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 COMMUNISM

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COMMUNISM

agreeable work, were slaves in the worst sense of that term. Indeed, the purpose of the whole organization was military and political rather than economic and social. As Lycurgus was inspired by the Cretan ex- periment, so Plato was impressed by the achievement of Lycurgus. His "Republic" describes an ideal commonwealth in which there was to be community of property, meals, and even of women. The State was to control education, marriage, births, the occu- pation of the citizens, and the distribution and en- joyment of goods. It would enforce perfect equality of conditions and careers for all citizens and for both sexes. Plato's motive in outlining this imaginary social order was individual welfare, not State aggran- dizement. He wanted to call the attention of the world to a State which was unique in that it was not composed of two classes constantly at war with each other, the rich and the poor. But his model com- monwealth was to have slaves.

The communistic principle governed for a time the lives of the first Christians of Jerusalem. In the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we learn that none of the brethren called anything that he possessed his own; that those who had houses and lands sold them and laid the price at the feet of the Apostles, who distributed "to everyone according as he had need". Inasmuch as they made no distinc- tion between citizens and slaves, these primitive Christians were in advance of the communism of Plato. Their commimism was, moreover, entirely voluntary and spontaneous. The words of St. Peter to Ananias prove that individual Christians were quite free to retain their private property. Finally, the arrangement did not long continue, nor was it adopted by any of the other Christian bodies outside of Jerusalem. Hence the assertion that Christianity was in the beginning communistic is a gross exaggera- tion. And the claim that certain Fathers of the Church, notably Ambrose, Augustine, Basil, Chrys- ostom, and Jerome, condemned all private property and advocated communism, is likewise unwarranted. Most of the religious, that is. ascetic and monastic orders find communities which have existed, both within and without the Christian fold, exhibit some of the features of communism. The Buddhist monks in India, the Essenes in Judea, and the Therapeutte in Egypt, all excluded private ownership and led a common life. The religious communities of the Catli- olic Church have always practised common owner- ship of goods, both productive (whenever they pos- sessed these) and non-productive. Their communism differs, however, from that of the economic com- munists in that its primary object is not and never has been social reform or a more just distribution of goods. The spiritual improvement of the individual member and the better fulfilment of their charitable mission, such as instructing the yomig or caring for the sick and infirm, are the ends that they have chiefly sought. These communities insist, moreover, that their mode of life is adapted only to the few. For these reasons we find them always apart from the world, making no attempt to bring in any consider- able portion of those without, and observing celibacy. One important feature of economic communism is wanting to nearly all religious communities, namely, common ownership and management of the material agents of production from which they derive their sustenance. In this respect they are more akin to wage-earning bodies than to communistic organiza- tions.

During the Middle Ages communism was held, and in various degrees practised, by several heretical sects. In this they professed to imitate the example of the primitive ('hri.stians. Their communism was, therefore, like that of the monastic orders, religious rather than economic. On the other hand, the motive of the religious orders was Christ's counsel to seek per-

fection. Chief among the communistie heretical sects were : the Catharists, the Apostolics, the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit, the Hussites, the Moravians, and the Anabaptists. None of them presents facts of any great importance to the student of commun- ism. The next notable event in the history of com- munism is the appearance of .St. Thomas More's " Uto- pia" (1516). The purpose of this romantic account of an ideal commonwealth was economic, not military or religious. The withdrawal of large tracts of land from cultivation to be used for sheep-raising, the cur- tailment of the tenant's rights to the common, and the rise in rents had already begun to produce that insecurity, poverty, and pauperism which later on be- came so distressing in England, and which still consti- tute a most perplexing problem. By way of contrast to these conditions. More drew his ideal picture of the State of Utopia. In his conception of industrial con- ditions, needs, and tendencies. More was ages ahead of his time. " I can have ", he says, " no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who on pretence of managing the public only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out: first, that they may without danger preserve all that they have so ill acquired, and then that they may en- gage the poor to toil and labour for them at as lowrates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please." This reads more like an outburst from some radical reformer of the twentieth century than the testimony of a state chancellor of the early sixteenth. In " Uto- pia" all goods are held and enjoyed in common, and all meals are taken at the public tables. But there is no community of wives. The disagreeable work is done by slaves, but the slaves are all convicted crim- inals. Concerning both the family and the dignity .and rights of the individual, "Utopia" is, therefore, on higher groimd than the "Republic". There are several other descriptions of ideal States which owe their inspiration to "Utopia". The most important are: "Oceana" (1656) by James Harrington ; "The City of the Sun" (1625) by Thomas Campanella (q. V.)"; and Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis" (1629). None of them has been nearly so widely read nor so influential as their prototyjie. Campanella, who was. a Dominican monk, represents the authorities of " The City of the Sun" as compelling the best-developed women to mate with the best-developed men, in order that the children may be as perfect as possible. Children are to be trained by the State not by the parents, for they "are bred for the preservation of the species and not for individual pleasure".

The comprehensive criticism of, and revolt against social institutions carried on by French writers in the eighteenth century naturally included theories for the reconstruct ion of the economic order, (iabriel de Mably (Doutes proposes aux philosophes economiques, 176S) who seems to have borrowed partly from Plato and partly from Rousseau, declared that community of goods would secure equality of condition and the highest welfare of the race ; but he shrank from ad- vocating this as a practical remedy for the ills of his own time. Morelly (Code de la nature, 1755) agreed with Rousseau that all social evils were due to msti- tutions, and urged the ownership and management of all property anil industry by the State. Both tie Mably and Morelly were apostate priests. Morelly's views were adopted by one of the French Revolutionists, F. N. Baboeuf, who was the first modern to take practical steps toward the formation of a communistic society. His plans included compulsory labour on the part of all, and public di.stribution of the product according to individual noeiis. To convert his theo- ries into reality, he founded the "Society of Equals" (1796) and projected an armed insurrection; but the conspirators were soon betrayed anti their leader guillotmed (1797). Count Henri de Saint-Simon,