And wars and
conquests, which tend to the concentration of political power and to the
institution of slavery, naturally result, where social growth has given
land a value, in the appropriation of the soil. A dominant class, who
concentrate power in their hands, will likewise soon concentrate
ownership of the land. To them will fall large partitions of conquered
land, which the former inhabitants will till as tenants or serfs, and
the public domain, or common lands, which in the natural course of
social growth are left for a while in every country, and in which state
the primitive system of village culture leaves pasture and woodland, are
readily acquired, as we see by modern instances. And inequality once
established, the ownership of land tends to concentrate as development
goes on.
I am merely attempting to set forth the general fact that as a social
development goes on, inequality tends to establish itself, and not to
point out the particular sequence, which must necessarily vary with
different conditions. But this main fact makes intelligible all the
phenomena of petrifaction and retrogression.
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