730 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 



sure of competition. This, again, is only possible because the great 

 importance of the natural conditions of production in agriculture, its 

 being bound to place, time, and organic means of work, and their 

 publicity weaken the effectiveness of the individual competition of 

 the farmers among each other. But where those conditions of a spe- 

 cific economic superiority of small farming do not exist, because the 

 importance of self-responsible work as to quality disappears behind 

 that of capital, there the old peasant struggles for his existence as 

 a hireling of capital. It is the high social valuation of the owner 

 of the land that makes him a subject of capital and ties him 

 psychologically to the clod; the loss of the estate means for him 

 degradation in an old civilized country with stronger economic and 

 social differentiation. Not rarely the peasant's struggle for exist- 

 ence becomes the economic selection in favor of the most frugal, 

 i. e., those most lacking culture. For the pressure of agricultural 

 competition is not felt by him who uses his products not as articles 

 of trade, but for his own consumption, sells but little thereof, and 

 can, for this reason, buy but few other products. Thus sometimes 

 a partial retrogression into natural husbandry occurs. Only with 

 the French "system of two children" the peasant can maintain 

 himself, for generations, as a small proprietor in the inherited pos- 

 session. The obstacles which the peasant meets who wants to be- 

 come a modern agriculturist urge the separation of the possession 

 from management; the landlord keeps his capital for operation, and 

 he can draw it out from husbandry. Partially the government 

 tries to create a mean between property and lease. 



The peasant cannot remain a peasant, and he cannot becoma 

 a land-owner on account of the high valuation of the land. 



It is not yet possible to speak of a real " contest " between capital- 

 isms and the power of historical influence, in this case of growing 

 conflicts between capital and ownership of the soil. It is a process 

 of selection partly, and partly of depravation. Quite different con- 

 ditions prevail where not only an unorganized multitude of peasants 

 are powerless in the chains of the financial powers of the cities, but 

 where there is an aristocratic stratum above the peasants, which 

 struggles not only for its economic existence, but also for the social 

 standing which the history of centuries has granted this class. This 

 is the case especially where this aristocracy is not tied to the rural 

 districts by pure financial interest, as is the English lord, or only 

 by the interests of recreation and sport, but where its representa- 

 tives are concerned, as agriculturists, in the economic conflict and 

 are closely connected with the country. 



Then the dissolving effects of capitalism are increased. Because 

 ownership of land gives social position, the price of the large 

 estates rises high above the value of their productivity. " Why did 



