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[XX.
1.]
[XXI. 1.]
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[XX.
2.]
fullest degree of development and on the
other hand become socially useful for the first time once property abolished.
Similarly, they have attacked the trading spirit of the small landowners,
as if large-scale landownership, even in its feudal form, did not already
contain within it the elements of barter - not to mention the modern English
form, in which the feudalism of the landowner is combined with the huckstering
and the industry of the tenant farmer.
....Just as large-scale landed property can
return the reproach of monopoly made against it by the advocated of division
of the land, for the division of the land is also based on the monopoly
of private property, so can the advocates of division return the reproach
of partition, for partition of the land also exists - though in a rigid,
ossified form -on the large estates. Indeed, division is the universal
basis of private property. Besides, as the division of landed property
leads once more to large landed property in the form of capital wealth,
feudal landed property inevitably advances towards division or at least
falls into the hands of the capitalists, however much it might twist and
turn.
....For large-scale landed property, as in
England, drives the overwhelming majority of the population into the arms
of industry and reduces its own workers to total misery. In this way,
it creates and increases the power of its enemy, capital and industry,
by driving the poor and an entire range of activities over to the other
side. It makes the majority of the country industrial, and hence antagonistic
to landed property. Where industry has acquired great power, as in England,
it gradually forces large landed property to give up its monopoly against
foreign countries and obliges it to compete with foreign landed property.
For under the rule of industry, landed property could maintain its feudal
proportions only by means of a monopoly against foreign countries, so
as to protect itself against the universal laws of trade which contradict
its feudal nature. Once exposed to competition, it is forced to obey the
laws of competition, just like any other commodity which is subject to
them.
[XXI. 2.]
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[XX.
3.]
[XXI. 3.]
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