Society and Morals. Part V. Military States

We must now consider that method of exploitation by a miltary power subjecting a community of workers, which, as we have indicated in our survey of the origins of classes, is demarked from chattel slavery by several important characters. With the latter system, people of various races, languages, and customs are often brought violently together and herded together in a strange community, forming a heterogeneous working mass of independent units. Under the system at present claiming our notice, however, the producers continue their accustomed occupations and remain in their native district. They are the original community, the ruling class being a superimposed and usually an intrusive element. But with the chattel slave system it was the free class who represented the old community and who alone had a permanent organisation. It is somewhat difficult to find a suitable name for this system ; “feudal serfdom” it is too little recognised is only one type of several social forms which are allied by the points noted above.

Owing to the method of subjection used it is usual to find with this system that certain groups, at least, of the producers are of a common race and language, have their own well-founded social organisations and institutions, and are bound by ties of common custom and tradition dating from a past when their exploitation was unknown.

For workers under these conditions to be regularly deprived of the product of their surplus labour-power and a smooth-running system of exploitation to be founded, the would-be rulers must proceed by methods much more subtle and gradual and less disruptive, than those adopted to obtain chattel slaves. Moral force and persuasion must accompany the inevivitable physical force. Hence, where such a system is evolved, we generally find, first, that the power of the ruling class is a growth passing through several stages : secondly, that this class largely adopts the forms of, and adapts to its use the institutions of, the pre-class era, and, thirdly, that it takes advantage of the superstitious tendencies of its subjects by allying itself with religion and obtaining a supernatural sanction. To these phenomena we will now tarn.

From War-Chief to Monarch
The common groundwork upon which all forms of this variety o! exploitation arose was an agricultural economy carried on under the organisation we have before touched upon, village communities united in tribes. As agriculture is essentially a peaceful occupation, the “profession of arms” (except at periods when, a serious state of war exists) tends to become a specialised social function. Thus arises a warrior class who have the duty of protecting the villages, and in return are allotted a share of the common produce. This war-band fre­quently adds to its prosperity by engaging in raids for plunder, the fruits of which bring increasing wealth and influence, especially to the chieftain or war-leader.

But a semi-independent and powerful fighting body soon re-acts upon the community which gave it birth. The chief demands an increased share of the products of the community, and, in various ways, influences and brings pressure to bear upon its councils.

After obtaining a measure of control in his own tribe, the chief together with his followers, by conquest subjects other tribes. And so, in ever-widening circles, with successful warfare sphere of power grows–from the tribe to the nation and the nation to the empire. Along these or similar lines is developed a social group the confines of which are not determined by the extent of blood-ties, as was the case previously, but by the area over which the military leader and his followers hold sway. Its basis is no longer personal but territorial, and its size may range from a petty State with a few tribes to a vast empire like that of ancient Persia. The workers within it may be in any degree of subjection, from the condition of serfs bound to the land to that of a tribute-paying peasantry.

A good example of an early stage in the process was to be found among the Zulus before the British occupation. They were in a state of transition from a purely tribal and gentile to a feudal form of society, largely owing to the efforts of military chiefs like Chaka. Among them communistic and patriarchal institutions persisted vigorously, showing the gradual nature of the process of subjection to which we have referred.

The ruler who desires a continuous stream of plunder or tribute and the smooth running of his rule does not attempt to abolish the traditional methods of regulating production and social order, but he strives to adapt them to serve his interests. Wherever possible he secures the allegiance of the tribal chiefs he has conquered instead of deposing them, and allows them to retain a semblance of their old position, while making them responsible, to him, for the collection of tribute and the supply of “men-at-arms.” But where the conquered chiefs prove obstinate they are supplanted by men chosen by the king, usually as a reward for services rendered. These form the king’s local agents (satraps, thanes, barons), who owe to him allegiance and military service, and exact a similar submission from their subordinates, together with intensification of the exploitation on their own account. In many cases they become so wealthy and strong as to materially check the power of the monarch himself, as in the well-known case of King John and the barons.

State Religion and Law
The social units of tribal society are, as we have seen, independent, and the members of each group maintain an exclusiveness and intolerant dislike toward outsiders. This state of affairs is a menace to the newly founded monarchic State, for not only is internal strife probable, but these well-organised and sharply defined groups, belonging as they do almost exclusively to the subjected peoples, form excellent centres for the fostering of “sedition” and rebellion. But to wipe out such deeply-grounded institutions and ideas the king must proceed very carefully ; and one of the most successful methods adopted is to attack the exclusiveness of tribal religion, so powerful in their support.

This may be done in various ways, either by respecting the various sectional creeds but enforcing tolerance among them, as did Alexander and the Romans, or by urging the acceptance of a “universal religion,” as did the Persians and the Mohammedans. The principle is illustrated by the practice of the Romans. In proportion as the ruling class in Rome, in addition to importing slaves, exploited by a ruthless taxation the conquered peoples within the Empire, so did the exclusiveness of the old Roman religion fade before a cosmopolitan tolerance which regarded the multitudinous creeds of the Empire as all equally true and useful. At this stage intolerant Christianity was a disturbing factor, and it was accordingly persecuted. But when the Christian religion spread wide amongst the oppressed, without distinction of race differences, it became legally sanctioned and made the State religion of Rome.

Often the monarch, through the artificialisation of tradition fostered by the priesthood, may himself be vested with the character of a deity, venerated and worshipped by the superstitious multitudes of his subjects. This occurred in ancient Peru and in Egypt, and even persisted up to recent times in Japan, where the sacred personality of the Mikado is supposed to be the descendant of the gods, by a spurious projection of ancestor-worship, which, both in Japan and in China, is the State religion.

This political use of religion invariably results in the creation of a powerful priesthood which in some instances have almost superseded the secular rulers, as appears to be the case with the Bhuddist Lamas of Thibet. These priests become the guardians and propagators of a new morality, in which servility, respect for authority, and contentment are prime virtues, and this they preach to the workers under the guise of “divine revelation and truth.”

But, for a long time, the ancient customs and conceptions of the pre-class stage continue to find acceptance, and, indeed, in some instances, even thousands of years of political or class rule have entirely failed to eradicate them. Thus of China Mrs. Bishop says in “The Yangste Valley” (p. 535), “The villages are self-governing, and no official dares to trench on their here­itary privileges. Every successive dynasty has found itself bound to protect them in these and no ‘Son of Heaven’ who called them in question could occupy the Dragon Throne for six months.” This case is, however, exceptional ; usually the end of patriarchal law begins by the king, whilst respecting outwardly the multitudinous local law customs in his dominions, for convenience in administration and with a view, also to extinguishing tribal intolerance, strives to harmonise them by as far as possible overlooking minor peculiarities whilst emphasising and retaining the common characters of each code. This is not really difficult, though, to a bigoted tribesman, it would appear impossible, for the social basis of them all is the same. In this way was formed the “common law” and the well-known ancient law codes such as those of Mann and Hammnurabi.

When the law is recorded in writing another blow is struck at Patriarchalism, for instead of custom changing gradually and unnoticably with the slow changes in society, the law, now fixed and easily referred back to, can be visibly seen, with social changes, tp grow anomalous and obsolete, and thus the possibility of deliberately altering law, even of making it is rendered conceivable.

So, through a combination of circumstances, the kingdom becomes a social organism less and less divided along racial and tribal or blood lines, but more and more clearly split along lines of class—between oppressors and oppressed.

R. W. HOUSLEY