Author Engels
How can the country develop by partially transforming the organs of the clan system, partially crowding out by establishing new organs, and finally replacing them with real state organs? At the same time, the "public power" dominated by these state organs, which can also be used to deal with the people's armed forces, has replaced the "armed people" who really defend themselves among clans, phratries and tribes-at least in its initial stage, all this is not as good as studying from ancient Athens, and various forms of substitution have basically been described by Morgan; What I want to add is mostly the economic content that causes this alternative form.
In the heroic age, the four tribes of the Athenians were scattered in various areas of Attica; Even the twelve phratries that make up these four tribes seem to have their own separate places of residence, that is, the twelve cities in the rope of Keke. The system is also the system of the heroic age: the people's congress, the people's parliament and basileus. From the written history, land has been divided into private property, which is consistent with the relatively developed commodity production and corresponding commodity transactions at the end of the advanced stage of barbarism. In addition to grain, it also produces wine and vegetable oil; The maritime trade in Aegean Sea gradually broke away from Phoenician control, and most of it fell into the hands of Attica residents. Due to the sale of real estate and the further development of the division of labor between agriculture and handicrafts, commerce and navigation, members of clans, phratries and tribes soon lived together; In the phratry and tribal areas, such residents have moved in. Although they are compatriots of their own nation, they do not belong to these groups, so they are regarded as outsiders in their own places of residence. In peacetime, every phratry and tribe manages their own affairs, and they don't ask the people's assembly in Athens or bartholomew for instructions. However, those who live in the phratry or tribal areas, if they do not belong to this phratry or tribe, naturally cannot participate in this management.
This disturbed the normal activities of the organs of the clan system, so that it was necessary to try to remedy it in the heroic age. So it is said that the system stipulated by theseus was implemented. First of all, this change lies in the establishment of a central administrative organ in Athens, that is to say, some affairs previously handled independently by tribes were declared as the same affairs and handed over to the same parliament in Athens. Because of this, the Athenians took a step forward than any native American: the simple alliance of neighboring tribes has been replaced by the integration of these tribes into a single nation [Volk]. In this way, the national law [volksrecht] appeared, which was generally applicable in Athens and was above the legal habits of various tribes and clans. As long as they are citizens of Athens, even in areas that are not their own tribes, they have obtained certain rights and new legal protection. But this is the first step to destroy the clan system, because it is the first step to allow people who do not belong to any tribe in Attica and have been completely outside the Athenian clan system to become citizens. It is said that the second system stipulated by theseus is to divide all people, regardless of clan, phratry or tribe, into three classes: Eupatriden, that is, aristocrats, Geomoren, that is, farmers, Demiurgen, that is, craftsmen, and give the aristocrats the exclusive right to hold public office. But this division, except for the nobles who hold public office, has not played any role, because other than that, there is no difference in rights between classes. But it is of great significance because it shows us new and quietly developing social elements. It shows that the habit of some family members holding clan public office has become the indisputable right of these families to hold public office; These families, already powerful by wealth, began to synthesize a unique privileged class outside their clans; And the budding country has also sanctified this occupation. Secondly, it shows that the division of labor between farmers and craftsmen is so strong that the division of clans and tribes is not the most important in the social sense. Finally, it declared the irreconcilable opposition between clan society and state; The first attempt to establish a country was to break the ties between clans. The method is to divide the members of each clan into privileged and unprivileged people, and divide the unprivileged people into two categories according to their occupations, so as to set them against each other.
From then on, until Solon's time, the political history of Athens was not completely known. Basil uz's position has been abolished; The head of state is a consul elected by the nobility. The rule of the nobility was strengthened day by day, and by about 600 BC, it had reached an unbearable level. At this time, money and usury became the main means to suppress people's freedom. The main residence of the nobles is Athens and its suburbs, and maritime trade and incidental maritime plunder sometimes occur, which makes the nobles rich and concentrates their monetary wealth in their hands. As a result, the increasingly developed monetary economy, like corrosive acid, penetrated into the traditional lifestyle of rural communes based on natural economy. Clan system and monetary economy are absolutely incompatible; The bankruptcy of Attica small farmers occurred while protecting their old clan relations and relaxing. Debt contract and land mortgage (the Athenians invented mortgage method) ignored neither clan nor phratry. The old clan system knew neither money nor loans, let alone monetary debts. Therefore, in order to protect creditors from debtors, the aristocracy's expanding monetary rule sanctified the exploitation of small farmers by money owners and created new customary laws. In Attica's fields, mortgage posts are erected everywhere, indicating the amount of land mortgaged to someone. Most of the fields without such pillars were sold because they failed to repay the mortgage or interest on time, and were owned by aristocratic usurers; As long as the farmer is allowed to rent seeds in situ as a tenant farmer, he can get one-sixth of his labor products to maintain his life and pay the remaining one-fifth as land rent to the new owner, then he will be grateful. Not only that, if the money from land sale is not enough to pay off the debt, or the debt is not secured by mortgage, then the debtor has to sell the children abroad as slaves to pay off the debt. Fathers betray their children-this is the first fruit of patriarchy and monogamy! If the vampire is not satisfied, then he can sell the debtor himself as a slave. This is the happy dawn of Athenian civilization.
