Communism all
the great fundamental inventions were evolved, as Morgan and others have
shown. The wheel, the potter's wheel, the lever, the stencil plate, the
sail, the rudder, the loom, were all evolved under Communism in its
various stages. So, too, the cultivation of cereals for food, the
smelting of metals, the domestication of animals,--to which we owe so
much, and on which we still so largely depend,--were all introduced
under Communism. Even in our day there have been found many survivals of
this Communism among primitive peoples. Mention need only be made here
of the Bantu tribes of Africa, whose splendid organization astonished
the British, and the Eskimos. It is now possible to trace with a fair
amount of certainty the progress of mankind through various stages of
Communism, from the unconscious Communism of the nomad to the
consciously organized and directed Communism of the most highly
developed tribes, right up to the threshold of civilization, when
private property takes the place of common, tribal property, and
economic classes appear.[92]

V

Private property, other than that personal ownership and use of things,
such as weapons and tools, which involves no class or caste domination,
and is an integral feature of all forms of Communism, first appears in
the ownership of man by man. Slavery, strange as it may seem, is
directly traceable to tribal Communism, and first appears as a tribal
institution. When one tribe made war upon another, its efforts were
directed to the killing of as many of its enemies as possible. Cannibal
tribes killed their foes for food, rarely or never killing their
fellow-tribesmen for that purpose. Non-cannibalistic tribes killed their
foes merely to get rid of them. But when the power of mankind over the
forces of external nature had reached that point in its development
where it became relatively easy for a man to produce more than was
necessary for his own maintenance, the custom arose of making captives
of enemies and setting them to work. A foe captured had thus an economic
value to the tribe. Either he could be set to work directly, his surplus
product enriching the tribe, or he could be used to relieve some of his
captors from other necessary duties, thus enabling them to produce more
than would otherwise be possible, the effect being the same in the end.
The property of the tribe at first, slaves become at a later stage
private property--probably through the institutio