon statistics for proof of the as- sumption that at present there is no concentration of land into larger and larger estates in different countries, we will make a hasty examina- tion of the statistics referring to the countries in which we are inter- ested. According to the statistical compilation Les questions agricoles au point de vue international (The Agricultural Question from an International Point of View)^ the distribution of agricultural enter- prises in France according to their area in 1892 was as follows 7 :
SIZE OF FARMS PERCENTAGE OF PERCENTAGE OF
IN HECTARES TOTAL NUMBER TOTAL AREA
0-10 -. 85.2 25.5
10-40 12.4 29.0
40-100
1.8) 0.6 J
100 and over 0.6 r 45'5
aM. Hainisch, Die Landflucht, Jena, 1924, p. 149.
* EDITORS' NOTE* — See Dr. Hainisch's real conclusions in his paper given in this chapter.
7 Documentation retinie, L'usage de la Conference ficonomiqtte Internationale de Geneve, Rome, 1927, pp. 344-346.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 495
It is interesting to compare the last French statistics of 1908, which are given in the following table, with this statement.
|
SIZE OF FARMS |
PERCENTAGE OF PERCENTAGE OF |
|
IN HECTARES |
TOTAL NUMBER TOTAL AREA |
|
0-10 |
83.9 25.6 |
|
10-40 |
. . 13.6 29.6 |
|
40-100 . |
2.0) |
|
100 and over . . . |
0.5} 44'8 |
We see hereby that in these sixteen years the changes taking place with reference to ownership are insignificant. The farms of more than 40 hectares composed 2.4 per cent of the total in 1892 and 2.5 per cent in 1908. On the other hand, the area of these farms, even though insig- nificant, has increased from 22,493,393 to 22,500,000 hectares. In other words, the more or less large farms have in general retained the pre- vious extent of their area/* According to the figures of the census for 1920, however, it is to be accepted that the number of the laborers em- ployed on the large farms has considerably increased.8 During these years agriculture in France has been markedly industrialized. Even if we judge only on the basis of the division of the ground area, we ar- rive at the following conclusion f : that a substantial portion of the soil was concentrated in the hands of a very few owners. Over 32.4 per cent of the total area of agricultural land was controlled by 0.5 per cent of the owners, while 83.9 per cent of all farm owners control only 25.6 per cent of the total acreage.
In England the division of the land shows a similar picture as to the stability of the large enterprises with reference to their land area. There the farms of less than 8 and more than 61 hectares have lost in land, while the farms of from 0.4 to 2 hectares have lost a little more than the farms of more than 121 hectares; on the other hand, the farms from 8 to 61 hectares have gained a little land. Therefore, on the basis of the above statistics, we cannot speak of a deconcentration of land hold- ings. (See table on following page.)
* EDITORS' NOTE. — From the table given by the author the reader can see that he interprets it one-sidedly. The area included in the larger estates (40 and more hectares) did not increase proportionately but was less in 1908 than it was in 1892, The area included in small farms (0-10 and 10-40 hectares) increased. The number and per- centage of the large estates (100 hectares and over) also decreased, from 33,000 to 29,000, or from 0.6 to 0,5 per cent of all establishments, This remark is to be kept in mind with regard to the author's figures and interpretations that follow.
*ttudes spt'daks (population active ds 77 diparicmtnts)t 1906-1921, j>, 71.
f EDITORS' NOTE, — It is evident that this argument does not prove the author's con- tention at all. Uneven distribution of land has always existed. In order to prove a trend toward concentration the author should have shown that the degree of concentration at a later period was greater than before — which he did not show. This remark is to be applied to subsequent similar data and conclusions of the author,
496
SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF AGRICULTURAL ESTABLISHMENTS IN ENGLAND ACCORDING TO AREA*
|
SIZE OF FARMS IN HECTARES |
PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL NUMBER |
INCREASE ( + ) AND DECREASE ( — ) OF No. OF FARMS |
TOTAL AREA |
INCREASE (+)AND DECREASE (— )OF AREA |
||||
|
1924 |
1921 |
1913 |
1913-1924 |
1913-1921 |
1921 |
1913 |
1913-1921 |
|
|
0.4-2 |
18.8 |
19.3 |
21.2 |
— 16.7 |
— 12.0 |
1.0 |
1.1 |
— 11.2 |
|
2-8 |
27.4 |
27.8 |
28.0 |
— 8.3 |
— 4.5 |
5.0 |
5.1 |
— 4.6 |
|
8-20 |
19.4 |
19.3 |
17.9 |
+ 1-9 |
+ 3.8 |
10.4 |
9.7 |
+ 3.7 |
|
20-40 |
14.8 |
14.5 |
13.6 |
+ 2.5 |
+ 2.9 |
17.0 |
15.9 |
+ 2.7 |
|
40-61 |
7.8 |
7.6 |
7.3 |
+ 0.3 |
+ 0.6 |
15.1 |
14.5 |
+ 0.3 |
|
61-121 |
8.7 |
8.5 |
8.6 |
— 5.6 |
— 4.7 |
28.6 |
28.9 |
— 4.7 |
|
Over 121 |
3.1 |
3.0 |
3.4 |
—11.4 |
—10.8 |
22.9 |
24.8 |
— 11.1 |
|
Total |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
— 6.0 |
— 3.6 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
— 3.6 |
When we turn to the size of these holdings we see that in 1921 19.1 per cent of farms (with more than 40 hectares) includes 66.6 per cent of the total area of agricultural land, i.e., by far the largest part of the land. The peculiarity of the English land-tenure system consists in the fact that the owners rent out the land and do not cultivate it themselves.
In Germany, according to figures from the census of 1925, farms with more than 20 hectares composed 4.3 per cent of the total number. In the hands of this small group is concentrated 46.6 per cent of the land area.
SIZE OF FARMS IN HECTARES
PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL NUMBER
PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL AREA
Under 2 . 2-5 . .. 5-20 . . 20-100 Over 100
59.5
17.5
18.7
3.9
0.4
6.2 11.4 35.8 26.4 20.2
Present Austria has back of it a "reform" of the laws of land recla- mation. Besides, with the exception of the Burgenlandes, none of the present Austrian provinces were typical agricultural regions. Neverthe- less, the figures for the distribution of land possession show here also the concentration of a substantial part of the agricultural land area in
* Les questions agricoles au point de vue International, pp. 348-349.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 497
the hands of the large landholders. On the basis of the figures for 1902 (for Austria these are the latest statistics) the area of agricultural land of the provinces that compose present Austria were divided in the following ways: 103 per cent of all farms consisted of less than l/2 hec- tare; 41.6 per cent of from l/2 to 5 hectares; 44.1 per cent from 5 to 50 hectares; 2.7 per cent from 50 to 200 hectares; 0.6 per cent over 200 hectares; and 445 estates of more than 1,000 hectares. We present below the detailed figures with reference to the division of agricultural land in the individual provinces by the various groups of owners.
PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF FARMS OF VARIOUS SIZES IN THE INDIVIDUAL AUSTRIAN PROVINCES
|
HECTARES |
|||||
|
PROVINCE |
Under 2 |
2-5 |
5-20 |
20-100 |
Over 100 |
|
Niederb'streich |
, 38.5 |
17.9 |
31.1 |
11.9 |
0.6 |
|
Oberostreich |
. . . 31.5 |
11.9 |
31.2 |
19.0 |
0.9 |
|
Salzburg . . . Steiermark |
22.5 ., 26.0 |
14.2 23.7 |
36.0 33.8 |
22.0 15.1 |
4,4 1.4 |
|
Karnten Tirol |
. . 21.9 24.3 |
16.9 25.8 |
32.7 34.3 |
25.2 12.7 |
3.3 2.9 |
|
Vorarlberg . . . |
. . 42.0 |
26.2 |
25.6 |
4.4 |
1.8 |
These figures prove that, in spite of the assertion of the revisionists that there is a tendency toward gradual splitting up of large land- holdings, they continue to concentrate within their limits a consid- erable portion of the agricultural land area.
As we have, however, already pointed out, these statistics are doubt- less not sufficient for deriving definite conclusions, and at any rate are entirely unsuitable for conclusions in the meaning of the revisionists.
The figures relating to the number of farms in the various categories and to the division of land into the different branches of agriculture can in no case decide the interesting question for us. It is not sufficient in the question of the developing trends in agriculture to determine definitely how many small, large, and medium-sized farms were in operation during 18954907 and in 1925. In addition, the specific weight of various economic classes in the different years must definitely be established, as well as the role that this or that farming class plays in supplying the city and the trade with agricultural products.
In the same way it is necessary to ascertain the amount of indebted- ness of various farming groups; in other words, to establish clearly the degree to which "independent" farmers are dependent upon the banks.
498 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
If we approach the question from this angle, we find that the large producers, all in all, increase their specific weight in the general and agricultural economy. It is precisely the large producers who, being in close contact with the banks, regulate at present the market for agri- cultural products. It is their role to decide all administrative questions relating to the village. Even in districts where the small peasant farm predominates, the maintenance of the .small towns is accomplished principally through the large estates and not through the small farms. Furthermore, the presence of an increasingly sharply defined tendency toward consolidation, toward pooling of agriculture, must lead to the creation of those forms of concentration that have already existed for a long time in industry.*
On October 31st, 1926, there already existed in Germany 84 agricul- tural and forestry joint-stock companies with a capital of 72 million marks. Eleven of these companies, with a capital of 27 million marks, were formed into combines.
Just in the last years the organization of pools in agriculture has begun to grow very rapidly. Here in the first instance we must men- tion the wheat pool in Canada. In 1925-1926 this pool disposed of 187,247,886 bushels of wheat and in 1926 it owned more than 4,000 ele- vators. This tremendous organization practically concentrated in its hands the most important products of agriculture in Canada. In the same way there exists in Australia an organized wheat ring, patterned after the Canadian pool, which embraces four Australian states that export wheat.
In Poland the effort to organize a cooperative syndicate to export wheat has made substantial progress in the last few years. A number of local syndicates decided to merge for this purpose. In the same way the Central Board of Control of the agricultural organizations takes part in the creation of this organization.
In Italy a company with a capital of 60 million marks was organized to stabilize the grain market. The Italian government has an interest in this company to the extent of 20 million marks.
In Germany in 1925 a grain-handling company was organized with a capital of 40 million marks. Very recently all German papers brought the news of the purchase of a stock majority of two large grain- handling companies by two banks. The communication with reference to the above is as follows 9 :
* EDITORS' NOTE. — Here the author undiscriminatingly groups the state and co- operative organizations of the farmer-peasants with private organizations. The growth of the former does not mean the alleged capitalist concentration of the control of agri- culture.
9 From Fritz Steding, Die Kartelherung in der Landwirtschajt, Berlin, 1928.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 499
For some time there has been floating about in the circles of the Prussian Central Cooperative Bank and of the German Land Bank (RentenbanJ^- Kreditanstalt) a discussion about the following question: in order to estab- lish the regulation of the grain market and especially to reduce the harmful variations in the price of grain, both for agriculture and for consumption,, is it possible in association with the cooperative agricultural implement as- sociations to reach an effective regulation of the selling of grain ? These dis- cussions have now been brought to a close, but have led to an understand- ing of the desirability of such regulation by the above institutions in coop- eration with the Kom missions A. G., which it is well known owns the stock of the German Milling Association. The two interested parties, who have decided to work harmoniously, among other things will also give the consumers an opportunity to participate. The banks that have, until the present, been leading in the grain industry, and Kommissions A. G. in par- ticular, have taken over the financing both of the commercial business and the associated mills. They will act as a credit association for the society, will be at its service in the future, and also will be on the board of directors of the grain industry and the Kommissions A. G.30
This signifies that the new combination has set as its goal to rule the entire grain market, as it will keep in hand not only the grain imports but also the mills and the trade organizations. In general the new con- cern will be essentially a monopoly and will regulate the sale of grain and the manufacture of grain products. Furthermore, it is anticipated that several chemical trusts, such as the potash and nitrogen trusts, will be united with this powerful concern. The agrarian press already boasts and declares that Germany now has a competitor for the Canadian wheat ring. The new combination is so strong that it can, in the name of the entire German grain market, control the whole situation be- cause the independent grain associations and mills remaining outside of the combination have not the necessary weight to affect the move- ment of prices in any way.
All this proves that in the field of agriculture a definite course of agrarian industrialization is being pursued toward the creation of the same mighty capitalistic consolidations as in industry. Financial capital demands of agriculture, when investing its means, a rationalization and a determined policy of logical industrialization. Agriculture shows in recent years a tendency in the direction of a remarkable concen- tration and subordination of the remaining enterprises to the hegem- ony of the capitalistically organized concerns.
Under these circumstances, to spread the theory that the small farm is stronger than the large producer in agriculture signifies the creation of intentional illusions, leading astray the large masses of laboring peo- ple, as is done indeed by the agrarian programs of the parties of the Second International
10 German daily paper of July 10, 1928*
500 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
CONCLUSION
The agrarian programs of the social democratic parties orient them- selves for the most part along the interests of the prosperous classes of the village. In their tax policy the social democrats especially empha- size that it is necessary to conform their program to the interests of the powerful peasants. The system of taxation shall be so built up that "the transfer of the soil to the best cultivator" shall be furthered. This policy stands in the closest relation to the policy of rationalization and inten- sification of agriculture. Whoever takes the standpoint of capitalistic rationalizing must ally himself with the , interests of the well-to-do farmer. The policy of the social democrats is in direct opposition to the interests of the small- and medium-scale farmer.
Hereto must be added that in the same way as the agrarian reforms which were carried through in a number of European countries in recent years followed the object of preventing the development of a revolution among the peasants, so also the social democratic program is being pursued with the same object in view: to check the dissatisfac- tion in the villages through small reforms, to increase the numbers of the followers of the present order, and in this way to postpone the final conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
CHAPTER VIII
MOBILITY OF THE RURAL POPULATION
I. FORMS OF SOCIAL MOBILITY OF CULTIVATORS; MOBILE AND IMMOBILE TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES
An adequate knowledge of the structure of any organization requires a knowledge both of the forms of its differentiation and stratification and of its "metabolism,," i.e., the vertical and hori- zontal mobility of its members. Two organizations may be similar in regard to the forms of differentiation and stratification and yet really be dissimilar in many respects if the mobility of their mem- bers differs quantitatively and qualitatively. Hence an adequate study of rural social organization necessitates a careful analysis of the degree and forms of mobility among its members. This problem is outlined briefly in this section.
The numerous forms of social mobility within the agricul- tural population l may be divided into two fundamental forms. There is vertical mobility when a member of the agricultural population changes his position in the pyramid of social stratifi- cation, moving from a lower social stratum to a higKeFone or vice versa. A hired laborer may become a tenant or an owner, or an owner may become a hired laborer or a tenant. Any shift from one of the strata given in the preceding chapter to another, repre- sents the phenomenon of vertical mobility within the population studied. There is horizontal mobility within the agricultural population whenever a cultivator shifts from one farm to an- other or from one rural aggregate to another. Horizontal mo* bility practically coincides with the territorial migration of the agricultural population from one farm to another or from one rural aggregate to another.2
1 The cases when a cultivator goes out of the agricultural class and enters other than an agricultural social class or a nonagriculturi&t enters the agricultural class do not concern us here and therefore are not considered. These cases are discussed in the chap- ters devoted to rural-urban migrations and to the relationship between the agricultural and the nonagricultural classes and in chapter iv of this volume.
aSec a detailed analysis of the principal forms oÂŁ social mobility in Sorokin, Social
[501]
502 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Although the mobility of the rural population is less intensive than that of the urban population,3 it occurs to some degree in practically all rural aggregates. Rural people migrate from the country to the city, and urban people migrate from the city to the country. Individuals engaged in agriculture leave it and enter some other occupation, while individuals engaged in nonagri- cultural occupations enter some other occupation or agriculture (see the chapter on rural-urban migration and also chapter iv). Within the agricultural population itself the processes of hori- zontal and vertical mobility go on incessantly. Cultivators move from one farm or agricultural aggregate to another, and from one stratum of the agricultural population to another. Thus the particles of the "rural organisms" continuously change their positions, and the "rural organisms and their strata" incessantly renew their "cells."
Mobility is a general trait of any aggregate, but it is not equally intensive and qualitatively identical in various rural aggregates. If we compare the Hindu and the American rural aggregates in this respect, we see that the former exhibits much less significant horizontal and vertical mobility than the latter. Of several regu- larities observed in this field, the following approximate generali- zations may be mentioned, although there are exceptions to all of them. First, the vertical and the horizontal mobility of rural populations in less industrialized and urbanized countries and regions is generally lower than that in the more industrialized and urbanized countries and regions. Second, the mobility of the members of rural communities where landownership and pos- session is collective or joint is usually less intensive than that of the members of rural aggregates composed of the farmers and peasants who own their land individually. This will be discussed further in the next chapter, but here we may mention the fact that mobility is much less intensive in such collective ownership systems as those of the Russian mir and the village landowner- ship of India, China, and some other countries. Third, the mobil-
Mobthty. Concerning the territorial or horizontal mobility of the agricultural population see also, R. Heberle, Tiber die Mobilitat der Bevolfyrung in den Vereinigten Staaten, Jena, 1929. See also most of the works cited in chap, iv of this work, in the paragraphs devoted to the study of rural-urban mobility. 3 See evidences of this in chap, iv of this volume.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 503
ity of an unfree agricultural population such as slaves and serfs is lower than that of free agricultural populations. Fourth, the mo- bility of Negro cultivators in the United States is lower than that of white cultivators. Fifth, in countries with free and individual tenancy, such as the United States, the horizontal mobility of owners is less than that of tenants, and theirs in turn is less than that of farm laborers. (See Heberle's paper in the readings.)
II. EFFECTS OF MOBILITY ON RURAL POPULATION AND RURAL ORGANIZATION
Mobility, taken as a factor, has several important effects on the population and its behavior, organization, institutions, and histori- cal destinies.4 We cannot enter here into an analysis of all these effects but must limit our task to a brief enumeration of those which influence the rural population and its behavior, psychology, organization, and institutions.
Any horizontal or vertical movement of a cultivator has a dou- ble aspect. On the one hand, it means the disruption of many of his social ties with the members of the community or stratum in which he had been living previously. On the other hand, it means the insertion of a new person with all his characteristics into the group or stratum that he now enters, and the modification of the individual himself by his new milieu. Thus every shift has a tend- ency to shatter the social relationships and structure in the group from which the migrant goes as well as in the group into which he enters. When the vertical and horizontal mobility in a given stratum or aggregate is great, these movements tend to produce considerable modifications in the corresponding groups as well as in their populations. The most important of these results are as follows:
1. Influence on the composition of the population of the rural aggregation or stratum. — Other conditions being equal, the popu- lation of a more mobile rural aggregate or stratum tends to be more heterogeneous, both racially and culturally, than that of the less mobile aggregate or stratum. Mobility leads to an intermix- ture of populations of diverse racial stocks, nationalities, mores, religion, language, and culture.
*See a discussion of these effects in Sorokin, Social Mobility, Part VI. See also Heberle's work quoted. Part II,
504 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
2. Influence on the ''culture pattern/' of the rural strata and rural aggregates. — The mobility of the rural population in a given area tends to eliminate the peculiarities of the culture patterns of that locality or stratum, whether those patterns be in the field of religion, mores, language, customs, beliefs, convictions, rites, tastes, or what not. The previous uniformities tend to be replaced by "individual" differences among the members of various aggre- gates. Mobility tends to disrupt the unique and peculiar culture patterns of the local group or stratum and to produce differences between individuals and subgroups. In India and in some regions of Europe that are characterized by relatively immobile rural populations, practically every rural community has its own "cul- tural face," which is dissimilar from that of other rural communi- ties. In mobile areas, such as the United States, these peculiarities are already obliterated to a considerable extent and are replaced by general standards which are diffused in East, West, North, and South. The greater the mobility, the greater becomes the oblitera- tion of the local cultural face of the rural aggregate and the diffusion of general cultural standards throughout all the rural population. Mobility has the same influence on the strata within the rural population as it does on the population as a totality. If a given stratum maintains itself biologically and socially from gen- eration to generation without migration and the infusion of new- comers, it will preserve its own unique culture patterns in a rigid form. If a stratum recruits its members to a considerable degree from migrants from other strata, each bringing the mores, habits, and patterns of his previous stratum, the cultural face of that stratum will tend to become a mosaic of the mores of all strata and the sharp differences in cultural patterns of various strata will tend to become blurred.
3. Influence on the behavior and psychology of the population. — The more mobile rural populations tend to have a more plastic and versatile behavior, less specific mores, larger mental vistas, and less narrow-mindedness than the less mobile rural popula- tions. The latter are more traditional than the former. Correspond- ingly, the mores, habits, beliefs, convictions, tastes, moral convic- tions, and actions of the more mobile rural population are likely to be less rigid, less stable, more flexible, and more capable of
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 505
change. Hence mobility has a tendency to facilitate the disin- tegration of mores and morals and the growth of criminality and nonsocial actions. (See the chapter on social control and crimi- nality.)
4. Influence of social organization and institutions. — The whole structure and institutions of more mobile rural populations are likely to be less traditional, more flexible, less stable, and often less cared for than those of the less mobile rural populations. Each shifting means a shock to the group from which the individual comes as well as to the group into which he enters, and hence in- tense mobility of the members of a rural community or stratum keeps the whole structure in a state of incessant shattering. In ad- dition, the migrants naturally care less for the proper maintenance of the schools, churches, welfare agencies, political organizations, and other institutions of a given aggregate than do those individ- uals who reside there for life. Since they remain only for a limited length of time, the shifters are less inclined to invest much of their energy, funds, labor, and care in the institutions from which they will soon be separated.
5. As a specific detail of this general fact, the populations of more mobile rural communities tend to be less patriotic in their attachment to their temporary community (or stratum) and to be more "broad-minded" and "cosmopolitan" than the populations of the less mobile rural aggregates.
6. The members of the more mobile rural communities tend to be less intimate, more superficial, more formal, more lonesome, and more anonymous in their mutual relationships than do the members of less mobile rural communities. The system of social relationships in the former type of community tends to approach that of the city, for the reasons indicated in chapter iv.
7. The disruption of social ties connected with shifting and the infiltration of individuals into new groups is likely to be followed by the development of various antagonisms and solidarities. Some individuals in the old group and some in the new either regret, loathe, hate, or welcome the entrance or departure of the shifter. Therefore the increase of mobility usually complicates and blurs the configuration of the lines of the solidary and antagonistic re- lationships, making them exceedingly intricate and entangled.
506 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
8. There are many other satellite effects of mobility which can- not be enumerated here.5 The above discussion shows that the aspect of mobility cannot be ignored in the analysis of rural or any other social organization, as investigators have tended to do up to the recent time. As yet, the general phenomena of a social mo- bility have been studied very little, and social mobility within the rural population has been touched only very slightly.
We present five papers from the very limited literature in the field. Those of Spillman and Heberle depict the vertical and hori- zontal mobility of the American agricultural population, while that of Ashby and Jones gives a glimpse into the vertical mobility of the rural population in a specific region of England, Finally, the paper of Kavraiski and Nusinoff gives a good picture of the present horizontal and vertical mobility within the peasant popu- lation of a region in Siberia. This paper shows especially clearly the complex processes of social mobility, which go on incessantly. The papers of Makaroff, Tschaijanoflf, and Kubanin, given in other chapters of the work, also have a bearing on the problems of this chapter.
ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
The works of Sorokin and Heberle cited give a vast bibliography. In addition, see most of the literature cited in the chapters on migration and the paragraphs in chapter iv devoted to the study of rural-urban mobility. In addition to this, the following works are useful:
ANDERSON, NELS, The Hobo (Chicago, 1922).
BOWMAN, LsRoy R., "Population Mobility and Community Organization," Amer. Journ. of Sociology, Vol. XXXII.
BRADWIN, E. W., The Challenge of the Migratory Workers, U. S. Dept. of Labor Bull. No. 311.
BRANNEN, C. O., Relation of Land Tenure to Plantation Organization, U. S. D. A. Bull. No. 1269 (Washington, 1924).
DOBROVOLSKI, V. J., "Economic Differentiation of the Peasantry," Nashe Khosiaistvo, No. 1 (Russ.) (1925).
DONALDSON, W. T., AND ROSEBERRY, L. H., "Absent Voting," Municip. Review (October, 1914).
DOUGLASS, H. P., The Church in the Changing City (New York, 1927).
FILIPPOFF, T., "Fundamental Problems of Differentiation of the White- Russian Village," SovtetsJ(pie Stroitehtvo, No. 1 (Russ.) (1927).
GALPIN, C. J., AND ELY, R. T., "Tenancy in an Ideal System of Landowner- ship," Amer. Econ. Review, Supplement (March, 1919), Vol. IX.
8 See the works cited of Sorokin and Heberle.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 507
GOLDENWEISER, E. A., AND TnuESDELL, L. E., Farm Tenancy in the United
States, Census Monograph IV (1924).
GRAY, L. C,, STEWART, C. L., TURNER, H. A., SANDERS, J. T., AND SPILL- MAN, W. J,, "Farm Ownership and Tenancy," U. S. D. A. Yearbook
(1923). HECKE, W., "Die Zahlung des Berufswechsels in Osterreich," Allgem.
Statist. Archiv (1916-1917). HILL, J. A., "Recent Northward Migration of the Negro," Monthly Labor
Review (March, 1924). HOAG, E. F., The National Influence of a Single Farm Community, U. S.
D. A. Bull. No. 984 (1921). JOY, A., "Note on the Changes of Residence," Amer. Journ. of Sociology
(January, 1928). KELSEY, K. J., "Immigration and Crime," Annals of the Amer. Academy
of Political and Social Sciences, (1926), Vol. CXXV. KHRIASCHEVA, A. L, Peasant Farms According to the Census of 1899-1911
(Russ.) (Tula, 1916), 2 vols. , "The Conditions of the Division of the Peasant Households,"
Economitcheskpie Obosrenie, No. 9 (Russ.) (1928). KIDALOFF, P., "Socio-Organic Processes in Kursk Province," Sputni^ Bol-
shevify, No. 9 (Russ.) (1926). KNIPOVITCH, B., Differentiation of Russian Peasantry (Russ.) (St. Peters-
burg, 1913). KUBANIN, M., Class Character of the Process of the Division of the Peasant
Household (Russ.) (Moscow, 1929).
LIND, A. W., A Study of Mobility of Population in Seattle, Thesis. MAURER, G, S. VON, Geschichte des Dorjverfassung (1865-1877), 2 vols. MENDELSOHN, "Wandcrarbeiter," Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften,
1911.
MERRIAM, CH., AND GOSNELL, H. F., Non-Voting (Chicago, 1924). MITGAU-HEIDELBERG, J. H., Familienschicfyal und soziale Ordnung (Leip- zig, 1928). NYLANDER, T., "The Migratory Population of the United States," Amer,
Journ. of Sociology (1924), VoL XXX. PARK, R. E., AND BURGESS, E. W., The City (Chicago, 1925). PARKER, C. H., Casual Laborer and Other Essays (1920), PAXSON, F* L., History of the American Frontier (Boston, 1924). PESHEKHONOFF, A., "Out of the Theory and Practice of Peasant Farming,"
Russfoie Bogatstvo, No, 9 (1902). RXEHL, W, H., Die Familie (Stuttgart, 1862-1869), 3rd volume of his
Naturgeschichte des deuuchen Voltes. SCARBOROUGH, W. S», Tenancy and Ownership among the Negro Farmers,
U. S. D. A, Bull No, 1404 (1924). STEWART, C* L,, "Migration to and from Our Farms," Annals of the Amer.
Acad. of Political and Social Sciences (January, 1925). TSCHERNENKOFF, N., Characteristics of the Peasant Households (Russ.)
(1905).
508 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
TRUESDELL, L., 'Farm Population of the United States, Census Monograph
VI (1926).
TURNER, F. J., The Frontier in American History (New York, 1921). WEBER, ALFRED, "Industrielle Standortslehre," Grundriss der Sozialofono-
mi\ (1914). WEHRWEIN, G. H., "The Problem of Inheritance in Amer. Land Tenure,"
Journ. of Farm Economics (1927).
62. RUDOLF HEBERLE: MOBILITY OF THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES*
The agricultural population in the United States numbers almost thirty millions.1 This huge mass is mobile to a high degree if compared with the country population of Europe, which on the whole, if one ignores the migration into the city, is still quite stationary.
We have previously shown what greaj: numbers have moved from the farm into the city and have returned again to the country. In the following, however, we will speak only of the mobility of the country population in the agricultural districts, that is, their movements from farm to farm. The facility with which the American farmer changes from one farm to the other has always astonished the European ob- server.2 There are, however, strong regional differences and the various strata of the agricultural population are not mobile to the same degree. There are also differences in the degree of mobility in regard to vari- ous nationalities.
For the measurement of mobility of the agricultural population we may use three different kinds of data. First, statistics in regard to prop- erty transfer. This, however, does not consider the mobility of the tenant, and one cannot recognize to what extent actual movement from farm to farm has taken place, because doubtless many farm sales take place without moving the farmer — previous owner — to an- other place. On the one hand, the tenant can acquire the farm upon which he lives by purchase; on the other hand, a tenanted farm may change proprietors without the necessity of a change in tenants. The
* From R. Heberle, TJber die Mobilitdt der Bevolfarung in den Vereinigten Staaten, Jena, Gustav Fischer, 1929, pp. 89-106. Translated and printed with the permission of the publisher and the author.
1 The agricultural or farm population, as given in the U.S. Census of Agriculture for 1925, was as follows:
NUMBER PER CENT
1925 28.9 millions
1920 31.6 millions 29.9
1910 32.1 millions 34.9
aSee "Das Agrar-Problem in den Vereinigten Staaten," in Archiv /. Sozidlwissensch. u. SozialpoUti\, 1928, LVIII, 491 ft, recently published by W. Ropke.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 509
more widespread the system of tenure, the less is it possible to recog- nize the actual mobility of the agricultural population on the basis of the statistics in regard to property transfer.
Second, the United States Department of Agriculture estimates property transfers in a narrow sense, that is, the number of farms, culti- vated either by the tenant or the proprietor, which have changed managers during a one-year period.3 However, these are just estima- tions and they do not show clearly whether, in a definite proportion of farms of any region where there is annual change of manager, we would find an intense mobility of a small group of farmers or a lesser though more general mobility of the whole farm population.
The third and best procedure is, therefore, a study of the census data in regard to duration of cultivation. Through this we find out how long a farmer, whether tenant or proprietor, has cultivated the farm on which he lives at the time of the census. This analysis is also found imperfect, since a short cultivation period does not with certainty mean high mobility, because, first, in newly settled localities the average duration of cultivation is apparently low, without permitting the con- clusion that the new settler is of a mobile or stable type. Secondly, the tenant who after having cultivated a farm for many years acquires it through purchase shortly before the census, will appear in the data as a proprietor of short cultivation period. (The same is true of the tenant who has changed his place of tenure shortly before the census; there- fore, the season in which the census is made is important, whether it is shortly before or after the customary time for moving.) Thirdly, the tenants are on the average younger than the proprietors4 and, therefore, show shorter periods of cultivation. And fourthly, this analy- sis does not show how far this mobility may be attributed to move- ment from farm to farm or how high the influence of the migration from country to city is.
If one groups the farmers according to length of cultivation (see Table XIX) and if one takes the number of those who have cultivated the same farm for five years or longer as the criterion of stability, one finds that on the whole the average of mobility is higher in the West and South than in the Northeast.
8 According to such an estimate there resulted for all farms in the United States dur- ing the postwar years the following frequency of property transfer. Of 100 farms, the number having different owners than in the previous year are given below for the following years:
1925 1924 1922 1910
14 14 19 17
(From The Index published by the New York Trust Co., New York, August, 1928, p. 14.)
*The average for owners in 1920 was 48.8 years; for tenants, 39J years, (From Hth Census, Vol. V, chap, vi, Table 25, p, 457 and Table 3.)
510 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
The mobility is therefore, lowest, in the regions settled first, like New England, where in the state of Maine 773 per cent and in the state of New Hampshire 75.2 per cent of the proprietors cultivated their farms for five years or more, If the mobility of the western, and especially the Rocky Mountain states, seems very high — more than a third of the farmers in these last named groups showed a cultivation period of less than five years — one must remember that large parts of this region have only lately changed from cattle land to agricultural country. This is substantiated when one compares the average cultiva- tion period in the Rocky Mountain states with the cultivation period of the state that was first settled by an agricultural population. I refer to Utah, where 69.4 per cent of the proprietors cultivate their farms for five years or more. Among the western group of states the west-north- central group, particularly Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota, are distinguished by the high number of farmers with a longer culti- vation period; this may be ascribed partly to the high stability of the farmers of European origin, who are, as is well known, strongly repre- sented in those states. The high mobility of the entire farm population in the southern states is partly due to the great number of tenants; in states like Oklahoma and Texas the recency of the agricultural settle- ment is a factor. In Oklahoma only 57 per cent of the proprietors and 14.3 per cent of the tenants held their farms five years or longer.
The mobility of the tenants is, as may be seen from Table XIX (ap- pended), decidedly higher in the whole country than that of the owners; the difference in age of the owners and tenants, the impor- tance of which we mentioned above, cannot explain completely this dif- ference in mobility between owner and tenant. One must, however, remember that in the newly settled regions of the West the system of tenancy is comparatively young, and for that reason alone one must expect a smaller number of long cultivation periods than, for instance, in regions in which the system of tenancy is an old and widespread institution. Even in Illinois the quota of stable tenants was high, 42 per cent as compared with the average of 36.8 per cent in the east- north-central states. But in this connection we must also consider that the system of tenancy had spread here sooner than in the other states of the Middle West; already around 1900 almost 40 per cent of all farms in Illinois were tenanted, while in Wisconsin only 13.5 per cent, and in Indiana 28,6 per cent.5
The difference between the cultivation period of owner and tenants
8 Cf . L. C. Gray and others, "Farm Ownership and Tenancy," U. S. D, A. 1923, p. 513, where the expansion of the system of tenancy since 1880 is graphically represented.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 511
is, however, in all states so great that the observation of the higher mo- bility of the tenants as compared to the owner seems infallible. (See Table XXI, appended.) Of especial interest is the observation of that region in which the system of tenancy is spread widest, that is, the South, and particularly in the states belonging to the cotton region.6
That there is a relation between the age of the system of tenancy and the participation of stable tenants seems to be substantiated in Table A (appended), which shows, among the western states, a pretty regular positive correlation between the quota of stable tenants from the entire number of tenants in the year 1920 and the percentage of rented farms in the year 1900. In Minnesota the higher percentage of tenants with a cultivation period of five years and more may be ascribed to the notorious high stability of immigrants and their immediate de- scendants.
We have shown earlier that the mobility between states is compara- tively small among the population of the southern states. It is shown, however, that the mobility of the agricultural population on the aver- age, considering the periods of cultivation, is very high.7 The low mo- bility of the Negro, to which attention has been drawn previously, is remarkable; the average cultivating period is higher with the Negro than with the white people, and this difference is particularly apparent in regard to tenants. Especially in the South, where the great mass of Negro tenants is concentrated, the proportion of those who were on their farms five years or longer was decidedly higher than among the white tenants, whose quota remained far behind the average for the entire country.
On the other hand, the proportion of those tenants who remained less than two years on their farms was higher for the white tenants than for the Negroes (see Table XXI, appended). In the three groups of southern states more than half of the white tenants remained less than two years on their farms while less than half of the Negro tenants
* Percentage of farms tenanted in 1925:
UNITED STATI.S 38.6 COTTON REGION
New England 5,6 North Carolina , , 45,2
Middle Atlantic 15.8 South Carolina 65.1
East North Central , , , . 26.0 Georgia 63,8
West North Central 37.8 Alabama 60.7
South Atlantic 44,5 Mississippi 68,3
East South Central 50.3 Arkansas 56,7
West South Central 59,2 Louisiana 60.1
Mountain 22,2 Oklahoma , 58.6
Pacific 15.6 Texas 60,4
(From U, S. Census of Agriculture, 1925, summary, pp.
7 Sec Tables XIX, XXI.
512 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
quitted their farms before the two-year period. The proportion8 of these very mobile white tenants as compared to the mobile Negroes was about 10 to 6, while the whole number of white tenants as compared to the Negroes was in a proportion of 10 to 7.9
C. O. Brannen reaches similar conclusions in a survey made by the United States Department of Agriculture in 93 selected counties of the plantation region. ("Relation of Land-Tenure to Plantation Organiza- tion," 1924, p. 48.) While 53.2 per cent of the white tenants kept their farms less than two years this was the case with only 39.6 per cent of the Negroes.
It is necessary to analyze this very mobile group further in relation to classes of tenants and degrees of mobility. The two most important classes of tenants in the South are the share tenants and the croppers,10 and behind these in numbers are the cash tenants. We have the follow- ing division of farmers in the South in 1920:
CLASSES OF FARMERS NUMBER OF FARMS PERCENTAGE OF FARMS
Owners .. . 1,597,000 49.8
Tenants .. . 1,591,000 49.6
Share tenants 651,000) 20.31
Croppers 561,000) 1'212'000 17.5J37'8
Of the 561,000 croppers there were only 227,000 white and 334,000 colored; the white croppers represent 25.6 per cent of the white tenants (or 887,000) while the colored croppers represent 47.4 per cent of the colored tenants (or 703,000). Of 651,000 share tenants, 474,000 were white and 177,000 colored; the white share tenants represent 53.5 per cent of the white tenants, the colored tenants 25.1 per cent of the col-
8 The following data is taken from Census Monograph IV, p. 136, Table 51: and 14th Census, Vol. V, chap, vi, Tables 14 and 15, p. 406.
No. of Tenants as Far
as Cultivation Period No, of These on Is Known (136,512 Farms Less Than
Unknown) 1920 Two Years
United States . ... 2,318,292 1,006,783
In the South
White and colored 1,481,639 707,116
Whites in South 822,589 442,905
e t Colored in South 659,050 264,211
Since we do not deal here with absolute numbers but with the proportion of whites and colored, the discrepancy of the information need not be considered. (See 14th Census, Vol. V, p. 402.)
By share tenants is understood, in the census, those tenants who pay part of their product, possibly a half, a third, or a quarter, as rent and supply their own work horses; the croppers are share tenants who are supplied with work horses by the owner. Accord- ing to his function and status the cropper stands between a tenant and a laborer.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 513
ored tenants. The Negroes are, therefore, predominantly croppers, and the white predominately share tenants. Both classes together represent 79.1 per cent of the white and 72.5 per cent of the colored tenants. The croppers, just because they are closer to being laborers than any other tenant class, change more frequently from one farm to the other (often in the neighborhood of the same plantation) than the share tenants, and these in turn change more often than the cash tenants, as is dem- onstrated in Table XXII (according to Brannen). Even if one con- siders that the croppers seem very mobile simply because they turn laborers and turn back into croppers, often without even changing farms,11 and that on the other hand the data used do not give any exact information concerning the mobility, it may nevertheless be sup- posed that more than one-fifth of the three important classes of tenants among the whites and about one-sixth among the Negroes of the same classes in the South, altogether some 250,000 to 300,000 tenants,12 change farms at least once a year.
