UNITED STATES AND THE COMMUNIST WORLD
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and the methods of social control over the individual. Examples can be
found of extremely centralized and extremely coercive control as in Sparta
and the Incas; of considerably centralized and moderately coercive control
as among the Jesuits, and in the Amana, Oneida, and other communities in
the United States; and of much individual freedom as in Athens (except
for the slaves and helots) and in modern “free” societies. Anthropologists
find all types among primitive peoples. In pioneering settlements, such as
Jamestown, Plymouth, and Jewish villages in Palestine “communism” was
at first adopted, but as the economy developed, they tended to move to
“capitalism,” the opposite of the tendency asserted by Marx.
When social control is very great, the system is called “socialism” in a
broad sense and where little it is called “individualism.” Either requires
some central authority, but “socialism” has in practice required more be-
cause such authority must not only maintain law and order, as in individu-
alistic societies, but must also administer economic production, social secur-
ity, and welfare programs. Individuals usually like freedom and tend to
resist central authority, increasingly as the society is large and the center
distant. Adequate authority to maintain “socialism” may result from envi-
ronmental conditions. Primitive peoples who believe themselves surrounded
by hostile gods and spirits, pioneers in a strange land, all people in time of
war or high political tension perceive their environment as hostile and
dangerous, and are willing to submit to a powerful central authority,
whether a tribal chief or priesthood, a village council, a king, a dictator, a
national government, or a federal executive, to escape disaster? Strong cen-
tral authority may also be created by the government itself utilizing the
power of the sword (military dictatorship), the power of the word (propa-
ganda and religion), the power of law and custom (the normal source of
government authority), or the power of the purse (property, taxation, and
the control of economic production and distribution).
Marx thought that property which gives control of the economy was of
primary importance and that other powers followed from it. Under feudal-
ism, the ownership of land gave capacity to make laws protecting it and
to defend it by military power. Under capitalism, the ownership of abstract
property (capital), which developed as industry and trade succeeded agri-
culture as the dominant means of production, gave capacity to control the
state with its monopoly of arms and capacity to make and enforce law.
Under socialism, the ownership of the means of production by society as
a whole would, according to Marx, give that society control of all the
sources of power.
Marx developed his ideal of society from his historical analysis. Only
with socialism could the masses enjoy the material and moral benefits of
society, because, although they constituted the major part of society, only