Page:Karl Kautsky - Ethics and The Materialist Conception of History - tr. J. B. Askew (1906).pdf/110

 single individual can dispose of it, or the entire society. The nature of this disposal is determined in the first place by the nature of the things, the nature of the method of production, and that of the producer, who made and used his weapons himself, just as he prepared himself a garment or an ornament; while on the other hand, it was equally natural that the house which was built by the common labour of the tribe should be inhabited in common by them. The various kinds of enjoyment of the various things for utility were always allowed, and, being repeated from generation to generation, became the fixed customs.

Thus arose a law of custom, which was then extended still further in this way, that as often as quarrels arose over this method of use, or about persons who had this right to use, the assembled members of the tribe decided. Law did not arise from any thought-out legislation or social compact, but from a custom resting on the technical conditions, and where these did not suffice, on individual decisions of the society, which decided each case by itself. Thus arose, little by little, a complicated right of property in the various means of production and products of society.

Common property, however, preponderated in the beginning, especially in the means of production—a soil worked in common, water apparatus, houses, also herds of animals and other things besides. Even this small degree of communism was bound to very largely strengthen the social impulses, the interest in the common good, and also increase the subordination to thesame and the dependence on the same.

Very differently did the private property of single families or individuals work out, so soon as it arrived at such a pitch that it began to usurp the place of common property. That began when, in consequence of the growing division of labour, the various branches of hand work began to separate themselves from agriculture, in which they had hitherto found a large employment; when they became more and more independent and separated into branches.