the ethnological notebooks of karl marx - Marxists Internet Archive

Notes to Introduction, p. 72.v. 51, 1946). The equation of common man with Tacitus’ German isa topicality of the time of Henry Wallace, which is controverted byKoebner: “The typical German of the Germania belongs to thesubstantial landowner class.” (op. cit., p. 14.) The controversy hasbeen marred by failure to meet issues on both sides: see followingnote, and Morgan excerpts, note 255.133 N. D. Fustel de Coulanges, Questions historiques, 1893. Recherches surquelques problèmes d'histoire, 1885. E. Durkheim, Année Sociologique,v. 11, 1906-1909, pp. 343-347. Cf. E. Durkheim, Division of SocialLabor, 1933, p. 179. Fustel de Coulanges was answered by Laveleye,De la Propriété, op. cit., ed. 1890, preface. Laveleye argued that theancient Germans had a system of annual repartition, which pointedto a principle of common ownership; Dopsch as well as Fustel setthis line on one side. But Dopsch, op. cit., 1923, p. 67, wrote, “ Nichteinzelne, wie die römischen Grundherren, eignen sich die ‘agri’ an,sondern alle haben daran teil.” This is consonant with Laveleye’sposition and Kulischer’s. See Marx, Morgan excerpts, p. 98, quotingTacitus, Germania, c. 26. Tacitus did not report the primitiveGermanic condition ; he wrote a century and a half after Caesar, whenthe Germans had been long in contact with the civilizations of theMediterranean, and if they still preserved traces of communal propertyownership, these were acculturated by the contact. It is conceivabletherefore that those Germans could have had the practice ofannual repartition while at the same time dividing unequally, accordingto worth or social position. The partition of the land secundumdignationem is the great point of Fustel de Coulanges and Dopsch, butnothing is proved, nothing disproved thereby. The period of communalownership in the system of Marx antedated that of the break-upof the collective institutions and the formation of political society;the division of society into the various worths or dignities, as set forthby Tacitus, is evidence that these Germans had formed a dividedsociety, and either had already formed or were in the process offorming a State. Private property in land was developed withinthe limits set forth.Dopsch in fact proved too much: Tacitus scored points againstCaesar, and moralized about the rich landowners of Rome. We concludethat the objectivity of Tacitus is called into question.The scientific issue cannot be divorced from the political, whichis Marx’s point. Durkheim approached the matter in the same way,by making his conclusion and his premisses inseparably and explicitlypart of his position : that man is a communal being and his primitivelife a collective one was a presupposition in his general philosophy ofsociety. Fustel de Coulanges, Dopsch and Stephenson may or maynot have interpreted the ancient texts accurately; they drew inferencesfrom their findings which they supposed were separated from theirsocial philosophies and political ideologies. (Cf. Marx, Maine excerpts,384