RELATIONS OF THE RURAL COMMUNITY 727 



so-called " law of the decreasing production of the soil," the stronger 

 bondage by the natural limits and conditions of production, the 

 more constant limitation of quality and quantity of the means of 

 production, diminish the importance of technical revolutions. In 

 spite of technical progress production can be revolutionized least 

 by purely rational division of labor and concentration of labor, 

 acceleration of the change of capital, and substitution of the organic 

 parts of raw material and working forces by inorganic raw materials 

 and mechanical means of labor. This inevitably predominating 

 power of tradition in agriculture creates and maintains, on the 

 European Continent, those types of rural population which do not 

 exist in a new country, as the United States; to these types belongs 

 first the European peasant. 



This peasant is totally different from the farmer in England or in 

 America. The English farmer is, to-day, a sometimes quite remark- 

 able undertaker and producer for the market; almost always he has 

 rented the estate. The American farmer is an agriculturist who has 

 mostly acquired, by purchase or as the first settler, the soil as his 

 property; sometimes he has rented it. He produces for the market 

 the market is older than the producer here. The European peasant 

 of the old type was a man who had, in most instances, inherited the 

 soil and who produced mostly for his own w r ants. The market in 

 Europe is younger than the producer. Of course, for many years 

 the peasant sold the superfluous products and, though he spun and 

 wove, could not satisfy his wants by his own work. But he did not 

 produce to gain profit, like a business man, for the past two thou- 

 sand years had not trained him to this. Up to the time of the French 

 Revolution the European peasant was only considered as a means for 

 the purpose of supporting certain ruling classes. In the first place his 

 duty was to provide, as cheaply as possible, the neighbor-town with 

 food. The city prohibited, as far as possible, rural trade and the 

 exportation of cereals as long as its citizens were not provided. 

 Thus matters remained up to the end of the eighteenth century; 

 for the artificial maintenance of the cities at the expense of the 

 country was also a principle of the princes who wanted to have 

 money in their countries and large intakes from the taxes. Moreover, 

 the peasant was doomed to support, by his services and by paying 

 taxes, the proprietor of the land who possessed the superior ownership 

 of his land and quite often also the right of the peasant's body. This 

 remained so up to the revolutions of 1789 and 1848. Another of 

 the peasant's duties was to pay to his political lord the taxes for 

 his estate from which the knight was exempt and to supply 

 the armies with recruits, from which the cities were exempt. This 

 remained so until the tax-privileges were abolished and the service 

 in the army became the duty of every one, in the nineteenth century. 