In the past, when people's living conditions were still adapted to the clan system, such a change was impossible: but now this change has happened, and people don't know how it happened. Let's talk about the Iroquois for a while. At this time, the situation imposed on the Athenians, who did not participate in the planning, really went against their will, which was unimaginable among the Iroquois. In Iroquois, the way of continuous production and living materials every year will never produce such a conflict as if imposed by the outside world, such a confrontation between the rich and the poor, the exploiters and the exploited. The Iroquois are far from dominating nature, but they dominate their own production within the natural range where they can play a role. Apart from the failure of their small gardens, the depletion of fish in their rivers and lakes and the extinction of prey in the forest, they know what will happen in the way they get the means of subsistence. The inevitable result is the means of subsistence, although sometimes less, sometimes more; However, there will never be that kind of unintentional social change, the breakdown of clan relations, or the division of clan and tribe into opposing classes that struggle with each other. Production is carried out in a narrow range, but raw materials and products are completely dominated by producers. This is the great superiority of production in the barbaric era, which was lost with the arrival of the civilized era. It will be the task of the next generation to regain this sense of superiority, but on the basis of the powerful domination of nature and the possible free association today.
The situation of the Greeks is different. The emergence of herds and private possession of luxury goods has caused exchanges between individuals and turned products into commodities. This contains the seeds of all subsequent changes. When producers no longer directly consume their own products, but transfer them through exchange, they lose their dominant position in their own products. They no longer know the result of the product, so the possibility that the product will one day be used to oppose, exploit and oppress the producers arises. Therefore, no matter which society, as long as it does not eliminate the exchange between individuals, it is impossible to maintain control over its own production for a long time, and it is impossible to maintain control over the social effects of its own production process for a long time.
However, the Athenians had to personally experience how products were quickly distributed to producers after being exchanged between individuals, and how products became commodities. With the production of commodities, individual land cultivation appeared, and soon after, individual land ownership appeared. Then came money, a universal commodity that could be exchanged for all other commodities. But when people invented money, they didn't expect that they would create a new social force, a universal force that the whole society would yield. This new power suddenly rose without the foresight of its creator and against its will, which made the Athenians feel its rule with the rudeness of all its youth.
What do we do? The ancient clan system was not only unable to oppose the victorious March of money, but also absolutely unable to find a foothold for money, creditors, debtors and forced debts within its own structure. But new social forces already exist; Neither the pious desire nor the desire to save the good old days can wipe out money and usury from this world. In addition, there are a series of other small gaps in the clan system. In Attica as a whole, especially in Athens itself, members of various clans and phratries live together, which is more and more serious from generation to generation, although the Athenians still can only sell land to people outside their clans, but not houses. With the further development of industry and exchange, the division of labor among production departments-agriculture, handicrafts (there are countless industries in handicrafts), commerce, navigation and so on. -increasingly full development; Residents are now divided into fairly stable groups according to their occupations; Each of these groups has many new interests, but these interests have no room in the clan or phratry, so it is necessary to establish new public institutions to deal with these interests. The number of slaves increased greatly, and at that time it must have far exceeded the number of free Athenians; There was no slavery in the clan system at the beginning, so there was no way to control this large number of non-free people. Finally, trade attracted many foreigners to Athens, and they settled here to make money easily. According to the old system, they had neither rights nor legal protection, so despite the traditional tolerant spirit, they were still disturbing the dissidents among the people.