If one adds to that the number of the members of the family, one may estimate an annual wandering mass of from one to one and a half million people in the tenant classes of the South alone. It furthermore becomes clear that, although the whites are more mobile on the average than the Negroes, a comparatively great number of the latter wander around annually, since there are more Negroes than whites in the very mobile class of the croppers. Even if these very mobile sections of the white and colored tenants should not be as numerous as it seems from the presented data, the high mobility of a small group of tenants and croppers can be very disagreeable for the plantation owner, since the moving often happens without previous notice, frequently in time of great demand for labor and without the payment of any money ad- vanced by the owner.13
Concerning the distances covered by changes from farm to farm, it is desirable to know, in connection with later observations concerning the social effects of this mobility, that the owner, although less mobile than the tenant, covers greater distances than the latter. In an examina- tion of the mobility of the farmers in certain regions of Kentucky and Tennessee for the years 19104920, the result showed that a change of farm by the owner, more often than by the tenant, brought with it changes of important social relations. The table below shows that with a change in farm, came changes in the following u ;
11 Brannen, op, cit., p. 46.
18 Tannenbaurn (Darker Phases of the South, New York, 1924, p, 130) estimates 300,000; however, I have been assured by specialists that this number is rather low, "See Brannen, op. dt,t p. 48. 14 "Farm Ownership and Tenancy," U.S.D.A, Yearbook, 1923, p. 597.
514 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
|
OWNER |
TENANT |
|
|
PER CENT |
PER CENT |
|
|
Trading center School |
41 . 44 |
33 40 |
|
Church |
. . 44 |
40 |
Of 146 Negro owners and 111 tenants in Southampton County, Vir- ginia, 39.7 per cent of the owners and only 27.7 per cent of the tenants had changed one of the three most important centers of the rural com- munity life.15 The result of this local study seems to be substantiated by Table XXIII (appended), which is based on a survey made through- out the United States.
As far as general conclusions are possible on the basis of the small amount of material at hand, it seems in any case remarkable that the radius of mobility for the farmer is nevertheless small; practically it keeps within the distance that can be conquered without difficulty with an automobile to carry personal possessions for the move. As a rule the most mobile elements among the southern tenants move in narrow circles and return not infrequently to the former lessee. On the other hand, one can still observe in the West, particularly in states that are not completely settled, like Oklahoma or Texas, that the families of farmers with the aid of a covered wagon move great distances, with- out any definite goal, to search for a new homestead.
We must be content with this fairly sparse information concerning the degree of mobility of agricultural populations and go on to a dis- cussion of its causes. In the nineteenth century, as long as the settling of the land was not completed, the mobility of the agricultural popu- lation is easily understood. The possibility of acquiring land cheaply in the West not only caused the surplus from the older and thickly settled regions to migrate but also invited the farmers from the various parts of the country who had already settled, particularly from the new regions of the frontier, to advance again and again in new wanderings toward the West. One must consider also that in the society of the West, not strongly classified according to labor or profession, as soon as the farmer began to produce for the market, he became in a higher de- gree a trader and thus left the land, just as is the case in thickly settled land with a developed division in society.16
15 See W. S. Scarborough, Tenancy and Ownership among Negro Farmers in South- ampton County, Va., U. S. D. A. Bull. No. 1404, April, 1926, Table 22.
18 See the striking description of the trading journeys of the western farmers in the eighteenth century, in E. C. Semple, American History and Its Geographic Conditions, 1910, p. 86. Ferdinand Kiirnberger, in his tale "Der Amerikamude" (Berlin, 1856), makes a western farmer close an enthusiastic description of such journeys with the exclamation, "Yes, the peasant class does not rest here, everyone who feels a little energy
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 515
That the custom of migration from farm to farm, historically condi- tioned, continues to be of great importance, may be accepted. There is no doubt that there is hardly any place in Europe where the farmer feels himself so little bound to his land as does the farmer in the United States; farms here are bought much more for speculation and investment than in Europe, where any big property as well as the farm property remains as a rule for generations in the same family, or at least is not considered exclusively as a means of profit-making. But one must warn here against generalizations and must remember the sta- bility of the farmers emigrated from Europe and their not perfectly Americanized descendants17; also among the real Americans there are, as we found out, extremely stable groups like the white farmers in the southern Appalachian Mountains, or the "poor whites" of the sandy plains of Carolina and Georgia, as well as the farmers of the Ozark Mountains and those in certain parts of New England. Never- theless, in regions with a population as stable as that in the north of Virginia, one may observe that a farmer clears the land on the woody mountain slopes not to found a home there but with the intention of selling the new farm or of making it a summer resort or something similar.
But this peculiarly practical fyirwillige* (from Tonnies) relation to land and property is, however, less important than the objective cir- cumstances that favor the mobility of the farmer. Progressing indus- trialization works in that direction, since the changes it causes in mar- ket conditions require changes in agricultural management and in the size of the farms, and these changes cannot take place without rear- rangements in the agricultural population*
Furthermore, up to this time even, virgin land is still constantly available in new regions, while in others, particularly in the cotton sec- tions of the Old South, careless methods of agriculture incite migra- tion.
The settling of new land is always followed by the failing of many settlers. Land speculators are not always inclined to delay sales of land to settlers until the conditions — transportation, local market prices, etc, — are such that the settler can keep up financially; communities often have an interest, or are believed to have it, in the immigration of
trades and speculates." To this the traveler, already tired of America, remarks^ 4The uncornfortahlencss of this country life could not have been expressed more strikingly."
17Geo. S. Wchrwein reports ("The Problem of Inheritance in American Land Tenure," Journ, of Farm Econ,, April, 1927, p. 186) that in the township of Newton in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, settled since 1855 mainly by Germans, Irish, and Poles, many farms are the property oÂŁ the same family now in the third generation. This township, however, has a remarkably stable population.
* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. — KurwlUge means choosing with a particular aim in mind.
516 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
settlers at any price, and the "fooled" farmers of course attempt to palm off their land on other guileless individuals.18 Such misdirected settling or lack of information for the settlers leads to a temporary expansion in a region in which certain kinds of agriculture are never, or only under particularly good conditions, successful.19 Overexpansion takes place most easily at times of very favorable prices and ends as a rule in a mass of debts for the settler and leads finally to a contraction of the settlement through the departure of the farmers. As long as the agri- cultural productivity and the cultivation of certain lands depend on a high rainfall, variations of the climate, as E. Bruckner demonstrates, influence the contraction or expansion of agricultural settling in the western areas of America that have little rain.20
Whatever the causes may be, all these processes result in the shifting of great masses of the agricultural population. This tendency towards overexpansion was so apparent during the whole period of the settling of the West that it has become almost proverbial to say that it needs three waves of settlers to settle a region definitely. This condition helps to explain the short cultivation periods in Dakota and the Rocky Mountain states and is a sign of a high mobility of the farmers in this region. Estimates of property transfers made by the Department of Agriculture show that in all the Rocky Mountain states with the ex- ception of Utah, and Nevada in the first few years, the forced sales were more frequent than the average for the entire country.21 (Table XXIV appended.)
Finally one must think of the relation between the system of tenure and the mobility. First, the social rise from farm laborer to tenant and finally to owner brings with it many moves of the farmer and his family. Here we must observe that the tenants in the western states
"Experience has shown that with sufficiently strong selling methods it is possible to find buyers for land entirely unsuitable for farming. See "Land-Utilization," U. S. D. A. Yearbook 1923, p. 503, Report of L. C. Gray and others.
10 "Large areas in the West, more suitable for grazing than for crops, have been sporadically settled to the detriment of the established range industry." (Ebenda.)
^ EDITORS' NOTE.— For details see E. S. Osgood, The Day of the Cattleman, 1929, Minneapolis, pp. 240 ff.
^Eduard Bruckner, "The Settlement of the U. S. as Controlled by Climate and Climatic Oscillations," in Memorial Volume of the Transcontinental Excursion of 1912 of the Amer. Geogr. Soc. of New York, 1915.
21 See Table XXIII, p. 102, in E. H. Wiecking, The Farm Real Estate Situation, 1926-1927, U. S D.A. Circular No. 15, October, 1927. According to Dr. O. E. Baker of the_U. S. Department of Agriculture, the short cultivation in the Rocky Mountain states is partly explained through the fact that many discharged soldiers after the World War bought land that had been just grazing land until then; on this they settled according to the homestead laws, which applied part of their time of service to the required period of possession. The cattlemen were forced to buy back these so-called "farms," which would really never have been suitable for grain-growing? neither were they acquired with the intention of producing grain.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 517
have a good chance of becoming the owners of farms, while in the South the tenants are a fairly static class and rise there is rare. The causal connection between "social" and "geographical" mobility is, therefore, found to a great extent in the West and the North and only to a small degree in the South. Therefore, the higher mobility of the tenants may be traced in part to the desire of the owners to have a fairly free hand in the sale of their farms on short notice, which causes them to avoid making long-term contracts with the tenants.22 Of course, one should not for this reason think that the short-term con- tracts necessarily heighten the mobility of the tenant; long-term con- tracts may lead to a situation where the tenant cultivates the land with no thought but for his own gain and then after the end of his contract rents another farm, since through short-term contracts both parties will probably try to create such a relation that the renewal of the con- tract is certain.23
A further circumstance that is prone to heighten relatively the mo- bility of the tenant is that among them there is a strong element of naturally restless, irresponsible men, incapable of rising and becoming independent farmers. There are among the tenants, particularly in the Middle West and the South, a numerous stratum of notoriously rest- less people who on account of their incapacity can never prosper. Fur- thermore, in all one-crop areas the desire for variety is an important motive for a frequent change of tenure.
Finally, one must remember that in a system of tenure that concerns two parties, dissatisfaction with existing conditions arises easily and this also causes (the limitation of the term of tenancy and) a fre- quency of changes.24
How much the peculiar system of tenure or the system of agricul- tural labor can influence the mobility of the agricultural population is shown by an examination of the extremely high mobility of the tenants in the southern states, especially in the cotton region,25 The great ma- jority of the farmers of this region are cotton-growing tenants; two- thirds of these cotton-growing tenants are white and one-fourth of these white tenants are croppers. We have previously seen that the whites are more mobile than the Negroes, and the croppers are more mobile than the other tenants; the white croppers, therefore, represent the most mobile group. As a matter of fact, as has been shown before,
52 Census Monograph IV, pp, 68 jff.
23 Census Monograph IV, p. 135,
2*U.S.D.A. Yearbook, 1923, p. 596.
38 On tobacco, rice, and sugar plantations it is approximately the same as on cotton plantations. Besides the plantation system we find the farm system, that is, the produc- tion of staple products on small rented farms. The great mass of white tenants work on such small farms.
518 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
a great number of the tenants of both races in the cotton region change their tenancy annually or semiannually.
This high mobility is obviously the result of a peculiar combination of the one-crop system and the system of partial tenancy, which is characteristic for this region. The tenant is, under this system, almost entirely dependent on the cash income for his livelihood. This he re- ceives once a year after the harvest, and he is therefore forced to ask the owner for money in advance in small or larger sums. This results frequently in regular monthly payments, which are reckoned up at harvest time. A bad harvest or an overproduction that causes a fall in prices often leads to an incapacity on the side of the tenant to pay his entire debt. The creditor will then force him to use more land for the cultivation of the staple product upon which the income of the owner is dependent, and the tenant cannot produce marketable prod- ucts or products for his own use through which he could become inde- pendent of the owner.
In this manner a great mass of tenants have slowly come into a kind of peonage. The only way out of the dilemma seems to them the search for a better tenancy, and they often move without bothering about the contracted term or the meeting of their financial obligations. Negroes, on account of little education and a continuous plantation tradition, fall more readily into this peonage than white people. The white tenant is in a position to forego his obligations through a secret departure, since the local police or the sheriff have little desire to pur- sue him because in such cases they would meet forceful resistance. The Negro, however, as a rule has the police and public opinion against him. These circumstances may in part explain the lesser mobility of the Negro tenant.
The mobility of the tenants again helps to keep up the one-crop sys- tem, since the tenant who moves annually or semiannually is not in a position to keep cattle, pigs, or chickens in sufficient numbers or to cultivate grain and forage crops for his own use.26 The result of spe- cialization in tobacco or cotton production is worn-out land, which again favors the mobility of the tenant. Thus, in this region, the spe- cializing of agriculture in one product has given a fateful turn to the system of partial tenancy— which in itself is not unfavorable to the tenant — and has called forth the shifting of vast masses of agricultural people.27
36 See also, Brannen, op. tit., p. 59.
2T See what has gone before; Frank Tannenbaum, Darker Phases of the South, 1924, pp. 117 ff.; a thorough presentation of the system of tenure as well as the credit and
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 519
Although, as we have seen before, the interstate wanderings in the South are of less importance than those in the North or West, the great mass of the poorer country population is extremely mobile, so mobile in fact that among the "poor whites" of the tobacco and cotton region there has developed a certain gypsy class that is in strong con- trast to the highly stable "poor whites" of the southern Appalachian Mountains and the "sandhills" of the South Atlantic states. While the latter are free farmers, even though they live in great poverty, the others are de facto proletarian field workers. It is possible, however, that the scarcity of workers, which is to be observed on the plantations in many places since the war, and the growing recognition of the economic and social damages of the one-crop system will lead to a greater diversity of production and with that to a revolution in the condition of the tenants and croppers. This again may cause the highly mobile country proletariat to become stable. Of course this possibility is just now encountered because the sinking of farm prices in the plan- tation region of the Old South caused many farms and tenancies to lie uncultivated, so that the general scarcity of agricultural workers is not yet felt.
If we attempt to form a complete judgment in regard to the mobility of the agricultural population, we must remember the previous state- ment concerning the migration between farm and city, because, as we have seen, in these wanderings back and forth between the country and the city mainly people of rural origin participate. This fluctuation is strongly tied up with what has been dealt with in this chapter, the movement from farm to farm, which is supposed to be numerically much more important. A passing move into the city takes place fre- quently between the departure from one and the purchase of another farm. The degree of mobility is generally less in old regions of migra- tion than in newly settled regions, and apparently this is due to the greater stability of the population which had persisted. We have come to know the vicious circle that exists between the one-crop system, the system of tenancy, and mobility; the economic results of this could only be intimated here.
We have observed with the population of the Old South how, on account of various geographical and economic conditions, very stable and extremely mobile groups of population can find themselves side by side in the same region.
marketing organization on plantations given by Branncn, Relation oj Land Tenure to Plantation Organization, U. S, D. A. Bull,, Washington, 1924.
520 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
TABLE XIX DURATION OF CULTIVATION ACCORDING TO CENSUS OF 1920
PERCENTAGE REMAINING
ON THE SAME FARM
_ FIVE YEARS OR
REGION MORE
|
Owners |
Tenants |
|
|
United States New England |
69.2 ... . 74.8 |
25.4 35.6 |
|
Middle Atlantic . . East North Central West North Central |
... . 74.2 72.7 70.7 |
35.7 36.8 29.1 |
|
South Atlantic |
72.9 |
24.6 |
|
East South Central |
67.1 |
22.6 |
|
West South Central |
61.7 |
18.2 |
|
Mountain |
58.4 |
16.4 |
|
Pacific . . . . . . |
. . 60.5 |
22.5 |
(See 14th Census, Vol. V, chap, vi, Table 20, p. 433. See also card diagram in Appendix.)
TABLE A
|
PERCENTAGE OF |
||
|
STATE |
TENANTS WHO MANAGED THE SAME FARM FOR FIVE YEARS OR |
PERCENTAGE OF FARMS TENANTED i Qfin |
|
MORE |
||
|
1920 |
||
|
Kansas |
32.1 |
35.2 |
|
Nebraska |
320 |
369 |
|
Iowa ... |
31.4 |
349 |
|
Minnesota . |
27.5 |
173 |
|
Missouri |
, 26.4 |
305 |
|
South Dakota . .... |
.... 23.6 |
21 8 |
|
North Dakota |
23.5 |
85 |
|
Oregon |
22.6 |
17.8 |
|
Washington |
20.8 |
14.4 |
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION
521
TABLE XX TENANTS WHO WERE ON SAME FARM FOR FIVE YEARS OR MORE
|
DIVISION |
PERCENTAGE OF WHITE TENANTS |
PERCENTAGE OF NEGRO TENANTS |
|
South Atlantic East South Central .... West South Central |
,. 22,9 17.7 15.8 |
26.3 27.9 23.1 |
|
United States |
25.1 |
26.1 |
TABLE XXI TENANTS WHO WERE ON A FARM LESS THAN Two YEARS
|
REGION |
PERCENTAGE OF ALL OWNERS |
PERCENTAGE OF ALL TENANTS |
PERCENTAGE OF WHITE TENANTS |
PERCENTAGE OF COLORED TENANTS |
|
United States New England |
, . . 13.6 . 10.8 |
43.4 35.5 |
44.8 35.5 |
40.0 23,5 |
|
Middle Atlantic |
.... 11.1 |
33.1 |
33.1 |
30.7 |
|
East North Central . . , |
, ... 11.8 |
31,4 |
31.4 |
32.3 |
|
West North Central . South Atlantic |
13.0 ... 11.7 |
37.4 44.4 |
37.4 48.4 |
36.3 40.7 |
|
East South Central , . |
- 16.1 |
47.2 |
55.6 |
38,1 |
|
West South Central, . |
17.2 |
51.6 |
50.5 |
41.9 |
|
Mountain |
. . . . 14.4 |
50.7 |
51.0 |
37,7 |
|
Pacific |
. . 19.8 |
45.0 |
46.0 |
38.3 |
(Sec Census Monograph IV, p. 137, Table 52.)
522 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
TABLE XXII
DURATION OF TENANCY IN 1920 OF 229,083 TENANTS IN 93 SELECTED COUNTIES WITH PLANTATION MANAGEMENT
T rr 10 YEARS
LESS THAN
1 YEAR CLASS OF TENANTS LONGER
Per Cent Per Cent
|
White and Colored |
||
|
Croppers |
21.2 |
5.1 |
|
Share tenants |
18.2 |
9.0 |
|
Cash tenants |
11.1 |
17.7 |
|
Total |
17.5 |
9.8 |
|
White |
||
|
Croppers |
28.4 |
3.3 |
|
Share tenants |
22.9 |
6.4 |
|
Cash tenants |
16.2 |
11.6 |
|
Total |
22.7 |
6.9 |
|
Colored |
||
|
Croppers |
19.7 |
5.5 |
|
Share tenants |
14.4 |
11.2 |
|
Cash tenants . . |
9.2 |
20.0 |
|
Total |
15.4 |
11.0 |
TABLE XXIII
DISTANCES COVERED BY FARMERS WHO MOVED TO A NEW PLACE AFTER THE
BUSINESS YEAR 1926 (According to a Survey Made throughout the United States)
PERCENTAGE OF DISTANCE TRAVELED
By Tenants * By Owners
|
To farms |
From farms |
To farms |
From farms |
|
|
1 mile . . |
14 |
11 |
14 |
9 |
|
3 miles or less ... |
36 |
33 |
33 |
25 |
|
5 miles or less |
.. .. 52 |
49 |
46 |
38 |
|
10 miles or less |
75 |
70 |
66 |
56 |
|
More than 10 miles .... |
12 |
17 |
21 |
32 |
|
More than 50 miles |
6 |
10 |
12 |
21 |
|
More than 500 miles. . . |
.... 1 |
1 |
1 |
4 |
Number of farmers who had
moved and were examined. .5,052 4,673 1,854 2,236
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 523
TABLE XXIV PROPERTY TRANSFERS ON 1,000 FARMS
FORCED SALES ALL SALES
STATE
1925-1926 1926-1927 1925-1926 1926-1927
|
United States . |
21.4 |
22.8 |
60.3 |
60.4 |
|
North Dakota |
50.9 |
61.1 |
91.8 |
92.5 |
|
South Dakota |
66.1 |
66.1 |
93.0 |
69.2 |
|
Rocky Mountain states Montana . . . |
70.9 |
67.0 |
105.7 |
110.4 |
|
Idaho . |
47.4 |
39.9 |
82.3 |
73.8 |
|
Wyoming Colorado . ... |
42.4 57.0 |
39.3 46.5 |
76.4 99.6 |
79.5 90.6 |
|
Utah Nevada |
23.4 30.9 |
25.5 26.6 |
62.4 58.7 |
53.9 54.9 |
|
New Mexico |
. 37.8 |
35.7 |
98.0 |
95.3 |
|
Arizona ... |
53.9 |
45.8 |
89.6 |
84.8 |
63. W. J. SPILLMAN: THE AGRICULTURAL LADDER*
The first rung of the agricultural ladder is represented by the period during which the embryo farmer is learning the rudiments of his trade. In the majority of cases this period is spent as an unpaid laborer on the home farm.
The hired man stands on the second rung, the tenant on the third, while the farm owner has attained the fourth or final rung of the lad- der. This paper deals with the rate at which men climb this ladder and the means used in making the ascent. We shall find that many men are able to skip some of the stages above enumerated. There are also various intermediate stages. Thus the hired man may assume some of the responsibilities of management and receive part or all of his pay as a portion of the proceeds. Under this arrangement he usually makes a larger income than a mere hired man but less than a full tenant. Some men pass from the stage of hired man or from that of tenant to the position of hired manager, but these are relatively few. The stage of owner is usually divisible into two periods, the first being the early period when there is still a mortgage on the farm. Mortgages may, of course, persist indefinitely, but in the later stages of ownership, mort- gages frequently represent obligations incurred in extending the hold- ings of the farmer.
* From Papers on Tenancy, Am, Assoc, for Agricultural Legislation, University oÂŁ Wis- consin, Madison, Bulletin No. 2, March, 1919, pp, 29-38.
524 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Table I shows the stages passed by 2,112 present farm owners in the states of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota.1 Twenty per cent of the number climbed the entire ladder, omitting none of the steps. Thirteen per cent skipped the tenant stage, 32 per cent the hired- man stage, and 34 per cent passed directly to ownership from their fathers' farms, omitting both the stages of hired man and tenant. Later it will be seen that a large proportion of this last group inherited their farms or bought them from near relatives, who presumably allowed very easy terms of payment.
TABLE I
STAGES PASSED BY 2,112 MIDWESTERN FARM OWNERS IN ACQUIRING OWNERSHIP
GROUPS * NUMBER PERCENTAGE
|
FHTO . |
435 |
20 |
|
FHO . . . |
268 |
13 |
|
FTO |
. . 679 |
32 |
|
FO |
. . 730 |
34 |
Table II shows the methods by which the men in these various groups acquired ownership. Taking all the groups together, it is to be noted that just two-thirds of these men acquired their farms by pur- chase, the other third mainly by inheritance, while 7 per cent of the entire number married their farms. A few obtained them by home- steading, but these are old men; the younger generation can no longei
TABLE II
PERCENTAGE OF FARMERS ACQUIRING OWNERSHIP BY DIFFERENT METHOD; (For meaning of symbols, see Table I)
|
GROUPS |
HOME- STEAD- |
MAR- |
INHERI- |
PURCHASE FROM NEAR |
PURCHASE FROM |
TOTAL PUR |
|
ING |
RIAGE |
TANCE |
RELATIVES |
OTHERS |
CHASING |
|
|
FHTO |
.. 1 |
9 |
1 |
12 |
77 |
89 |
|
FHOt .. |
.. 4 |
28 |
7 |
6 |
55 |
61 |
|
FTO .. |
.. 1 |
5 |
23 |
30 |
41 |
71 |
|
FO |
. 3 |
4 |
47 |
30 |
16 |
46 |
*The data on which this paper is based were collected by Mr. H. H. Clark of th< Office of Farm Management, under the joint direction of Mr. E. H. Thomson and thi writer.
* F = unpaid laborer in the home; H=hired man; T=tenant; O— owner.
t The percentages in this line apply to Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska only, th< Minnesota owners being omitted for reasons stated in the text.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 525
obtain farms in this manner, at least in the region in which these studies were made.
Table III shows the average age at which the men in these four groups left their fathers' farms. Referring again to Table II, it will be seen that the percentage of men who inherit their farms rises rapidly as the length of time they spend on the home farm increases. This is undoubtedly due to the larger size of farms on which those men who remained longest at home were brought up. Not only was there room for them on the home farm, but there was also land enough to furnish many of them homes as their share of the estate. The young fellows brought up on small farms left home early and made their way to the top of the ladder by the more laborious method of climbing from step to step.
TABLE III
AVERAGE LENGTH OF STAGES (For meaning of symbols, see Table I)
|
GROUPS |
F YRS. |
H YRS. |
T YRS. |
TOTAL YRS. |
ot YRS. |
|
1. FHTO . . 2. FHO .... |
19 19 |
7 10 |
10 |
36 29 |
13 20 |
|
3. FTO . . 4. FO . |
. . 23 |
9 |
33 |
11 17 |
Not only is the percentage of inheritance larger the longer the men remain on the home farm, but the proportion of those who buy from near relatives increases in like manner. The group who skipped the tenant stage are of special interest. Of the 268 men in this group, 160, or 60 per cent of them, own farms in the state of Minnesota. One hun- dred and thirty-one of this number bought their farms from others than near relatives. This was because land was cheap in that state at the time those men were acquiring their farms. For this reason the Minnesota men are omitted from this group in Table II. In the other four states 28 per cent of this group obtained their farms by marriage, 4 per cent by homesteading, and 7 per cent by inheritance. This group is thus made up quite largely of men who did not acquire ownership by purchase. Otherwise most of them would have been compelled to pass through the stage of tenant.
Table III shows the length of the various stages and the average age at which the men in each group acquired ownership. Those who left
* Age at ownership.
t Years since ownership was acquired.
526 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
their fathers' farms to become hired men did so at an average age of nineteen years. This applies to both groups 1 and 2. Group 3 were brought up on larger farms, remained at home four years longer, and were thus enabled to skip the hired-man stage. Their fathers set them up as tenants as a reward for their services on the home farm. Group 4 consists for the most part of men brought up on still larger farms. They remained at home till on the average they were twenty-six and one-half years old. We have already seen (Table II) that most of these men either inherited their farms or bought them on easy terms from their fathers or other near relatives.
Group 1 spent an average of seven years as hired men and ten years as tenants before acquiring ownership, which they did at an average age of thirty-six years. In general, the longer these men remained on the home farm, the earlier the age at which they acquired ownership. This is an argument in favor of farms of considerable size. The young men on such farms are less liable to have to pass through the stages of hired man and tenant.
It is worthy of note that class 2 is made up largely of men who ac- quired their farms a long time ago (twenty years on the average). In a less degree this is true of class 4, while classes 1 and 3 consist more largely of men who acquired their farms more recently. These last- mentioned classes both involve the stage of tenancy. It would thus ap- pear that it is becoming more and more difficult to acquire farms with- out passing through the tenant stage.
We have seen that the average age at which young men left home to become hired men on the farm was nineteen. The largest number left home at the age of eighteen. Next in order are twenty-one and six- teen years, respectively. Two started out at twelve years of age, while two others left the home farm when they were thirty-two years old.
While those who skipped the hired-man stage left home at an aver- age age of twenty-three, by far the larger number of them started out at twenty-one. Men who remained at home for various lengths of time and then went directly to ownership . . . are from twenty-one to thirty years of age. While the average length of the hired-man stage in the group that omitted none of the stages was seven years, the high num- bers come at from four to six years. The average is raised by the strag- glers who remained in this stage, in one case, as long as 28 years. In this same group the average length of the tenant stage was ten years; however, the high numbers come at from four to ten years.
It would thus appear that the usual course of those farm owners who start out without capital is to work four to six years as hired men, four to ten years as tenants, after which they make a first payment on a farm of their own. If this were a settled state of affairs in this country,
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 527
we might well face the future with complacency. Tenancy would be confined mainly to young men who are just winning their way to own- ership and the few incompetents and unfortunates who are unable to climb the ladder in the normal way.
But the price of land has been increasing at a rapid rate in recent years. As a result, the length of time a man must spend in the stages of hired man and tenant is increasing. In order to determine the extent of such increase, the men in group 1, who passed through all the stages, were divided into groups according to the decade in which they ac- quired ownership. Those who acquired their farms thirty-one to forty years ago spent on an average of 5.2 years as hired men. The length of this stage increases gradually, until it becomes 7.9 years for the sub- group who acquired ownership during the decade ending with 1917. This is an increase of 52 per cent in three decades, an average of about 17 per cent to the decade. The rate of increase is slower, however, dur- ing the later periods.
For those who acquired their farms thirty-one to forty years ago, the length of the tenant stage averages 4.9 years. Three decades later it had increased to 11.1 years, an increase of 127 per cent, or 42 per cent per decade. But the rate of increase is also slower here in the last decade than in the two previous, being for the three periods respectively 2.3, 2.4, and 1.5 years. It would therefore appear that even under present conditions it is possible, by good management, for the young man who must start out without capital to pass through the various stages neces- sary to farm ownership and acquire economic independence by the time his children are old enough for college. Whether this condition will continue will depend on several things, one of which is the price of farm land in the future. In Europe it is customary to state the price of farm land in terms of years' rental Twenty-five years' rent is con- sidered a normal price for land. It would simplify matters if a similar custom were adopted in this country. The man who buys a farm on time would then know more of his prospects for final ownership with- out debt.
Governmental action in aiding young men to acquire farms is an im- portant factor. Other nations, notably Denmark, have solved this prob- lem. There is no fundamental reason why this country cannot do the same thing. It is, however, beyond the province of this paper to pursue this phase of the subject. Nevertheless it behooves us as students of agricultural economics to consider carefully the entire subject of tenant farming in this country with a view to seeing that it occupies its proper status in a system in which ownership farming is the rule.
It would appear to be the part of wisdom for us to work for legisla- tion intended to aid young men who have proven themselves as hired
528 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
men to become tenants on good farms. Then when they have proven their ability as farm managers, aid should be extended to them in buy- ing farms. Such a plan would be in harmony with the normal processes by which farms are acquired. In helping tenants to buy farms it would be legitimate to limit the purchase price, say, to a specified number of years' rent. This would tend to prevent farm land from rising to such prices that men cannot hope to pay for their farms during their work- ing life. At least it would result in reducing tenancy to its normal status in those sections of the country in which the price of farm land is reasonable. It would also tend to reduce the price of land in sections where it is too high, for it would reduce the demand for such land.
64. A. W. ASHBY AND J. MORGAN JONES: THE SOCIAL ORIGIN OF WELSH FARMERS*
The data here dealt with were collected by the aid of local corre- spondents in the winter of 1924-1925. They cover sections of each of eleven counties in Wales and Monmouth. . . .
The records obtained in some degree cover conditions during a quarter of a century or more, for they include farmers who have re- cently begun a farming career with others who may have spent up to forty years in the industry, but that is not to suggest that had an investigation been made, say in 1906, the results would have been the same. Changes in the total number of farmers in Wales have occurred during the last fifty years. There was a decrease of about 3,000, or nearly 8 per cent, between 1871 and 1881, while numbers remained fairly steady until 1911, when an increase of about 3,000, or 8 per cent, occurred in the next decade. The later increase appears to be partly due to legal and social measures to increase the number of small holdings. The mere fact of the increase in numbers would not point to any change in the social origin of farmers in recent years, but the increase together with known social measures point to the assumption that the farming class is more fluid and recruited from more varied sources than it was two decades ago. And had an investigation been made between 1901 and 1911, when the total number of farmers was quite steady, it is probable that the farming class would have been shown to be more fixed than the results of the present study indicate. How- ever, even when the total number of farmers was steady, the class was
* From A. W. Ashby and J. Morgan Jones, The Social Origin of Welsh Farmers, in Welsh Studies, Univ. College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1926, pp. 12, 15-22. Reprinted with the permission of the authors.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 529
a fluid one, recruiting members from outside and sending members or their progeny to other occupations.
The recorders succeeded in recording the items of previous occupa- tion of the present farmer and the occupation of the farmer's father in 834 cases and every item of the investigation in 771 cases. The latter group will be mainly dealt with here, but in certain items compari- son will be made with the results of the larger group. These are not large samples, for the larger group represents only 2.04 per cent and the smaller group only 1.9 per cent of the total number of farmers. Nevertheless, the samples are adequate for present purposes, and they are as large as it might reasonably have been expected to obtain. And it is reassuring that in some respects there is no appreciable difference between the results shown by the larger and by the smaller sample. In the case of classification of holdings by rentals, the proportions in each group are almost identical.
PROPORTIONS OF HOLDINGS IN RENTAL GROUPS
|
RENTAL GROUPS (RENT OR GROSS ESTIMATED RENTAL) |
LARGER GROUP (834 FARMERS) |
SMALLER GROUP (771 FARMERS) |
||
|
No. |
Per Cent |
No. |
Per Cent |
|
|
ÂŁ30 and under |
194 |
23.26 |
177 |
22.95 |
|
ÂŁ31-49 |
155 |
18.58 |
144 |
18.67 |
|
ÂŁ50-99 |
322 |
38.61 |
303 |
39.29 |
|
ÂŁ100-149 |
104 |
12.39 |
95 |
12.32 |
|
ÂŁ150 and over Total |
59 |
7.07 |
52 |
6.74 |
|
834 |
100.00 |
771 |
100.00 |
The larger group is inclusive of the smaller, but the results in the smaller group show no important deviation from those of the larger group in respect of classification of holdings. It is unfortunate that there are no means of ascertaining to what degree this distribution of farms by rentals corresponds with the general distribution. Even if classification were made by area this would be the case, for the Agri- cultural Returns give numbers of "holdings" as units of land tenure and not as units of farming businesses.
PREVIOUS OCCUPATIONS OF FARMERS
As regards the previous occupations of the present members of the farming class the two samples again show approximately equal results.
530 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
PROPORTIONS OF FARMERS IN PREVIOUS OCCUPATIONS
|
PREVIOUS OCCUPATION |
LARGER GROUP (834 FARMERS) |
SMALLER GROUP (771 FARMERS) |
||
|
OF PRESENT FARMER |
No. |
Per Cent |
No. |
Per Cent |
|
Farmer's son . . . Hired farm worker . Other manual worker Artisan Other occupations Requiring capital Not requiring capital Total |
537 186 56 29 15 11 |
64.38 22.30 6.71 3.48 1.80 1.31 |
510 165 49 24 13 10 |
66.14 21.40 6.35 3.11 1.68 1.29 |
|
834 |
100.00 |
771 |
100.00 |
|
The further analysis of the previous occupations of farmers can thus be confined to the smaller group of farmers, for whom all other items, such as quality of farming, etc., were recorded.
The general results above show that some two-thirds of the present race of farmers have never had any occupation other than that of residents or workers on the parental farm. As most of the farms are small, less than 20 per cent of them being over ÂŁ100 in rental value, the great majority have been manual workers on the parental farm. Over 20 per cent have been hired farm workers, but one-third of these are actually sons of occupiers of farms that are too small to provide employment for all the members of the family. Thus about 88 per cent of the present class of farmers have been in a farming occupation dur- ing the whole, or practically the whole, of their working lives; and only about 12 per cent have had other occupations. Of the latter, one-half have been laborers or unskilled workers in other industries and trades. But the most surprising result is that so few farmers in Wales are re- cruited from the "trades and professions," especially from those in which capital is required.
Tables I and II show a complete analysis of the previous occupa- tions of the 771 farmers by rental groups. The first table indicates quite clearly that the proportion of "farmers' sons" to the total of each group rises with the size of farm until the last group is reached. But the pro- portion of those who have been hired farm workers (including some descendants of farmers) falls as the rental value rises. The same is true of other manual workers and artisan's. Thus the farmers recruited from manual occupations tend to start at the bottom of the ladder and many of them tend to remain there. Those recruited from "other oc- cupations" tend to miss the bottom rung of the ladder, but not to go
SUMMARY TABLE I SHOWING THE PERCENTAGE OF FARMERS OF DIFFERENT PREVIOUS OCCUPATIONS IN EACH RENT GROUP
FARM OTHER MANUAL , OTHER OCCUPATIONS
ARTISANS
n D OONS WORKERS WORKERS pnmfa|
*. PERCENTAGE BASE FOR t UF'
KENT GROUP VT OF PROPOR- ppr ppr ppr ppr ppr p«
Na TOTAL TIOV Total P r Total Per" Total Per" Total Per Total Per" Total Per' itm m VT centage VT ceotage VT centage XT centage XT centage M No, fT;, No, rrb, No, (T , No, ( ', No, ,T6, No, ofToa oTota oTota oToa oTota
Id under 111 1195 177=1 72 40,b7 71 til 20 11 JO 12 ol 2 IB
Hi 18,67 14^1 82 571 J5 22,91 15 M 5 3.47 5 147 4 2,77
n 39,29 1=100 231 76,23 47 15,51 14 4.62 5 1,65 2 0,66 4 1.32
ÂŁ100-149 95 12,32 95=100 82 86,31 9 9,47 . , 1 1,05 2 2,10 1 1.05
" Total TT 100,00 771=100 510 66,14 165 21,40 49 6,35 24 3,11 13 1,68
SUMMARY TABLE II SHOWING PERCENTAGE IN EACH GROUP OF EACH CLASS OF PREVIOUS OCCUPATION
|
terr GROUP |
FARMERS' SONS |
\ |
FARM faERS |
OTHER MANUAL , „, ARTISANS WORKERS |
OTHER OCCUPATIONS |
||||||
|
Capital |
No Capital |
||||||||||
|
Total No, |
Percentage ofTotal |
Total No, |
Percentage ofTotal |
Total No, |
Percentage ofTotal |
Total No, |
Percentage ofTotal |
Total No, |
Percentage ofTotal |
Total Percentage No, ofTotal |
|
|
130 and under ÂŁ31-49 ÂŁ5W9 ÂŁ100-149 ÂŁ150 and over Total |
72 82 231 82 43 |
14,12 45.29 8,43 |
71 33 47 9 5 |
43.03 20,00 28,48 5,45 3,04 |
20 15 14 |
40,8 30,6 28.6 |
12 5 5 1 1 |
20,83 20,83 4,12 4,12 |
2 5 2 2 2 |
15,38 38,48 15,38 15,38 15.38 |
is |
|
510 |
1,00 |
165 |
100,00 |
49 |
n,o |
24 |
100,00 |
13 |
100,00 |
10 100,00 |
532 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
in near the top, as fifteen of the twenty-three are found on farms of rental value between ÂŁ31 and ÂŁ100.
OCCUPATION OF FARMER'S FATHER
As regards the occupation of the fathers of the present farmers again there is little appreciable difference between the results for the larger and those of the smaller group, although the results do not agree as closely as previously.
