Editor: I. Mallikarjuna Sharma Volume 11: 15-31 March 2015 No. 5-6

A law may be formal or informal. An informal law
may be an outcome of customs and traditions, accepted
by the society and followed by the people – not
enforced by a formal authority from above but
from within. If any one violates the informal law
he may be outcast. This fear of ostracization itself
has the force of enforcement. On the other hand,
the formal law is the official recognition of a social fact,
enacted by a legislature and enforced by the state
apparatus – the courts and the police. Therefore,
the existence of a state becomes a prerequisite for the
being and enforcement of law.
Origin of the State:
In the prehistory of mankind, some thousands
of years before the Christian era, there existed
what can be called a primitive communist society.
In this society, land and other means of
production were held in common; therefore,
collective labor was applied in production, and
the produce was shared by the families according
to their needs.
But due to the crude nature of the instruments
of production, and labor, the production was very
low – often insufficient to sustain life even.
Hunger prevailed and population began to
decline. At this juncture, some families had, by
force or connivance, ‘stole’ the common property
and transformed it into their private domain. Thus
a new society was born – it was a slave society in
which private property was the [all-embracing]
economic base [– so much so that slave laborers
were mere chattel of the slave-owners]. As such,
Pierre Joseph Proudhon had aptly remarked:
“Property is theft – but it gives power.” 1
♣ Sri V.V. Reddy, Retd. Professor of Economics, REC {now
NIT}, Warangal; duly edited; emphases in bold ours - IMS.
1
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (15 January 1809 – 19 January 1865),
a French politician, founder of mutualist philosophy,
probably the first person to declare himself an anarchist
and so considered by many as ‘father of anarchism’,
a member of the French Parliament after the 1848
revolution, thereafter referred to himself as a federalist.
A HISTORICAL VIEW OF LAW
- V.V. Reddy ♣
When property was monopolized by some, it
meant others were denied of it. Therefore, slave
society was split into have-nots – the slaves, and
haves – the slave-masters; or, to put in another
way, into antagonistic classes. In order to keep
the slaves languishing in slavery, a coercive
apparatus had become necessary. This apparatus
came to be known as the State, with functions to
safeguard the interests of the entire propertied i.e.
the slave masters. 2
A Greek philosopher by name Cleon (400
B.C.) is said to have defined: “Democracy is of
the people, by the people and for the people.” 3
But in Greco-Roman societies by ‘people’ were
meant only the ‘citizens’ i.e. the slave-masters,
for slaves were only chattel to serve their masters.
Aristotle (B.C. 384-322), considered a genius of
the ancient world, wrote: “For that some should
rule and others be ruled is a thing not only
necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their
birth, some are marked out for subjection, others
for rule…” 4 As such the rulers have a self-interest
His bitter comment on private property – ‘Property is
theft!’ – Louis Blanc claimed, and Marx repeated, was
taken from J.P. Brissot de Warville, a Girondin during the
Great French Revolution. It is noteworthy that Proudhon
himself stated: “Property is theft! That is the war-cry of
’93!” and then said: “Property is Robbery!” However, it
is undisputed that young Marx did greatly admire
Proudhon and his seminal work ‘What is Property?’, and
commended – “Not only does Proudhon write in the
interest of the proletarians, he is himself a proletarian,
an ouvrier. His work is a scientific manifesto of the
French proletariat” – though later he disagreed with
Proudhon's anarchism and published caustic criticisms of
Proudhon - he wrote The Poverty of Philosophy in
refutation of Proudhon's The Philosophy of Poverty.
2 Frederick Engels, The Origin of Family, Private Property
and the State, 1894.
3 A. Brewer, Marxist Theory of Imperialism:
A Critical Study, 1972, p. 56.
4 Aristotle, Politics, tr: Benjamin Jowett,
Kitchener, 1999, Book 1, Part V, p. 8.
Aristotle
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Law Animated World, 15-31 March 2015