In short, the clan system has come to an end. The daily development of society is more and more beyond the scope of clan system; Even if the worst evil happens before its eyes, it can't be stopped or eradicated. But at this time, the country has developed unconsciously. At first, a new group emerged from the division of labor between urban and rural areas, and later, new institutions were established among various urban labor departments to protect their own interests; Various public offices have been set up. At this time, young countries first needed their own military strength, and among the Athenians who were engaged in navigation, at first they could only be maritime military strength to carry out individual small-scale wars and protect merchant ships. In an uncertain period before Solon, a small-scale district Noklari was established, and each tribe had 12; Each Noklari must provide a warship, equipped with weapons and crew, in addition, provide two knights. This delay has a double destructive effect on the clan system; First, it creates a public power that is no longer directly equivalent to arming the people; Second, for the first time, for public purposes, it divides people according to the same living area, not according to blood groups. The significance of this point can be seen from the following.
Since the clan system can't help the exploited people, there is only hope for emerging countries. The state did give this kind of help in the form of Solon system, and at the same time, it strengthened itself by sacrificing the old system. Solon unveiled a series of so-called political revolutions, which were uncovered by infringing on ownership. As for the way he realized the reform in 594 BC, we won't talk about it here. So far, all revolutions are aimed at protecting one kind of ownership from another. If they don't infringe another kind of ownership, they can't protect it. During the French Revolution, feudal ownership was sacrificed to save bourgeois ownership. In Solon Revolution, the creditor's property should be damaged to protect the debtor's property. The debt was simply declared invalid. Although we don't know the details, Solon boasted in his poems that he cleared the mortgage bar on the land in debt and let those who were betrayed and fled overseas return to their hometowns because of debt. This can only be achieved by openly infringing on property ownership. Indeed, all the so-called political revolutions, from beginning to end, are carried out to protect one kind of property, and are carried out by confiscating (or stealing) another kind of property. So there is no doubt that private property has been preserved for 2500 years only because of the infringement of property ownership.
But now we must prevent this from happening again, which makes the free Athenians slaves. This is first achieved through common measures, such as prohibiting the debtor himself from concluding debt contracts as collateral. In addition, it also stipulates the maximum amount of real estate that an individual can own, which can at least limit the nobles' infinite greed for peasant land. Then the system itself was modified; For us, the most important points are as follows:
Parliament consists of 400 people, and each tribe has 100 people. So here, the tribe is still the foundation. But this is the only aspect that the new national organization accepts from the old system. As for other aspects, Solon divided citizens into four classes according to their real estate and income; 500, 300, 150 bags of grain (1 bag is about 4 1 liter), which is the lowest income of the first three classes; People with less than this amount of property or no property at all belong to the fourth category. All public offices can only be held by three upper-class people; The highest public office can only be held by first-rate people; The fourth class only has the right to speak and vote at the people's congress, but all officials are elected here and all officials have to report their work here; All laws are made here; And the fourth category is in the majority here. The privilege of nobility partly reappeared in the form of wealth privilege; But the people reserve the right to make decisions. In addition, these four classes are the foundation of the new military organization. The first two categories provide cavalry, the third category provides heavy infantry, and the fourth category provides light infantry without armor or serves in the navy, which is probably paid.
In this way, a brand-new factor-private property has been added to this system. The rights and obligations of citizens are stipulated according to the amount of their real estate. Therefore, with the increasing strength of the bourgeoisie, the old consanguinity groups are increasingly excluded; The clan system has suffered a new failure.
But it is not an essential way for the state to stipulate political rights according to property. Although this method has played a great role in the history of national system, many countries, and only the most developed countries, do not need it. Even in Athens, it only played a temporary role; Since the Aristedez era, all public institutions have been open to every citizen.
In the next 80 years, Athenian society gradually adopted a development direction that it followed for hundreds of years. Rural usury, which prevailed before Solon, and the infinite set of real estate were suppressed. The increasingly large-scale businesses and handicrafts developed from slave labor have become popular occupations. People are also more open. The old methods of cruel exploitation of our own cells have been abandoned, but now we mainly exploit slaves and buyers outside Athens. Movable property, that is, wealth composed of money, slaves and merchant ships, is increasing day by day. However, at this time, it is not only a means to buy real estate, because of its narrow vision in the initial period, it has become an end in itself. As a result, on the one hand, the new class, that is, the rich engaged in industry and commerce, successfully competed for the old aristocratic power, on the other hand, the remnants of the old clan system lost their last territory. Now members of clans, phratries and tribes are all over Attica and live together completely, so clans, phratries and tribes are no longer suitable as political groups; A large number of Athenian citizens did not belong to any clan; They are immigrants, although they have obtained citizenship, but Jing has not been incorporated into any old blood clan groups; In addition, more and more immigrants are only protected.