OCCUPATIONS OF FATHERS OF FARMERS
|
OCCUPATION OF FATHER OF PRESENT FARMER |
LARGER GROUP (834 FARMERS) |
SMALLER GROUP (771 FARMERS) |
||
|
No. |
Per Cent |
No. |
Per Cent |
|
|
Farmer |
624 |
74.82 |
592 |
76.78 |
|
Farm worker |
90 |
10.80 |
82 |
10.63 |
|
Other manual worker . . . |
62 |
7.43 |
45 |
5.83 |
|
Artisan |
47 |
5.63 |
44 |
5.70 |
|
Other occupations Requiring capital . . Not requiring capital. Total |
8 3 |
0.96 0.36 |
5 3 |
0.64 0.38 |
|
834 |
100.00 |
771 |
100.00 |
With this table of the results of the analysis of two groups the com- parisons end, and analysis is limited to the smaller group only. The following table shows the occupations of fathers of farmers, classify- ing the present farmers by rental groups.
The results show that about 75 per cent of the present class of farm- ers have descended from farmers and that 10 per cent have descended from farm workers. Thus some 85 per cent of the farming class have a social, though not a physical, inheritance of farming knowledge and experience. They are brought up in a farming environment and they imbibe farming traditions. The remainder are recruited chiefly from manual working classes, their fathers being chiefly "other manual workers" and "artisans."
The predominance of descent from families of farmers is shown in every rental group but is most marked in the groups of ÂŁ100 and up- wards. This shows the importance of the inheritance of capital for the purpose of starting farms, whether the amount of capital be large or small. The proportions oÂŁ numbers of fathers who were farm workers,
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION
533
TABLE III OCCUPATION OF FATHERS OF PRESENT FARMERS
|
RENTAL GROUP |
FARMER FARM WORKER |
OTHER MANUAL WORKER |
OTHER OCCUPATIONS |
|
ARTISAN N°c Re- Capital quiring Capital |
Per Per Per Per Per Per
No. Cent No. Cent No. Cent No. Cent No. Cent No. Cent
|
ÂŁ30 and under 99 |
55.93 |
39 22.03 |
16 9.06 |
21 11.86 |
1 |
0.56 |
1 |
0.56 |
100 |
||
|
ÂŁ31-49 107 |
74.30 |
14 |
9.72 |
11 7.63 |
10 |
6.94 |
1 |
0.69 |
1 |
0.69 |
100 |
|
ÂŁ50-99 253 |
83.49 |
22 |
7.26 |
16 531 |
10 |
3.30 |
2 |
0.66 |
100 |
||
|
ÂŁ100-149 87 |
91.57 |
5 |
5.26 |
1 1.05 |
2 |
2.10 |
100 |
||||
|
ÂŁ150 and over 46 |
88.46 |
2 |
3.84 |
1 1.92 |
1 |
1.92 |
1 |
1.92 |
1 |
1.92 |
100 |
|
Total ~m |
82~ |
45 |
44 |
3 |
T |
||||||
|
Percentage |
|||||||||||
|
of total 76.78 |
10,63 |
5.83 |
5.7 |
38 |
.64 |
other manual workers, and artisans decrease as the rental value of farms occupied by sons increases.
But the most interesting result is obtained by comparing the previous occupations of the present farmers with the occupations of their fa- thers. By this means an indication of the proportion of hired farm workers (in previous occupation) who are actually descended from farmers is obtainable.
Thus if the two agricultural groups are taken together, they are almost exactly identical: 675 being found in the first and 674 in the third column. It should be clearly understood that this result is purely accidental, and that no reliance can be placed on the expected occur-
OCCUPATION
PREVIOUS OCCUPATION PRESENT FARMER
No.
Percentage
OCCUPATION OF FATHER OF PRESENT FARMER
No. Percentage
|
Farmer's son or farmer |
510 |
66.14 |
592 |
76,78 |
|
Farm worker |
. 165 |
2L40 |
82 |
10.63 |
|
Other manual worker. . . . |
, , 49 |
635 |
45 |
5.83 |
|
Artisan |
24 |
3.11 |
44 |
5.70 |
|
Other occupations Recjuiring capital , , , |
13 |
1.68 |
3 |
038 |
|
Not requiring capital |
10 |
1.29 |
5 |
0.64 |
|
Total |
. , 771 |
100.00 |
771 |
100.00 |
534 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
rence oÂŁ this numerical correspondence. In fact, of 165 "farm workers" by previous occupation, 55 were sons of farmers, 71 were sons of farm workers, and 39 were sons of men in other occupations.
No such complete correspondence is found in other occupational groups. Only 24 of the present farmers had been previously occupied as artisans, but 44 were sons of artisans. While the totals in all the other occupational groups in each of the columns will necessarily nearly cor- respond with each other, there is considerable transposition of occupa- tion from father to son, as shown by differences in numbers between groups. Some of this certainly occurs between the agricultural and the nonagricultural groups.
OCCUPATION OF FARMER'S GRANDFATHER
The fluidity of the farming class may best be shown by the fact that of 771 farmers now in control of land only 592 had farmers for fathers and only 522 had grandfathers who were farmers; or that 76 per cent of the present farmers had farmers for fathers and 67 per cent had farmers for grandfathers. A further analysis is required to discover how many of the present farmers had both fathers and grandfathers who were farmers. This is not shown in the following table, for an individual farmer of the present may have descended from a farming grandfather through a father who had another occupation. But the fol- lowing table shows the occupation of the grandfathers of present farmers.
TABLE IV
OCCUPATION OF FARMER'S GRANDFATHER
|
RENTAL GROUP |
FARMER FARM WORKER |
OTHER MANUAL WORKER |
OTHER OCCUPATION |
|
ARTISAN Capital |
Not Re- quiring Capital |
Per Per Per Per Per Per
No. Cent No, Cent No. Cent No. Cent No. Cent No. Cent
ÂŁ30 and under 84 47.45 54 30.50 20 11.30 16 9.06 1 0.56 2 1.13 100
ÂŁ31-49 85 59.02 31 21.52 1611.11 12 8.33 .. 100
ÂŁ50-99 229 75.57 27 8.91 25 8.25 16 5.31 4 1.32 2 .66 100
ÂŁ100-149 81 85.26 10 10.52 2 2.10 2 2.10 ... 100
ÂŁ150andoverjW 84.61__ÂŁ 7.65 JL^ 1.92 _2. 3.84 _ . J^ 1.92 100
Total 523 126 64 48 5 5 771
Percentage
of total 67.83 16.34 8.3 6.22 .64 .64 100
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 535
This classification by rental groups shows an increasing proportion oÂŁ grandfathers who were farmers as the rental value rises, and, with one deviation, that the proportion of farmers who had grandfathers who were farm workers falls as the rental value rises.
But the most striking fact illustrated by the analysis of the occupa- tions of fathers and grandfathers of the present farmers is that only some 75 or 76 per cent have descended, even through one generation, from previous farmers. Even allowing for the fact that an increase in the total number of farmers has occurred in the last decade, general fluidity exists. Moreover, there is evidence not only that persons re- cruited from other occupations "climb the farming ladder," but that farming families descend the farming ladder. Such increases in num- ber of farms as have occurred are mainly in the number of small farms. The process of increasing farms must itself tend to diminish the aver- age size, even to diminish the number of medium-sized or large farms, while the total area of farming land is diminishing. And while the number of farms increased between 1911 and 1921, the area of culti- vated land (arable and pasture) under all farms decreased by over 6 per cent. While men who had fathers or grandfathers who were farm workers, or "other manual workers," were "climbing the ladder," sons and grandsons of farmers were going out of the industry. Not all of these went out by a descent to manual occupations, for some pass to the trades and professions, mostly to the professions, from the top of the ladder itself. They may of course pass out of the industry at any stage by taking to another occupation in youth without even be- coming farmers. But there is indication of a downward drift of farm- ers in the analysis of quality of farming in relation to family descent.
65. A. W. ASHBY AND J. LLEFELYS DAVIES: THE AGRICULTURAL LADDER AND THE AGE OF FARMERS*
The degree of specialization of labor in agriculture varies between different areas of England and Wales. Where the larger farms exist the farmers have only or mainly managerial functions. On the smaller farms the farmer becomes in varying degrees both manager and work- man. Over the country in general the proportion of employes exercis- ing supervisory or managerial functions is very low.
It has become almost customary to deprecate the idea of specializa- tion of function in agriculture and to suggest that it is undesirable, if not impossible, in the form in which it has been developed in other industries. On the other hand, it is frequently suggested that there is,
*From the Welsh Journal of Agriculture, Vol. VI, 1930. Reprinted with the permis- sion oÂŁ the authors,
536 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
or there should be, "an agricultural ladder" by which the one-time workman may become a small holder, "a worker on his own account" as the census so well defines this status, and, possibly, eventually the occupier of a farm with sufficient business to need and use employes. The suggestion was made a century and a half ago that such a "ladder" existed, and the statement is often made at the present time that a "practicable agricultural ladder" is an urgent social necessity.
There is a good deal of confusion in these ideas and suggestions; but, most important in Great Britain, there is no clear realization that all the suggestions of "an agricultural ladder," whether it exists or whether it should be made, imply an age ladder. In effect, the young man will start as an employe, for no one apparently suggests that a class of temporary employes, at least, is unnecessary or undesirable. At a later stage he will become a small farmer of the status of tenant, and then he may change his property status and become an owner, or change his industrial status and become an employer on a larger farm. Then if he is particularly fortunate or peculiarly efficient, he may change his property status and become the owner of a large farm. But all these changes will tend to occur at different stages in the life of the individual. He will be older as he makes each change. Individual climbers will make different rates of progress and arrive at the various stages at different ages according to their personal capacities and the economic advantages or handicaps with which they start. Eventually, individuals will arrive and stop at different steps in the ladder. While one may climb with difficulty on to the first step, another will proceed apace to the highest rung. But with a broad ladder and full activity the process of climbing would segregate people and determine their functions and tasks in the industry, not only according to ability but also according to age.1 With a narrower ladder, a partial working of the process, some amount of this kind of segregation must and does take place.
Hitherto there has been no direct evidence of this phenomenon in England and Wales, but in the United States where something like the "ladder" exists, and is appreciated, the phenomenon may be seen quite clearly. "It has been found convenient to regard working as a wage- earner, as a tenant, and as an owner-farmer as successive rungs on a ladder of individual progress in agriculture. The comparison is use- ful in some regards, for it suggests a movement from stage to stage that constitutes an important fact in the economic life of the farming classes. We may recognize the following important steps, arranged in the usual order of progress: (1) farm wage laborers; (2) croppers,
'See below, pp. 537, 541-547.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 537
especially in the south; (3) tenants other than croppers; (4) part own- ers, mortgaged; (5) part owners, free of mortgage; (6) owner-farmers, mortgaged; (7) owner-farmers, free of mortgage.2 But in applying the analogy of the ladder to such an artificial scheme there must be a num- ber of reservations." "Various successive stages may not always repre- sent progress." "Progress in independence does not always represent progress in well being." 3
The ages of farmers at several of the stages mentioned above are given below.
PERCENTAGE OF FARMERS IN EACH GROUP (U. S. A., 1920)
|
«<*. |
CASH AND SHARE TENANTS |
FIED SHARE TENANTS |
op™ |
MORTGAGED |
FULL GAGED |
TOTAL, EXCLUDING MANAGERS |
|
Under 25 |
63.4* |
12.4 |
5.0 |
7.6 |
10.2 |
98.6 |
|
25-34 |
42.7 |
13.8 |
8.9 |
17.1 |
16.2 |
98.7 |
|
35-44 |
28.7 |
11.1 |
10.5 |
22.0 |
26.6 |
98.9 |
|
45-54 |
21.1 |
9.0 |
9.8 |
21.6 |
37.6 |
99.1 |
|
55-64 |
14.2 |
6.5 |
7.7 |
19.7 |
51.2 |
99,3 |
|
65 and over |
10.8 |
5.7 |
4.7 |
14.1 |
64.1 |
99.4 |
The suggestion that there is, or should be, an agricultural ladder has many implications that deserve statement in the clearest possible form.
L Unless the industry is expanding or the number of independent businesses increasing, the rise of any number of people from the posi- tion of employe to that of working for themselves or becoming em- ployers implies that an equal number of persons must suffer a decline in status or leave the industry.
The statement contains the implication that the sons of small holders and farmers have the same potential status as their fathers, or nearly so; and this is true in a general sense. They frequently inherit or receive by gift or marriage some capital, and they have considerable advantages in "climbing the ladder" even if they do not set foot at the start on the rungs held by their fathers,4
3 With a well-established, organized, and legally protected system of tenancy it is arguable whether or not ownership is the most desirable goal.
3 "Farm Ownership and Tenancy," U. S. 0. A. Yearbook 1923, pp. 507-600.
* Figures in italics represent the age group in each tenure class which shows the highest percentage.
* In Wales some 77 per cent of present farmers were sons of farmers. ("Social Origin of Welsh Farmers," Welsh Journal, Vol. II.) In England the proportion may be 70 per cent or higher. (Lennard, Economic Notes on English Agricultural Wages, p. 59.)
538 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
2. The people now enjoying the industrial and economic status of small holder and farmer (approximately the status of "working on own account" and "employer") produce sufficient and more than suf- ficient sons to supply the future requirements of these classes as indi- cated by the present economic trends.
Not by any means all of these sons follow in their father's footsteps. The number of small holders and farmers who die or who become eco- nomic casualities is greater than the number of oncoming sons. By the efflux of sons and relatives openings are made for persons of lower eco- nomic status within the industry, or for persons from outside.
3. The efflux of sons of small holders and farmers, mainly sons of farmers, carries with it an efflux of capital which has previously been used in the industry.
Unless the total supply of capital is to be diminished an equal amount of capital must be saved or at least brought on to the farms. Any "ladder" implies that it will be saved. There may be temporary borrowing but unless the borrowers are going "to work for the banks" they must save eventually.
Unless there is an adequate system of credit in existence this saving must mean one of two things: either the farms used for climbing are relatively short of capital for considerable periods, or the families are kept relatively short of income for consumption purposes. The exist- ence of the best credit system changes the probability of the occurrence of one of these conditions only in degree and does not remove it. It is safe to say that no other productive industry now saves capital under such hard conditions as those prevailing in agriculture. It is practically certain that the existence of the agricultural ladder, especially in the small-farm pastoral regions, is responsible for a good deal of under- capitalization.
4. The existence of a wide "ladder" means that climbing is chiefly a process of hard saving of farming capital in order to take it out of the industry. The man who starts as employe and becomes employer and capitalist whose children do not return to farming merely supplies capital for other industries and professions.
It may be good for the industry, even for the farming class, that it should take in "new blood," and it is almost certainly good for society at large that there is an efflux from the farming class to other occupa- tions. Doubt may be expressed as to whether it is good for agriculture that on the passing of each generation capital should pass out of its organization and that every rising generation should be obliged to save capital other than that required for replenishment and increase of total supply.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 539
5. As regards the general possibility of climbing, and the rate at which it may be accomplished, it is necessary to remember that as a large proportion of agricultural capital is obtained by inheritance and marriage, certain people who have to save or accumulate all the capital that they use must climb with heavy handicaps. Only relatively high personal capacity can enable them to climb at all. There cannot be com- plete freedom of competition in climbing an agricultural ladder.
6. The existence of a ladder also implies a good deal of mobility in the farming class. There cannot be economic climbing without a considerable amount of physical moving. There are occasions when the tenant changes his status without changing his farm. On rare occasions the employe may become the tenant of the farm on which he has been employed. If, however, climbing is from small farm to larger, the physical moving must occur with the economic climbing.
Mobility of the agricultural class is to be desired. Rigid immobility is bad for the class of farmers, and on the whole bad for society. There can be little doubt that the present class of farmers are quite as settled in the matter of residence and place of business as is desirable, and it is probable that a little more moving and broadening of experience would have good effects. On the other hand, too much movement has its own disadvantages. These are social rather than economic in character. The moving family breaks relationships with school and church, with peo- ple and societies, and if movement is frequent the family may never have any settled or satisfactory social relationships. It is significant that in the United States of America the average period of farm occupancy by free owners is only about 14 years, of mortgaged owner only 9.2 years, while the average period of occupancy by cash tenants is only 3.8 years,5 and oÂŁ "share renters" 2.6 years. The average period of occu- pancy by tenants in England and Wales has been about four times longer than in the United States and a little longer than that of owners of American farms. Enquiries made in 1919 indicated an average period of occupancy by tenants oÂŁ 15-16 years. Such stability would be entirely impossible with a ladder of any considerable width.
The complete agricultural ladder does not exist even in the United States. Of the tenants recorded in the census of 1920, only 42 per cent had previous farming experience only as wage hands, while 47 per cent had no previous experience (except possibly working on their parents' farms) either as wage hands or as owners; some 5 per cent had experi- ence as both wage hands and owners; and another 6 per cent had ex- perience as owners. The last two figures are notable, for they indicate
6 Period area 1910, U. S. D. A, Yearbook, 1923, p, 594.
540 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
that the agricultural ladder, like all others, leads in two directions from any point except the extreme ends.
As regards the owners recorded in the United States census of 1920, some 42 per cent became owners without being either wage hands or tenants, 14 per cent became owners after being wage hands only, 24 per cent became owners after experience only as tenants, while not more than 20 per cent went through all the stages — wage hand, tenant, owner. Probably the great majority of the 42 per cent had worked without wages on parents' farms.6
The processes as regards the stages passed through by both tenants and owners varied from state to state to some extent, but the above extracts represent the general processes.
The existence of an agricultural ladder in England and Wales de- pends upon one or more of these four conditions; (a) expanding area in use, (ÂŁ) reduction in size of farms, (c) rapid change of status of persons within the industry, (d) efflux of farmers to other occupations; and in the case of (c) it should be noted that the "ladder" is one of ascension and descension. The industry is not expanding, and shows tendency rather to decline. The area in farms is diminishing. But the size of the industry as regards numbers of persons engaged, or engaged in any particular capacity, even as farmers, is not entirely dependent upon the area used. Increase in production, or increase in numbers of persons engaged, either in total or in a given class, may be quite con- sistent with a decline in total area used as shown by the figures. From 1881 to the present time the numbers of farmers have been as follows:
MALES FEMALES TOTAL*
|
1881 |
203,329 |
20,614 |
223,943 |
|
1891 |
201,918 |
21,692 |
223,610 |
|
1901 |
202,751f |
21,548 |
223,299 |
|
1911 |
208,761f |
20,027 |
228,788 |
|
1921 |
244,653f |
19,440 |
264,093 |
The figures for census years prior to 1871 are not strictly comparable with those given above. But from 1881 to 1901 the number of farmers was practically constant, there was an increase from 1901 to 1911, and a greater increase in the following decade.
6U. S. D. A. Yearbook 1923, pp. 553-556.
* For a convenient summary of population figures see Agricultural Output of England and Wales, 1925, chap. viii.
t Figures used in Table I below differ from these by omitting males under 15 years.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 541
At these periods the total area in use ("total cultivated land") and the average "per farmer" and "per holding" have been as follows:
|
TOTAL CULTIVATED AREA IN ACRES |
AVERAGE SIZE OF FARM* IN ACRES |
TOTAL NUMBER OF HOLDINGS |
AVERAGE SIZE OF HOLDING* |
||
|
1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 |
27,448,900 28,002,134 27,562,314 27,248,823 26,144,071 |
122.6 125.2 123.4 119.1 99.0 |
(1885) (1895) (1903) (1913) |
452,000f 440,467 433,002 435,677 420,133 |
60.7 63.6 63.6 62.5 62.2 |
These figures can be used only for comparative purposes, for the average size of farms farmed for a full livelihood is not known. So far as the figures for "average size of farm" go, they indicate that an in- creasing number of farmers working on their own account or as em- ployers is quite consistent with a decline in acreage and reduction in size of the average farm. But the latter condition means a shortening of the ladder, broader steps but fewer steps to climb.
Evidence available for Wales indicates that there is little recruitment of farmers from outside the agricultural classes, but that there is con- siderable recruitment of farmers from the farm worker class. Nearly 11 per cent of the present farmers had farm workers for fathers; and 10-11 per cent of the present farmers had been both farm employes and sons of farm employes. But as many as 22 per cent of the present farm- ers had worked as employes on farms. There may also be some other characteristics of the "ladder" movement in agricultural status by move- ment from one farm to a bigger or better one, and by change from the status of tenant to that of owner.
From what has already been stated it might be expected that in the case of the existence of a broad agricultural ladder, the farmers of the higher economic status would tend to be those of the higher age levels. There is no general evidence on this point, but an analysis of the age of farmer and size and rent of farm in a group of Cardiganshire farms gave a negative result. No general and direct relationship was found between the age of the farmer and the size or rental of his farm. This is in accordance with expectations arising from the investigation
* The average size of farm and the average size of holding arc obtained by dividing the total number of acres under cultivation by the number of farmers and the number of holdings, respectively,
t Figures for 1885 have been adjusted as nearly as possible. The figures in this column are of little value, but are the only ones available. For a full discussion see Agricultural Output oj England and Wales, 1925, chap, vii and pp. 143-144.
542 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
of the origin of Welsh farmers. But the further analysis of this group of Cardiganshire farmers indicated that the subgroup of older farm- ers over 55 years of age consisted of four distinct classes: (a) the class of occupiers of small farms who had always been occupiers of such farms and had not changed their status, (b} a class of occupiers of small farms to which they had retired or "retreated" from larger farms,7 (c) a class of occupiers of medium and larger farms who had been in occupation of those farms throughout their business career, and (d) a class of farmers who had "climbed" to farms of this size. It is only for the last class that a direct positive correlation between age of farmer and size of farm would be expected; and it should be noticed that in the whole group the tendency towards negative correlation in class (ÂŁ) would tend to balance the tendency towards positive corre- lation in class (d)?
The general position is that farmers may be recruited at any age; they may then continue in farming throughout their business or occu- pational life, or became economic casualities, e.g., become bankrupts or fail in similar ways; then they may die at any age or they may leave the industry by retiring. While remaining as farmers they may main- tain a constant status in the class, ascend or descend the ladder within the class. There is some retirement of farmers in addition to loss by death and economic casualty. Very few cases of retirement before the age of 55 years occur, though farmers occasionally leave the industry to enter other business at all age levels up to 55 or 60 years. In the case of actual retirement the process may be gradual and not immediate. A farmer who is satisfied with his economic success, who does not wish the responsibility of carrying on a large farm may "retreat" to a small farm where he has occupational interest without hard work or heavy responsibility. There are also some cases of "economic retreat": the cases of men whose capacity has not proved equal to the farms to which they attained, or who have suffered unforeseen or unavoidable loss. The group of older farmers on the small farms does not entirely represent relative failures, but contains some cases of relatively high success.
T There are two kinds of "retreat": the retreat of success and the seeking of an easier Hfe with some occupational interest; and the retreat from partial failure.
8 In the course of a survey of a Carmarthenshire parish by W. H. Jones the ages of farmers were ascertained from them and checked by reference to documents, and the sizes of farms were checked. In this small area in which holdings are well graded by size the coefficient of correlation (r) between the age of farmer and size of farm was found to be r — — .25. The probable error of the coefficient of correlation = ± .06, The chances therefore are that the true r falls between — .19 and — .31. "The study fails to show the existence of a social ladder in the parish. Allowance, however, must be made for the fact that many farmers as they become advanced in years retire to smaller holdings."
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 543
By an examination of the census data it is possible to obtain some information about the recruitment of farmers, and by the application of the known death rates at different ages to the census records it is possible to obtain some idea as to how the class of farmers is consti- tuted. If it were also possible to distribute the numbers of economic casualties according to the age at which they occur, it would be pos- sible to obtain information about the changes in the farming class with a fairly high degree of accuracy.
As regards economic casualties, bankruptcies, and other financial failures, it has to be remembered that these are not always complete and final. In many cases there is a windmg-up of current affairs and a re-start at a later date. The numbers of recorded bankruptcies and deeds of arrangement are not important, for over long periods they oc- cur only at the rate of about twelve in 10,000 per annum, or twelve in 1,000 per decade. There are other financial failures, but these tend to take the character of the economic retreat of farmers to smaller farms.
The average age of recruitment of farmers is 33-34 years and it has scarcely changed in the last half century. The average age of all farm- ers in any recent year is 48-49 years. This has fallen by about one year since 1911 or a little later, but had previously shown a tendency to decline.
FARMERS AND GRAZIERS (GROUP AS IN CENSUS YEAR)
1901 1911 1921
|
Average age of recruitment |
|||
|
(net group)* |
33.6 |
33.4 |
33.9 |
|
Average age of recruitment |
|||
|
(gross recruitment )f . . . |
33.4 |
33.3 |
33.8 |
|
Average age of farmers . . . |
49.7 |
49.3 |
48.2 |
The economic importance of the age of farmers largely depends up- on the size of farms they control and the type of capacity and efficiency that is required of them. On the smaller farms where muscular capac- ity with skill and efficiency in manual work may be a big factor in success, the highest efficiency may be reached at the age of 35, or if experience is joined with skill and efficiency, at 45 years. But where the efficiency required is of the "executive" order, the higher levels
* Net recruitment is the net number deducting the deaths estimated by the death rates from the total number of males taken into the group.
t Gross recruitment is the total number taken in the group without deducting deaths.
544 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
may not be touched until the age of 45 is reached, and the highest levels may well be reached after attaining the age of 50.
The length of occupational or business "life" of farmers, as such, varies between one year and 60 or more years, and as many as 3 per cent have a business life of 50 years or more. Recruitment begins at an early age, largely because of inheritance, and as many as 13 per cent become farmers before they reach the age of 25 years; and a great number, nearly 50 per cent of the total, become farmers when between 25 and 35 years. A number of the males who are "farmers or graziers" at ages below 21 years are not in control of farms, for the farms which are coming to them are controlled by guardians or executors. Of the total recruited at the age of 15-24 more than 80 per cent have been re- cruited between the ages of 20 and 24 years.
ESTIMATED NET RECRUITMENT OF FARMERS
|
ESTIMATED AGE OF RECRUITMENT |
PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL |
||
|
1901 |
1911 |
1921 |
|
|
65 and over |
1.1 |
||
|
55-64 |
0.5 |
0.4 |
0.2 |
|
45-54 |
8.55 |
8.7 |
11.0 |
|
35-44 |
27.2 |
28.5 |
29,3 |
|
25-34 |
49.1 |
49.4 |
46.6 |
|
15-24 |
13.55 |
13.0 |
12.9 |
It appears that in the decade 1892-1901 there was appreciable recruit- ment of farmers of quite high ages, but since then practically all the members of the class join it before they reach 55 years of age, and nearly 90 per cent join it before they reach the age of 45 years. But the full statements are interesting (Table I). In the years just before 1891 and again just before 1921 there was a large recruitment of very young men as farmers. And in the decade 1912-1921 there was heavy recruit- ment of men between 45-54 years of age, as well as a number over 55 years. The only decade in which there appears to have been recruit- ment of men over 65 was that of 1892-1901.
So far as can be ascertained from the figures, there have been rela- tively few farmers who have completely retired. The losses by death are nearly sufficient to account for all the losses sustained from the gross number recruited. Of the total number of farmers recruited for the group of 1921, it is estimated that less than 1,000 retired, and that about one-third of these retired in the decade 1902-1911 at between 55 and 64 years of age, and the remaining two-thirds in the decade 1912-1921
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION
TABLE I
545
CONSTITUTION AND ESTIMATED RECRUITMENT OF GROUPS OF MALE FARMERS AND GRAZIERS AS AT RECENT CENSUSES*
|
A. 1921 |
||||||
|
15-24 |
25-34 |
35-44 |
65 and 45-54 55-64 over |
Total (Actual) |
Percent- age |
|
|
65 and over 55-64 45-54 35-44 25-34 15-24 |
3,025 4,587 6,059 4,524 4,332 8,953 |
14,139 20,883 21,579 24,224 33,164 |
9,660 14,258 19,196 28,454 |
4,941 7,213 600 . 14,674 |
31,765 47,541 61,508 57,202 37,496 8,953 |
13.0 19.5 25.2 23.4 15.3 3.6 |
|
Total |
31,480 |
113,989 |
71,568 |
26,828 600 |
244,465 |
100.00 |
|
B. 1911 |
||||||
|
65 and over 55-64 45-54 35-44 25-34 15-24 |
2,910 3,915 4,937 6,339 4;673 4,392 |
14,071 18,344 22,989 22,685 25,005 |
11,264 12,532 15,634 20,087 |
3,836 . 6,408 7,908 |
32,902 41,199 51,468 49,111 29,678 4,392 |
15.8 19.7 24.7 23.5 14.2 2.1 |
|
Total |
27,166 |
103,094 |
59,517 |
18,152 |
208,750 |
100.00 |
|
C. 1901 |
||||||
|
65 and over 55-64 45-54 35-44 |
2,627 3,691 4,392 5,333 |
13,145 17,818 20,586 24,267 |
10,260 14,273 14,066 16,573 |
5,279 1,040 2,287 4,860 7,194 |
33,598 41,682 46,238 46,173 |
16.6 20.6 22.8 22.8 |
|
25-34 |
6,599 |
23,625 |
30,224 |
14,9 |
||
|
15-24 |
4,830 |
4,830 |
2.3 |
|||
|
Total |
27,472 |
99,441 |
55,172 |
17,333 1,040 2,287 |
202,745 |
100.00 |
at over 65 years. Of the total number recruited for the group of 1911 it is estimated that less than 400 retired in the decade 1902-1911 at over 65 years of age. While from the total recruited for the group of 1901 it appears that about 800 retired in the decade 18824891 at 55-65 years of age. It is notable that there is no direct trace of retirement in the periods of economic depression, 1892-1901; while there was recruit- ment at fairly high ages, this recruitment itself would hide retirements. Similarly, recruitment of older men between 1912 and 1921 would also
*These figures show net recruitment, allowing for deaths but not for final casualties from financial causes.
546 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
tend to hide retirements of others. If there are any considerable num- bers of final casualties from economic causes these estimated numbers of retirements must be decreased. In any case, it is clear that the num- ber of complete retirements of farmers from business in recent dec- ades is very small. Most farmers "die in harness."
Alongside the group of farmers, the census records the numbers of male relatives of farmers engaged in agriculture. These are mostly males below 35 years of age; more than half the number recorded in recent censuses were below 25 years of age. It is from this group of males that farmers are mainly recruited. But many of these male rela- tives pass out of the "farmer-relative class" into the ranks of employes or out of the industry altogether.
When the recruitment of the farmers and the diminution of the class of male relatives, as for the respective groups of 1921, are analyzed in detail it appears that some 48,000 farmers were recruited who could not possibly have been derived directly from the class of male rela- tives. This represents 20 per cent of the total number of farmers. But most of these, over 40,000, are recruited at ages over 35 years, and some 25,000 are recruited between 35-44 years. At the age level of 25-34 years the class of male relatives is losing greater numbers than the group of farmers is taking in, but at higher age levels the farmer group takes in greater numbers than the class of relatives loses. The number of men taken into the farmer group other than from the class of relatives has been growing, for in the recruitment of the group of farmers of 1911 it represented only about 39,000, or 18 per cent of the total. For the group of farmers of 1901, the numbers recruited that could not have been supplied by the group of relatives amounted only to about 31,000, or about 15 per cent of the total. A part of the recent increase is doubt- less due to the operation of the Small Holdings Act, but how much cannot be ascertained. There is, of course, no evidence of recruitment from any particular outside source and other investigations would be necessary to discover the source of recruits. All that is in evidence is that the farmer group fails to maintain itself by direct recruitment from the class of male relatives who remain on farms and engage in the industry.
There may be, of course, other changes and movements of which no indication is given by the census and analogous records. But, on the whole, the indications are that the farming group is maintained as to at least 75 per cent by recruitment from the class of relatives. Ac- cess to the control of land and capital cannot be obtained by many farm workers at ages less than 35 years. The greater number of farm workers who become small holders or small farmers to the extent of
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 547
"working on own account" or of becoming employers do so at ages higher than 35 years. One important factor in the determination of the age at change of status is the time at which the older children be- come fit for farm work, and the age at which the strain of maintaining younger children begins to pass.
If the whole of the 50,000 farmers recruited from outside sources were taken from the groups of farm employes, then in the period prior to 1921 about 9 per cent of the total of employes would have an oppor- tunity of becoming farmers. But the farm employes group consists of men of all ages, and, as shown, the recruitment of farmers tends to occur more at certain ages than at others. If the whole of these outside recruits were taken from the class of farm workers at the ages of re- cruitment, then, between the ages of 25 and 55, 20 per cent of the class of farm workers would have the opportunity of becoming farmers. But the great movement of farm workers from the industry occurs at the ages 20-24, and 25-30. The movement from the class of employes at higher ages is relatively small, but is sufficient to fill the open places in the ranks of farmers if men could command the necessary capital. It is a very striking fact that when there was abnormal recruitment of farmers at the ages of 45-54 in the decade 1912-1921 there was no ab- normal loss in the group of farm employes of the same ages. The loss from this age group of employes in this decade was not sufficient to make the number of recruits to the farmer group.
It is evident that while the group of farmers is mainly recruited from farming families, it takes in recruits from other sources and even from outside families immediately connected with the industry. There is no direct evidence from general records of the amount of actual recruit- ment from the class of farm employes. Openings exist for them if they can obtain the control of capital necessary for the equipment and culti- vation of farms. But while a great many relatives of farmers who stay working on farms until they reach the age of 25 and over are then obliged to seek other occupations, there must be strenuous competition for farm workers to face.
On the whole, it is good for society, and probably good for the eco- nomic organization of agriculture, that there should be recruitment of farmers from outside the families of farmers, and even from outside families connected with the industry. The chief need is that they should be equipped with the necessary technical knowledge and should have possession or command of capital. But the probability is that many of the outside recruits have less difficulty about capital than is encountered by some persons recruited within the industry itself. From the point of view of economic adaptability it is probable that insuffi-
548 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
cient recruitment from outside sources occurs. As regards farm work- ers, there is no doubt that greater recruitment from this class depends very largely on command of capital, and, in some districts, of suitable "rungs" in the ladder. While specialization of function and spread of responsibility among employes are so much restricted, there is need of a "ladder" which will enable men to change their status and functions according to their abilities. But such a ladder can only exist as a modi- fication of the present system. The logical result of continuing to create small holdings must be the shortening, and, eventually, the destruc- tion of the ladder itself.
66. V. KAVRAISKI AND I. NUSINOFF: DYNAMIC CHANGES WITHIN PEASANT ENTERPRISES*
Within peasant enterprises the dynamic processes of socio-economic regrouping or of socio-economic ups and downs go on incessantly. The extent of the importance of these dynamic processes of the re- grouping of peasant enterprises may be seen from the following data:
The table shows that the more prosperous farm enterprises are more stable, since there is a smaller percentage of migration to or from such enterprises. These figures concerning households migrating from 1927 to 1928 show a quite regular descending progression of social groups, from the proletarian groups to the peasant capitalistic group. (The peasant owners of industrial enterprises are not included be- cause there were only four households of the entire group that mi- grated at all, and these migrated only temporarily.)
One-eighth of all the proletarian households were found in continu- ous migration, incessantly searching for better conditions of existence, while only 2.7 per cent of the more well-to-do peasant households (%ulal(i) left their old situation.
The new socialistic tendencies in the development of our villages are clearly noticeable in this table of migration. We see that 17.6 per cent of the total number of peasant households migrating from 1927 to 1928 went to agricultural communes and collective agricultural enter- prises (\olhoz). As compared with the total number of peasants' house- holds investigated (9,384), the number that entered communes or collective enterprises was slightly greater than one per cent. The num- ber of peasant households that migrated to the cities during the same year is somewhat similar. Further, the results obtained were very dif- ferent from what is customarily believed as to the specific social groups
* From V. Kavraiski and I. Nusinoff , Classes and Class Relationships in Contemporary Soviet Villages (Russ.), Sibkraiizdat, 1929, pp. 28-37. Both authors are Russian Com- munists.
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550
SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
that yield a greater percentage of people entering agricultural communes and collective agricultural enterprises. The table shows that more than one-half of the total number of migrating well-to-do households went to collective agricultural enterprises and communes. Only one-third of all the migrating middle peasantry went to collective enterprises. And, finally, only one-eighth of the poor peasantry entered communes and collective enterprises. Thus, not the poor peasantry, as is usually thought, but the well-to-do peasants, go to the collective enterprises. This can be seen also if we compare the social composition of the whole village with the social composition of the collective agricultural enterprises that have collective ownership of the production inventory.
|
SOCIAL GROUPS IN 1927 |
NUMBER OF ENTERPRISES |
PER CENT OF TOTAL |
No. OF ENTERPRISES HAVING PERCENTAGE SOCIALIZED OF IMPLEMENTS "SOCIALIZED" OF ENTERPRISES PRODUCTION |
|
Poor peasants 3,746 Middle class peasants 4,972 Agricultural enterprisers ( tyda\i ) 666 |
35.9 53.0 7.1 |
32 0.85 54 1.08 9 1.35 |
|
|
Total |
9,384 |
100.0 |
95 1.01 |
This picture is sad from the communistic standpoint. In spite of Soviet conditions, the tempo of collectivization among the tydafy's enterprises is going on much faster than the tempo of the identical process among the middle peasantry, and, what is especially regretful, much faster than the tempo of collectivization among the proletarian and semi-proletarian groups of the village. The explanation of this paradox is as follows. The wealthy and well-to-do peasants, not favored by the Soviet government, sell and turn their property into cash and in this way secure some capital for "emergency" use and for the future. After that, having become "propertyless proletarians," they enter the collective enterprises. As members of these enterprises and as "proleta- rians" they avoid the oppression of the government and get its finan- cial support. In addition they still have their capital, which they do not spend and keep for better days.
Let us return to an analysis of the process of migration from the vil- lages in 1927-1928. The figures of the migration of the various social groups of the peasantry to the cities and to industrial settlements are of the greatest interest.
In the first place, out of 666 small capitalistic enterprises investigated, not a single household left for the city during the year studied. The
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION
551
falal( is held in the village by the comparatively stable economic con- ditions of his agricultural enterprise and by the very limited possibili- ties for the development of privately owned industrial enterprises in the city. Exactly opposite causes call forth the opposite results for the proletarian groups of the village. From 20 to 40 per cent of the total number of households migrating from these social groups have mi- grated to the cities or to industrial settlements.
If we compute for each of the above strata of peasants the percentage that households migrating to the city constitute of the total number of households of each class, the following results are secured. About 1.5 per cent of all peasant laborers sold their enterprises, went to the city, and became city proletarians; about 5 per cent of other peasant labor- ers ceased to be peasants, losing all connection with the land and with their farms; about 1.7 per cent of the poor peasants also ceased to be peasants. For these three social strata, migration to the city completes the process of their proletarianization; from now on they are urban proletarians.
