170 The Special Sociological Errors 



would have been an accomplished fact many 

 centuries ago. 



In the second place, it is easy to demonstrate 

 that war has not preceded production, as the 

 philosophy of force holds, but that production 

 must have preceded war. This is because war 

 requires the storing up of capital, which must 

 have been the result of a preceding productive 

 labour. Even in the most primitive times, a 

 savage who went to rob his neighbour must have 

 provided himself with enough food so that he 

 would not die of starvation, and so that he would 

 have sufficient strength to insure some chance of 

 victory. Moreover, he would only be able to steal 

 things which were light and easily transportable, 

 so that he would still be under the necessity of 

 obtaining bulky articles by productive labour. It 

 is somewhat ludicrous to imagine the conqueror 

 removing the houses, the workshops, and the crops 

 of wheat, for the sake of saving himself the trouble 

 of productive labour by which he could have pro- 

 cured these things directly. 



But it may be objected, suppose he forces the 

 vanquished to perform this labour. This would 

 be very well; but it would be necessary for the 

 conqueror to subject the territory of the van- 

 quished to his direct domination, which would 

 demand a high degree of governmental organiza- 

 tion, possible only to a fairly advanced degree of 

 civilization. Nor is it possible to assume that the 

 conqueror could require his slaves to perform this 