At this time, the gang struggle is going on; The nobles wanted to regain their previous privileges and gain the upper hand in a short time, until the Cleisthenes Revolution (509 BC) finally overthrew them, but at the same time overthrew the last remnants of the clan system.
Cleisthenes's new system abandoned four old tribes based on clan and phratry. Instead, it is a brand-new organization, which is based on the method that Noklari tried to divide citizens only by their living areas. It is not the nationality of the blood group that plays a decisive role, but the place of permanent residence; What needs to be divided now is not the people, but the regions; Politically, residents have become a simple appendage of the region.
The whole Attica is divided into 100 regions, the so-called Demo, which are all autonomous. Every citizen living in Demonet (Dermot) elects his own district head (Dermach) and treasurer, as well as 30 judges who try minor cases. Each demonstration also has its own temple and patron saint or hero, and chooses priests to serve them. The supreme power of Dermot belongs to the Dermot Congress. Morgan is right, this is the prototype of American autonomous towns. At that time, the starting point of the country that rose in Athens was the same as the highest development stage of modern countries.
Ten such units, namely Demo, form a tribe, but this tribe is different from the blood clan in the past, and now it is called regional tribe. The regional tribe is both an autonomous political organization and a military organization: it chooses a Silk Man (1), that is, the tribal leader, to command the cavalry; A taksa, command infantry; A general is in charge of all the soldiers recruited in the tribe. Secondly, provide five warships with crew and captain; There is a hero of Attica as his patron saint. The name of the hero is the name of the tribe. Finally, it elected 50 representatives to participate in the Athens Council.
Thus, the Athenian state was formed, and it was managed by a parliament composed of 500 representatives elected by 10 tribes. The last level of management belongs to the people's assembly, and every Athenian citizen can participate in this assembly and enjoy the right to vote. In addition, there are consuls and other officials in charge of administrative departments and judicial affairs. In Athens, no top official has full administrative power.
Due to the implementation of this new system and the accommodation of a large number of protected people-some immigrants and some liberated slaves-various organs of the blood clan system were excluded and no longer asked about official duties; They became private groups and religious groups. However, the moral influence, traditional views and ways of thinking in the old clan era have been preserved for a long time, but only gradually disappeared. This can be seen from a national facility below.
As we have seen, the essential feature of a country is the separation of public power from the people. At that time, Athens had only one national army and a fleet directly provided by the people to resist foreign enemies and suppress slaves who accounted for the vast majority of the population at that time. For citizens, this kind of public power only existed as a police at first, and the police are as old as the country, so the simple French in the18th century did not talk about civilized nations but about national police. In this way, at the time of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Athenians also established the police, that is, the real gendarmerie composed of archers on foot and horseback, or the Landjager② (2) as Germany and Switzerland said. However, this gendarmerie is made up of slaves. This kind of police duty is so despicable to free Athenians, who would rather let armed slaves arrest themselves than do such shameful work themselves. This is still the old clan concept. The country cannot live without the police, but it is still young and has not enjoyed enough moral prestige to make this industry, which must be regarded as humble by the members of the old clan, be respected.
How much the country that has been formed in general is suitable for the new social situation of the Athenians can be proved by the rapid prosperity of wealth, commerce and industry. At present, the class opposition on which the social system and political system are based is no longer the opposition between nobles and civilians, but the opposition between slaves and freemen, and the opposition between protected people and citizens. In the heyday of Athens, the total number of free citizens, including women and children, was about 90,000, while there were 365,000 male and female slaves and 45,000 protected people-foreigners and freed slaves. In this way, every adult male citizen has at least 18 slaves and more than 2 protected citizens. The existence of a large number of slaves is due to the fact that many slaves work together in large rooms of manual workshops under the supervision of supervisors. However, with the development of industry and commerce, wealth is accumulated and concentrated in the hands of a few people, and a large number of free citizens become poor; There are only two ways before free citizens: either engaging in handicraft industry and slave labor competition is considered shameful and humble, and there will be no result; Or become poor. They inevitably embarked on the latter road under the conditions at that time; Because of their large numbers, they led to the destruction of the whole Athenian country. Therefore, it was not democracy that destroyed Athens, as the European pedant who pleased the monarch asserted, but slavery that excluded the labor of free citizens.
The emergence of Athens is a very typical example of the formation of general countries. On the one hand, because its formation process is very pure, it has not been disturbed by any external or internal violence. -peisistratus usurped the throne for a short time, leaving no trace. On the other hand, it makes a highly developed country, a democratic country, stand out directly from the clan society. Finally, because we are.