The situation with the middle peasant class is somewhat different. Their migration to the city does not necessarily mean their irreversible proletarianization. They continue to keep their farms, though some of them also may become urban proletarians.
SOCIAL GROUPS IN 1927
B 0
TOTAL NUMBE EACH STRATUM
NUMBER OF NEW ENTERPRISERS THAT
ORIGINATED IN 1928 FROM THOSE
CLASSIFIED IN 1927
|
NUMBER c |
PERCENTA ENTERPRI |
Agricuitu Laborers |
Other Laborers |
8 1 |
?2 | |
1 |
y a ^ "IS 2 B'B ÂŁ |
|
|
Agricultural peasant laborers Other peasant laborers Poor peasants Middle peasants Peasant agricultural enterprisers (kulaty) Peasant merchants |
15 7 37 275 65 |
2.0 2.1 1.4 5.5 10.7 |
10 2 4 10 |
2 3 3 3 |
13 8 55 181 10 |
3 4 294 101 |
13 24 |
... 28 . . 13 .... 66 . 1 502 . . . . 135 |
|
Peasant owners oÂŁ industrial enterprises Total |
2 401 |
6.7 4.3 |
~26 |
71 |
267 |
3 405 |
1 38 |
.... 4 .. 1 748 |
552 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
The next point to be studied concerns the phenomena of the splitting or parcellation of peasant farms into two or more independent farms. Let us glance now at the manner of occurrence of this process. The table on page 551 depicts the situation.
The process of the division of enterprises takes place in all social strata of the peasantry. Even the poor and pygmean holdings of the hired laborers are divided, despite the fact that there is very little to divide. The struggle for existence is so intense that the owner of work- ing hands has to get rid of his family members whom he has to sup- port and whose presence hinders the economic development of his poor enterprise. The strength of this economic urge drives out of exist- ence or eliminates the influence of the traditions of the patriarchal fam- ily concerning the care of the old and incapable members of the family. At this cost and with the support of the Soviet government, a certain number of the poorest peasants obtain the possibility of the economic development of their holdings. Under such conditions, seven middle-class peasant enterprises were formed as a result of the division of fifty-nine proletarian and semi-proletarian holdings. This is, how- ever, only one side of the problem. Such a rise of the divided pygmean holdings on the ladder of peasant farms is exceptionally rare. As a rule, such divisions lead to a further "atomization" of the means of production, to decay of the standards of productiveness, and to poverty.
The socio-economic motives for the division of the powerful agricul- tural enterprises (of the fytlafy) are entirely different. Aside from division due to inner causes, such as the natural division of a large, grown-up family, the rural policy of the Communist party under Soviet conditions plays an important role in increasing the tendency toward division among the enterprises of the \ulakj.*
The dynamic regroupings within the peasant enterprises are not re- stricted to the above divisions and migrations. Previous migrants from the village and newcomers from other villages are entering the village and becoming peasants. This counter-current also exerts a notable in- fluence on development of the processes of social differentiation in the village. Notwithstanding the fact that, as a rule, the region investigated is closed for immigration, some individual families return and settle there. This is shown by the following table:
* EDITORS' NOTE. — As soon as a peasant family begins to have a little better farm — two or three horses, two or more cows, better implements — such a family is registered as a kitlak. peasant family. As such, its members are deprived of their civil rights (right of voting, etc.); their governmental taxes are several times higher; in brief, they begin to be persecuted and oppressed by the government in many ways. Under such circum- stances, the relatively well-to-do peasants prefer to split their farms into several inde- pendent parts for the various members. As a result, each new holding has only one horse, one cow, etc.; it is poorer. Hence it is not qualified to be ranked as a \ula\ holding and its owner is less liable to be oppressed by the government.
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 553
PERCENTAGE OF VALUE IN RUBLES OF HOUSEHOLDS RETURNED AND SETTLED
|
INO, OF HOUSE- |
Without |
||||
|
SOCIAL GROUPS |
HOLDS |
Imple- |
From |
From |
|
|
IN 1928 |
RETURNED AND |
ments; with Cash |
100 |
301 |
More Than |
|
SETTLED |
Value of 100 and |
to 300 |
to 1,000 |
1,000 |
|
|
Less |
|||||
|
Agricultural peasant laborers 28 |
67.9 |
32.1 |
|||
|
Other peasant laborers |
26 |
80.8 |
19.2 |
||
|
Poor peasants |
35 |
48.1 |
51.9 |
||
|
Middle peasants |
41 |
2.4 |
87.8 |
9.8 |
|
|
Peasant agricultural |
|||||
|
enterprisers (\ula\i) |
1 |
100.0 |
|||
|
Peasant merchants |
|||||
|
Peasant owners of |
|||||
|
industrial enterprises |
1 |
100.0 |
|||
|
Total |
232 |
45.3 |
36.6 |
16.4 |
1.7 |
Households returned and settled compose about 2.5 per cent of the total existing households. In other words, to this extent they "renew" the composition of the village enterprises. This renewing goes on, however, in different proportions according to the various strata of peasants. As shown above, the emigrants from the villages belong pre- dominantly to the poor proletarian groups of the peasantry. Similarly, the people who return to, come from, and enter villages are from the same social groups in the main. Notwithstanding the fact that there is a considerable density of population, the presence of some free land makes possible such re-immigration and increases the processes of the socio-economic regrouping of the peasantry. This migration is a sign of the very poor socio-economic stability of the migrating enterprises. An important role in this re-immigration is also played by the people who migrated to the cities but could not accommodate themselves to city and factory life. The data indicate that the percentage of re- immigrated households which enter the stratum of peasant laborers is much higher than the percentage the re-immigrated households con- stitute of the total number of existing enterprises. While these re- immigrated households constitute 2.5 per cent of the total number of households in all strata, they constitute 8 per cent of the number of households of the peasant laborer, 5 per cent of the "poor peasants," about 4 per cent of the hired laborers, about 0.2 per cent of the group of the \ula\i, and only about 0.1 per cent of the middle-class peasants. Thus the poorer strata are renewed more intensively by the returning
554 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
migrants and the newcomers than are the rich ones. And the middle and rich households are less migratory and more stable than the poor ones.
In other words, the returning households are poor and have very modest inventory oÂŁ production. About 82 per cent of the households which migrated away and returned to the village had practically no inventory or its equivalent in cash. A small part did not have more than three hundred rubles. The re-immigration of wealthy peasant families is a very rare case (only about 1.7 per cent of the total re- immigrated families).
In order to have a complete picture of the dynamic processes of socio- economic regroupings among the peasant economies, we must now glance at the changes which occurred in those farms that remained the same, that is, which were neither split nor merged together. This is shown by the following figures:
|
ENTERPRISES STRATA IN WHICH ENTERPRISES OF EACH UNCHANGED CLASS OF 1927 WERE FOUND IN 1928 |
|
|
"3 6 fc SOCIAL GROUPS fc! £ * a ^ {' 'Nl927 .1 - •= 1 i s ~-t f |
1 |
I 1| I g l| -|| | || i
$ < H-l O a. Sp£ •< a, S OWH
Agricultural peasant laborers . 627 7.6 51.4 6.0 31.6 11.0 - .. 100.0
Other peasant
laborers ... 274 33 14.6 42.7 31.4 11.3 . ... 100.0 Poor peasants . . 2,327 28.1 4.3 3.1 72.5 19,9 . . 0.2 100.0 Middle-class
peasants ... 4,477 54.1 0.3 0.1 4.4 88.0 6.8 0.1 0.3 100.0 Peasant
agricultural
enterprises
(\ulalv) . 514 6,2 .. .. 0.2 41.8 57.6 .. 0.4 100.0 Peasant merchants 31 0.4 . . . . 25.8 45.2 . . 29.0 . . 100.0 Peasant owners
of industrial
enterprises 22 0.3 ___. JU 31.8 9.1 _. 50.0 100.0
Total 8,272 100.0 5.7 2.8 26.4 57.3 7.3 0.1 0.4 100.0
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 555
The table shows that the mass of peasant households is in continuous motion. Every social stratum becomes dispersed throughout various strata, renews the composition of other strata, and at the same time is itself renewed by an infiltration from other social strata. The poor peasant who has enlarged his means of production becomes a middle- class peasant. If the peasant of the middle class reaches the limits where the size of his enterprise begins to require hired labor he becomes an enterpriser or \ula^ Quantity takes the place of quality.
When some economic reasons cause a rich peasant to lose part of his production inventory, to become a middle-class peasant, he ceases to hire laborers, and his production inventory begins to correspond to the size and composition of his family. When a poor peasant laborer, hav- ing failed to improve his small enterprise, finally becomes discouraged and leaves for the city, he increases in this way the number of the in- dustrial proletariat.
The most stable of the different groups of the peasantry is the mid- dle class, as would ordinarily be expected. About 6.8 per cent of this group climbed up and became tytlafy. They began to hire labor and to lease agricultural machinery. Part of the middle-class peasantry, about 4.8 per cent, sank down and became poor peasants or even hired la- borers. However, 88 per cent of the middle-class peasants retained their previous position. Some of the poor peasants climbed up; some of the rich peasants went down.
Under Soviet conditions the most unstable group happens to be that of the well-to-do peasants (J^ula^t)* Almost half of the households of this group sank to the middle-class level. The loss, however, was com- pensated for by an infiltration of climbers from the lower strata. As a result the group of fytlaty not only did not decrease, but on the con- trary increased slightly (from 6.2 to 73 per cent).
The principal conclusions drawn from the analysis of the evolution of peasant enterprises when the latter are arranged according to social groups are coincident with those drawn from an analysis of the evolu- tion of enterprises computed on the basis of the value of property or the cost of production.
The process of vertical mobility within the peasant class is going on in two distinct directions, as is made evident by the figures presented above. From each stratum a part goes up, a part goes down, and a part retains its position.
* EDITORS' NOTE. — Because of their intensive economic and political oppression by the Soviet government. Sec editors' note above.
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[556]
MOBILITY OF RURAL POPULATION 557
The table shows that the group without means of production de- creased by 30 per cent. The enterprises with means of production be- low 300 rubles also decreased, but by only 10 per cent. Similarly the group of enterprises which had means of production worth from 300 to 500 rubles decreased by 2.3 per cent. The composition of the upper groups has increased somewhat. The group with means of production from 500 to 1,000 rubles increased by 13.8 per cent, that from 1,000 to 1,500 by 11.9 per cent, and finally that from 1,500 and up by 6.3 per cent.
Such are the results of an analysis of the socio-economic evolution of enterprises which did not either split or merge from 1927 to 1928.*
* EDITORS' NOTE. — See also Kubanin's paper in the chapter on the family.
CHAPTER IX
FUNDAMENTAL TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES. EVOLUTION OF THE FORMS OF LANDOWNER- SHIP AND LAND POSSESSION
I. INDIVIDUAL-PRIVATE AND COLLECTIVE-PUBLIC LAND- OWNERSHIP AND LAND POSSESSION
In the three preceding chapters we have outlined the main fea- tures of rural social organization from the standpoints of social differentiation, stratification, and mobility. Different combina- tions of these forms in a given agricultural population create very different types of rural aggregates. In order to give an approxi- mate idea of the great variety of rural aggregates from the sev- eral standpoints of differentiation, stratification, mobility, and type of landownership, we shall outline the fundamental types of these aggregates and give their essential characteristics. In addi- tion, we shall discuss briefly the problem of the evolution of these types in the course of time.
In the three preceding chapters we have seen that the agricul- tural population is differentiated into many cumulative and func- tional groupings, each of which is stratified into owners, tenants, and laborers of various kinds. We have seen that the forms and degree of mobility vary from population to population. In these previous chapters we paid no attention to whether there was indi- vidual or collective ownership of the land and farms; whether the tenants utilized the land of individual or public and collective landowners; whether the laborers and employes were those of pri- vate and individual or of collective and public landowners. We shall see that the existence of individual or collective, private or public landownership and land possession exerts a strong influ- ence on the forms of social relationships among the members of a given rural aggregate and give it several specific characteristics.
[558]
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 559
Hence, in classifying the fundamental types of rural aggregates we must consider the form of landownership and land posses- sion as well as the forms of differentiation, stratification, and mo- bility. Before we outline the principal types of rural aggregates as they are constituted by different combinations of the above four morphological elements, we shall devote a few lines to a consid- eration of the fundamental classes of cultivators from the stand- point of the kind of land proprietorship. » The following table serves this purpose.
CULTIVATORS
1. Owners
A. Individual (including family).
B. Collective: village community; any corporation of culti- vators.
2. Non-owners
A. Tenants of:
a. private (individual) landlords.1
b. collective (private and public) landlords; the state, the religious organization, the city, the village community, any corporation.
B. Laborers and employes of:
a. private (individual) landlords.
b. collective (private and public) landlords: the state, the church, the city, the village community, or any corpora- tion or group.
These forms embrace practically all the important forms of social differentiation and stratification of the cultivators from the standpoint of landownership and possession.
II. TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES FROM THE STANDPOINTS OF SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION, STRATIFICATION, MOBILI- TY, AND LANDOWNERSHIP
Various combinations of these classes of cultivators give various types of the social organization of a rural aggregate. If we have a
1 Among the collective landowners are also the state, the church, and corporations of various absentee owners; but as these collective owners seldom participate (if at all, only iudirectly) in cultivation and since their members and representatives are engaged in other than agricultural pursuits, they do not belong in the main to the class of culti- vators.
560 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
rural aggregate composed predominantly of small farmer-owners, who cultivate their lands with the help of their families, we secure one type of rural aggregate; if we have one great landowner, who cultivates his land with many tenants and laborers, we secure an- other type of rural aggregate, the latif undian or manorial, which is quite different from the preceding one. If a given rural aggregate is composed predominantly of tenants, the social organization of such a community will be different from both the preceding ones. We may have, further, a rural aggregate composed of the tenants of either the private or the public and collective landowner (such as the fiscus, the church, the city, etc.). Furthermore, we may have a rural aggregate composed of individual farmer-owners or of the members of a village community of landowners. These types again will be marked by several differences in their organi- zation, as well as in the status and behavior of their members. In various countries and at different periods many different com- binations of these classes, and consequently very widely differing types of rural aggregates, have existed. Of these forms the most common seem to have been the following: (1) the rural aggre- gate composed of peasant joint owners; (2) the rural aggregate composed of peasant joint tenants; (3) the rural aggregate com- posed of farmers who are individual owners, but including some tenants and laborers; (4) the same composed of individual farmer tenants; (5) the manorial or latif undian type of rural aggregate composed of the laborers, employes, and tenants of a great private landowner; (6) the latif undian type of rural aggregate composed of laborers and employes of the state, church, city, or other public landowner. Each of these fundamental types of rural aggregate is marked by various specific traits, not only in the field of socio- economic organization, social differences, stratification, and insti- tutions, but also in such things as the types of people, their be- havior and psychology, as well as their political, moral, economic, and social relationships. If, in a rough schematical way, we try to depict some of these typical traits, they appear tentatively as follows:
1. A village community of peasant joint owners (Russian mir, village community in China, India, early Germany, England, and other places).— Ecologically: The habitats are nearly always grouped into villages. Morphologically: The aggregate is a cumu-
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 561
lative community whose members are bound together by a series of social ties. Social differentiation and stratification among the members are relatively slight: almost all are co-owners; the land is distributed evenly, according to the size of the family, and is periodically redistributed among the members. Members are highly homogeneous (locally and racially). The social mobility of the members is slight. The bulk of them live and die in the community; families remain there for generations. A portion of the members may migrate somewhere else temporarily, but they usually return, and they send a part of their money back to their families in the community. The spirit of equality is developed. The community is self-governing in matters that concern it. Often the community bears a collective responsibility for the fulfillment of the duties of its members, imposed on the community by the state and other supercommunity social bodies, specific examples of such duties being toward maintenance of social order, roads, schools, church, and other agencies. Mutual aid and cooperation are developed among the members. Traditions are strong; and the leading men of the community are usually the elder people. Hence there is a comparatively strong conservatism of the com- munity, there is a stable and strong patriarchal -family with only a slight development of individualism and modernism, and rather wea\ individual initiative and individual responsibility, which development is checked somewhat by the spirit of traditionalism, familism, and community responsibility. Beliefs, mores, and pat- terns of conduct are relatively rigid and dogmatic. Collective ac- tivities in work, recreation, ceremonies, religious rites and proces- sions, and in other fields are developed. There is an acute feeling of "oneness" among the members of the community and of sepa- rateness from other communities and people.
2. A village community of joint tenants of the state, cities, and other public and private owners. — When free joint tenancy has existed for a long period of time and has been hereditary, when the duties of tenants towards public or private owners have been limited by the payment of certain taxes and some corvee, and when, moreover, the interference of these owners has been limited by the above requirements, the village community of joint tenants is similar to the village community of peasant joint owners in all the respects mentioned above. Economically, however, the tenant
562 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
community is somewhat poorer perhaps than the peasant-owner village community.
3. A rural aggregate of individual farmer-owners. — The struc- ture of such an aggregate differs conspicuously from that of the village community of peasant co-owners and co-tenants. Ecologi- cally: The habitats are often dispersed. Morphologically: The to- tality of the neighboring farmers represents an aggregate with differentiated groupings around various interests. Each family is the owner of its land, and hence no redistribution of land exists. From the standpoint of social differentiation and stratification the aggregate is more differentiated and stratified than the above vil- lage communities. Some of the farmers are relatively rich and have much larger pieces of land than the others and these richer farm- ers have a number of tenants and laborers. The social mobility of the farmers and their families is somewhat greater than that of the peasants in the above village communities. The spirit of equal- ity, mutual aid, and cooperation among the neighboring farmers is less developed than in the above communities. Collective re- sponsibility of the neighboring farmers is rare and undeveloped. Its place is taken by the individual responsibility of each family. The majority of the social unions and organizations created by the farmers have a contractual character. The family is not so large and is less patriarchal than in the above village communi- ties. It is nearer to what the Le Play school styled "the particular- ist family." Individualism and individual initiative are more developed. Traditionalism and conservatism are weaker while the spirit of rationalism and modernism is stronger than in the above village communities. The behavior, the beliefs, and the mores are more plastic. The collective activities of neighboring farmers are less developed. The feelings of oneness among the neighbors and their separateness from the rest of the world are also weaker. In the satisfaction of the necessities of the farmers, the aggregate is less self-sufficient, and is more dependent upon the outside world. Therefore, the aggregate is in more intensive contact with the outside world than is the village community.
4. A rural aggregate of individual tenants of private or public landowners. — When tenants are free men, and the tenancy is purely contractual, the rural aggregate of individual tenants is similar to that of the individual farmer-owners. The principal dif-
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 563
f erence is that the tenants do not own the land, and for this reason are somewhat more mobile than the individual owners. They have to pay some tax or money to the owners, and partly for this reason their standard of living is generally somewhat lower, the social services of their communities is poorer, and their education is more limited. Their independence in the management of their enterprises is more curtailed than that of the owners. If the aggre- gate consists of tenants and owners, its social stratification is more conspicuous. In some forms of tenancy these differences are con- spicuous, in others they are insignificant. Often tenancy of this type is merely a stage in climbing to the position of farmer- owners (in cases where the tenure is from private landowners).
5. A latijundian, manorial, or large-estate type of rural aggre- gate {privately owned}. — The population of such a rural aggre- gate consists of the owner or his substitute and a large number of free or unf ree laborers and "employes of various ranks with special duties and with a division of labor. Sometimes a few tenants are found in such an aggregate. Its typical characteristics are as fol- lows:
Ecological: The aggregate most often represents grouped set- tlements centered around the manor, castle, or central office of the estate. Morphological: The aggregate is a cumulative community bound by ties of territorial proximity, work and labor for the same owner, contractual or servile subjection to the owner or his substitute, obedience to his management and control, and many other interests resulting from employment by the same em- ployer, such as common houses, common meals served in the manor, castle, or the estate's dining place for workers, etc. Social stratification and differentiation: The laborers and employes are only the executors of orders given by the landlord or his agents. They may be free or unfree. When they are unfree they receive shelter, board, and other necessities from the owner-master, whether these be good or bad. When they are free they receive such wages as are stipulated in the contract. Generally from the standpoint of social differentiation and stratification the com- munity is much more stratified and differentiated than the pre- vious types of rural aggregates: various laborers are given dif- ferent kinds of work; various managerial employes and agents are also differentiated in regard to the kind of work they have
564 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
to do. The community is conspicuously stratified; and there is usually a long series of ranks, beginning with the landlord and highest employes and ending with the laborers. There are great contrasts in the rights and privileges of the population of these different strata, in their standards of living, and in the division of managerial and organizational work from manual labor.
The social mobility in an aggregate of this type, composed of free laborers and employes, is notably high, for a considerable pro- portion of these are only seasonal members of the aggregate. If the laborers and employes are serfs or slaves, then their mobility may be insignificant, for they will probably be chained to the lord and his estate. The spirit of inequality — domination on the part of the landlord and his representatives and subjection on the part of the laborers — is the outstanding spirit of the community. The organizational and controlling functions are reserved for the owner and his representatives, while purely manual execu- tions of their plans and orders are prescribed for the laborers. For this reason a display of initiative and command is developed only in the lord and his representatives, while such characteristics are checked in the laborers. Whether the organization of the life of the community is modern and progressive or conservative de- pends primarily on the lord and his inclinations; the laborers are obliged to follow his orders.
Sometimes they are made collectively responsible to the lord or owner for the satisfactory performance of the duties imposed upon them. If, under such conditions, the landlord's control is oppressive and stupid, there appears a sharp antagonism between him and his substitutes and the mass of laborers. If the landlord's control is wise and careful the landlord-laborers relationship often becomes of the familistic-patriarchal type, with the landlord pat- riarch, on the one hand, and with laborers who are subordinated and cared for, on the other hand. In both cases the situation is very unfavorable for any marked development of self-control, self- responsibility, and self-reliance among the laborers. Hence the history of such communities is marked by the occurrence of oc- casional disorders and riots, especially when the laborers are un- free. For this reason there is often a class of armed superintend- ents on such an estate, their duty being to supervise the work of the laborers.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 565
The character of the social institutions of the latifundia de- pends again primarily on the decision of the owner. Careful lords sometimes organize good religious, school, hospital, recreational, and other social institutions. Bad landlords often do not do any- thing in this respect for their laborers. Consequently the be- havior, mores, and psychology of these laborers differ from case to case. If they are free and shift from estate to estate, their be- havior and mores are marked by a lack of either stability or moral and social integrity. If they are unfree, sullenness, apathy, dull- ness, and other servile traits are conspicuous. The institution of the family is often developed very little among the laborers; among the unfree laborers, its forms, even including the choice of the mate, are prescribed by the lord.
6. A latifundian type of rural aggregate owned by the state (fis- cus), religious organization, city, or other public body. — In its essential traits this type of rural aggregate is very similar to the preceding one. It represents a large estate run by the state or church, the city, or other public body. The only difference is that there is substituted for a private owner the person of an agent of the state, church, or other public owner. In other respects the organization of the community is similar to the preceding type. We may use a large estate owned by the state and managed by governmental agents as an illustration of this type. In this case a few preliminary remarks may be appropriate in order to keep the reader from confusing the state's sovereignty rights with the state's rights of ownership over a territory.
Juridically, it is possible to distinguish two parts in the ter- ritory of the state. Over one the state exercises only its rights as sovereign but not as owner; as private property such territory does not belong to the state but to an individual or a corpora- tion separate from the state. The other part of the state terri- tory is that over which the state exercises the rights both of sov- ereign and of owner; it composes the private property of the state, or, as the jurists used to say, it is fiscus. In many monarch- ies it consists of the land owned by the monarch as his private property; it comprises only a part of the territory of the state. Over this part the monarch exercises not only the rights of a sovereign but those of a private owner and possessor. He can manage it as he pleases; he may either lease it or manage it
566 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
through his agents and with the labor of hired free laborers or unfree slaves and serfs who belong to him, etc.
In republics the situation is similar except that the role played by the monarch is played there by the government. However, like the monarch, the republican government exercises its rights of owner and possessor only on the land that composes the private property of the state. On the land that is not owned by the state as a fiscus, the republican government exercises only the rights of the sovereign, the rights of ownership being exercised by the individuals and corporations who own the land in question.
This difference between the two parts of state territory is clear in the majority of states. Only in some of the ancient monarchies and in the socialist states does the boundary line between them become either unclear or obliterated. In the socialist state, where land is "nationalized," private property in land generally abol- ished, and the whole territory declared the property of the state, the rights of sovereignty and landownership belong only to the state and are to be exercised only by the government. Soviet Rus- sia may be taken as an example. On the other hand, in many ancient countries, such as ancient Egypt, ancient China, Byzan- tium, or ancient Peru at some periods of its history, the mon- arch was not only the sovereign but also the sole owner of the entire territory of the state. Just as in the socialist state described above, in such autocratic monarchies the state sovereignty over the territory and the state ownership of the territory coincides. The fiscus there is not separated clearly from state sovereignty.
The natural result of state ownership of the land (whether in the states where the rights of the fiscus and the rights of the sovereignty are separated, or where they are merged together) has been that the state itself has controlled the land as its property. The forms of state management have been different; in some cases the state has given it as a gift or reward to an individual or a group; in other cases the state has leased it to private per- sons, to other landowners, or to the cultivators themselves (the state tenants described above under Nos. 2 and 4) ; in still other cases it has managed it directly through its special agents and laborers, who may have been freely contracted for or may have belonged to the state as serfs and slaves. This last case belongs to the type of the "large estate of a public body" discussed here.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 567
In its whole formation this type of rural community is similar to the preceding type (No. 5).
Such are the fundamental types of rural aggregates from the above-mentioned fourfold standpoint, and the several other char- acteristics that are correlated with each of these forms. Each of these six types of rural aggregate has existed in the past and ex- ists in the present in various countries and areas. Each of them has several varieties but the traits indicated above for each type are typical for almost all of the varieties. Some of the countries have a preponderance of one of these types. The United States of America is characterized by rural aggregates of individual farmer-owners and individual farmer-tenants. Other countries, such as India, China, and the Slavic countries, especially in the past, have been characterized by a preponderance of rural com- munities of peasant joint owners and joint tenants. Countries like some of the South American states still have the latifundian type of rural aggregates widely spread. Countries like ancient Egypt, ancient Peru, Rome (third to fifth centuries A. D.), an- cient China, or Byzantium had, and Soviet Russia has, a highly developed latifundian type of rural aggregate composed of labor- ers and employes of the state, church, city, and other public and private landowners.
Subsequent readings give illustrations of each of these princi- pal types. The first reading, a fragment taken from A. A. Tschu- prow's monograph on land communities, introduces the concept of the land community and gives its principal characteristics. Subsequent fragments give a concise characterization of land- community ownership and tenancy as it has existed in Russia and in the South Slavic countries, among the ancient Germans, Scots, and Celts, in India, and in Japan and China. As an example of the Medieval private manorial type of rural aggregate, we pre- sent a brief picture of the castle-manorial estate of the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries in central Europe. In addition, the papers of H. See, Poljakow, and W. Schiflf given in chapter vii offer a very concise characterization of the land systems in China and in Europe of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. As illustrations of the rural aggregate composed of free or unfree laborers and employes of the large state-owned estate, the char- acteristics of such a type of rural organization are given for an-
568 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
cient Egypt, Rome and Byzantium, ancient Peru, and Soviet Russia. As a sample of individual farmer-ownership and tenancy, we present a characterization of the present situation in Den- mark.2 Finally, Siegfried's paper given in chapter vii outlines several political traits correlated with various types of rural ag- gregates. Readings of the preceding chapter will supplement those given in the present one.
III. EVOLUTION OF THE FORMS OF LANDOWNERSHIP AND LAND POSSESSION
A consideration of rural social organization from the stand- point of the forms of landownership and land possession leads to the question of their evolution. Which of these forms are older and which are later? Is there a definite sequence or a cer- tain historical tendency in the changes of these forms in the course of time ? If so, what is it ?
A short time ago, at the end of the nineteenth century, these problems were given much attention by investigators and were discussed very intensively. The discussion centered principally around the problem as to whether or not the form characterized by community landownership by peasants and tenants was older than various forms of individual landownership by farmers and peasants. It is to be remembered that at that period the social scientists were much inclined to believe in the existence of uni- form and perpetual historical tendencies and a linear sequence of the stages of social evolution in various fields of social phe- nomena. This general idea naturally manifested itself in the field under discussion here. Two opposite theories were formulated.
The first school, possibly more popular and shared by a greater number of investigators, claimed that community landownership in its various forms was the primary form of land possession. As soon as a tribe settled on the land, the existing tribal organization assumed the forms of community land possession. Since tribal or- ganization was viewed by many as essentially collectivistic and even communistic, community landownership was interpreted also as an essentially collectivistic and communistic rural social
3 In view of the familiarity of the American specialists with the predominant American system of individual landownership and tenancy and in view of the accessibility of the studies dealing with it, we do not give selections from such studies in the readings. They are referred to in the subsequent bibliographical footnotes.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 569
organization. "The collective ownership of the soil by groups of men either in fact united by blood relationship, or believing or assuming that they are so united, is now entitled to take rank as an ascertained primitive phenomenon." 3 The investigators of this school claimed that no individual landownership by the peasants or cultivators existed at this primitive stage. Only later, under the influence of various factors, the collectivistic and the communistic institution of community landownership began to disintegrate, losing one after another of its important traits and finally lead- ing to the institution of family property, and from that to private property in land and to individual peasant-farmer ownership of land.
It is only after a series of progressive evolutions and at a compara- tively recent period that individual ownership, as applied to land, is constituted. So long as primitive man lived by the chase, by fishing he never thought of appropriating the soil . . . Gradually, a portion of the soil was put temporarily under cultivation, and the agricultural sys- tem was established, but the territory, which the clan or tribe occupies, remains as undivided property. The arable, the pasturage, and the for- est are farmed in common. ... By a new step of individualization, the parcels remain in the hands of groups of patriarchal families dwelling in the same house and working together for the benefit of the associa- tion. . . . Finally, individual hereditary property appears. It is, how- ever, still tied down by the thousand fetters of seignorial rights, fidei- commissa, hereditary leases or compulsory system of rotation, etc. It is not till after a last evolution that it becomes the absolute, sovereign, personal right, which is defined by the Civil Code, and which alone is familiar to us in the present day.4
Such is the essence of this theory in its classical formulation. In its details it has been interpreted somewhat differently by various of its partisans. Some of them, socialistically inclined, such as ÂŁmile de Laveleye, colored community landownership very con- spicuously with socialistic and communistic tinges and depicted its initial stages as a perfect realization of socialistic justice and equality. Others, who were not imbued with socialism and com- munism, such as Sir Henry Sumner Maine, G. von Maurer, G. Hanssen, M. Viollet, H. von Sybel, K* Biicher, Brunner, and M.
8H, S. Maine, Lectures on the "Early History of Institutions, London, 1875, p. 1. *6, de Laveleye, Primitive Property, London, 1878, pp. 3-4.
570 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Kovalcvsky, did not stress these "colors" much but maintained nevertheless the essential claims of the school.5 In their investiga- tions, notably those of community landownership and tenancy in India by Maine, of the German mark by Hanssen and von Maurer, and of the Russan mir and the Caucasian forms of land- ownership by M. Kovalevsky, they viewed the village community and community landownership as a form older than individual property in land. In view of its affinity with socialism, this theory has been widely accepted by socialists, communists, and many others.
The claims of the second school were rather opposite. It was summarized many years ago as follows 6 :
During the last forty years a theory has made its way into historical literature, according to which private ownership in land was preceded by a system of cultivation in common. The authors of this theory do not confine themselves to saying there was no such thing as private property in land among mankind when in a primitive or savage state. It is obvious that when men were still in the hunting or pastoral stage, and had not yet arrived at the ideas of agriculture, it did not occur to them to take each for himself a share of the land. The theory of which I speak applies to settled and agricultural societies. It asserts that among peoples that had got so far as to till the soil in an orderly fash- ion, common ownership of land was still maintained; that for a long time it never occurred to these men who plowed, sowed, reaped, and planted, to appropriate to themselves the ground upon which they labored. They only looked upon it as belonging to the community, It was the people that at first was the sole owner of the entire terri- tory, either cultivating it in common, or making a fresh division of it every year. It was only later that the right of property, which was at first attached to the whole people, came to be associated with the vil- lage, the family and the individual (pp. 1-2) .
Are we to conclude from all that has gone before that nowhere and at no time was land held in common? By no means. To commit our- selves to so absolute a negative would be to go beyond the purpose of this work. The only conclusion to which we are brought by this pro- longed examination of authorities is that community in land has not yet been historically proved. . . . We do not maintain that it is inad-
BH. S. Maine, Village Communities in tne East and West, 1872; Lectures on the Early History of Institutions, 1875; G. von Maurcr, Einlcitung zur Geschichte der Mar\-, Hof-, Dorf-, und Stadtvcrjassung, 1854; G. Hanssen, Agrarhistorischen Ab- handlungcn, 1880-1884, 2 vols.; M. Kovalevsky, Modern Custom and Ancient Law, 1891.
* Fustel dc Coulanges, The Origin of Property in Land, trans, by M. Ashley, London, 1892.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 571
missible to believe in primitive communism. What we do maintain is that the attempt to base this theory on an historical foundation has been an unfortunate one; and we refuse to accept its garb of false learning (pp. 149450).
Leaders of this current regarded individual peasant landowner- ship either as the primary type or as a form that appeared simul- taneously with the collectivistic ownership of land ; in some places the former form was earlier, in other places the latter. In their criticism of the "collectivistic school" some of these investigators made the following contentions: First, the school was generally wrong in its characterization of tribal economic organization as "communistic" and free from the institution of individual prop- erty. Second, the people of the earliest agricultural stage either did not know any property in land in the narrow sense of this word (including the right of its disposal), or such property was essen- tially individualistic. Third, joint land possession and ownership by the peasants were later products of history, either imposed on the peasants by conquerors or by state governments and rulers for the sake of easier collection of taxes and duties, or appearing as a result of the increasing scarcity of land, due to increasing density of population or some other factors. Hence, various equali- tarian traits of community land possession, such as periodical re- distribution of the land among the members of the community, division of the land into numerous strips according to the fertility of the soil, collective responsibility of the community, common cultivation, and still other characteristics of community landown- ership, were not regarded by them as remnants of a primitive tribal organization but cither as a much later phenomenon typical for later stages of the evolution of agricultural regimes or, in some few cases, as a relatively early form. Among the representatives of this school are to be mentioned: B. N, Tschitscherin, R. Pohl- mann, J. Keussler, F. Rorig, Fustel de Coulanges, G. Schmoller, D. W. Ross, G. von Below, S. Jirecek, A. Tschuprow, Max Weber, Peisker, and especially a group of younger investigators of the Russian mir, including A. A. Kaufman, M. BolshakofT, A. S. Litschkoff, M. N. Dubenski, S. P. Shvetzoff, Stcherbina, Sjero- shevski, K. Kacharovski, Grodekoff, N. Oganovski, and many others. The studies of these and other scholars, and especially the investigations by the group of Russian historians of the forms of
572 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
land possession and landownership, have thrown quite a new light on the problem.7
Such are the essential points of this controversy. In the light of our contemporary knowledge several points are not yet settled definitely. But the essential claims of the first school seem to be untenable. The principal weaknesses of this school's theory are as follows: First, its premise that all peoples pass through the same stages of social and economic evolution and that the sequence of these stages is uniform and definite is untenable 8 ; second, its premise that primitive peoples have known only the common or communistic institution of property and do not know individual forms of possession and ownership is untenable also.9
Third, the forms of community landownership and possession have been interpreted by the school in too socialistic and com- munistic colors, and in its interpretation of primitive agrarian communism the collectivistic aspect of these forms has been over- emphasized, while the individualistic aspect of the same forms has been unduly neglected. This has led to a misinterpretation of these forms by the partisans of the school. As a matter of fact the collectivistic aspect of these forms has been but a variety of fam- ilism and family possession, or a type of association of joint owners and partners not much different from family ownership or joint ownership and possession as they exist in contemporary society. This collectivism has little in common with either com- munism or socialism.
Fourth, the claim that collectivistic forms of landownership generally preceded the forms characterized by individual property
7 See the literature and the details in G. von Below, "Das kurze Leben einer viel gennanten Theorie," in Problems der Wirtschajtsgcschichte, Tubingen, 1926, chap, i; Max Weber, General Economic History, chap, i; Jan St, Lewmski, The Origin of Prop- erty, London, 1913 (a good account and bibliography of recent Russian investigations in the field); N. S. B, Gras, History of Agriculture, 1926. See esp, A. A. Kaufman, Russian Obschina in the Process of Its Origin and Development (Russ.), 1908. Other Russian works, including A. Tschuprow's German monograph, will be mentioned further.
8 R. Thurnwald's "Tortschritt" and "Primitive Kultur" in the ReallexiJ^on der Vorgeschichte, ed. by M. Ebert; A. Goldenweiser*s "Cultural Anthropology," in The History and Prospects of the Social Sciences, New York, 1925, sums up ably the situa- tion in this field. See there the literature.
* See F. Somlo, Der Guterverkehr in der Urgesettschaft, Inst. Solvay,' 1909; R. Thurn- wald's "Wirtschaft" in Reallcxikon der Vorgeschichte; see there an exhaustive bibliogra- phy; B. Mahnowski, Argonauts in the Western Pacific, London, 1922; E. Schwiedland, Anfange tmd Wesen der Wirtschajt, Stuttgart, 1923; R. H. Lowie, Primitive Society, 1920; L. T. Hobhouse, G. C. Wheeler, and M. Ginsberg, The Material Culture and Social Institutions oj the Simpler Peoples, London, 1915, pp. 255 ff.; H. Cunow, Allge- meine Wirtschaftsgeschichte> Berlin, 1926-1927, 2 vols.; L. Wodon, Sur quelqes erreurs de methode dans i'etude de I'homrne primitif, 1906; G. von Below, op. cit,f chap. iv.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 573
in land is also questionable. It is rather certain that at the most joint ownership and possession preceded individual property in land only among some people. Among other peoples the sequence was rather reversed, while among still other peoples there was a complex fluctuation or coexistence of these forms.
While the socialistic authors view property as a fall from grace into sin, the liberals carry it back wherever possible to the time of the puta- tive ancestors of the population. In reality, nothing definite can be said in general terms about the economic life of primitive man. We find no uniformity but ever the sharpest contrasts.10 ... In some cases the community landownership developed, through limitations of the private family ownership of land; in other cases it developed spon- taneously without any coercion.11
Fifth, it is certain that some of the forms of joint ownership and possession of land appeared late and could not possibly have preceded forms of individual land appropriation. For instance. Sir Henry Sumner Maine based his theory principally on the Indian village community, thinking that this type was earlier in Raiyatwari system— see further). However, later and more care- ful studies have shown that such an hypothesis is contradicted by the facts.
