pc1 [3]
To be a member of the community remains the precondition for the appropriation of land, but in his capacity as member of the community the individual is a private proprietor. His relation to his private property is both a relation to the land and to his existence as a member of the community, and his maintenance as a member of the community, and his maintenance of the community, and vice versa, etc. Since the community, though it is here not merely a de facto _product of history_, but one of which men are conscious as such, has therefore _had an origin_, we have here the precondition for _property_ in land -- i.e., for the relation of the working subject to the natural conditions of his labor as belonging to him. But this "belonging" is mediated through his existence as a member of the state, through the existence of the state -- hence through a _pre-condition_ which is regarded as divine, etc. [Translator's Note: Marx's habit of occassionally omitting auxiliary verbs makes it impossible always to interpret his meaning unambiguously. An alternative meaning would be: Since the community, though it is here not merely a de facto _product of history_, but one of which men are conscious as such, has therefore _had an origin_ (and is thus) here the precondition for _property_ in land -- i.e., for the relation of the working subject to the natural conditions of his labor as belonging to him. But this "belonging" is, however, mediated by his existence as a member of the state, through the existence of the state -- hence through a _pre-condition_ which is regarded as divine, etc. ] There is concentration in the city, with the land as its territory; small-scale agriculture producing for immediate consumption; manufacture as the domestic subsidiary, labor of wives and daughters (spinning and weaving) or achieving independent existence in a few craft occupations (fabric, etc.). The precondition for the continued existence of the community is the maintenance of equality among its free self-sustaining peasants, and their individual labor as the condition of the continued existence of their property. Their relation to the natural conditions of labor are those of proprietors; but personal labor must continuously establish these conditions as real conditions and objective elements of the personality of the individual, of his personal labor. On the other hand, the tendency of this small warlike community drives it beyond these limits, etc. (Rome, Greece, Jews, etc.) As Niebuhr says: "When the auguries had assured Numa of the divine approval for his election, the first preoccupation of the pious monarch was not the worship of the gods, but a human one. He distributed the land conquered in war by Romulus and left to be occupied: he founded the worship of Terminnus (the god of boundary-stones). All the ancient law-givers, and above all Moses, founded the success of their arrangements for virtue, justice, and good morals [Sitte] upon landed property, or at least on secure hereditary possession of land, for the greatest possible number of citizens." (Vol.I, 245, 2nd ed. _Roman History_) The individual is placed in such condition of gaining his life as to make not the acquiring of wealth his object, but self-sustenance, its own reproduction as a member of the community; the reproduction of himself as a proprietor of the parcel of ground and, in that quality, as a member of the commune. [Translator Note: This sentence in English in original.] The continuation of the commune is the reproduction of all its members as self-sustaining peasants, whose surplus time belongs precisely to the commune, the labor of war, etc. Ownership of one's labor is mediated through the ownership of the conditions of labor -- the plot of land, which is itself guaranteed by the existence of the community, which in turn is safeguarded by the surplus labor of its members in the form of military service,