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[XVIII.
1.]
[XIX. 1.]
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[XVIII.
2.]
In the same way, feudal landed property
gives its name to its lord, as does a kingdom to its king. His family
history, the history of his house, etc.--all this individualizes his estate
for him, and formally turns it into his house, into a person. Similarly,
the workers on the estate are not in the position of day-labourers; rather,
they are partly the property of the landowner, as are serfs, and they
are partly linked to him through a relationship based on respect, submissiveness,
and duty. His relation to them is therefore directly political, and even
has an agreeable aspect. Customs, character, etc., vary from one estate
to another and appear to be one with their particular stretch of land;
later, however, it is only a man's purse, and not his character or individuality,
which ties him to the land. Finally, the feudal landowner makes no attempt
to extract the maximum profit from his property. Rather, he consumes what
is there and leaves the harvesting of it to his serfs and tenants. Such
is the aristocratic condition of landownership, which sheds a romantic
glory on its lords.
....It is inevitable that this appearance
should be abolished and that landed property, which is the root of private
property, should be drawn entirely into the orbit of private property
and become a commodity; that the rule of the property owner should appear
as the naked rule of private property, of capital, divested of all political
tincture; that the relationship between property owner and worker should
be reduced to the economic relationship between the property owner and
his property should come to an end, and that the property itself should
become purely material wealth; that the marriage of interest with the
land should take over from the marriage of honor, and that land, like
man, should sink to the level of a venal object. It is inevitable that
the root of landed property--sordid self-interest--should also manifest
itself in its cynical form. It is inevitable that immovable monopoly should
become mobile and restless monopoly, competition; and that the idle employment
of the products of the sweat and blood of other people should become a
brisk commerce in the same. Finally, it is inevitable under these conditions
of competition that landed property, in the form of capital, should manifest
its domination both over the working class and over the property owners
themselves, inasmuch as the laws of the movement of capital are either
ruining or raising them. In this way, the mediaeval saying nulle terre
sans seigneur gives way to the modern saying l'argent n'a pas de
maitre [Money knows no master], which is an expression of the complete
domination of dead matter over men.
[XIX. 2.]
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[XVIII.
3.]
[XIX. 3.]
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