We have no actual evidence of the first stage — evidence, I mean, showing that universally at one time, there was no such thing as indi- vidual or even a family right, but that the whole tribe or clan regarded the land as really "common" in a communistic or socialistic sense, . . . If we look to the earliest villages found under the Aryans, or before that, we have no evidence of a tribal stage; and even among the later Panjab tribes, where tribal occupation and allotment are clearly dis- cernible, any previous stage of the joint holding by the tribe collectively, hardly seems deducible from the known facts. But we certainly must recognize that, as regards most villages, property is still in the "family" stage. We are introduced at a very early stage to the existence of an idea of an individual (or rather family) right to the land in fat/or of the person who cleared and reclaimed it from the jungle. . . . The oldest form of village (in India) is where the cultivators — practically owners of their several family holdings — live under a common head- man; and there is no landlord over the whole. . . . The object of these remarks is to disabuse the reader's mind of the idea that in some way a "joint" village is necessarily the earliest or original type.
10 M. Weber, General Economic History, p. '24.
"A. Tschuprow, Die Feldgemeinschaft, Strassburg, 1902, p. 243.
574
SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Such are the conclusions of possibly the best investigator of the Hindu land system.12
Similar criticism has been made in regard to the interpretation of the Russian, German, Scotch, and other early land systems as an "original system of agrarian communism." More careful study of historical evidences on the one hand 13 and of existing forms of landownership and land possession among contemporary pre- literate tribes on the other hand has shown that the theories of Maine, De Laveleye, von Maurer, Viollet, and others were inade- quate, based on speculation and analogy rather than on an ade- quate interpretation of the factual situations. For instance, the largest sample of 298 preliterate peoples studied shows at the most primitive and more advanced stages the following forms of prop- erty and land property.14
PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLES IN A SPECIFIED CLASS HAVING A SPECIFIED FORM
OF PROPERTY
|
STAGES OR CLASSES OF PEOPLES |
COM- MUNAL |
INTER- MIXED |
PRIVATE |
CHIEF'S PROPERTY |
NOBLES' PROPERTY |
TOTAL « |
|
Lower hunters |
69 |
15 |
15 |
0 |
0 |
100 |
|
Higher hunters |
80 |
6 |
5 |
3 |
5 |
100 |
|
Lowest agricultural |
64 |
18 |
18 |
0 |
0 |
100 |
|
Lower pastoral |
57 |
0 |
35 |
0 |
9 |
100 |
|
Higher agricultural |
54 |
21 |
13 |
8 |
4 |
100 |
|
Higher pastoral |
62 |
0 |
5 |
33 |
0 |
100 |
|
Highest agricultural |
29 |
24 |
10 |
27 |
10 |
100 |
The table shows that even among the most primitive hunters there exist all the principal forms of property, including private property, and that there is a very irregular trend) if any, toward a decrease of communal property (or of an increase of other forms of property, with the exception of chiefs' and nobles' property) as we pass from the lower hunters to the highest agricultural peoples. The final result of this controversy seems to be as follows: First,
13 B. H. Baden-Powell, The Land-Systems of British India, Oxford, 1892, I, 110-115; see there the details and substantiation of these conclusions.
13 See, for instance, Fustel De Coulangcs, Histoire etc lf institutions polittqucs de I'ancienne France; V alien et le domaine rural, 1889, pp. 155 ff.
WL. T. Hobhouse, G. C. Wheeler, and M. Ginsberg, op. cit,, p, 251.
* These are approximate figures.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 575
in the earliest stages of agricultural tribes there are different land systems, either individual, family, or tribe ownership or possession of the land. In some tribes all these systems have existed side by side; in other tribes one of them has predominated. Second, among these forms the system of family ownership or possession has predominated. Third, the so-called collective land system in almost all early stages has been merely a family system, no more collective or socialistic than family undivided property at the present. Fourth, the forms of so-called collective landownership or possession and the phenomena of a periodical distribution of land, land equalization, limitation of the rights of individual property in land, and collective responsibility appeared in some societies at a late stage, in others at a relatively early stage. Fifth, no definite and universal sequence in the change of the forms of land possession and ownership, either from collective to the indi- vidual or vice versa, has existed. The evolution of such forms has not been uniform and linear but polymorphic and divergent in various societies. Such in essence are the conclusions based on con- temporary knowledge in this field. In the subsequent readings we give a fragment from J. St. Lewinskies Origin of Property, which summarizes the conclusions reached in this field by Rus- sian and other investigators of the problem. In this selection, in spite of its one-sidedness, the above statements are more devel- oped, elaborated, and corroborated. (See also the quoted works of G. von Below and Baden-Powell for a general summary of the problem.)
As to the evolution of other forms of landownership and land possession, namely, from small holdings to large latifundia or vice versa, from ownership to tenancy or vice versa, or from pri- vate property in land to nationalized (state) ownership or vice versa, the conclusions are similar. A careful investigation of the problems does not permit us to admit the existence of any of these tendencies in the evolution of land possession as perpetual and universal for all peoples and at all times. As a matter of fact all these forms — private ownership; tenancy; small and large hold- ings; concentration of land in few hands and its parcelling out among small landholders; private and public property in land; state, city, or church property in land; or the processes of the na- tionalization or denationalization o£ land — may exist in the ear-
576 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
liest stages among various peoples, and we find all of them exist- ing at the present moment. Here, again, the historical process has not been universally uniform and linear, but rather polymorphic and trendless, at one time among some countries giving a pre- ponderance to one of the systems and trends, and at another time among the same or other countries giving the upper hand to the opposite system and trends. For instance, we have in Soviet Russia at the present time, and have had recently in New Zealand, a system of nationalized land. Thousands of years ago this same system existed in ancient Egypt, in China, and in ancient Peru, to mention only some of the countries. This same thing can be said with still greater reason of other systems and other types of rural aggregates. Likewise, the types of peasant owner, peasant tenant, and peasant hired laborer existed in the past and exist in the present. Eternal, uniform, and universal tendencies in the evo- lution of these forms exist only in the imagination of those who replace the real processes of history by a purely fantastic tailoring of speculative schemes concerning the path of history.
ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Besides the works quoted in this and the preceding sections see: AEREBOE, F., Agrarpoliti\ (1928). ANDREWS, CHARLES M., The Theory of the Village Community, Papers of
the American Historical Association (1891), V, 47-61. BAUDRILLART, H., Les populations agncoles de la France (1885).
, Gentihhomrn.es ruraux de la "Prance (1894).
BEAUNE, H., Droit coutumier frangais (1885), 2 vols.
BONNEMERE, E., Histoire des paysans deputs la fin du moyen age jusqu'a
nos jours (1886), 3d ed., 3 vols. BRANDT, KARL, "Untersuchungen iiber Entwicklung Wesen- und Formen
der Landwirtschaftlichen Pacht," Landwirtschaftliches Jahrbuch (1927),
Band LXVI, Heft 4.
BRINKMANN, TH., G\onomi\ des landwirtschajtlichen Betriebs (1922). DARESTE DE LA CHAVANNE, A. E., Histoire des classes agncoles en "Prance. DONIOL, H., Histoire des classes rurales (1857). DOPSCH, A., Wirtschaftliche und Soziale Grundlagen des Europdischen
KulturentwicJ^elung (1918-1920).
Du CELLIER, Histoire des classes laborieuses en France (1859). DUVAL, L., Un gentilhomme cultivateur au XVHI siecle (1908). EFIMENKO, A., Researches in the People's Living (Russ.) (1884). ESMEIN, A., Cours elementaire d'histoire du drott franfms. FLOUR DE ST.-GENIS, E., La propriete rurale en France (1902).
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 577
GOLTZ, TH., FR, VON DER, Vorlesungen uber Agrarwesen und Agrarpolitik
(1899). GRAS, N. S. B., AND GRAS, E. C., The Economic and Social History of an
English Village (1930).
., Handbuch der landwirtschaftlichen Eetriebslehre (1922), 7th ed.
GRUNBERG, K., Die EntwicJ^lung der agrarpohtischen Ideen (1908).
HAINISCH, M., Die Landflucht (1924).
HAMMERSTEIN, Die Landwntschaft der Eingeborenen Afrifas (1919).
HILDEBRANDT, R., Recht und Sttte auf verschiedenen Kulturstufen (1896),
INAMA-STERNEGG, K. TH., Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1879).
JEUDWINE, J. W., The 'Foundations of Society and the Land (1918).
JOHANSEN, P., Siedung und Agrarwesen der Esten im Mittelalter (1925).
KARIEEFF, N., Peasants and the Peasant Problem (Russ.) (1879).
KLUCHEVSKY, V., Russian History, 5 vols.
K.OVALEVSKY, M., La France economique et sociale (1909).
LEVASSEUR, E., Histoire des classes ouvrieres (1900), 2 vols.
LIASCHENKO, P. J., Essays in Agrarian Evolution of Russia (Russ.) (1924).
LIEFMANN, R., Die Kommunistische Gemeinden in Nord America (1922).
LUBKE, "Das Pachtwesen in Deutschland," Jahrbuch fiir Bodenre-form
(1923) Band XIX, Heft 3. MANN, H. H., "Life in an Agricultural Village in England," in Sociological
Papers (London, 1905) pp. 163-193.
MARION, M., Dictionnaire des institutions de la France (1923). MAVOR, J., An Economic History of Russia (1924), 2 vols. MIASKOWSKI, A., Die Schweizerische Allmend in ihrer geschichtlichen Ent-
wictyung (1879).
MITSCHERLICH, W., Sfyzze einer wirtschajtlichen Stujentheorie (1924). NASSE, E.j Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages and Inclosures of
the Sixteenth Century in England (1872). NIKIFOROFF, N. J., Seniorial Regime in France before the Revolution of
1789 (Russ.) (1928).
NIKITINE, B.} "Le paysan d'Asie," Revue economique Internationale (De- cember, 1928). NORDHOFF, CHARLES, The Communistic Societies of the United States
(1874).
OGANOVSICI, N., Evolution of the Peasant Economy (Russ.) (1909). ORLOFF, V., The Forms of Peasant Landownership in the Government
of Moscow (Russ.) (1879). PLATONOFF, S., Russian History (Russ.). RETINGER, J. H., T terra Mexicana: The History of Land and Agriculture in
Ancient and Modern Mexico (London, 1928). ROBERTS, S. A., History of Australian Land Settlement (1924). ROSCHER, W., NationaloJ(onomij( des Acfyerbaus (1903). ROSTOVTZEFF, M., "Roman Exploitation of Egypt in the First Century,"
in the Journal of Economic and Business History (May, 1928).
— , A Large Estate in Egypt in the Third Century B, C, (1921).
ROWNTREE, B. S,, Land and Labor (1911).
578 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
SCHAFFER, H., Hebrew Rural Economy and the Jubilee (1922). SCHMOLLER, G., Grundriss der allgemeinen V ol\swirtscha]tslehre (1923). SEE, H., La vie economique et les classes sociales en France au XVIII siecle. SIEGFRIED, A., Tableau politique de la France (Paris, 1913). SKALWEIT, AUG., Agrarpohti\ (1923).
, Das Pachtproblem (1922).
SPICKERMANN, Der Tedbau in Theorie und Praxis (1902).
STUBBS, CHARLES W., The Land and the Laborers (1891).
SUKHANOFF, N.s The Problem of Agrarian Evolution (Russ.) (1913).
TAINE, H., Les origines de la France contemporaine, Vols. I, II.
TOCQUEVILLE, A. DE, L anclen regime et la Revolution (1877).
TOUTAIN, L economic antique (1927).
VERNARDSKI, G., Russian History (Russ.).
VEUILLOT, L., Le droit du seigneur au moyen age (1878).
VORONTZOFF, W. W., The Peasant Land Communities (Russ.) (1892).
WESTERMANN, W. L., "Egyptian Agricultural Labor under Ptolemy Phila-
delphus," Agricultural History (1927), Vol. I. YOUNG, ARTHUR, Political Arithmetic (1774).
, Voyages en France (1794), 3 vols.
The Farmer s Letters to the People of England (London, 1768).
See also the bibliography of chapter viii, the bibliographies in the pre- ceding four chapters, and the bibliographies following the readings in this chapter.
67. A. A. TSCHUPROW: CONCEPT AND FORMS OF THE LAND COMMUNITY (Fcldgemeinschaft)*
All investigators take the great Russian mir as a typical representa- tive of the land community. The land belongs to the community, the individual members of which possess only the right to the use of the piece allotted to them. They have no piece of land that they can claim as their private, individual property, for the piece of land that a member cultivates today may be taken from him tomorrow and exchanged for the lot of his neighbor. Not even the amount of the lot cultivated by him is secure, as the community may order a redivision of the land among its members and may take a portion of the allot- ment from one member and give it to another. The individual mem- ber has no right to dispose of the portion of land allotted to him; he can neither sell it nor bequeath it. Even the freedom of its use is con- siderably limited by the existence of obligatory regulations. Such are the essential characteristics of the organization of the mir. Are all of
* Adapted from A, A. Tschuprow, Die Fddgemeinschaft. Eine morphologische Untersuchung, Abhandhmgen aus dern staanwissenschaftlichen Seminar ztt Strassbttrg, ed. by G. F. Knapp, Strassburg, 1902, Heft 18, pp. 1-9.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 579
these traits equally important for the concept of the land community? Can land communities exist which deviate more or less from the mir organization? Let us consider some special cases.
In Siberia the village community has the same characteristics as are outlined above. But through some specific procedure a member may sometimes suspend the redistribution of the land and break the re- strictions on the use of the land. Does the Siberian community lose the character of the mir organization by virtue of such a deviation?
In the Almende (pasture land) of southern Germany and Switzer- land the periodic redistribution of the land often does not take place, and the parcels are allotted for life. The amount of land assigned to the members is determined, however, by a statute; the right of its disposal is not given to any member, while the freedom of its use is also subjected to certain limitations. Does this mean that such a com- munity is no longer a land community?
In the German colonies in South Russia the village community does not have the right to alter the amount of the land allotted to its mem- bers. A member's share of the land is determined not by the decision of the community but by inheritance and purchase. However, each member has a right only to a definite share of the community land, not to a definite piece of it. The community may at any moment order an exchange of the lots given to its members. Is every trace of the land community lost in this type of organization?
Most limitations on the right of land disposal are absent in the Bul- garian colonies of southern Russia and the Odnodworzy of central Russia, as well as among the farmers of Trier and the village mem- bers of Siegerlande. In other respects the organization is similar to that of the German communities in southern Russia. Was it just at this point that they lost their character as land communities?
On the other hand, the zadruga of the Balkan Slavonic peoples rep- resents a large community composed of families related through kin- ship. They live together under one roof, have undivided property in common, and compose one economic unit and one household. No indi- vidual member has any right whatsoever to a separate piece of land; neither has he any individual right to its disposal or use. All rights belong only to the community as a whole or to its representative, the senior member. Is such a community a land community? No, it is a house community (H ausgemeinschajf) .
At an earlier period there were many cases in which several eco- nomic subjects had some rights simultaneously on the same piece of land. For instance, one was an owner of a woodland, another had the right to feed his pigs in it, pasture his cows in it, gather brushwood,
580 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
etc. Is this a land community? No, it is a combination of servitude and condominium.
The preceding analysis indicates that there are a multiform variety oÂŁ systems of land relationships which are in some respects similar to one another. Which of these systems are to be styled land com- munities and which are not is a difficult question to determine offhand. For the sake of clarity it is necessary to define what we mean by a land community. By it I mean a totality of land-possessing households (grundbesitzenden Wirtschaften) which stand in such a juridical re- lationship to one another that the community as a whole is author- ized to inter jere in the land rights of each member within certain defi- nitely determined limits. It therefore differs from a house community in that the house community is a community of only one household rather than a totality of households (Wirtschaften). The land com- munity differs from the servitude relationship in which several land- owners are bound together through mutual servitude duties in that no one of its members has any direct right to the possessions of another member. The claims of any member may be realized only through his right as a shareholder in the community. He has rights and duties only in regard to the community as a whole and not m regard to its individual members, to whom he stands in a relationship similar to that of an outsider. Further, the land community is also different from the joint ownership (condominium) of the Roman law, for in this latter type of organization only unanimous decisions are binding on a member, while in the land community decisions by majority vote are admitted.
Manifestations of the land-community principles.* — Two traits give the relationships of individual landowners the character of a land community; first, the presence of certain limitations on the right of ownership of each individual member in favor of the other members of the community and, second, the form and the manner in which these limitations originate. They must spring from the will of the whole community. This means that the manifestations of land-community principles consist in the interference of the community in the rights of landownership of its members. . . .
Limitations of the right of possession*— Tht interference of a land community in the right of possession of its members may consist of a limitation of either the amount of land that may be possessed by them, or the nature of the relationship of the individual holder to the object of his rights. The land community can fix the size of the hold- ings of its members, can alter the amount of land held by a member
* Adapted from the same work, pp. 9-80.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 581
even against the will of the interested parties. Limitations as to both the amount of the holding and the time of the allotment lead to a re- distribution of land.
Limitations of the right to dispose of land.* — The limitations of the land community to the right of disposal of land by its members are numerous and varied in character. They manifest themselves prin- cipally in the limitation of the right to transmit the land by bequeath- ing it or in the restriction of the right to sell, rent, present, or dispose of it m any way. These limitations go so far in some of the land com- munities that their members have no right to sell, rent, or bequeath the land under any conditions, though in some other communities the limitations are not so great. Nevertheless, they are always present to some degree, and a member of a land community usually has much less right of disposal of his lot than an individual landowner.
Limitations of the right to use of the land. — These limitations are numerous: They may concern any or all of the following: the use of the common pasture, water, wood, and any other lands that are used by the community as a whole without division into individual lots; the kind of grain that is to be cultivated on a certain part of the land in each season under the three-field system; the time o£ sowing, ploughing, mowing; compulsory cultivation (Flurzwang), etc.
68. MAX WEBER: THE GERMAN, SCOTCH, AND CELTIC VILLAGE COMMUNITY OF THE PAST!
The land settlement in the original German region had the vil- lage form, not that of the isolated farmstead. Connecting roads between the villages were originally quite absent, as each village was economi- cally independent and had no need of connection with its neighbors. (The land of the village community was divided into several concen- tric zones around the village.) The first or innermost zone contained the dwelling lots, placed quite irregularly. Next, zone two contained the fenced garden land (Wurt), in as many parts as there were originally dwelling lots in the village. Zone three is the arable, and zone four, pasture (Almende). Each household had the right to herd an equal number of livestock on the pasture area, which, however, was not communal but appropriated in fixed shares. The same was true of the wood (zone five), which incidentally did not belong to the village; here also the rights to wood cutting, to bedding, mast, etc., were divided equally among the inhabitants of the village. House,
* Summary, pp. 63-80.
fFrom Max Weber, General Economic History, trans, by F. H. Knight, New York, Greenbcrg, 1927, pp. 4-17. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher.
582 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
dwelling lot, and the share oÂŁ the individual garden land, arable (see below), pasture, and forest, together constituted the hide (German Hufe, cognate with "have").
The arable was divided into a number of parts called fields (Gc- tuanne) ; these again were laid off in strips which were not always uniform in breadth and were often extremely narrow. Each peasant of the village possessed one strip in each field, so that the shares in the arable were originally equal in extent. The basis of this division into fields is found in the effort to have the members of the community share equally in the various qualities of the land in different locations. The intermixed holdings which thus arose brought the further ad- vantage that all the villagers were equally affected by catastrophes such as hailstorms, and the risks of the individual were reduced.
As there were no roads between the single allotments, tillage opera- tions could only be carried on according to a common plan and at the same time for all. This was normally done according to the three-field system, which is the most general though by no means the oldest type of husbandry in Germany. Three-field husbandry means that in the first place the whole arable area is divided into three tracts, of which at any one time the first is sown to a winter grain and the second to a summer gram, while the third is left fallow and is manured. Each year the fields are changed in rotation, so that the one sown with win- ter grain is the next year put to summer grain and in the year follow- ing left fallow, and the others correspondingly. Under such a system of husbandry it was impossible for any individual to use methods dif- ferent in any way from those of the rest of the community; he was bound to the group in all his acts. . . .
The hide belonged to the individual and was hereditary. The part of the holding consisting of dwelling lot and garden land was subject to free individual use. The house sheltered a family, often including grown sons. The share in the arable was also individually appropriated, while the rest of the cleared land belonged to the community of hide- men or peasant holders (Hufner), that is, of the members in full stand- ing or freemen of the village. These included only those who held title to some share in each of the three fields of the arable. One who had no land or did not have a share in every field did not count as a hide- man.
To a still larger group than the village belonged the common "mark," which included wood and waste land and is to be distinguished from the Almend or pasture. This larger group was made up of sev- eral villages. The beginnings and original form of the mark associa- tion (Mar\genossenschajt) are lost in obscurity. Within the common
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 583
mark there existed a head official oÂŁ the mark (Obermdrfyerami), and in addition a "wood court" and an assembly of deputies of the hide- men of the villages belonging to the mark.
Originally there was in theory strict equality among the members in this economic organization. But such an equality broke down in consequence of differences in the number of children among whom the inheritance was divided, and there arose alongside the hidemen half and quarter hidemen. Moreover, the hidemen were not the only in- habitants of the village. First, there were younger sons who did not succeed to holdings. . . . From the outside came hand workers and other neighbors, who stood without the organization of associated hidemen. Thus there arose a division between the peasants and another class of village dwellers, called hirelings or cottagers. (Besides these two strata of the village population) there was also formed above the hidemen a special economic stratum who with their landholdings also stood outside the main village organization. In the beginning of the German agricultural system, as long as there was unclaimed land available, an individual could clear land and fence it; as long as he tilled it, this so-called Bifang was reserved to him; otherwise it re- verted to the common mark. Acquisition of such Bifangs presupposed considerable possessions in cattle and slaves and was ordinarily pos- sible only for the king, princes, and overlords. In addition to this pro- cedure, the king would grant land out of the possessions of marks, the supreme authority over which he had assumed for himself,
Scotland. — Many students have seen in the German rural organiza- tion the echo of an original agrarian communism and have sought elsewhere for (similar) examples. ... In this effort they have thought to find in the Scotch agricultural system — "the runridge system" — a re- semblance to the German system. It is true that in Scotland the arable was divided into strips, and holdings intermingled; there was also the common pasture; thus far there is real resemblance to Germany. But these strips were redistributed by lot annually or at definite times, so that a diluted village community arose. All this was excluded in the German Lagcmorgcn. Along with this arrangement there arose in the Gaelic and Scotch regions the cyvar, the custom of communal plowing. Land which had been in grass for a considerable time was broken up with a heavy plow drawn by eight oxen. For this purpose the owner of the oxen and the owner of a heavy plow, generally the village smith, came together and plowed as a unit. The division of the crop took place either before the harvest or after a joint harvest. The Scotch system of husbandry was distinguished from the German by the fur- ther fact that the zone of arable was divided into two subzones. Of
584 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
these the inner was manured and tilled according to a three-field rota- tion, while the outer was divided into from five to seven parts, only one of which was put under the plow in any one year, while the re- maining ones were in grass and served as pasture.
Ireland. — The Scotch agricultural system is very recent; for the origi- nal Celtic system we must go to Ireland. Here agriculture was origi- nally based entirely on cattle-raising. The pasture land is allotted to the house community (tate), the head of which ordinarily owns from 300 upward head of stock. About the year 600, agriculture declined in Ire- land and the economic organization underwent a change. As before, however, the land was not permanently assigned, but for a lifetime at the longest. Redistributions were made by the chieftain (tanaist) down as late as the eleventh century
69. B. H. BADEN-POWELL: VILLAGE LAND SYSTEMS IN INDIA!
Two types of village distinguished. — There is not one type of vil- lage community, but there are two very distinct types, one of which, again, has marked and curious forms or varieties. . . . These two types are distinct in origin. In the one type the aggregates of cultivators have no claim as a joint-body to the whole estate, dividing it among them- selves on their own principles; nor will they acknowledge themselves in any degree jointly liable for burdens imposed by the state. Each man owns his own holding, which he has inherited, or bought, or cleared from the original jungle. The waste surrounding the village is used for grazing and wood-cutting, but no one in the village claims it as his, to appropriate and cultivate without leave; still less do the whole group claim it jointly, to partition when they please.
In the other type — owing to conquest — a strong joint-body, probably descended (in many cases) from a single head, or single family, has pretentions to be of higher caste and superior title to the "tenants" who live on the estate. The site on which the village habitations, the tank,
* EDITORS' NOTE. — Besides the works already cited and those cited further see: G. von Below, Probleme der Wirtschajtsgeschichte, 1926; A. Dopsch, Die Wirtschaftsentwicklung der Karolingenzeit, 1912-1913, 2 vols.; A. Meitzen, Siedelung und Agrcnwesen der West- und Qstgermanen, der Kelten, Romer, Finnen und Slaven, 1896, 4 vols; G. F. Knapp, Grundherrschaft und Rittergut, 1897; F, Seebohm, The Ancient Village Community, 4th ed.} London, 1896; R. E. B. Ernie, English Fatming, Past and Present, New York, 1927; Oppenheimer, Die Siedlungsgenossenschajt, Jena, 1922; J. Fuchs, Die Epochen der detttschen Agrargeschichte und Agrarpoliti^, Jena, 1898; W. Fleischmann, "tJber die landwirtschaftlichen Verhaltnisse Germaniens zu Begin unserer Zeitrechnung," Journal fur Land wirtsc hap, Band LIU, 1905; K. Grunberg, Studien zur Q&erreichischen Agrar- geschichte, 1901; K. Lamprecht, Deutsche Wirtschajtsleben im Uittelalter, 1886; G. von Maurer, Geschichte der Marfaerfassung in Deutschland, 1856.
fB. H. Baden-Powell, The Land-Systems of British India, 1892, I, 106-108, 113, 129-130, 145-146, 149-153, 155-156, 157-159, 161-163, 168-169.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 585
the graveyard, and the cattle-stand are, is claimed by them; and the others live in and use it only by permission — perhaps on payment of small dues to the proprietary body. The same body claims jointly (whether or not they have separate enjoyment of portions) the entire area of the village, both the cultivated land and the waste. If this waste is kept as such, they alone will receive and distribute any profits from grazing, sale of grass or jungle fruits, or fisheries; if it is rented to ten- ants, they will divide the rents; if it is partitioned and broken up for tillage, each sharer will get his due portion. There are other differences, but these suffice for our immediate purpose. (This is joint or landlord- village type.)
As a matter of fact, the first type of village is the one most closely connected with Hindu government and Hindu ideas. And the second type is found strongly developed among the Panjab frontier tribes who were converted to Muhammadanism: it is also universal among }at, Gujar, and other tribes in the Central Panjab, as well as among con- quering Aryan tribes and descendants of chiefs and nobles in other parts.
Meaning of the term "community" — Though we talk about "vil- lage communities," we ought not to give that term any meaning of such a kind as to indicate anything like a communistic or socialistic right or interest. As regards a large proportion of villages there is no evidence whatever of their being held actually in common in that sense. Villages held for a time in common are always so held by the joint descendants of a conqueror or chief who in some way acquired the estate. The descendants are jealously disposed to insist on equal privi- leges and position, and so remain joint as long as circumstances render it possible. I have come across a few instances where a tribe (in the Panjab) has from the first held a part of the land in common, but there it is due to local circumstances, and the produce is always divided out according to certain shares. The term "community" might, if not ex- plained, be apt to mislead. It can be correctly used only with reference to the fact that in many villages families live together under a system which makes them joint owners; while in others the people merely live under similar conditions and under a sense of tribal or caste con- nection, and with a common system of local government. It cannot be used as suggesting any idea of having the land or anything else "in common." , . .
Conclusion as to the oldest form of village. — The first (and, as far as we know, the oldest) form of village is where the cultivators— prac- tically owners of their several family holdings — live under a common headman, with certain common officers and artisans who serve them,
586 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
of which presently; and there is no landlord (class or individual) over the whole. . . . For this reason I have called the first of the two types of village above spoken of the Ralyatwari or non-landlord village.
Modes in which the second type arises.— Let us now enquire how the second class of village which I have stated to exist, comes to light or has grown up. It is distinguished by the fact, which the reader will have already surmised, that there is a landlord, or body of landlords, claiming right over an entire village, intermediate between the Raja or chief, and the humbler body of resident cultivators and dependents. It will be found to be (a) a growth among and over the villages of the first type; and (b) to be the form resulting from the original conquest and occupation of land — as far as we know — previously unoccupied, by certain tribes and leaders of colonists who settled in the Panjab and elsewhere. I shall first enumerate the different origins of which we have distinct evidence, and then I shall offer explanatory remarks on each head seriatim.
Every one of these heads is derived from an observation of the re- corded facts in Oudh, the Northwest Provinces, Madras, Bombay, and the Panjab.
The village of the second type arises:
(1) Out of the dismemberment of the old Raja's or chiefs estate, and the division or partition of larger estates.
(2) Out of grants made by the Raja to courtiers, favorites, minor members of the royal family, etc.
(3) By the later growth and usurpation of government revenue officials.
(4) In quite recent times by the growth of revenue farmers and purchasers, when the village has been sold under the first laws for the recovery of arrears of revenue.
(5) From the original establishment of special clans and families by conquest or occupation, and by the settlement of associated bands of village families and colonists in comparatively late times. (This applies especially to the Panjab.)
Importance of the distinction as regards the revenue system. — The existence of two types of village is a fact of primary importance to the revenue student, apart from its interest as a matter of history and of the development of land tenures. Wherever the villages consist of the loose aggregates of separate cultivators, it has been found advisable to adopt what we shall presently describe as the Raiyattvari method of revenue management, under which each field or holding is separately assessed, and no holder is responsible for anything else but his own
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 587
revenue, nor has he any common right in an allotted area of waste. He is, of course, provided with certain privileges of grazing and wood- cutting, but the waste or unoccupied lands are at the disposal of Gov- ernment, and given to whoever first applies offering to pay the assess- ment, when they are not reserved for any other special purpose. Where there are landlord villages, the "North- Western" or "village" system of settlement is followed; the waste is given over to the villages; the entire estate so made up (waste and arable together) is assessed to one sum of revenue, for which the landlord, or landlord body, are jointly and severally liable, and which (in case of several co-sharers) they ap- portion among themselves to pay according to their customary method of sharing, i.e., according to the constitution of the body.
Differences and common features of the two types of village: the village artisans. — Let us now glance at the characteristic differences be- tween the Raiyatwari and the "landlord" village.
Certain features, however, both have in common. In both there is an area of cultivated land and an area (very often) for grazing and wood-cutting, though the title, and the method of using that, are of course markedly different. In both there will probably (but not al- ways) be a central residence site, and surrounding it, an open space for a pond, grove, cattle-stand, etc. In both there will be the arable fields with their boundary marks, and their little subdivisions of earth ridges made for retaining the rain or other irrigation water. Under both forms, the people require the aid of certain functionaries, artisans, and traders. They need a village messenger and night-watch, as well as some one to guard the crops; if it is an irrigated village, probably some one will be required to distribute the water, to stop this channel and open that, when, according to the village custom of sharing the water, the different parties have had their due share. A potter will be required to furnish the simple household utensils or to make waterpots where the Persian wheel is used in wells. A seller of brass or copper pots will also be found in larger villages. A cobbler will make the village shoes and the plough harness or gear. A carpenter will fashion the agricul- tural implements and help in the housebuilding. A money broker will be needed, and some one to sell tobacco, drugs, salt, flour, spices, oil, and other necessaries of life. Sometimes a dancing girl is attached to the village; always a barber, who is the agent for carrying marriage proposals, besides his function as barber and also surgeon. Sometimes there is an astrologer and even a "witch-finder." The staff varies in different places according to locality. In Central India we find this staff theoretically twelve in number. . . .
In England such artisans in a village would casually settle where the
588 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
prospects of trade invited and would indifferently accept work from any comer, being paid by the job. But in India, and this applies equal- ly to both forms of village, the village community invites or attracts to itself the requisite bands of artisans, finds them almost exclusive employment, and does not pay by the job for services rendered, but establishes a regular income or customary mode of annual payment, on receipt of which every village resident is entitled to have his work done without further (individual) payment. In Central India, where the system of remuneration by watan, or official holdings of land, found most favor, we find not only the headman or patel and the accountant (fat for ni) with their official holdings of land, but also petty holdings, rent-free, for the potter, the sweeper, the water-carrier, etc. In other places the more common method was to allow the arti- sans certain definite shares when the grain was divided at the har- vest; besides which they received periodically certain perquisites, in the shape of blankets, shoes, tobacco, or sugar-cane juice. . . .
The headman. — Having noticed what the villages have in common, we may proceed to describe the points in which they differ. If I had to select a characteristic difference between the two types of village, I should find it in the "headman." When the village consists of a num- ber of loosely aggregated cultivating occupants, it is very natural that they should choose or recognize some one of their number to be their headman. Possibly this man is, or represents, the leader of the original settlers, or is in some other way marked out as a trusty and privileged person. He is referred to to decide local disputes, to allot lands when cultivation extends, and so forth. And when the village comes under a definite state organization and pays a revenue to the ruler, most naturally that ruler looks to the headman for the punctual realization of his rights. His importance and dignity are then enhanced because he becomes vested with a certain measure of state authority, and is probably remunerated by the state. His office is hereditary, or becomes so, and the state does not interfere, except in some cases of manifest personal incompetence, and then probably another member of the family is selected, at any rate to the practical functions of the office,
Where the headman is (as in Central India) allowed an official hold- ing of land — his watan, as it is called — the office becomes still more desirable. In these parts it will generally be found that the patel owns the best land; he is also the owner of the central site in the village, fre- quently an enclosed space of some size, fortified perhaps by mud walls; and within this only members of the family, all of whom will be ad- dressed as patel, reside, when other houses are situated around and be- low. We shall afterwards hear of great princes being anxious to hold
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 589
the "patelship" of villages and the watan land pertaining to it, because of the permaneifce and stability of this form of right.
Now in the landlord village, naturally the headman as such, did not exist. The proprietary families were too jealous of their equal rights to allow of any great degree of authority residing in one head. Their system was to manage village affairs by a council of the heads of fam- ilies called panchayat.
It is true that in landlord villages, either one headman, or one head- man for each division, is now to be found; but that is an appointment of the state, and for administrative purposes. In former days such a single headman, selected to answer for the revenue and deal generally on behalf of the villages with the state officers, was called muqaddam. In our own times, such a headman has received the name of lombardar (the representative whose name bears a separate "number" in the collector's register of persons primarily responsible for the revenue), and this modern term at once marks that, in the landlord village, the headman is no part of the original social system. . . .
Constitution of the Raiyatwari or non-landlord milage, — Naturally there is little to be said about the constitution of the non-landlord vil- lage. There is no room for any variety in tenure; for each man is mas- ter and manager of his own holding. Modern law defines his tenure as "occupant," or leaves it undefined as the case may be, and there is no question of sharing on this principle or that. . . .
There is much more to be said about the landlord village, because it is in the nature of things that there should be changes in its course of existence. . . . Where there was a landlord claim over the village, such as that of a revenue farmer who had become proprietor, or of some chief or other high caste personage who had, many generations ago, acquired the superior title, they expressed the right by the term zamindari. I suppose it was meant that the landlord in his small estate had that sort of not very definite "holding of land," which is indicated by the native term, and which was also applied to the much larger estate-holder called zamindar in Bengal.
Meaning of zamindari village. — If the landlord were a single person, the term indicating the tenure was zamindari ^halis (simple or sole landlord tenure). When however the original grantee or acquirer of the village had died, and was represented by a family which as yet remained joint, they called it zamindari mushtar\a, the joint or co- sharing landlord tenure. . . . "Zamindari village tenure" meant the tenure of a still undivided joint-body.
In joint tenures, as long as the body could agree together, they would remain undivided. In such cases the land was generally leased out to
590 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
tenants; or only certain fields cultivated by one or more of the landlord body, for which rent was credited to the community. One of the fam- ily would act as "manager," and keep an account of the rents received and any other profits, and would charge against this the government revenue and cesses, and the charges debitable for the village as a whole —cost of alms, of entertainment of strangers, etc.— and finally would distribute the surplus according to shares.
The pattidari village.— But very often— in quite the majority of cases indeed — the family agreed to divide; so that many joint villages are found in a state of division or severalty as regards the cultivation and enjoyment of the land. This may have existed only for a few years, or it may have been so from "time immemorial." Ordinarily, when the family is descended from some single village "founder," the shares will be mainly those of the ancestral "tree," and follow the law of inheri- tance. A sharer here and there may be holding a few (or many) acres more or less than his share; but the general scheme is easily traced and is acknowledged by the co-sharers. When this is the case the village is said to be pattidari, because the primary division, representing the main branches of the family are called patti. It will be borne in mind that pattidari properly means not only a village held in severalty, but also held in shares which are wholly (or at least in part) ancestral, i.e., those of the law of inheritance. . . .
The bhaiachara village,— One of the first forms of joint village to be discovered (in Benares) was a form of village called bhaiachara, i.e., held by the custom (achara) of the brotherhood (bhai). There is no sort of question that villages were of the joint type, i.e., they were held by castemen of the higher orders, and that they formed close communi- ties, regarding themselves as landlords and superior to all other peo- ple on the estate; but still they did not adopt any system of sharing based on the place in the ancestral tree, but started (when the village first was founded) with an equal division of land. . . .
The other distinguishing feature of this tenure was that the holders did not merely undertake the share of the revenue burden which cor- responded to their fractional interest in the estate, but they distributed so that the payment should always correspond to the holding; and in many of the villages . . . there was a system of equalization known as bhejbarar, which consisted sometimes in exchange of holdings, but more especially in a redistribution of the payments, according to the actual holdings; so that if one sharer in the course of time found his holding diminished or its productive power fall off, he could— or rather, when things were ripe for it, the community could— procure a
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 591
readjustment of the burdens according to the actual state of each hold- ing and the relative value of them.
Present state of the joint milages. — In the North- West Provinces the sentiment of joint-landlordship seems to be decaying. Some of the vil- lages were, as I said, never really joint at all; they became so under our system; hence a strong principle of coherence is hardly to be looked for. Of those that are really joint, many are owned by families de- scended from an ancestor who was once ruler, conqueror, or grantee; and a great many from revenue farmers and auction purchasers. None of these had any attachment to land as land, since they did not belong to castes who themselves cultivate the soiL I believe I am right in say- ing that the indiVidualization of land and the loss of the joint inter- est is proceeding apace. . . . The result is the growth of independent petty proprietors, but still more of capitalist landlords, who buy up first one field and then (availing themselves of the right of preemp- tion) another. They are not men of the agricultural class, but must em- ploy tenants; these naturally are found in the old landowning classes, whose status is thus slowly changing.
In the Panjab the conditions are more favorable to the joint village; there is a total absence of communities deriving their origin from the revenue farmer or auction purchaser. The villages are almost every- where due to foundation by colonists or tribes of superior strength and character, most of whom are agriculturists; and they seem to have re- tained more than elsewhere the sense of union and the power of main- taining their original status. Governed still by custom, they have hardly emerged — at least in many districts — from the stage when the feeling that land belongs as much to the family as to the individual is pre- dominant. The law does not allow of perfect partition, i.e., dissolving the joint responsibility, except at Settlement and under special condi- tions. There is a rather strong law of preemption, which generally enables any one in the village body to prevent an outsider purchasing land. The customary law still restricts widows to a life tenure, and prevents them alienating; while in many tribes a childless male pro- prietor cannot alienate to the prejudice of his next heirs without their consent. There is also in many parts a strong clannish feeling, which keeps villages together. Nevertheless, the power of free sale and mort- gage is producing its results: nonagricultural capitalists are buying up land, and estates slowly undergo a change. Strangers are introduced; the village site enlarges, and the non-proprietary classes successfully resist the payment of dues to a proprietary body, and claim the right to sell their houses and sites; and gradually the old landlord body sinks into oblivion. If large estates accumulate in the hands of indi-
592 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
viduals, they will again become joint if the heirs are numerous, and then, as the property will be not in one village, the estate will more and more cease to be synonymous with the village*
70. D. H. KULP: LANDOWNERSHIP AND LAND POSSESSION IN A CHINESE VILLAGE (PHENIX VILLAGE)!
There are three kinds o£ landownership : public, the income from which is devoted to interests of the village as a whole — schools, more public land, charity, loans to poor at a low rate of interest (!), build- ing or repair of roads, and so on; village (sib) ancestral; family ances- tral . . .
Theoretically there is private ownership but in reality the head of the moiety holds in stewardship for those kin dependent upon him the resources he possesses. That is why inheritance operates under the cus- tomary law of equal division among surviving males.
Public lands are not communistic. They are not shared equally or according to need on the basis of individuals but of groups. They are owned collectively. They cannot be sold unless the signature of every male who holds responsibility for other members of the village kin- group is set in approval.
So also the ancestral lands that support the worship of ancestors. Between groups — moieties or branch families — there is real commu- nism in these lands, because each group shares and shares alike in turn. But the unit of communistic usufruct is not the individual but the group involved in the arrangement. The head of the particular group, the chia-chang, possesses real privileges and prerogatives but they are conditioned and limited, as indicated above, by his familial responsi- bilities and by social opinion.
The nearest the people come to communistic arrangements is in the smaller moiety and in the natural family. Especially might this be true where the natural family coincides with the moiety, or branch family, as is sometimes the case where final division of inheritance has been made. In such groups the blood members and marriage members en- joy the use of familist resources as need arises, according to personal wishes or conventions. But even here the authority rests in the head of
* EDITORS' NOTE. — Sec other details in the four volumes of Baden-Powell; D, R. Gadgil, The Industrial Evolution of India in Recent Times, Madras, Oxford U. Press, 1924, chaps, v, vii, ix; the works of Howard, Altekar, Venkatasubrahmanyan, Sarkar (cited in the preceding chapter); S. Kasava, Studies in Indian Rural Economics, 1927; R. Mukerjce, Democracies of the East, 1923; J. B. Phcar, The Aryan Village of India and Ceylon, 1880; see also works cited in the preceding chapters.
t Adapted from D. H. Kulp, Country Life in South China: The Sociology of Fam- ilism, New York, 1925, pp. 101-104, 148-150. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 593
this group and such usufruct rests upon social opinion and pleasure of the head. There is no more communism than is found in an ordi- nary well-organized family in England or America.
In this same type of group one comes closest to real private owner- ship of property, but only of chattels. Houses and lands and some chat- tels are owned in collectivism or, better still, in familism. The nearest one can get to private ownership of chattels is in the following ways:
Beds, chairs, boxes, toilet buckets, together with personal effects such as clothes, shoes, hats, belong to the husband. . . . The wife owns her own clothes, shoes, earrings, and other things brought with her when married. Sons own their clothing, shoes, and boxes. Concubines enjoy the ownership privileges of a wife. Servants own the money they re- ceive as wages, if any, and their clothes. Slaves may own clothes and sometimes even a small portion of land. But none except the head of the group may sell or otheiwise dispose of any of these chattels con- sidered as belonging to them without the consent of the head. . . .
Practically whatever private ownership does exist seems to rest pri- marily in the head of the moiety, or what is called herein the conven- tional family. He enjoys the usufruct of all he can earn from the re- sources inherited or otherwise gained. And yet there are limits to his freedom or his whims. He may gamble away the wealth or resources of his group or lose it through speculation or business venture, but his community condemns him for careless administration of his responsi- bilities. His own desires to pass on to his descendants wealth by which they may worship his spirit and reflect glory upon his memory in the village community are strong deterrents upon whims and personal pleasures and potent incentives to achieve successful stewardship.
The economic system of Phenix Village must therefore be thought of as neither communistic, private, nor socialistic, but jamtlistic.
71. N. A. PREOBRAJENSKY: A CASTLE MANOR OF BOHEMIA IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES*
Every castle manor had its own manager (gctman) who, besides managing the estate of his lord, w?js the >
gard to subordinates. The getm him in the management, for he Certain branches of the castle eco visors; for instance, the woods v charge of fishmasters, etc. TJ
* Adapted from N. Preobrajensky, / Sixteenth Centuries (Russ.)» Prague, 1 author's permission.
594 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
yearly rotation and harvesting of crops, required the personal presence of the getman. There was also an assistant manager, purfoabit, who helped the getman and was the second man in the castle, saving the getman' s time in the general supervision of the work of the manor by liberating him from the daily accounts and personal supervision of the laborers. This second man, supervising the execution of the orders of the getman, was closer to the working people of the castle.
Early in the morning the second man, purfyrabii, used to appear at the castle gates where the workmen were assembled. Potstein, a large fortress, may be taken as an example of a castle manor. Special pre- cautions were taken at the beginning of every day. First the "lower guardsmen," who spent the nights outside of the castle wall, sleeping with the field workmen, were called from the wall. Before entering the castle, all these people had to look around very carefully before they could go up the hill to the gates of the castle, which were opened for them. Every castle was guarded day and night in order that no mis- chief might happen. At night the gates of the castle were locked in the presence of the second man. Every morning and evening all the workmen were assembled at the gates and inspected. Those who were late could not get into the castle and were required to account for their absence the next morning. All the lights of the castle went out at a certain time, and everybody was supposed to sleep. The manager and his assistant maintained general order. It was a duty of the second man to prosecute drunkenness and card playing, activities which the castle workmen tried to carry on with the peasants during the day and among themselves at night. Either the manager, the second man, or both of them spent the night in the castle. In case they had to be absent, they gave the necessary orders to a third person, the scribe or secretary. The land property of the castle consisted of many estates of culti- vated fields, the so-called "farms of the lord," which were scattered around in various places. Each farm was in charge of a foreman, the "eldest" or superior, who received a salary from the lord. This fore- man, in addition to being responsible for the farm inventory, managed the work of the laborers and that of the working girls who cared for .^he cows and poultry. The girls were also in charge of a forewoman, ho was ' ' ^dest" or su^~;or.
"k* *e or four o'clock in the morning,
the fields. The plowing was sup-
t time, and good seed grain was
ge of the field work, supervised
. Wheat received especial atten-
beer made it a very important
vegetable oil was made, was
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 595
planted on the soil of drained fisheries. The home production of oil from hemp was an economy in that it made the purchase of oil un- necessary. The manager and the second man went to the fields dur- ing harvest time in order to rush the laborers and to prevent any stealing of the produce. During the winter the laborers were utilized in various tasks, such as woodwork, the preparation of fuel, and so on. The instructions given in regard to the estates of the lords who were directly adjacent to the castle furnish an idea of the general manner of living of the laborers. The servants and laborers of such an estate lived in a building attached to the castle. The "superior" gave orders for the work every morning, at four o'clock during the winter and at three o'clock during the summer. The superiors of such near-by farms were under, the direct supervision of either the manager or the second man. Of the twenty laborers of a near-by estate in Potstein, two were in charge of a "fishmaster," and two were watching the river to prevent fishing by others and to get salmon (trout) for their lord. Eight had to remain in the castle and could not leave it without the permission of the manager. Two had to know how to help in the garden in the spring and how to graft and prune trees. The laborers who lived in or near the castle were direct subordinates of the manager or the sec- ond man, and hence differed in this respect from the laborers of the more remote farms of the same lord.
In the morning the assistant manager, or second man, had to give orders to the servants. During the day he had to supervise the various parts of the household— the storehouse, the kitchen, the bakery, the smithy, the brewery, the butcher shop, the yards, and so on. Most of his attention was given to the kitchen, for both the workmen in the castle and those on the farms received their food from the lord. The amount of food was definitely prescribed. In Krumlevo, for instance, each servant received six small loaves of bread in the winter and eight during the more strenuous working period of the summer. Although the servants were not given too much food, there was a prohibition against cutting their ration, for it was realized that it was easier to manage people who were satisfied and not discontented. The ration was distributed at a certain time of the day. No bread was given from morning until noon, from afternoon until supper time, or after supper. In Krumlevo an exception was made for the personal servants of "her ladyship." After the morning distribution of provisions, the assistant manager used to go to the kitchen to see what was being cooked for the servants, and to give any necessary instructions. Tablecloths, plates, and spoons had to be kept clean. "Dirt rots more table linen than use.'* In Potstein each of the servants received one loaf of bread for break- fast, one for supper, and as much as he could eat for dinner. The
596 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
assistant manager was given permission to distribute two or three addi- tional loaves of bread to workmen who, according to his estimation, were deserving. In Krumlevo the baker distributed two loaves per per- son during breakfast, and everyone had to be satisfied with this amount. Bread was usually brought to the table only after all the servants were in their places and the main dish had been served. It was an old tradition that only higher employes were given their bread at the time the table was set. A bell rang at the hour appointed for the meals, and the servants assembled in a large hall. The second man was always present in the dining hall while the servants were eating, though he ate separately from them. Guests, noise, disorder, drunken- ness, swearing, and indecent conversation were prohibited at the table. The meal was kept for servants who were away on business at meal- time, and hence the cooks always inquired as to who was absent and why.
Servants were not permitted to take the food which they could not eat at the table with them. If any one did it, he was arrested by the second man, and the incident brought before the attention of the lord. The food which was sent from the castle to the laborers on the farms during harvesting times was limited to the most necessary things. Thriftiness and the desire to produce as much as possible at home in order to avoid buying anything were basic in the system of manage- ment. The flour was exclusively from the lord's farms, and it was pro- hibited to take it anywhere else. Among the various articles of food, only salt, seasonings, and hops were purchased. The expense of the hops was covered by the income from selling the surplus beer pro- duced at the castle. In addition, the manager, or getman, was ordered to organize a special hops-growing field in order to save even this item of expense. Rye, wheat, peas, millet, buckwheat for gruel, barley for gruel and beer, oats for horses, poultry and geese, lard, corned beef, fish, poultry, eggs, pigs, milk, cheese, and vegetable oil were among the things produced on the manor. Each article was listed in the ac- count books according to its market price.
Other items of monetary expense for the castle manor were not large. They were: (1) money paid for iron (nails and bolts), steel (for re- pairing wagons and so on), harnesses, bridles, ropes, tar, and clay pot- tery; (2) money for paper; (3) expenses for the pedestrian and horse messengers of the manager.
Despite the fact that the monetary expenses were small, the accounts which were kept of them were even more careful than those of the natural supplies. The carefulness with which the weekly accounts were made and verified is illustrated by the fact that the manager or getman signed the bills only in the presence of the higher employes, including
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 597
the fishmaster, the superiors of the farms, and the assistant manager. Each of these persons had to verify the figures which directly con- cerned his field. The items of income and expense which amounted to "many thousands" of crowns were subject to a still more careful ac- counting.
The various sources of the income of the lord were divided into two large groups, one a more or less homogeneous group of "constant" income, and one a heterogeneous group of "current" income. The con- stant income consisted of taxes, levies, and corvees of the peasants, which might be either in money or in kind. They were collected twice a year; their amount depending on the size of the allotment of the holders. The land tax was paid on the basis of urbaria, the account book of the peasant holdings, which determined juridically for all time the sizes of, and the corresponding taxes on, each of the allotments. These records were necessary for the lords in the determination and collection of the natural and money taxes. King Maximilian, who had purchased in 1560 the estate of Par dub, sent to the newly appointed getman the usual instructions: "without further delay put in good shape the local urbarium (the account book) and frame special instruc- tions for the guidance of the assistant manager." This was necessary in order to avoid assuming responsibility for the mistakes in the old records made by the preceding manager.
Urbaria were rewritten only on the basis of the personal testimony of subordinates. During the winter when the peasants did not have much work, they were called to the castle. The questioning was con- ducted in the order in which the possessions were listed in the old urbarium. The getman usually tried to determine whether any person had debts and arrears. The answers of the subordinates were compared with the previous records and were recorded in the new ones. Thus every peasant knew exactly how much he owed his lord. The urbaria served two functions: first, they protected the lord from losses, and second, they prevented possible controversy with subordinates. Not only the duties of the peasants but also their rights were recorded in these books.
The "current" income consisted of the income from the personal estate of the lord and, since it was a commercial income, was subject to some fluctuation as contrasted with the steady income of the urbarium. The most important items of current income were the sales of grain and flour, cattle, and sometimes butter and cheese. Another item of income was the fish with which the ponds were stocked. The fish were recorded; big fish like pickerel and carp (bass) were counted by %opa (60 pieces), while smaller fish were counted by pails. The first fishing of the season furnished a basis for estimating how much
598 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
income would be derived from the selling of fish during the entire season. Special preparations were made ahead of time for fishing from the ponds, as this was considered to be very important financially. The time was announced in the surrounding villages. The getman or his second man arrived to supervise the work and to see that neither the fishmaster, the workmen, nor the people stole fish or made any presents "even to a father or brother." The local peasantry, towns- people, and buyers usually gathered together at the fishery, and the selling and buying was conducted on the spot. Fish were sold by pails at as high a price as possible.
Beer was another important item of current income and was the subject of a yearly conference of the employes of the lord. Since the subordinates were prohibited from brewing beer, the breweries of the lord enjoyed a very privileged situation. As the forests of the lord were not regularly managed, the only income from them was from wood which was sold for fuel. Aside from the items of income already men- tioned, the current income included tolls collected for goods trans- ported over the roads, the income from the lord's mill and from saw mills. Money from these sources was delivered to the castle weekly. The rent from saloons, mills, local lands, pastures, and so on was in- cluded in this group of current income.
A few words may be said concerning the landlord's estate, properly speaking. The salary of the employes constituted at least half of all the money expenses of the manor. The number of people employed was not constant throughout the year. The haymakers and harvest people were hired only for the harvesting season and then discharged in order to avoid expense. The regular year-round employes were registered in personal lists which specified the time they started to work and the conditions under which they were hired. The amounts that were paid in advance of the yearly account were very carefully specified. Unquali- fied laborers, if girls, were paid two fyopa of grosh a year; if men, the salary was twice as much. (A l^opa of grosh is equal to $1.25.) The remuneration of the watchmen was similar, The work of the shepherds, the men who looked after the cattle, and the kitchen hands was paid at a still lower rate. Special employes had higher salaries of from 6 to 9 fopa of grosh. The getman received 40 \opa yearly, and his second man (furkrabit) > 20. Aside from the differences in the amount of money received, the upper employes were distinguished from the workmen socially. The getman and the purfyabii were free people, gentry, and in some instances perhaps townsmen. The common laborers, beginning with the "superiors** of the farms, were either serfs, dependents of the castles, or hired from among the dependent
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 599
laborers of other manors. Juridically there was an enormous difference between the free people and the dependents.*
72. J. H. BREASTED: THE STATE MANAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN
ANCIENT EGYPT)-
The supreme position occupied by the Pharaoh meant a very active participation in the affairs of government. . . . The Pharaoh's office was the central organ of the whole government where all its lines con- verged. . . . The great object of government was to make the country economically strong and productive. To secure this end, its lands, chiefly owned by the crown, were worked by the king's serfs, con- trolled by his officials, or entrusted by him as permanent and indivisible fiefs to his favorite nobles, his partisans, and relatives. Divisible par- cels might also be held by tenants of the untitled classes. . . . For pur- poses of taxation all lands and other property of the crown, except that held by the temples, were recorded in the tax-registers of the White House, as the treasury was still called. On the basis of these, taxes were assessed. They were still in kind: cattle, grain, wine, oil, honey, textiles, and the like. If we may accept Hebrew tradition as trans- mitted in the story of Joseph, such taxes comprised one-fifth of the produce of the land.
73. M. ROSTOVTZEFF: THE STATE MANAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE
IN PTOLEMAIC EGYPT
We must remember that the economic activity of Egypt was highly centralized and nationalized, and that all branches of it were super- vised, and some even monopolized, by the state. From the economic
* EDITORS' NOTE. — The bibliography on the organization of the manorial and lati- fundian type of rural aggregates includes besides the works quoted above and those mentioned later: G. Aubin, Zur Geschtchte des gutsherrltch-bauerlichen Verhaltnisses in Qstpreusscn, 1910; M. Bosch, Die wirtschajtlichcn Bedingungen der Befreiungen des Baucrnstandes im Herzogtum Kleve . , . , 1920; F. Engcls, Der deutsche Baueinkrieg, 1908; J. Fuchs, Der Untergang des Batternstandes und das Aujkommen der Gutsherr- schajt, 1888; K. Grunberg, Die Bauern Befreiung und die Aujhebung der guuherrlich' batterlichcn Verhdltnisse In Bohmen, Mahren, und Schlesien, 1893-1894; H. Hoffman, Der landliche Grundbesitz im Ermlande bis zum Jahre 1375, 1877; G. F. Knapp, Grundhemchaft und Rittergut, 1897; Die Landarbeiter in Knechtschaft und Freiheit, 1909; M. Kovalevsky, Die o^onomische Enttvicklung Europas bis zum Beginn der \apitalistischcn Wirtschajujorm, 1901-1914, 6 vols.; P. Struve, Serfdom Economy (Russ,), 1913.
Of the works quoted before see particularly those of P. Vinogradoflf, W. Sombart, Fustel de Coulanges, E. Levasseur, H. S6e, Auge-Laribe", Boissonade, Kluchevsky, and M. Rostovtzeff.
f James H. Breasted, "The Foundation and Expansion of the Egyptian Empire," in the Cambridge Ancient History, Cambridge University Press, 1924, II, 43-45,
600 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
and legal point of view the king was the owner of the soil, and the tillers of the soil were his lessees. This involved for the peasants not only very high taxation but also careful supervision of their work and strict control over their resources. Without a system of dykes and canali Egypt could not exist. Her prosperity required minutely organized ir- rigation work before and after the Nile flood, equal distribution oi water, drainage of swampy and marshy places, and so forth. Such work could only be accomplished by the joint efforts of the whole population; and these efforts, which took the form of compulsory laboi (corvee), had to be regulated and organized. . . .*
The economic and fiscal policy of the Ptolemies made its chief aim to establish and confirm the prosperity of Egypt. . . . But it goes with- out saying that they did their best to make use of this prosperity for the purposes of state. The Greeks had always put the interests of the state a long way first and private interests second. . . . The governing idea was that Egypt, both the country itself and the provinces, belonged tc the king and that the king had the full right to use for the purposes of state, that is for the general good, the wealth and strength of the population. On these two premises the whole financial organization oi the country was built up.
The Ptolemies, both as successors of the Pharaohs and so gods in human form and the sons of gods, and also as persons who held Egypt by right of conquest, were, as we said above, the owners of the whole land of Egypt and all that it contained. From time immemorial, the land had been cultivated by the native population living in the towns and villages. Year after year they would plough this or that plot as crown peasants ... of the crown land . . . assigned to this or that village. Owners of this land they had never been and did not consider themselves such. The land belonged to the god and king, and its tilling was carried out by the directions of the king and his officials. But aj a matter of fact the peasants were bound to the land and the land to them by ties going back hundreds of years. To break these ties was neither in the power nor in the interest of the king. So under the Ptole- mies as under the Pharaohs, the crown land continued to be ploughed by the crown peasants. Their right to the land was not defined juridi- cally. In Greek terminology they were leaseholders paying to the king rent in money or in kind. But they differed from a Greek leaseholder in that they were bound to their land and compelled to cultivate it under whatever conditions the state might dictate to them. Still, the state was not really free in defining the conditions. They had been for- ever defined by a tradition based upon the experience of centuries, and
* M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, pp. 259- 260, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1926. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 601
any infringement of the tradition aroused mass resistance: the peasants appeal to God, go off to "take seat" in a temple, and refuse to work.
The peasants who tilled the land to support the temples and the cult of the gods were upon the same footing. They too labored for them- selves and also for the state. But into their relations with the temples and the priests the Ptolemies brought a great change by cutting the direct connection between the peasants and the priesthood: hencefor- ward the peasants paid their rent not to the priests but to the king's officials; the state in return guaranteed to supply the needs of each tem- ple and its cult. . . .
From the land, accordingly, the state received partly a rent in kind, partly dues either in kind or money. . . . Landholders had to divide among themselves certain special taxes, both temporary and perma- nent, and were also subject to certain other special conditions. For ex- ample, as the state had th,e right to buy up the whole crop of oil- producing plants at its own price, and naturally did not wish to take more of the produce than it needed, it regulated the amount of these crops to be sown each year throughout the whole of Egypt. The state also claimed to control the cattle fodder with which land was sown after the cereals had been carried or in the years of "resting" pre- scribed by the rotation of crops mostly practised in Egypt. For the right of using this fodder for their cattle the landholders and lease- holders paid definite sums. They also paid fees for the privilege of turning their beasts out on the pastures which were reckoned state property, or for hiring the pastures. Besides these permanent taxes, landholders and people occupied in keeping cattle or transport work paid a separate tax for the right to keep cattle. The state itself owned great droves of oxen and cows, pigs, goats, sheep and geese, which were looked after by special keepers who hired them from the state. There was a tax on slaves, as we have seen; moreover, a special due was paid for the right of plying a particular handicraft. Finally, the whole population except the soldiers and officials paid a poll tax.
The collection of all these dues required a strict registration of the land, cattle, and people, an exact calculation of what was due and an exact account of what was paid. All this was the business of the officers of the nome, working in some branches in conjunction with the tax- farmers, who were responsible for the collection and received in con- sideration of their labor and responsibility a certain percentage of what was collected. . . .
Certain raw products were a state monopoly. These the state further manufactured in its own factories, strictly reserving to special conces- sionaires the right of selling them. In other branches of industry the state confined itself to its right of manufacturing the produce of which
602 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
it had need for its own purposes (army, temples, export) in unlimite quantities at its own fixed price in private establishments compelled t work for the state. In certain other occupations, as fowling and fishini the state, to begin with, claimed for itself a high proportion, 25 p< cent, of the catch. In many cases the state laid a certain tax on the trac and often reserved to persons who bought it from the state the right < selling retail. . . .
Besides all these payments in money and kind the inhabitants we; obliged to render the state service both in person and with their beast By this forced labor of man and beast two essential needs of the sta were met: the construction, cleaning out, and upkeep of the emban ments and canals without which Egypt could not exist, and transpo both by road and water. The whole population of Egypt had to do i duty by the embankments and canals. The native population with i beasts of burden had to give its own labor; the privileged classes cou pay to be let off. For each day's work the state gave pay, but of cour at the lowest possible rate. . . . Compulsion was also employed by tl Ptolemies in getting together labor for the mines and quarries, f great buildings, and men to go long expeditions to catch elephan . . . Finally there were requisitions and forced sales of goods to t" state at its own price. . . . Upon definite occasions the Ptolemies e pected the population to express their loyalty by complimentary pr< ents (crowns, stephanoi).*
74. Louis BAUDIN: AGRARIAN COMMUNITIES IN PRE-COLUMBIAJ
PERUf
Among the great ancient civilizations there is one that has be largely neglected by economists and sociologists: this is pre-Columbi Peru. . . . The primary social unit of Peru is the ayllu — a toten clan composed of all the descendants of a real or supposed comm ancestor. When the clan had become sedentary it gradually lost its p sonal character and assumed a territorial basis. Land replaced bio ties as the basis of social organization. The ayllu of the conquer! Incas alone continued to remain purely consanguineous. The territoi ayllu is the agrarian community.
As is natural in any country where the soil is of poor quality a whose population continues to increase, agriculture occupied a place
*Frorn M. Rostovtzeflf, "Ptolemaic Egypt," in the Cambridge Ancient History, ^ VII, The Hellenistic Monarchies and the Rise of Rome, New York, 1928, pp. 13 6-] Reprinted with the permission of the author and the publisher. See also the bibliogra in this volume of the Cambridge Ancient History.
-\Rcvue d'histoire economique et soriale, 1927, No. 3, XV, 302-320. Numerous < tions of other sources and an extensive bibliography are not included here.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 603
importance in Peru. Upon certain days the sovereign himself took the plow in, hand — as did also the emperor o£ China — and plowed the field of Koltympata, which was sacred to the sun, while numerous courtiers looked on. Each official of a province did likewise. ... If the Physio- crats had known of Peru they doubtless would have praised it even more than they did China!
Agrarian policy.— In order to understand their policy, we must put on an Indian fyuchma, a sleeveless shirt, and follow one of the Incas who had just conquered a plateau province and, after having frat- ernized with the conquered in great festivals, announced that he was going to organize their region so as to make it as rich and as pros- perous as the other countries already in his power.
At first nothing was changed. The \ura^a or local chief remained in authority and the ayllu kept their goods; shortly a host of officials ar- rived in Cuzco and set to work. Before distributing the lands they had to increase their extent; thus the battle against the environment con- tinued and was intensified.
The Inca agents began by grouping into villages all the Indians who had withdrawn into isolated places, into the pulsar a or fortifications, either from fear or in order to be near some sacred place. . . . Then the surveyors proceeded to measure the tillable land by means of ropes and stones, while the statisticians enumerated the people. Men, women, children, houses, animals, woods, mines, salt beds, springs, lakes, rivers — all were duly noted and counted, and after this a relief map was pre- pared.
In the light of these documents, the Inca and his council decide if it is necessary to send colonists, teachers, materials, or seeds into the region and what works should be completed. Then the engineers gather the natives and make them build earthworks and canals. . . . Not only do the terraces increase the tillable area; they also prevent the devastating effects of the rains, which tend to wash away the seeds. ... It is still a matter of surprise for the traveler to see how the smallest plot of ground was utilized and also what gigantic tasks were often accomplished in order to lead the water into these tiny parcels of land. To have land is not alone sufficient; there must also be present the necessary water to make it fertile. . . .
The feats of irrigation engineering accomplished by the Indians ap- pear fantastic to us. The canals, of which the longest were frequently in excess of 100 kilometers, were hewn in the rock, carried through tunnels and across valleys over aqueducts from 15 to 20 meters in length, . . . The use oÂŁ the water which had been brought at such great cost was strictly controlled. Each Indian must receive his share for a certain interval and at a predetermined time; he was punished if
604 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
he failed to obey the regulations. This regulation recalls that of the Spanish comunidades dc aguas. ... It also reminds us oÂŁ the custom among the Mormons on the banks of Great Salt Lake, except that the members of the latter community were authorized to draw water in a quantity proportionate to the labor they had expended upon the con- struction of the canal. . . .
After the amount of tillable land had been augmented and the soil irrigated, it was necessary to establish boundaries. In order to avoid all confusion the experts sent by the Inca gave names to the points of relief or confirmed those that already existed. Then they marked off the ter- ritories of each community by placing markers. There remained only the distribution of the land.
Division of the land.— In general, the land granted to each com- munity was divided into three parts: the first was dedicated to the Sun, the second to the Inca, and the third to the community itself. Such a division is found among other peoples. . . . The first concern of the sovereign was to give to each community territory sufficient to permit it to live; consequently, in regions with large populations or inferior soil, the portions of the Sun and the Inca were small; where conditions were of opposite nature, the shares of these two parties were im- portant. . . .
The area recognized as adequate for nourishing a married man with- out children was an economic unit called tupu, a word signifying "a measure." Division was thus according to needs, which were assumed to be uniform; the division related to the means of production and not to the products. An Indian received a tupu on the day he took a wife and was no longer cared for by his parents; he received another unit for each son, one for each servant, and a half unit for each daughter. The chiefs had many servants and thus received many tupu* . . . When the lands of the community were of varying quality the tupu consisted of several parts scattered so that each cultivator had land of different grades to till. . . . Redivisions of the land occurred annually among the heads of the families; these were divisions for use only, not of owner- ship. . . .
The Peruvian system did not differ markedly from that existing among many ancient peoples. There was an annual redistribution in. Germany, each family receiving whatever area it desired, for the popu- lation was sparse. In Spain during the nineteenth century there were also frequent reallotments at short intervals. ... In Morocco the tribal assembly reassigned the land every four or five years among the vil- lages; and each village assembly in turn made an annual distribu- tion among the heads of families. Among the Incas it is probable that
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 605
the community itself made the distribution. The tupu was marked by stone fences once it had been surveyed.
Division of flocks. — The rules concerning flocks were similar to those which we have just given, but the number of beasts left to the Indian was a minimum. . . . Each head of a family received a couple of llamas, which he had to care for and which he could not kill until they were old. . . . The flocks of the Inca were actually state herds devoted to the needs of the whole population; they were national en- terprises in stock-raising. The flocks were distinguished by color. When a lamb in one was of a different color from its mother it was placed in a herd of its own color. The grassy plateau served as pasture land, all irrigable land being cultivated.
Cultivation of the land. — Once the land had been improved and the areas marked off, cultivation began. . . . Generally each Indian family tilled its own tupu, the neighbors aiding when necessary. This mutual aid has persisted down to contemporary times. On the other hand, the sovereign lands and those of the cult were tilled by all the members of the community under the supervision and orders of their chief. This work in common led to a division into individual tasks; this division was necessary in order to prevent some profiting from the la- bor of others by not working themselves. . . . When one had finished his individual task, he did not aid the others; without this arrange- ment nothing would have been accomplished, for each would have counted on the aid of others and would have worked as slowly as possible. These individual assignments consisted of long, narrow, paral- lel strips of earth assigned to the Indians on the lands of the Inca and of the Sun. These lots should not be confused with the tupu; the latter Were parts of the common land whose yields belonged to the tillers. One of the chief merits of the Inca ruler was his ability in making this working of the land a real pleasure. "The Incas had disposed and regu- lated this service so that the Indians performed their tasks as recrea- tion," said Cobo.
Order of cultivation. — The order in which the various types of land were cultivated is indicated by Garciloso to be as follows:
1. The lands of the Sun. The divinity came first as a usual thing. These lands were indeed reserved for the Sun and not for the priests, for the latter could use the products belonging to the Sun only during the time when they were in service at the temple, such service being given by the priests in turn. When they were not officiating, they had to cultivate their own land, which they were allotted in the same fashion as the other Indians. The lands of the Sun should be correctly
606 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
called cult lands or religious lands, for the Sun was not the sole bene- ficiary. All sorts of secondary deities and local idols had their share in the products.
2. The lands of the "incapable." These were the holdings of wid- ows, orphans, invalids, the blind, the sick, soldiers in the armies, and wives of soldiers. These lands confirmed the right to assistance of all who could not or were no longer able to work. . . .
3. The lands of capable Indians. These belonged to subjects fully able to work.
4. The lands of the military chiefs and high officials.
5. The lands of the Inca. Work on these lands constituted the prin- cipal tribute paid to the sovereign; this was not an innovation intro- duced by the conquest, for the former chiefs had required no other contribution from their subjects. . . .
Evidence of individual ownership. — Such is the agrarian system in its entirety, which Count Carli and Florenz Estroda regard as the best- known system; a system that is not at all communistic, as was affirmed by so many authors. It is much better to qualify it as collectivistic, since the Indian owned privately all the returns from his tupu. The factor of production, the land, was alone held in common.
The other goods that are private property are the house, enclosure, fruit trees, a few domestic animals, and the household goods. Immov- able property that is limited to the house and adjoining garden is ob- served among many former peoples; Romans, Germans, Javanese, and Russians. The principal source of private property is in grants from the Inca. This ownership deriving from donations is individual owner- ship and not mere tenure; but it presents many special characteristics that distinguish it from the individual property (quiritaire) of Roman law, since it is not absolute, as the holder can neither exchange nor sell the grant. On the other hand, it was not a system of collective owner- ship; these lands were periodically reallotted and transmitted to the descendants of the owner.
To summarize: three kinds of property coexisted in Peru, the third being much the least important: (1) national property (of die state): public buildings, lands, pastures, forests in regions not wooded, cocoa plantations, mines; (2) collective property (of the communities), either with common exploitation (pasturage, lands of those unable to till them, and forests in wooded regions) or with familial exploitation (tillable land); (3) private property: houses, enclosures, and property issuing from grants.*
* A complete bibliography in the field is given in the paper of Baudin, We omit it here for the sake of economy of space.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 607
75. }. P. WALTZING: STATE MANAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE*
After Augustus the Roman trade unions ceased to be purely private associations; in order to obtain authorization they had to have a social utility. This utility for many was derived solely from the necessity for their trade in a well-organized society. In authorizing them the state considered that it was favoring the development of the profession, which was regarded as a sort of public function. At first the trade unions were authorized, then maintained, and finally rendered obliga- tory for that reason only. . . . Instead of demanding money of the citizens as do modern states and instead of paying from the public treasury for all necessary services, the Roman state required work from its citizens. . . .
In the Eastern Roman Empire the trade unions were forced by the Empire and by the cities to perform the services which these crafts had voluntarily assumed; this service became obligatory and hereditary. The members of the professions and trade unions (corporati and col- legiati) together with their goods became the property of the govern- ment. The state, which believed it had a mission to be not only the maintainer of public order, peace, and justice but also the "housewife" for the Empire and the overseer of all public and private needs, inevi- tably came to the stage of making private labor obligatory. The artisan and the business man must devote themselves to their trade and to their business, just as the husbandman must cultivate his land. This was the situation in two capitals at least, if not elsewhere.
The Empire was thus transformed into a vast workshop, where, under the control of an army of officials, one labored for the em- peror and for the needs of the state and of other individuals. Most of the industries were directed by the state, which divided the products quite unequally. The members of the trade unions were not free citi- zens working at their will in order to support their own families; they were servants of the state receiving a wage, as did officials, but an in- sufficient wage. Already master of land and of labor, the emperor finally applied the theory of Plato to the letter: "In my capacity as law-
* From J. P. Waltzing, fctude h'tstorique sur let corporations projessionnelles chez les Romatns depuis les origines jwqtt'h la chute de I' empire d'occidcnt, Vol. II, Les colleges profcssionnels considers* comme institutions officietles, Louvain, Pceters, 1896, pp. 480- 483.
EDITORS' NOTE. — As is known, the economic organization of the Roman Empire, after the end of the third century A, D., was marked by such an expansion of the gov- ernment control that it approached what might.be styled "state socialism." The expan- sion of government control extended also to agriculture, thus furnishing an example of rural organization controlled and managed by the state.
608 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
maker I do not consider either you or your goods as belonging to your- self but I regard all your family and its goods as the property of -the state" (Laws, XI, 6, p. 923a) . This system was an organization of labor for the Roman state in whose hands were found the control of the greater part of the production and distribution of wealth.
Such was the social order, the result of a poor political constitution and of a vicious economic system. The Empire offers an object for the consideration of the economist and the historian. It could do naught else but perish by such a regime, which answered neither to the well- understood interest of the state nor to that of individuals. For the citi- zen and for the state the consequences were disastrous, either from the economic or the political point of view.
In the trade unions of the Eastern Empire, as in all the bodies into which the citizens were enrolled, there was no question of individual rights or liberty. There were only duties; privileges were equally lack- ing and were of no other purpose than to aid the members of the group to better fulfil their duties to the profit of the state. The most sacred rights and essential privileges of a citizen had been ravished; law and the political liberty of the citizens became mere empty words. Chained to their present state by bonds that were veritably indissolvable, con- fined in a form of caste that opened only to permit entrance but not exit, they could not hope to climb higher. Civil and private rights were destroyed or allowed to remain only enough to facilitate the services to the state on the part of the members of these craft unions. Patri- monies became inalienable; the right of ownership, that right to which men clung most tightly, no longer existed for them or had become an empty form. Of professional liberty there remained nothing. The cor- porati were not able to choose the type of work suited to their tal- ents, tastes, or vocations; they could not work where they wished, for they finally became attached to a certain workshop or city, losing the right to settle where they wished. They had not liberty of mar- riage; they had not even the control of their own persons; and their wives and children participated in their servitude. They and theirs were slaves, and they remained slaves. There was no way of escape. This regime indeed injured them in every way, and one cannot be astonished that they prayed for the coming of their barbarian libera- tors.
Thus a numerous class was sacrificed for the general well-being. It was a crying injustice; but did this sacrifice assure general prosperity? Certainly it was dearly bought! but let us examine the administrative and economic situation of the Empire.
Alas! The "sovereign people," that is, the idle and hungry urban
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 609
mob for which so many people suffered, were scarcely more fortunate. Famine threatened them and they frequently revolted. The administra- tion of the public annona (the public food supply service), maintained in the poorly understood interest of the ruler without regard to sound economic principles, did not succeed in serving Rome as successfully as the private and free economic organization does London and Paris today. Were the other services better executed? All the administrative operations destined to fill the treasury, to furnish luxurious surround- ings for the court, to equip the army, to provision the cities, and to finance public works did not operate as efficiently as would have been expected from an organization of such strength and tyranny. Whatever the state did was done neither quickly nor cheaply. Despite excessively severe penalties, fraud was rampant; preventive measures were futile. Indeed, it was the officials who participated in the fraud; they ruined the state by their malpractices and the citizens by extortion. The pub- lic treasury was systematically robbed, says Salvianus. Private indi- viduals became uninterested and inert; private initiative disappeared. The state undertook to do everything, with the result that the citizens did nothing.1 Where force was used, men were lacking to perform the tasks; the cor fees (labor taxes) were everywhere in arrears. The trade unions, the pivots of all administrations, were depleted in numbers; their members no longer remained with their tasks, now burdened with excessive charges, but fled from their insufferable condition; they no longer married, in order to avoid bringing more unfortunates into the world. These results were due in great part to that general organi- zation or system of work. Never had there been an administration more troublesome to individuals and less productive for the state.*
76. BASIL MAKLAKOV: THE PEASANT QUESTION AND THE RUSSIAN
REVOLUTION!
There are peasants everywhere; but what is the peasantry in Europe? It is a social class. Every small landowner who, because he is small, works and lives in given conditions, is a peasant; such may anyone
*Duruy, Histoirc des Remains, VII, 541,
* On Roman and Byzantine organization of economic life and agriculture sec M. Ros- tovtzcfT, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, chaps, ix-xii; P. Vino- gradoÂŁf, "Social and Economic Conditions of the Roman Empire in the Fourth Cen- tury," in the Cambridge Medieval History, 1911, Vol. I; L. Brentano, "Die byzantin- ischc Volkswirtschaft," in Schmollers Jahrbuch, 1917, XLI, 77 ff.; J. Brissand, Lc regime de la terre dans la societ^ batiste du Bas-Empire, Paris, 1927. Other literature is given in the works of Rostovtzeff and others cited,
fFrom B. Maklakov, "The Peasant Question and the Russian Revolution/' in the Slavonic Review, December, 1923, No, 5, II, 226-236. Reprinted with the permission of the editors of the Slavonic Review.
610 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
become. This class can, oÂŁ course, have its own special interests, needs, and even programs. But, apart from these special interests connected with their calling, European peasants are not at all distinguishable from other people; they are under the same laws, they have the same rights, they feel themselves in the same legal position as everyone else. To raise any question as to their rights would seem to them unin- telligible.
Very different is the picture presented by the peasant class in Rus- sia. The very idea of "peasant" was quite different. The peasantry in Russia are not a social class, but a caste confined in peculiar legal lim- its. Let us take two neighboring owners of exactly the same amount of land, one a peasant and the other not. Their legal position, even in the most various questions, will not be the same. Take the ques- tion of land: the non-peasant can do what he likes with his land; he can sell it or mortgage it; the peasant has not this right. Take the do- main of public law. The peasant will be a member of a special unit of self-government, he will be under special taxation, he will elect his own special officers; the non-peasant will not have these rights or these duties. If they both take part in the common local self-government and in elections to the legislative chambers, even though they may live side by side and have exactly the same kind of property, they will choose separately from each other and under quite different regulations. It will be the same in the matter of civil rights: they will be judged by different laws and even in different courts; in case of death, their prop- erty will follow different principles of inheritance. These examples, which might be multiplied indefinitely, show that the idea of peas- antry in Russia is quite different from what is called peasantry in Europe, and that the peasant question presented itself to Russian legis- lators in a form which has long been unknown in Europe.
Only on March 3 (February 19), 1861, was there made by the Em- peror Alexander II the reform which freed the peasant from the power of the squire (pomeshchify ; thus it was only fifty years before the revolution that the essence of a feudal system — that is, the dependence of one caste on another— was destroyed in Russia, and the peasant be- came politically free. Unfortunately, when it made this reform, the government thought it convenient for the time of transition to keep for the peasants certain features of their former state, some of them even in their own interests.
I will mention some of the peculiarities preserved after the liberation of the peasants from bond dependence. As the chief and the most bene- ficial to the peasantry, we must regard that special protection which the state gave to peasant landownership. When the peasants were freed,
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 611
the government endowed them with land, but justly feared that the peasantry would not be able to keep it; it therefore decided to preserve this land for them by artificial means. All land which by the reform of 1861 was assigned to the peasantry was, under the name of allotted land (nadelnaya), confirmed exclusively to the peasant class. Its posses- sion became a privilege of this class. No one except peasants could acquire this land, and on no grounds could it be alienated from them.
The second peculiarity aiming at the same object, namely, combat- ing landlessness of the peasantry, was that the owner of the allotted land was not the individual peasant but the peasant community, the mir. This mir was not at all a creation of the reform of 1861. It had formed itself in practice before the abolition of serfdom, both on crown land and on squires' land; it then arose, not so much for the benefit of the peasants as for the convenience of the master of the land, whether a private individual or the state. A certain measure of self-government of the peasants living on a squire's land in no way limited the power of the squire over the peasants. Meanwhile, it was a useful way of dealing with his peasants, a means of keeping an eye on them and of securing the execution of the various duties incumbent on them to the squire or to the state. For the squire himself it was more convenient to deal, not with individual peasants, but with the whole community by means of representatives, either appointed by him or elected by the community on his instructions. While freeing the peasants from the power of the squire, the state for the same reasons thought it useful to itself, not only to preserve, but also to legalize this peasant organization. Thus was established by law the peasant com- munity with its sovereign organ, the peasant meeting, which received rights of various kinds over its individual members; this peasant community obtained the right of self-government, the right of self- taxation, of choosing peasant officials with disciplinary power over the peasants, and so on. At the same time, the individual peasant com- munities were united into larger units of peasant self-government, the volosts, which were at this time an entirely artificial creation. These volosts with the same rights of self-government, self-taxation, and elec- tion of officials, including judges, were afterwards turned into a terri- torial foundation for the administrative division of the country. But this last is a very complicated question, to which I shall again have to allude later.
The rights of the fundamental peasant unit, namely, the peasant community, over the individual peasant were of considerable impor- tance; firstly, in the most important matter for the peasants — namely, the land— not the individual peasant, but the community, was owner
612 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
and official administrator; from this came the mischievous right of peasant partitions. Fearing the peasants might become landless, that the land might be concentrated in the hands of the rich and a danger- ous proletariat class might thus be created, the state gave the communi- ties the right to redistribute their land among individual families, aim- ing at an equal division of it between all. Thus the individual peasant had no fixed and guaranteed landed property. His land, on which he worked, might legally be taken away from him and given to someone else. I do not enter into the details of this complex process and of the stubborn conflict between two principles-— the principle of equality which was the origin of the land commune and the wish of each indi- vidual to possess fixed personal property. The history of that time is full of this conflict; one thing one may say: the right of redivision was greatly restricted; the principle of personal property triumphed, al- though not everywhere alike and not completely.
In the south of Russia, in Ukraine, communal land tenure did not exist at all; it had been replaced by the so-called podvorny tenure. One need not exaggerate the importance of this peculiarity. In podvorny tenure, too, there were traces of the communal; if it did not admit of periodical divisions of land, the dependence of the peasant on the mir as to land was still preserved; the land of each peasant family was not in one place, but split up over a number of small wedges cut out in each separate category of land. This was the logical consequence of the tendency to equality. The system of podvorny tenure in a way stabilized forever one of the moments when the land was redivided with the object of equality. No more redivisions were allowed; in fu- ture the peasant might feel assured that his land would not be given to anyone else; but his dependence on the system of agriculture of the whole peasant community, his need not only to take account of it but to follow it slavishly, was fully preserved; he could not sow where the community had pasture, and so on; personal initiative and enterprise in agricultural improvements were restricted to the minimum.
The power of the peasant community, however, did not limit itself only to questions of land. When freeing the peasant from the power of the squires, the state left to the community also a considerable part of its administrative power over its individual members; it endowed the peasants with the right of self-government with all its conse- quences; it was inspired not by any political idealism, not by a wish to develop among the peasants the beneficent principle of self-govern- ment. The causes were different. For the government it was easier, both administratively and especially financially, to deal not with individuals but with a whole community, especially if this community, by its
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 613
origin, consisted of persons who were yesterday serfs accustomed to submit, persons from whom one could not fear any political preten- sions. To endow the community with rights over its members became perfectly logical from the time when the government for the pay- ment of their dues introduced the principle of the joint guarantee, that is, of a common responsibility of the whole community for indi- vidual peasants. This principle, useful to the state, but indefensible, lying heavily on the more well-to-do and industrious peasants, as it compelled them to pay for the idlers, the unsuccessful, and the incom- petent, was repealed only under Alexander III. But the existence of a common responsibility of the whole community logically presup- posed the right of the community not only to control individual tax- payers but to use against them the most various measures of discipline.
Such were the principles which compelled the state to maintain and extend the right of peasant self-government. The power of the com- munities and of the elected peasant officials over individual members of the community was very great indeed. They had the right of levy- ing administrative and disciplinary fines on insubordinate members, which were not experienced by any other class. Lastly, those peculiar legal conditions in which the peasantry lived, coming from the prin- ciple of communal land tenure, the joint guarantee, and other regula- tions unknown to other classes, had logically made necessary special peasant law courts and the application by these courts, not of the gen- eral laws but of the peasant customs, which had never been sanc- tioned by the government, but which nevertheless regulated all the civil relations of the peasantry.
These peculiarities in the position of the peasants were justified also by a laudable desire to disturb as little as possible existing relations in peasant life and even peasant customs. And if only the state had tried, steadily though gradually, to bring the peasant as soon as possible out of this temporary position and bring him under the common law, these peculiarities in fifty years would, of course, have disappeared after ful- filling their mission. But, unfortunately, after 1861 political life ran quite otherwise.
As I have already shown, the power of the peasant community over the peasant was very great, and above all was uncontrolled* For an individual peasant it was almost impossible to find any defence against injustice and downright abuses on the side of the community. As was once truly said in the Imperial Duma by N. N. Lvov, the state, by its policy in the peasant question, developed two principles: absence of personal rights and mob government, But if the peasant community, as far as the state was concerned, had complete control over the indi-
614 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
vidual member, it was itself in a subordinate, and, in many ways, right- less position. And the result of this was that those very regulations and peculiarities which were at first preserved in the interests of the peasantry in course of time were turned against it and became weap- ons of the state for its oppression. We can see this process in a num- ber of individual instances.
And the first question was: Who was a peasant? Abroad this is a "social class," in Russia it is a "caste"; it was formed out of the former serfs who after 1861 became personally free and even landowners, but continued to be under the domination of special laws. But who might be a member of this caste? How could one enter it or leave it? Practically, there was only one way: a criminal of a higher class con- demned by a law court to be deprived of all the rights of his class after his term of punishment became a peasant. That was the only legal way of entering this class from outside — by being declassed, Let us take the other side. How could you leave this class? Even earlier, with leave of the squire, a peasant might become free — that is, leave the class of serfs. The right of entering another class was continued also after the Emancipation. But this was not all; in a number of cases it became obligatory, automatic. For instance, education, govern- ment service, and even grades of distinction, gave to a peasant the rights of a higher class, of burgesses or of gentry. Thus, if a peasant reached a certain stage in education and attained the corresponding diploma or a reward in service, even military, if he were promoted to be an officer on the field of battle, he automatically, even though against his will, was registered into another class and ceased to be a peasant. This was accounted to be promotion on the social ladder.
Into the peasant caste no one was admitted; it consisted exclusively of descendants of the serf population. And so all those who could be- come its leaders, the champions of its interests, were forcibly cut off from it. Only social elements on the down grade, condemned criminals, could enter it.
Let us take the fate of the organs of peasant self-government, the elected peasant officials. One might think that they had enough to do in dealing with peasant interests. They had been elected at the peasant meeting exclusively by peasants from their own number. They were paid by them alone out of the rates of their class. But the peasant caste was too weak to defend its class interests against the state; and thus we see the peasant officials gradually drawn into the general system of administration, subordinated to it for additional service of general state needs; to the disadvantage of their class interests, these elected
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 615
officials became not peasant authorities but simply the lowest agents of the administration. What was the result of this system? The state received at the expense of the peasantry an agent, a very bad one, but which, anyhow, cost it nothing; meanwhile, the peasant class without a shadow of justice was compelled to bear alone the service not only of its class needs but of those of the whole population.
In full analogy with this was another category of burdens, in form different, but really like the former, which were called "natural duties." By this name, in distinction from money dues, were called services to the state which had to be rendered by direct labor of the population — repairing the roads, extinguishing forest fires, combating floods, pro- viding quarters for troops and officials, provision of horses and of carts, arid a great deal else. These duties, which were often more in the interest of the squire than of the peasant, were discharged by the labor of the peasant class alone; persons of the privileged class were relieved of them.
These indications will be enough to show in general features the peculiar character of the peasantry in Russia; it is not difficult to guess the special psychology which, thanks to this system, it received. The most numerous class in Russia, it was the most humbled; enclosed in a special organization, burdened with special dues, of money, of nat- ural services, and of state obligations, working for the profit of others, or at least for the welfare of others, the peasant class inevitably worked out a consciousness of its own class solidarity and a sense of the oppo- sition of its interests to those of others. It became a state within a state.
77. S. N. PROKOPOVITCH: THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT AND THE
PEASANTS*
Abolition of private property on land. — On October 26, 1917, at 2 A.M. a decree was passed abolishing, immediately and without any compensation, large estates. Soon the Soviet government decreed:
(1) Private ownership of land is abolished forever. (2) Land cannot be sold, purchased, leased, mortgaged, or in any other way alienated. (3) All land, be it owned by state, cabinet, monastery, church, land- owner, or peasant, is confiscated without compensation and becomes national property. In the law about socialization of land (of February 19, 1918) we read: "All ownership in mines, land, water, forest, and
* From S, N, Prokopovitch, The Economic Condition of Soviet Russia,, London, P. S. King & Son, 1924, pp. 62-100, passim. Reprinted with the permission of the pub- lisher. This and the subsequent paper describe the outstanding phases of the Soviet agricultural policies and reconstruction. In view of the great importance of the Russian agricultural revolution this consideration of the subject needs no special justification.
616 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
living power of nature within the boundaries of the Russian Federa- tive Soviet Republic is abolished forever,"
Thus the peasants1 land was also nationalized. Further, according to the summary of instructions, the right of cultivation was granted to all citizens of Russia of both sexes, who wished to till the land person- ally, with the assistance of their family or in company with other people, but only so long as they were able to do so. Hired labor was forbidden. Highly cultivated lots of land, like gardens, plantations, nurseries, hothouses, etc., were alone exempted from nationalization. Cultivation was to be based upon egalitarian principles, i.e., the land was to be distributed among those who worked on it, according to the labor or consumption norm, conformably with the local condi- tions. . . .
In the first months of its existence the Soviet government had at its disposal no administrative apparatus through which it could carry out its ideas. Therefore the socialization of land prescribed by the law of February 19, 1918, "was not carried out on a national scale. In practice, the land was simply appropriated by the local peasants. . . ."
This has provoked an epidemic of land partitioning— which began in 1918, went on in 1919 and 1920, and in many places still continues. In the majority of cases the land was distributed among the consum- ers and not among the laborers. Constant redistribution of land created general instability of agrarian relations and was the cause of bad culti- vation, decrease of the area under crops, and bad conveyance of ma- nure. For these reasons the Soviet government was forced to fight the incessant partitioning of land, which undermined the productivity of the peasants' farms. On July 1, 1919, a decree was issued, forbidding the partition of land inside an allotment without the permission of the local agricultural section.
As a result of the above-described agrarian revolution the big estates totally disappeared and the peasants received a considerable area of land. According to the data of B. N. Knipovitch, in 1919 the land was distributed in the following way ; *
|
THIRTY-TWO PROVINCES OF GREAT RUSSIA |
THE UKRAINE |
|
|
Percentage |
Percentage |
|
|
Peasants' lands , . |
. . . . 96.8 |
96.0 |
|
Collective farms |
0.5 |
0.8 |
|
Soviet farms (so-called "Sovkhoses"), industrial institutions, etc. , . . |
farms of . . .. 2.7 |
3.2 |
1 B. N. Knipovitch, An Outline of the Wort{ of People's Commissariat of Agriculture during 1917-1920 (Russ.)» 1920, p. 67.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 617
Yet, all this land did not become the property of the peasants who were engaged in agriculture before 1917. The decay of large and small industries, the practically complete cessation of the peasants' migration to industrial centers during the winter months, the desire to partici- pate in the expected distribution of land, the food and fuel crisis in towns, led in 1917-1920 to a mass migration of the urban population to the country. All those factory workers, artisans, servants, etc., on coming to the country, claimed their share of the land and actually obtained it. Consequently, the allotment received by the original peas- ant farmer was much smaller than it might have been. The enormous amount of land, when distributed among many millions, gave very poor results. In twenty-nine provinces of European Russia before the revolution there were 1.87 dessiatines * per consumer; after the revo- lution— 2.26 dessiatines, i.e., an increase by 039 dessiatine, or 21 per cent. That addition is so insignificant that we may well ask ourselves if there is any reason to be proud of the results of the agrarian revo- lution.
Changes in the peasants' farming. — It was generally expected that the liquidation of large estates and the transfer of them into the peas- ants' hands would give an impetus to the development of peasant farm- ing. In the economic literature of the day the additional allotment of land was regarded as a necessary condition of the further intensifica- tion of agricultural production. Those expectations were not justified. After the agrarian revolution of 1917, a decay of agriculture set in, the extent of which may be seen from the following table (the figures refer to thousands of dessiatines and heads of livestock) :
1916 1917 1921 1922
|
Area under cultivation. Working horses . . |
.. . 79,167 22,725 |
53,217 18,283 |
43,813 14,031 |
|
Cows |
21,542 |
19,801 |
|
|
Area under potatoes . . , Area under flax Area under hemp |
2,323 .. . . . 1,317 518 |
1,407 653 246 |
1,280 400 187 |
|
Area under sugar beet |
550 .... |
190 |
162 |
|
Area under cotton , . . . |
. . 714 |
110 |
64 |
That decay was partly due to the character of the agrarian revolu- tion, in which the egalitarian principles leading to an inevitable eco- nomic regress got the upper hand. Partly it was caused by the com- munistic policy of the Soviet government.
* EDITORS' NOTE. — A dessiatine is equal to 2.7 acres.
618 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
The introduction of communism into peasant farming. — The Com- munists themselves realized that both the structure and the psychology of the peasants' economics were utterly antagonistic to the Communist ideas and regime. Nevertheless, they tried, with an obstinacy not stop- ping at violence, to instil communist ideas into the anti-communist brain of the peasant and to reorganize farming according to their principles, with the result that agricultural production fell once more. Since the peasants showed no intention of substituting communist forms of agriculture for their individual farms, the Soviet politicians had to "invent" those forms and impose them upon the peasants.
Agricultural communes and associations (artels), — The beginning was made by the decree concerning socialization of land, published on February 19, 1918, article 35 of which runs as follows: "The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic pursuing the aim of a speedy ac- complishment of socialism lends its full support to the collective culti- vation of land and gives preference to the laboring communist cor- porative or cooperative farms, as compared with those run personally. Therefore, as far as the distribution of land is concerned, the right of priority, according to article 20, belongs, first, to agricultural com- munes, then to corporations and societies, and lastly to private persons and families."
A step farther is taken by the decree concerning the socialist organi- zation of land and the measures for transition to socialist forms of farming. It states that in order to put an end to the exploitation of one man by another it is necessary to pass over from the individual form of land cultivation to the collective one. . . .
However, to nationalize 18 million peasant farms appeared impos- sible even to the most unrestrained fancy of the Communists. The practical measures which contributed to the gradual introduction of communistic principles in agriculture may be divided into two groups. To the first group belong the measures towards the creation of agri- cultural communes and Soviet farms. To the second — those which had the object of contributing towards the gradual communization of the peasants' farming. Here we include the nationalization of agricultural revenue and the projects of regulation of the peasants' farming.
Let us see, then, to what results that movement has led,2
The table at the top 'of page 619 illustrates the growth of the land communes and associations in European Russia. Thus we see that the number of communes reached its maximum in the summer of 1919; then it began to diminish. The number of associations (artels) , on the
3 See the article of B, K Knipovitch in the miscellany About the Lands (Russ.)» I» 36-42,
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 619
|
COMMUNES |
ASSOCIATIONS |
|
|
January, 1919 June, 1919 . . April, 1920 . . January, 1921 , . . |
.... 950 . . . 2,099 . . 1,732 . 1,829 |
422 1,935 3,865 9,064 |
|
September, 1921 |
1,528 |
10,015 |
contrary, is growing uninterruptedly. If we classify both communes and associations by the lands on which they sprang up, we shall obtain the following percentage figures:
|
COMMUNES ASSOCIATIONS |
|
|
Peasants' lands . |
10 31 |
|
Previous landlords' lands Church and monastery lands . State lands . . . |
74 48 12 10 . . 4 11 |
The peasants objected to their lands being utilized for communes, and cases of it are rare; so that the main role in the communes appears to have been played by outsiders who seized private landlords' and state-owned lands at the end of 1917. (See further a history of the communes and artels for the years 1920-1930.)
Soviet farms.— The disorganization of food supply in the country was becoming more serious every day. It was very hard to obtain grain from the peasants, even by the use of armed force. Then the idea emerged of creating a big state farm, a grain and meat factory, so to speak. In the first annual survey of the food policy of the Soviet gov- ernment we find the following reflections on that subject:
"It is necessary to draw the most serious attention to the organiza- tion of large national farms, which alone can ensure a constant supply of foodstuffs for the urban and industrial population and mobilize our agricultural wealth. . . . Our most urgent task, dictated by severe neces- sity, is to make the urban and industrial population independent of the villages, as far as the supply of foodstuffs is concerned. In that lies the political meaning of such large national estates. The more 'grain fac- tories' are erected, the better it will be for the proletarian government, and the stronger will be the hold of the working class inside the hos- tile domain of peasantry." 3
55 N. Orlov, The Food Policy of the Soviet Government (Russ.)» 1918, pp. 272, 377.
620 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
The idea of creating Soviet farms soon became popular in the lead- ing (Communist) circles. The law about the socialist land organiza- tion and the measures for transition to socialist farming published on February 14, 1919, defines in the following way the aims of that new institution: "The Soviet farms are organized for the purposes of (a) the maximum increase of supply, by means of an increase oÂŁ agricul- tural productivity and of the area under cultivation; (b) creating the conditions for a complete transition to communist farming; (c) the formation and development of centres for the diffusion of agricultural knowledge."
In October, 1918, the estates which were not partitioned by the peas- ants began to be taken over by the Commissariat of Agriculture, which appointed the district organs of administration. But the process went on very slowly and by February, 1919, only thirty-five Soviet farms with a total area of 12,000 dessiatines were subjected to central administra- tion; the rest were still in the hands of the local organs, economically in a lamentable condition. The total of Soviet farms at the end of 1919 was as follows:
|
TOTAL OF SOVIET FARMS |
FARMS TAKEN OVER BY THE COMMISSARIAT |
|
|
1918 |
3,101 |
|
|
1919 |
3,547 |
516 |
|
1920 |
4,292 |
1,636 |
|
1921 |
5,918 |
2,136 |
By the end of 1921, Soviet farms occupied an area of 3,079,262 des- siatines. So long as they were run by the state, they brought no reve- nue, notwithstanding the fact that the labor was practically free, as the peasants who tilled the land did it as their "labor duty." Already by the end of 1920 it became clear that "under the present conditions of the state's resources it was not possible to expect anything in the way of large state agricultural concerns. Statistical data about the Soviet farms showed that there was no considerable increase; and, as the census of 1921 clearly showed, the existing Soviet farms could not be run economically. Therefore, in spite of all the measures that had been taken, we were compelled to abandon the hope that the Soviet farms would become in the near future the factories of grain and meat." 4
4 Report of the Commissariat of Agriculture to the IXth Congress of the Soviets for the Year 1921 (Russ,), p. 7.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 621
In view of that, a tendency to give the Soviet farms in leasehold began to show itself from the end of 1921; some of the provincial agricultural sections intended to give in leasehold about 75 per cent of the Soviet farming area.
Thus both attempts at implanting collective forms of farming ended in failure. They were both confined to that 3 per cent of the agricul- tural area of the country which does not belong to the peasants.
78. PITIRIM A. SOROKIN: SUBSEQUENT CHANGES IN SOVIET AGRI- CULTURAL POLICY AND THE NEW AGRARIAN REVOLUTION
To 1928.— The preceding paper of Prof. S. Prokopovitch accurately describes the evolution of the Soviet agrarian policies and their results up to 1924. The policies for the years 1925-1927 produced nothing new, and the Soviet government did not attempt to vitalize its aims to com- munize and collectivize farming. The new economic policy openly recognized the legitimacy of individual farming and land possession and tried to obtain all the agricultural products it could from the indi- vidual system. Consequently there was very little progress during these years toward the communization and collectivization of peasants and their farms. The following official figures show this quite clearly.1 "An idea of the development of the agricultural communes and asso- ciations during the period from 1920 to 1926 is given by the following data of the Central Statistical Board of Soviet Russia."
|
YEAR |
NUMBER OF AGRICULTURAL COMMUNES |
NUMBER OF AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS |
NUMBER OF COOPERATIVE AGRICULTURAL UNIONS |
|
1920 |
1,759 |
8,067 |
695 |
|
1921 |
3,015 |
9,777 |
2,497 |
|
1922 |
1,943 |
8,459 |
5,038 |
|
1923 |
1,874 |
6,809 |
5,319 |
|
1924 |
1,571 |
7,381 |
4,571 |
|
1925 |
1,829 |
8,802 |
4,547 |
In 1927 the number of communes decreased to 95.2 per cent of their number in 1925; the number of agricultural associations decreased to
1The data and quotations are taken from D. Karpusi, "Die kollektive Ackerbauwirt- schaft in der U. d. S. S. R.," Agrar-Probleme, Berlin, 1928, Band I, Heft 3, 459-496, Agrar-Probleme being a publication of the Soviet International Agrarian Institute in Moscow; and from A. Gaister, Achievements and Difficulties of the Organization of the Collective Agricultural Enterprises (Dostijenia t troudnosti ^ol^hosnago stroitclstva) (Russ,)» published by the Communist Academy, Moscow, 1929, pp. 1-43, 63, 76 and passim.
622 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
87.9 per cent of their number in 1925. Only the number of the unions which are merely the usual type of cooperative organization of peasants continued to increase. The total labor of these communal and coopera- tive enterprises in relation to the labor employed in individual peasant enterprises composed 35 per cent in 1920, 66 in 1924, and 73 in 1926. The gross production of these collective and communal enterprises in relation to the gross production of the total peasant enterprises com- posed 78 per cent in 1926. The previous socio-economic position of the members of these communes was as follows: 52 per cent of them did not have any land previously; 18.9 per cent had each from 1 to 3 des- siatines of land; 21.5 per cent had from 3 to 15 dessiatines; and 7,6 per cent had more than 15 dessiatines. Sixty-one per cent of all these communes, artels, and unions were organized on land that did not belong to the peasants but was that of the landlords' estates, and only 39 per cent on land that belonged either to the village communities or to the relatively rich peasants from whom the land was taken. Of the communes, 84 per cent were on the land of the previous landlords' estates. This shows that these communes were merely a kind of ex- ploitation of the estates' lands, buildings, and inventories by persons — predominantly the Communists — who received them for nothing.
Hired labor, prohibited to the peasants, was permitted to these col- lective enterprises. The percentage of hired labor used in these enter- prises in relation to the members of the communes was as follows: 17.4 per cent in the communes; 32.5 per cent in the artels; and 13.4 per cent in the cooperative agricultural unions. This shows that in their essence these communal enterprises were but disguised capitalist enter- prises in which the role of capitalists and "exploiters" was played by members of the communes (mostly Communists). Part of these hired laborers were seasonal laborers only; a second part were day laborers; and a third part were represented by the "piece laborers." The average daily wage of the members and the daily and seasonal laborers was (in }(ppe\s*} respectively: 131, 102, and 72 in communes; 253, 93, and 86 in artels; and 405, 77, and 26 in the agricultural cooperative unions. Thus no equality in remuneration existed in these communal enter- prises, and the discrepancy between the wages of the members and the laborers was scarcely less than that between the wages ~ of the farmer- owner and the tenant or hired laborer in any "capitalist country."
The average size of these enterprises fluctuated from 75 to 225 des- siatines, according to the province. The average number of families united in one commune was 16, with 30 laborers; in artels , 9 families,
*Onc hundred kopeks equals one ruble. The purchasing power of the Soviet ruble during 1927-1928 was no more than thirty cents; in 1929-1930 it fell to approximately fifteen cents.
2 Sec N. Sukhanov's remarks in the work of Gaister cited, p. 63,
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 623
with 21 laborers; and in the agricultural cooperative unions, 16, with 33 laborers. In regard to machinery, cattle, credit, taxes, agronomic service, and buying and selling, the government put the communal enterprises in a much more privileged position than the peasant farms. Directly and indirectly the former were subsidized and helped by the Soviet authorities,3 while the latter were rather oppressed. And yet the net income of the communal agricultural enterprises — if the data are to be trusted— was only slightly above that of the individual peasant farms. There are serious reasons leading us to think that this "net income" of the former was rather fictitious and, other conditions being equal, would be in no way higher than that of the peasant. The divi- sion of the produce was made according to different bases in different communes: in a few the produce was divided among the member families according to the number of "eaters" in each family, in others according to the number of "eaters" with consideration of the age of each "eater," in a third group according to the amount of the invest- ment in the communal enterprise, in a fourth group according to the amount of work done, etc.
If we turn from these communistic and collectivistic agricultural groups to the Soviet farms that were managed entirely by the govern- ment, the situation up to 1928 was as follows4:
The sowing area of the Soviet farms composed 1.2 per cent of the total sowing area of the U. S. S. R. The total merchandised amount of the agricultural production of these farms composed 6.2 per cent of the mer- chandised agricultural produce of the country. The total number of laborers engaged on these farms yearly was about 200,000. With the members of their families, this number rose to 1,000,000. The laborers fell into the fol- lowing categories: permanent laborers and employes, seasonal laborers, day laborers, and piece laborers.
Permanent laborers and employes constituted from 35 to 52 per cent of the total number of laborers, the percentage varying according to the region; seasonal and day laborers constituted from 44 to 54 per
8 Ibid., pp. 63-76.
*The data are also taken from the publications of the Soviet government and the Communist party of Russia: namely from F. Galevius, "Die Arbeitsprobleme in der Grosswirtschaft (Sowietwirtschaft) der U. d. S. S. R.," Agrar-Probleme, Berlin, 1928, Band I, Heft 4, 661-690; also from V. Kavraiski and I. Nusinoff, Classes and Class Relationships in the Contemporary Soviet Village (Russ.), 1929; M. Fenomenotf, Contem-
JakovlerT, For Agricultural Communes, Moscow-Leningrad, 1929; A. Gaister, Achieve- ments and Difficulties of the Communal Organization, Moscow, 1929; G. S. Gordieefl, Agricultural Economy in War and Revolution, Moscow-Leningrad, 1925. These are all in Russian and all are publications either of the Soviet government or of the organs of the Russian Communist party and the Third International.
624 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
cent; while piece laborers constituted only from 3 to 12 per cent, The proportion of permanent laborers decreased from 1925 to 1927, while the proportions in the other categories of hired labor tended to increase. In 1927 there were on the average 7.1 yearly laborers per one hundred hectares (annual labor unit) . The managerial staff of these farms com- posed 7 per cent of the total number of hired persons in August of 1927 and 29 per cent in January of the same year. The annual wages in 1927 were about 400 rubles for permanent laborers, 207 rubles for seasonal and day laborers, and 650 rubles for piece laborers, (Nomi- nally the ruble is equivalent to $0.51, but the purchasing power of the Soviet ruble was about $030 in 1927 and from $0.15 to $0.20 in 1929.)
Radical changes in the years 1928-1930.— The years 1928 and 1929 were marked by vigorous efforts on the part of the Soviet government to break peasant individualism and to introduce state socialism into the agricultural industry in Russia. These efforts were dictated by the practical necessity of obtaining sufficient amounts of agricultural prod- ucts from the peasantry to provide for the government and the cities and to finance the whole economic policy of the Communist party. During the years from 1923 to 1928 the Soviet government attempted to buy agricultural products from the peasantry. Since the government had a monopoly in this field, it paid the peasants only from a fourth to a half of the prices the products would have brought in the world market. Naturally the peasants objected strenuously to such exploita- tion and preferred to feed their grain to cattle and use their products themselves rather than sell them to the Soviet government at such low prices. As a result the government had to stop exporting agricultural products, though this exportation was necessary in order to pay for foreign importations. In addition, the government was beginning to feel a shortage of food for its numerous agents, the members of the Communist party, the army, and the urban proletariat. All this jeopar- dized its position and endangered its stability. The peasants were not greatly dependent on the government for their economic necessities, so they began to show themselves more and more independent of the Soviet regime. It was necessary for the government to do something drastic in order to maintain itself. As a result, in 1928 the general policy was changed under Stalin's influence to resemble the offensive com- munism of the years 19174921*
Since 1928 the agricultural policy has had as its goal the collectiviza- tion of farming and the communization of the peasants. The govern- ment has applied all the forms of pressure that might help in the reali- zation of these objectives. By a series of decrees, among which the de- crees of August 26, 1929, have been especially important, the Soviet gov-
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 625
ernmerit has established the collective responsibility of the peasants of each community for giving to the government the prescribed amount of agricultural products. The policy of buying has been replaced by that of requisitioning agricultural products from the peasants for noth- ing or for a purely fictitious price. In case of nonfulfillment of this duty the entire community and each peasant household in it have been made responsible and have been subjected to fines several times as great as the value of the prescribed amount of products, to con- fiscation pf all their property, to imprisonment, to banishment, and to execution. In other words, the government has introduced something very similar to state socialist serfdom with collective responsibility.
In order to break peasant individualism the government began to tax the individual peasant farms so excessively, to impose so many duties on them, and to subject individual peasants so often to dis- franchisements of political and civil rights, arrest, imprisonment, exe- cution, and similar measures, that successful individual farming has become exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Under such conditions many peasants have been forced to give up their individual farms and declare themselves partisans of collective farm enterprises in order to protect themselves. Herein lies the explanation of the mysterious and conspicuous growth of collective farm enterprises in the year 1928-1929. According to the official paper of the Soviet government,5 there were 18,600 collective farms of all types (including communes, associations, and unions) on October 1, 1927. This number increased to 32,400 by May 1, 1928; to 37,000 by October 1, 1928; and to 60,000 by the end of 1929. Thus the above conditions caused these years to be marked by an excessive growth of the collective forms of farming.
This policy has been pursued still more vigorously during the last three months of 1929 and in 1930. It was finally formulated expresses verbis by Stalin in his address at the Conference of the Marxian Agri- cultural Economists, on December 27, 1929.6 This was the Soviet dic- tator's declaration of war on individual farming generally and on all the peasants who wanted to remain individual farmers. Stalin de- clared that from now on the Soviet government was pursuing unhesi- tatingly a policy aiming toward the collectivization of all farms; the individual lands of peasants and their agricultural implements, cattle, and other forms of property would have to be merged into large col- lective farm enterprises, nominally managed by persons elected by the members of the collective farms, but factually by the agents of the
15 "Today's Tasks in the Organization of the Collective Farms,'* editorial, Uvcstia, August 29, 1929. See also the editorial in Uvestia, August 28, 1929. (Isvcrtia is the official paper of the Soviet Central Government.)
°Sce "The Address of Comrade Stalin," Isvestia, December 29, 1929.
626 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
Soviet government and the Communist party. Stalin believes that such a form of agricultural organization is best, contrary to the prejudices and biases of the "bourgeois economists" who, according to Stalin, have succeeded in seducing some members of the Communist party. The dictator believes that the bourgeois theory of the stability of family farms is nothing but capitalistic prejudice. Stalin declared further:
It is undoubtedly true that small family farms and individual farm own- ership are incompatible with the Communist regime. If the Communist party and the Soviet government are going to create a communist society in the place of a capitalistic society, they can no longer tolerate the bulwark of the latter in the form of individual or family farms and their proprietors. Neither can they afford to leave this matter to the natural development in the course of time, but instead they must foster it by all possible means. The development of Communistic and collective farming is such fostering, for these forms of farm organization are nothing but the realization of the communist society.
Collective farms as a type of enterprise are one of the forms of socialist economic organization. There is no doubt of that. One of the comrades tried to uncrown them, he tried to assure us that collective farms have noth- ing in common with the socialist organization. He is quite wrong. . . . Of course, in the collective farms there are some antagonisms, many indi- vidualistic and even exploitatory prejudices. . . . But it is impossible to deny that, in spite of these antagonisms and conflicts, they represent a so- cialistic development of the village which is quite opposite to its capitalistic development. . . . Some other comrades claim also that in the collective farms the class struggle continues and that it is in no way different from the class struggle outside. More than that, they claim that it becomes even more violent and acute in the collective farms, . . . We must not pay any atten- tion to this squeak and scream of our left communist wing. ... Of course, collective farming is not full socialism, but it is a step toward it. ...
In subsequent parts of his address Stalin declared that the Commu- nist party and government were now in a position "to develop an of- fensive against individual farming along the whole frontier and to re- place the policy of limitation of the exploitation of the tendencies of individual peasants by that of liquidation of the individual peasants as a social class."
This address was only a moderate summary of the policy of the Soviet government in this field as it has manifested itself during the second part of 1929 and during 1930. During this period all possible pressures and measures have been applied to the peasantry in order to force them to quit individual farming and to give up their land, farms, implements, and property to the collective farms. The official newspapers of the Communist party and the Soviet government (Isves- tia, Pravda, Leningrad Pravda, Krasnaia Gazettd) give evidence con-
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 627
cerning the kind of measures used. In some places the Soviet agents simply declared to the peasants that, if they would not collectivize their farms, lands, cattle, etc., the land and the farms and all their property would be taken from them. The peasants of one region asked the agents what they would do without land and farms, and they re- ceived the answer: "Migrate to the planet Mars and start your indi- vidual farming there." At another place the agents closed all the wells and water sources of the community, and the population was deprived of water until the peasants agreed to collectivize their farms. Con- fiscation of all the property of the stubborn peasants, imprisonment, banishment from the native place, and executions were the ordinary methods of forcing the peasants to enter the paradise of collectiviza- tion.7 According to an approximate estimation, from 5,000 to 12,000 peasants were executed in October and November of 1929 alone.8 A decree legalizing a complete confiscation of the land and other prop- erty of such peasants and banishment of the peasants themselves to other remote parts of Russia was enacted February 2, 1930.9 Tens of thousands of such confiscations and banishments have already taken place.
When all this is taken into consideration, it is not surprising to dis- cover that "a most successful collectivization of farms" has progressed since that time. The Soviet authorities expect three-fourths of all peas- ant farms to be collectivized in 1930.10 Individual farms are already entirely abolished in many large regions which are styled as "regions of the wholesale collectivization of farms." At the same time, the Soviet government is quite logically developing a policy as a result of which the difference between the Soviet farms and the collective farms tends to be obliterated. The collective farms, like the Soviet farms, are tending more and more to be organized and managed by govern- mental agencies. As the membership of the Communist party is not sufficiently large to force the peasants to conform to these new policies,
7 A purely random sample of the copies of the above official newspapers, especially Prat'da and Isvestia, for the last three months of 1929 and for 1930 will furnish abundant information of this kind.
8 The number of the executions for that period, published in the Soviet papers, is about 250. But Soviet papers publish usually an insignificant part of the actual executions.
u See hvestia, February 2. According to a rough estimate, during the last four months of 1929 and the first three months of 1930 about two million of the most industrious peasant families suffered confiscation of all their property, expulsion from their farms, and banishment to northern Russia where they were condemned to hard labor under the harshest conditions.
10 "Perspectives of Agriculture in 1930," Isvestia, February 1, 1930. Isvestia, February 12, 1930, says that the farm population of the collective farms from October 1, 1928, to January 1, 1930, increased from 2,534,700, or 2 per cent of the peasant population, to 25,000,000, or more than 20 per cent of the peasant population. (Paper of P. Savchuk, "Agriculture on a New Road.")
628 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
the Soviet authorities have made a special mobilization, somewhat simi- lar to a military mobilization, of the Communists or pro-Communist sympathizers among the urban workers. Idlers, parasites, individuals who prefer food to starvation in the cities, failures, incapables, and vari- ous good-for-nothing elements in the villages (the so-called "village poors") are sent to the villages as agents of the Soviet government to enforce its policies.11 These persons, together with the members of the Communist party and the Soviet government, are to be the managers, instructors, superintendents, and directors of the collective farms. At the same time they are the punitive forces for the peasants who refuse to obey the orders of the government. As the peasants say, they are the new fomeschikjs (landlords) who come in the place of the old ones.
It is comprehensible that these new policies do not have the hearty approval of the peasantry. In spite of the sonorous phraseology of the Communist reconstructors, the collectivization of farms has not yet given any benefits to the peasants. The factual results of this new policy may be summarized as follows:
(1) For the enormous majority of the peasants it means complete dispossession of their land, farms, cattle, inventory, and some other property. (2) They are transformed from independent producers, land- possessors, and managers of their own farms, families, and businesses into hired laborers. With the exception of the Communist managers and superintendents, the independent peasant who goes to a collective farm is nothing but a subordinated manual laborer who has to do what his new bosses order without protest or objection. He can neither pro- test nor quit the collective farm, because in that case he is accused of counter-revolution and is pitilessly punished, often executed. He is paid very poorly and exploited most unmercifully. Thus his status ap- proaches that of the Roman colonus or the medieval serf, the only dif- ference being that the serfs often belonged to private landlords, while he, like the serfs during Ptolemy's regime in ancient Egypt or those of Rome after Diocletian, is subjugated to the members oÂŁ the Com- munist party and the Soviet agents. This difference does not make serf- dom any sweeter for the Russian peasant. (3) The development of the system by the Soviet promises other "pleasures" to the peasantry : dwell- ing in communistic houses, like cattle in common stables; communistic meals; communistic dormitories; communistic education of children; and even the communistic family. So far all this has been in the most miserable forms, lacking even the most elementary hygienic and com-
11 According to copies of Soviet newspapers for January and February of 1930> more than 200,000 persons from the cities and many hundreds of thousands (out of more than one hundred million of the rural population) from the villages are already mobilized for this warfare with the peasantry.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 629
fortable conditions. Conditions are somewhat better on a very few Soviet farms, which are mostly for exhibition. All the brilliant pictures painted by the Soviets concerning the beauty of their Communist farms and agricultural cities remain only on paper. The reality is very grim and disconsolate.
Anyone who knows a little history can see that the new Communist agricultural regime is a replica of the regime of the fellahins in the collective farming system of the Ptolemies and of a regime which occurred several times in the history of China, especially in the, eleventh century A. D.? under the leadership of Wang-an-Shi.12 The "new Com- munist creation" is a mere restoration of something that is very old. And since the fellahins of the Ptolemies and the Chinese peasants were dissatisfied with their regime, we can scarcely expect the Russian peasantry to be satisfied. (See Rostovtzeff's and Waltzing' s papers in this chapter.)
As a matter of fact, the peasantry who have been driven into these collective stables have already shown the bitterest opposition to this policy of collectivization. We enumerate the principal forms in which this opposition has been manifested according to the data given in the official Soviet newspapers themselves.13 First, the number of murders of Communists by peasants has increased greatly. According to Isvestia, the number of such murders was greater for November and Decem- ber, 1929, than for the whole of 1928.14 The situation became so dan- gerous for the Communists and the Soviet agents that the government introduced an especially high sort of insurance and remuneration for all Communists and Soviet agents who are sent to work in the villages. Second, many Soviet and collective farms were burned by the peasants. Every copy of the Soviet newspapers gives several instances of such cases and information concerning the trials and sometimes the execu- tions of such peasant incendiaries. Third, the peasants who were going to be forced to go into this regime began to slaughter their cattle and horses, and to eat them or to turn them into valuables. As a result there has been a crisis in regard to the meat supply in Soviet Russia since November, 1929, and the spring of 1930 witnesses an enormous defi- ciency of cattle and other animals for agricultural works as well as of their manure, necessary for the fertilization of the fields.
13 See especially IvanofF, Wang*an-Shit St. Petersburg, 1909; see also Lee's Economic History of China, cited; Rene Grousset, Histoire de I'Asie, Paris, 1922, II, 325 fl.j and Chen Huan-Chang, The Economic Principles of Confucius, II, 497 ff.
13 These facts are reported in practically every copy of the Isvestia, Pravda, and other Soviet newspapers for the end of 1929 and for 1930, For this reason, it is unnecessary to give a special enumeration of the copies.
^tweftitt, January 31, 1930. Likewise, the first half of 1930 has been marked by a series of peasant revolts in the Far East, Siberia, the Caucasus, and the Don region, which, in spite of suppression, have assumed a somewhat serious character.
630 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
The situation became so catastrophic by the end of 1929 that the Soviet government was forced to issue a special law punishing the slaughtering of cattle and horses by the peasant proprietors with sev- eral years imprisonment and confiscation of property.15 It has not helped, and the process of slaughtering has continued since the passing of the law as intensively as before.16 Since the peasant is to be robbed of all his property by the government and to be forced to go into serf- dom, he prefers to enjoy the meat of the cattle or to sell it and to turn it into a valuable in the hope that the policy of the government will be changed before long. Furthermore, the individual peasant farmers reduced the area of their cultivated land to a minimum because the cultivation of an additional portion gave no profit, as everything above a minimum agricultural produce is taken by the government without remuneration. Such are the main categories of facts in which the peas- ant opposition to the new regime has manifested itself.
To the end of February, 1930, the problem of the spring seeding be- came so menacing and so hopeless that the Communist party itself was forced to begin to moderate the process of collectivization. A formal manifestation of this soft-pedaling was Stalin's address "Dizziness from Success," published in Isuestta on March 2, 1930. In this paper, putting the blame upon the ordinary members of the Communist party for their stupidity, the dictator stated that they had become giddy from the success of the policy of collectivization; that with an idiotic zeal they had enforced collectivization by all means, regardless of con- ditions; and that in doing so they had endangered the agricultural situation and the position of the government. Moderation in the en- forcement of collectivization was demanded. By moderation was meant, first, that collectivization should assume the form of an artel or association, but not that of a communistic commune; and second, that it should be free, not forced and obligatory, as it had been up to that time. Stalin's paper was followed by a long series of other papers and measures that openly disclosed the nature of the preceding policy of collectivization. These papers have shown, first, that the ap- parently miraculous progress of collectivization during the preceding months was purely fictitious and that the statistical figures of the col- lectivized farms were for the most part imaginary. Within two or three weeks after the publication of Stalin's paper, the percentage of
"See "Urgent Objectives of Animal Husbandry," editorial, Itvesria, January 15, 1930, "According to the official Red Gazette (Krasnaia Gaxtttti, February 7, 1930), in Feb- ruary, 1930, all kinds of cattle had decreased from 20 to 40 per cent since the year before. See also the editorial in Isvcstia, February 12, 1930. According to Stalin's own statement, in 1930 the number of houses decreased by 8 per cent; that of cattle, by 25 per cent; that of sheep, by 30 per cent; that of hogs, by 43 per cent. See Stalin's address in Isvestia, June 29, 1930.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 631
collectivized farms dropped from 55 to 35 and less. Preobrajensky, one of the leaders of the Communist party, in a paper published in Pravda indicated sarcastically that in the province of Moscow, according to the Soviet data, 12.7 per cent of the farms were collectivized farms on Janu- ary 1, 1930; 36 per cent on February 1; 72.2 per cent on February 20; and—after Stalin's paper and a change of the policy— only 23 per cent on April 1, 1930. He properly styled all these figures as purely fictitious. Furthermore, these official papers, including the second paper of Stalin, "Answer to the Comrades — Members of the Collective Farms," pub- lished in Isvestia on April 3, 1930, and the official decree of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist party, "About the Struggle against Abuses of the Party's Policy in the Collectivization of Farms," published in Isvestia on March 15, 1930, now frankly confessed that the preceding policy of collectivization was purely coercive; that the rudest forms of violence — the wholesale confiscation of property, ar- rests, banishments, the closing of churches, market places, stores, and so forth — had been applied to the peasants to force them onto the col- lective farms 17 ; that the success of the seeding campaign was greatly endangered thereby; and that, in view of the fact that the individual peasant farms were still the principal source of agricultural production, a continuation of such abuses would lead to nothing but a complete disorganization of agriculture and famine. In brief, the dictator and the Communist party confessed that they had been too rash in their reconstruction of the agricultural system and called upon their agents to moderate their zeal for collectivization. . . .
Great confusion resulted from this sudden change of policy. Peasants interpreted it as permission to leave the collective farms, and accord- ingly a great mass exodus of the peasants from collective farms began. The regular agents of the government and the Communist party were stunned by this unexpected change in the political wind of their bosses and were lost, not knowing what to do or what was the genuine line of the party's policy.18 The number of collectivized farms began to decrease as astonishingly as they had been increasing. Trying to cope with the situation, particularly to stop the mass exodus of peasants from the collective farms and secure the success of the spring seeding campaign, Stalin and the government modified their policy by grant- ing various privileges to the members of collective farms, urging the governmental agents to help also the individual non-collectivized
"See also Isvestia, March 14, March 18, April 5, April 18, 1930; and practically any copy of Krasnaia Gazetta, Pravda, and Leningrad Pravda, for March and April, 1930, These contain numerous articles denouncing abuses and idiocies in the enforcement of collectivisation.
18 See any copy of Isvestia, 'Pravda, Krasnaia Gassetta, or Leningrad Pravda for March, April, May, or June, 1930,
632 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
peasants; delivering seeds, agricultural machinery, and fertilizers to the peasants; freeing the collective farms from taxation; and so on.19 At the same time the government issued a new "Constitution of the Collective Farms/' in which the forms of collectivization were made somewhat more moderate than before but which, nevertheless, pre- served many obnoxious traits of collectivization. Coercion, for instance, was not entirely abandoned; moreover, if a peasant joined a collective farm, he lost the right to take back his land and farm in case he de- sired to leave.
Such is the situation created by this new agrarian revolution. Under these conditions the spring seeding campaign has been carried on. In this campaign many coercive measures have again been applied to the peasants to force them to seed the land. If we are to rely upon the Soviet data, the seeding campaign seems to have been only partially successful According to the official report of the Soviet Commissariat of Agriculture (dated June 20, 1930, which practically closes the cam- paign) only 92.9 per cent of the area planned by the government was seeded.20 The same report shows that the total area of individual farms is 50,839,000 hectares, while the area of collective farms is only 35,562,000 hectares— far from 55 per cent of the total peasant farms, as the government had claimed. There is every reason to regard these figures as greatly exaggerated by the Soviet government.-1 There is
"See the decree of the government "Concerning New Grants and Privileges for the Members of the Collective Farms," April 2, 1930, published in Isvestict, April 5, 1930,
™Uvestia, June 25, 1930.
21 Soviet statistics are generally quite unreliable, for they are made to order. This is exemplified by the above data on the percentages of collectivized farms before and after March 1, 1930. We have been assured many times that agricultural production in Soviet Russia in 1927 exceeded prerevolutionary production. (See, for instance, such a claim in Ten Years of Soviet Power in Figures, an official yearbook of the Soviet government, Moscow, 1927, p. iv.) In the recent address of Stalin at the Sixteenth Conference of the Russian Communist party we read that only in 1930-1931 can we expect the area of the cultivated land, as well as the total agricultural production, to reach the level of 1913; to date they have been notably below this level (94 per cent of it in 1929), (See the seven-hour address of Stalin in Isvcstia, June 29, 1930.) This shows how unreliable the Soviet data is. When one follows the reports of the Commissariat of Agriculture on the progress of the seeding campaign this spring, one can easily see that these reports are made to order and made so rudely that the fictitious character of the data is easily detectable by any statistician. (See a special paper by A. S. tzgoieff, entitled "'How They Lie," in Russia and Slavs, May 24, 1930, which clearly shows the nonsense and contra- dictions of the figures in the twenty reports issued thus far by the Commissariat of Agri- culture.) Evidence of a permanent lack of food in the country is excellently shown by the reintroduction of the ration system in the cities and some rural parts; the beggarly quantities of rations issued, scarcely sufficient to satisfy even the physiological hunger of the people; the starvation of large classes of the population; and the lack of meat, butter, and other forms of food: even the most privileged part of the urban population in Leningrad, the urban proletariat, is promised for July, 1930, only 400 grams of butter and 10 eggs per month for its children, while other classes of the population cannot have even these. (Sec this announcement in the Krasmia Gazctm, June 19, 1930.)
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 633
also serious reason to believe that the work of seeding was done care- lessly as regards the quality of the seeds and many other requirements of good seeding. Furthermore, one cannot be sure that the harvesting, storing, and transportation of the crop's will be done as it is necessary.22 Considering these and similar conditions, one cannot help but be skep- tical of the success of the new agricultural revolution of Stalin.
There is no doubt, and the Communists themselves openly recognize it, that the enormous majority of the peasants are quite inimical to the new policy of the Soviet government. One of the editorials of the Isvestia, the mouthpiece of Stalin, says : "Either we break the backbone of the individualistic peasantry, or it will break our backbone."
So far the new policy has only harmed and disorganized agriculture, produced the most bitter class struggle among the peasantry, and intro- duced an enormous confusion in the field. There are a series of other aggravating circumstances. In order for state management of the en- tire agricultural industry in such an enormous country as Russia to be successful, there must be a sufficient supply of tractors and agricultural machinery and fertilizers and a sufficient number of experienced and skilled organizers, technicians, agronomers, superintendents, and other managerial personnel; and the whole complex mechanism of the state management must be well organized and function smoothly. All these and other conditions are lacking. Neither the agricultural machinery, implements, manure, and fertilizers nor the experienced personnel are present to even half the extent that would be necessary. Hundreds of thousands of the Communist superintendents mobilized by the gov- ernment (see above) have no experience in agriculture; the peasants laugh at them and style them "twenty-four-hour cultivators." The char- acter of their selection makes them representative of the worst elements and those least capable of supervising and instructing the more experi- enced and industrious elements among the peasants. Evidently such selection is far from satisfactory.
The state machinery also functions defectively. The government tries to cure all these defects by its magical medicine, pitiless punish- ments, but if this medicine proves effective in inhibiting undesirable actions, it is rather impotent where creative and constructive actions are necessary.
When all this and hundreds of similar circumstances are taken into consideration, one may well be apprehensive in regard to the final re-
Theso and similar—- unfortunately quite authentic — facts are very convincing proof of the deceptive character of the Soviet statistics, The lack of textile and industrial products is also convincing evidence of the fictitious character of the Soviet figures pertaining to the miraculous progress of Soviet industry.
33 July Soviet papers are already publishing much information about many defects in these fields.
634 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
suits of this policy and its stability and duration. A similar policy in the years 1917-1921 disorganized industry as well as agriculture and pro- duced the terrible famine of 1921-1922. One need not be surprised if in the next few years a similar famine results from the new spasm of the communization of agriculture. Whatever the results are going to be in the future, so far the policy has given little benefit to the peas- antry; it has aggravated the economic situation in the country; it has sharpened its food crisis and has led to the establishment of the card or starvation ration system for bread, meat, and all kinds of food prod- ucts in the cities and among the bulk of the peasantry.
Abstaining from any prophecy concerning the final results of this new experiment, an attentive observer must watch its further develop- ment most carefully. The experiment promises to be most instructive from any standpoint and deserves to be followed in its further destinies.
79, PETER MANNICHE: THE RISE OF THE DANISH PEASANTRY*
The Danish peasantry at the beginning of the nineteenth century was an under class. In sullen resignation it spent its life in dependence on estate owners and government officials; it was without technical skill, and was seldom able to rise above the level of a bare existence. Great agricultural reforms were carried through without the support of the peasants, who did not even understand the meaning of them. . . . Yet this same under class, in the course of a century, has changed into a well-to-do middle class, which now takes a leading part in the life of the Danish people. . . .
If we examine the typical features of Danish history during the last century, it becomes evident that we can reach a clear understanding of the rise of the peasantry only when we reckon with the influence emanating from the adult schools. . , .
The word "democratic" is frequently used in reference to the dis- tribution of land within Danish agriculture, and this is done in order to emphasize the similarity between the sizes of the allotments. Dur- ing the nineteenth century the number of freeholdings in Denmark doubled: in the year 1800 they totalled about 91,000, and in 1916 the figure was something like 184,000. That means that over 90 per cent of the holdings in Denmark are freeholdings. This notable change has taken place through an increase in the number of middle-sized farms, and also through the advent of many small holders (known as
*From the English Sociological Review, 1927, XIX, 35»37} 218, based on The Fol^ High Schools of Denmar\ and the Development of a Farming Community by Holgcr Begtrup, Hans Alsler Lund, and Peter Mannichc (Oxford University Press),
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 635
house-men) who, in past centuries, were without importance in Dan- ish agriculture.
The rapid growth of the number of small holdings in Denmark has been made possible partly by a large reclamation of heath, moor, etc., and partly by the fact that individual holdings have been reduced in size. TJhis development happened whilst liberalism was the dominating economic policy in Denmark, the state, generally speaking, adopting the attitude of a passive spectator. During recent years, however, the establishment of about ten thousand small holdings has been due to state legislation.
The daily practices, routine, etc., of Danish landholdings differ ac- cording to the size of the property. On the large estates (which are now very few) the owner has no direct contact with the actual manual and technical work; he administers and guides, but frequently he is so much in the background that even these duties are taken over by a manager. On these estates the relatively insignificant number of agri- cultural laborers find employment.
On the average medium-sized farms, the owner joins with his helpers in the work of the field and stables. His fellow workers are either his own sons and daughters or the children of other farmers; and they work with the conviction that, in due course, they also will become in- dependent landholders. On these farms the rising generation of farm- ers get their practical experience. The young people board and lodge on the farms, and this, in most cases, means that the employer's home is also their home, where they eat, work, and spend their leisure with the family.
The small holdings fall into two groups: the larger contains about 70,000, each being worked by the owner and his family and being their entire means of support; the smaller contains less than 40,000, each being too small to meet the needs of a family and making it neces- sary for the man either to take additional work of a similar kind with strangers or to procure an extra income as an artisan or in some other way.
In speaking of the Danish peasantry, the people alluded to are, in general, the owners of the medium-sized farms and the small holders. To them, first and foremost, the distinctive character of the rural life is due; and it is especially from their homes that the students of the high schools have been recruited.
These conditions of landownership have been of vital importance in the development of Danish life. Where social gulfs are wide, class feeling and class distinction have an easy growth; but where, as in Denmark, the core of the social life is found in the work of many
636 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
small and medium-sized independent farmers, and where, further- more, the division between group and group is such that it is often difficult to distinguish between a small farmer and a small holder, and between a large farmer and a small landed proprietor, there is no place for caste feeling and class struggle. The sense of fellowship and the recognition of common interests are the strongest bonds that unite Danish farmers. A fact of great importance is that the medium-sized farmers and the small holders come from the same stock, the children and grandchildren of the farmer constituting a large proportion of the latter. . . .
Cooperation in Denmark is a rural movement. Until the beginning of this century it was, literally speaking, only the rural population who were members of the associations; but from that time people of the towns also joined. The center of gravity of the movement, however, remains in the country. Of the rural population the farming element constitutes the majority.
80. JAN ST. LEWINSKI: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF FORMS OF LANDOWNERSHIP AND LAND POSSESSION*
The fact that so many authors speak of common property among nomads is simply due to the fact that they have not tried to learn the characteristics of property. I shall therefore begin this study with a definition.
What is property?
// is the permanent possession of an object, conferring the exclusive right to use it or to dispose of it. The simple use and exclusiveness are not sufficient characteristics to constitute property. Football players in a public park have, while they are playing, the exclusive right to use the place they occupy, as indicated by the rope that surrounds their ground. They are not, however, proprietors of it, because their right is not permanent and does not confer the power to dispose oÂŁ it by sale, transfer, or bequest. The same applies to the occupier of a room in a hotel, a seat in a library or railway carriage, etc. , . .
The right to own land as property has not always existed. "The primitive nomads," writes Mr. Shcherbina, "who wander from north to south over hundreds of versts and are constantly on the move, are in no way attached to the land, to this or to that locality, and in consequence no ownership of land exists among them, . . .** x
When at a later stage limits begin to be formed between the differ-
*Jan St, Lewinski, The Origin of Property, London, Constable fie Co,, Ltd., 1913, pp. 5-8, 57-71. Reprinted with the permission of the author and the publisher, * Kaufman, Russian Qbschina (Russ.)> Moscow, 1908, p. 91,
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 637
ent groups, each member within the group keeps the same freedom in the use of the soil. This we notice all over the world. Dargun, with reference to nomadic peoples in general, writes, "All may use the pas- ture as they like; the community has not the right to dispose of it."2
It is thus quite erroneous to speak here of common property, as some authors do. It is only by confusing the existence of boundaries with the idea of property that this mistake is possible. The relation between the community and the soil among nomads is, as the German jurist Gierke points out, rather similar to the international right which a state has to its territory, and not to the right it has over a domain.
So long as the right to dispose of a thing does not exist we cannot speak of property, and while every member is free to take as much land as he wishes, and where he wishes, it is impossible to call the land common property.
The whole evolution of property could be traced back to four ele- ments: (1) the economic principle; (2) the principle of numerical strength; (3) the growth of population; (4) the relation of nature to human wants. Let us see how far this assertion is right. The influence of the economic principle, the assumption according to which man tries to obtain the greatest possible quantity of material goods neces- sary for the satisfaction of his wants with the least possible effort, could be observed very clearly. During the process of formation of property this principle manifested itself in this form, that man under- took the effort of appropriation only when without it he risked being exposed to a much greater loss.
The nomad, who had no difficulty in replacing the pasture he had left behind by another equally good, did not know the institution of property in land. We saw how meadows and forests in the beginning, as long as they were abundant, were used freely everywhere. Land at this stage had no greater value for us than air, and consequently it was treated in the same manner. This state of things changed with the passage to agriculture and to settled life. A cultivator, who might ' be deprived of a piece of land in which he had incorporated his labor, would be obliged to repeat this burdensome task. In the same manner he could replace a piece of land adjacent to his dwelling only by a more distant, and in consequence a less convenient, one. In both cases he was exposed to a loss of time in comparison to which the effort of appropriation was relatively small, and for this reason economically rational Property then originated from the two sources, labor and in- dividual scarcity.
3 Dr. Lothar Dargun, "Ursprung und Entwickclungs-Geschichte des Eigentums," Zeitschrijt fur vcrgkichcnde 'Rcchtswissenschajt, V, 59.
638 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
In the smallest details we could observe how the formation of prop- erty was connected with these two factors. In the same communities we saw that the forms of property were different as regards meadows which were manured, drained, etc., and those in which no labor had been incorporated. Arable lands, the tillage of which had required much labor (clearing of stones, forests, etc.) were individual hereditary property; all others were held only in temporary possession as long as the system of shifting cultivation prevailed. Lands in which no labor was incorporated, and which were adjacent to the cultivator's dwell- ing, were private property; the more distant ones remained a long time open for the free use of all.
We observed also the influence of the economic principle during the passage from individual to common property. The division of land is not only a troublesome task, but also by restricting the individual it hinders him in the most economical use of his labor. It is clear nobody will desire such a measure if in exchange he does not obtain some economic advantage. As long as everyone could find more land that he was able to cultivate, it did not matter to him how great was the property of his neighbor. He did not covet it, because without it he had a superabundance. This changed, however, when a class of poor grew up who found only inferior land, and in an insufficient quantity. By dividing the fertile soils of the rich they were able to better their economic conditions; they could obtain more of the goods necessary for the satisfaction of their wants, and with a smaller effort.
Here also we could observe in the smallest details, in the discrimina- tion between meadows and fields of different fertility, between those which were more or less distant from the village, how only when scarcity (social scarcity) of land began to be felt, the community abol- ished the right of free appropriation. There is perhaps nothing more characteristic of the relation which exists between equalization and scarcity, than the fact that meadows were used freely in good years and were divided only in years of bad crops.
This policy having for its purpose the amelioration of the economic conditions of the poor had necessarily a tendency contrary to its aim. , Every intervention, namely, restricted the spirit of enterprise, rendered an intensive cultivation of the soil more difficult, and by this dimin- ished the well-being of all. We have seen how the community, taking into account the labor incorporated into the soil, tried to avoid all these undesirable consequences of its policy. Where this was not pos- sible, where the economic disadvantages of a division of land were so great that they outweighed the advantages, the community recoiled
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 639
from these measures. For this reason homesteads and pastures were never periodically divided.
The economic principle in itself is not sufficient to explain for us all problems we have analyzed. The economic interests— interests re- sulting from the application of the economic principle — are not always identical in a community. We saw the antagonism existing between the rich and the poor, between those who wanted to maintain the old institution of private property and those who claimed a division of lands. The prevailing of this or the other form was dependent on the numerical strength of its adherents. With the increasing number of the dissatisfied, the measures abolishing private property became more and more radical. Once the poor had become a majority, the days of this institution were numbered.
The economic principle and the principle of numerical strength are constant elements, which do not change. If they alone were in exist- ence the forms of property would be stationary, and the same all over the world. But besides these there are two varying elements.
The great dynamic force which caused all the changes in the for- mation of property was the growth of population. It put an end to the original abundance of land, and by diminishing the area at the dis- posal of each man forced him to pass from nomadism to the cultiva- tion of the soil, and to settled life. We saw how this gave rise to the formation of private property. With the continuous increase of popu- lation even the more intensive use of the soil could not prevent a scarcity of land. The class of poor grew up and became more and more numerous. How this led to a division of the soil has been shown above.
So the formation of private property and its breakdown have been caused by the growth of population. It is a unanimous opinion of those who investigated the origin of the village community in Siberia, that not only in main outline but in the smallest details the whole process has been dominated by this factor.3
For this fact, which is beyond any dispute, Lichkow has given a statistical confirmation. He has divided the communities of three dis- tricts of the government of Irkutsk into four groups according to the development of equalization. He has ascertained also how much arable land each of these groups possessed per head of population. The fol- lowing are the results he has obtained4:
8 A, Kaufman, Russian Obschina in the Process of Its Origin and Development, Moscow, 1908, p. 268; K. R. Kacharovski, Russian Qbschina, Moscow, 1906, pp. 146, 161, 202? 212; U. Krol, Forms of Land Possession, 1898, pp. 176, 245; T. L. Segal, Peasant Landownership in the Caucasus, 1912, pp. 53-56.
*A. CX Lichkow, Forms of Land Possession (Russ.)j 1886, p. 146.
640 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EQUALIZATION OF ARABLE LAND
ARABLL LAND PER HEAD OF POPULATION (DESSIATINES)
Communities without allotments, or with allotments occupying
no more than 2 per cent of the whole area . . 4.5
Communities with allotments occupying 2 to 7.6 per cent of
the whole area .... 4.2
Communities with allotments occupying more than 7.6 per cent
of the whole area 4.1
Communities with the prevalence of periodical divisions . . 3.7
We see very clearly how the process of equalization increases simul- taneously with the decrease of arable land per head of population.
Modern Russian historians, as Pavlov-Sil'vansky, point out, on the evidence of documents of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that the passage to common property only took place when scarcity of land began to be felt.5
The increase of population does not produce everywhere the same results. The intensification of economic life and the occurrence of scarcity of land are partly dependent also on the relation of nature to- ward human wants. Differences of natural conditions of the soil play in this respect an important part. With the same increase of popula- tion it is necessary to incorporate more labor in forest regions (clear- ing), for instance, than in the steppes. Where the soil has a great nat- ural fertility, as in South Russia, manuring is much less developed than in the north.
All these differences react on the formation of property- The greater the amount of labor incorporated in the soil, the sooner and the more strongly does individual ownership establish itself, and the greater are the obstacles which equalization encounters. Lands which have been occupied by forests and have been cleared are divided much later and for longer periods than lands where this severe task is not necessary, In South Russia arable lands are redivided after six years, in north Russia after ten to twenty years, simply because the "black earth" does not need manuring* For this reason also, the scattered field system is much less complicated in the fertile south than in the north.
Natural conditions influence also the scarcity of land, which is felt much sooner in regions where there is a small quantity of soils suitable
5N, P. Pavlov-Sil'vansky, Feudalism in Ancient Russia, 1910, pp. 106-108; Kaufman, op. at., p. 433.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 641
for cultivation than in those where it is much greater. For this rea- son, in very infertile districts (in the government of Wologda and of Tobolsk, for instance) we find periodical divisions, though the quantity kof land per head of population is comparatively great.6
Scarcity does not depend only on the density of population and on natural conditions of the soil, but also on the degree of human wants. In a primitive society, where land is not acquired for speculation, but simply because it enables man to obtain the necessaries of life, the need and want of it is determined by the existing economic system. The half- nomad having many cattle needs first of all pasture land and meadows, and does not care so much about arable land. The opposite is true of the cultivator. For this reason we see that the division of meadows is sometimes more developed among half-nomadic peoples than among agriculturists, though per head of population the former possess a greater area of it. But as at the same time their herds are much greater, they feel more strongly a scarcity of meadow land.
A statistical example will illustrate it. In the eastern Trans-Baikal we find as follows 7 :
|
PERCENTAGE OF DIVIDED MEADOW |
DESSIATINES OF MEADOW PER HOUSEHOLD |
LARGE CATTLE PER HOUSEHOLD |
|
|
Baptized natives Russian peasants |
98.0 92.5 |
7.0-29.4 1.4- 5.8 |
18.0-40.7 7.0-18.6 |
It must not be forgotten, however, that these differences of wants, though they influence scarcity, are themselves the results of it. The smaller the area of meadow and pasture per head of the population, the smaller, naturally, the number of cattle a society can keep and the greater the importance it attributes to agriculture.
I think then that, under equal conditions of density of population and of natural surroundings, the needs and wants of every individual for land do not greatly differ. It is not necessary in the final conclu- sions to take them into account. Speaking then of density of popula- tion and of natural surroundings, we tacitly imply a corresponding state of human wants.
The geographical conditions which we have analyzed hitherto in- fluenced the pace of evolution, caused small differences in details, but did not change the direction of the whole process. Out of a state of
* Kaufman, p. 278. T Krol, p. 246 et seq.
642 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
no property, private property, and out of it, the village community originated.
Natural conditions, however, modify sometimes this succession and prevent the formation oÂŁ common property. We have seen already that homesteads are held always in individual ownership, because the labor incorporated in them is so very great. It is clear that where arable lands can be made fit for cultivation only under equally difficult conditions, the same must be observed. In the Russian village communities great areas covered with stones remain waste. The efforts necessary for an individual to make them fit for cultivation are generally so great and are recompensed only after so many years, that the peasant does not undertake their tillage, knowing that at the next redistribution he can be deprived of this land.
Where, however, these soils are cultivated, they become, contrary to the general rule of redivision of soils, the hereditary property of those who cleared them. In some localities of the government of Petersburg, Tambow, Orlowsk, etc., where periodical divisions are the rule, these lands are individual property. It is clear that in countries where all the soil is covered with stones, the village communities cannot exist. This applies to Finland, where it is necessary to remove great granite blocks to make the soil fit for cultivation. Here individual ownership of arable fields always existed.
Periodical divisions are only possible where the preparatory labor is relatively so small that it can be remunerated after a few years of culti- vation. This general rule explains to us why, when agriculture becomes more intensive, the village community breaks down.
The configuration of the soil reacts also on the formation of prop- erty. . . .
The differences in a greater or smaller facility of cultivation of the soil, in its configuration, etc., account for the fact that not everywhere does property pass through the same stages. So the growth of popula- tion explains to us why the forms of property are changing with time the relation of Nature towards human wants, why they are different in space. . . .
Here, however, we must make a restriction. The natural process of formation of property, which we tried to describe and to explain above, can be perturbed if the primitive population becomes dependent on the economic resources of a more advanced society. So, for instance, in some villages of Siberia, the peasants gained their living by car- rying goods destined for European markets, and they attached little importance to agriculture. In consequence they did not divide the arable land, though under normal conditions it would have been neces-
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 643
sary. This was clearly demonstrated when, with the building of the Siberian railway, the carrying trade ceased to be lucrative. The peas- ants at once felt a scarcity of arable land and introduced divisions,8
These perturbations are not only very exceptional, but they modify slightly the formation of property. I think, however, that it is neces- sary to draw attention to them, because they show that, once a primi- tive society is caught up in a more developed economic system, the natural and normal process of evolution is disturbed.
Having tried to give hitherto a positive study of the laws governing the evolution of property, we want now to make some criticisms of the theories by which others have tried to explain the origin of the village community. A great role has been attributed in this respect to racial elements. "We have seen," says Gomme, "that the evidence of compara- tive custom goes to prove that race elements enter largely into the his- tory of the village community in the East, and that the parallel between the Eastern and English types suggests also parallel lines of develop- ment due to race elements." 9 And in Germany, Meitzen attributes equal importance to the same factor, and sees in the village community a feature of Germanic, and in the "Einzelhof" a feature of Celtic his- tory.10
Even at first glance one can see that there is no relation between race and the forms of property. We find the village community among the Malayans of Java as well as among some Aryans of India and Europe. Peoples inhabiting mountains never possessed common prop- erty, though they are ethnologically related to those living in plains. Our evidence in Siberia shows most clearly that the influence of race on the formation of property is nil. Krol tells us that as the conditions among which the forms of equalization develop are quite the same among the natives (Buriats, Mongolic race), Russian peasants and Cossacks (Indo-Europeans), the line of their evolution of property is quite the same also.11 Among the Buriats, it is true, free occupation was more developed than among the peasants, but, as Professor Kaufman points out, "not because they are natives, but because they had a greater abundance of land." 12
It is absolutely false— an error widely prevalent today— to think that emigrants transplant from one country to another the old forms of property. It is very often supposed that the German invaders brought
8 Kaufman, p. 279.
*Oommc, The Village Community, p. 69.
10 A, Meitzen, Siedlttng und Agrarwescn dcr Westgcrmancn und Ostgcrmancn, dcr tltent Romer, Finnen und Slaven, 1895, "Krol, p, 177. w Kaufman, Trans-bridal, p. 158.
644 SOURCE BOOK IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY
the village community to England.13 Our material shows that tradition does not play a great role where economic interests are at stake. "The differences in the forms of property," says Professor Kaufman, "do not at all, or scarcely at all, depend on any ethnographical peculiarities of special groups of the Siberian population: the old Siberians, the emigrants from the most divergent farts of European Russia— from those where the village community or the farm system is the domi- nant feature— nay, even the natives-— form, as regards the evolutions of property, one un differentiated mass: the forms of property develop, first of all, according to the degree of abundance of land." 14
The Russian peasant emigrating from a village community does not think about reproducing the old institution in Siberia. Without much hesitation he adopts the farm system and individual ownership as be- ing more convenient.15
No more than race does imitation exercise any influence on eco- nomic evolution. The settlements of Russian peasants in the Khirgiz steppes do not anyhow affect the forms of property of the natives.10 Among the Buriats we search in vain for an example proving that they have introduced the division of lands, by imitating Russian peasants, who live in their neighborhood. "It is difficult, yes, even impossible," says Professor Kaufman, "to speak of the borrowing of certain forms there, where all the evolution is gradual, where the community, before introducing divisions, passes through a number of intermediate stages, of which each one differs only a little from the other, and is organically connected with it." 17
The origin of the village community has been very often explained by the introduction of a collective responsibility for government taxes.18 The evolution of property has thus been traced back to the will of the legislator. The study of this problem in Russian Asia shows us that this factor does not play at all the important part attributed to it
In every district of Siberia where there is an abundance of land
13Mcitzen, op. cit.t II, 101. A few pages before the same author explains the exist- ence of the "Einzelhof" in some parts of Germany (Westphalia) by the fact that it was originally inhabited by Celts. It is difficult to understand why in England the German tribes should have forced their institutions upon the Celts, and why, invading the much nearer situated Westphalia, they should have forgotten all about common property, This discrepancy shows all the weakness of the racial theory.
WT. and T., p, 31. The italics are mine.
15 Kaufman, 441-455; Sib. Com., pp. 275-276.
18 Kaufman, K. tvoprosuf p. 24.
"Kaufman, Trans-bai^al, p. 159.
18 In Russia this doctrine has been popular among historians for a long time. It has been accepted by non-Russian scholars, such as De Laveleyc, Hildebrand, Rccht und Sitter p. 1S6, etc. About the theories of the old Russian historical school (Chicherine, Belaiew, etc.) see the book of J. V. Keussler, Zur Gcschichtc und Kritik de* bauerUchen Gememdebeshzcs in Russland, 1876-1887, pp. 8 ct $eq.
TYPES OF RURAL AGGREGATES 645
and where in consequence there is no economic necessity to divide the land periodically, all the circulars of the government ordering such a measure remained a dead letter. "Where/' says Kacharovski, "in com- munities, all the strength in the internal struggle is on the side of those who are opposed to divisions, even such a strong force as administrative pressure is insufficient to produce them." 19
The same is pointed out by Professor Kaufman, who writes that where there is plenty of land all insistence of the authorities foundered against the obstinate opposition of the rich part of the population.20 "Where there is no necessity for divisions," says Krol, "the circulars very seldom lead to real divisions," 21 Among nomads (Khirgizes and Buriats) as well as among the Russian peasants, it is impossible to speak of the administrative intervention as a constructive factor in the evolu- tion of property.22 Only where the land had ceased to be abundant, and a strong desire to introduce divisions existed, did the communities comply with the orders of the administration.23 This transition, how- ever, took place very often without any external intervention, where the evolution was ripe for transition.24
New historical studies made in European Russia have confirmed the Siberian observations. It has been shown in the government of Wologda, for instance, that the circulars of the government ordering a division of land were preceded by petitions of the poor, claiming this measure.25 Where there was no such necessity the government failed completely in European Russia as well as in Siberia, in its at- tempt to introduce the village community.26
As we see, legislation can simply facilitate the originating of new forms of property, but cannot shape them arbitrarily, . . .
So we see that such factors as race, imitation, legislation, etc., have no important part in the evolution of property, which is the result of the combination of four simple elements. . . .
19 Kacharovski, p, 208.
30 Kaufman, pp. 415-416.
21 Krol, p. 178.
M Kaufman, p. 174.
nlbid,t p. 417; Kacharovski, pp. 208-209.
24 Kacharovski, p. 210.
38 See W, W,, History, and Kaufman, pp. 426 et seq.
20 Kaufman, pp. 431 ff,