Primitive Human Institutions

69:9.1While prim­i­tive so­ci­ety was vir­tu­ally com­mu­nal, prim­i­tive man did not ad­here to the mod­ern doc­trines of com­mu­nism. The com­mu­nism of these early times was not a mere the­ory or so­cial doc­trine; it was a sim­ple and prac­ti­cal au­to­matic ad­just­ment. Com­mu­nism pre­vented pau­perism and want; beg­ging and pros­ti­tu­tion were al­most un­known among these an­cient tribes.

69:9.2Prim­i­tive com­mu­nism did not es­pe­cially level men down, nor did it ex­alt medi­ocrity, but it did put a pre­mium on in­ac­tiv­ity and idle­ness, and it did sti­fle in­dus­try and de­stroy am­bi­tion. Com­mu­nism was in­dis­pens­able scaf­fold­ing in the growth of prim­i­tive so­ci­ety, but it gave way to the evo­lu­tion of a higher so­cial or­der be­cause it ran counter to four strong hu­man pro­cliv­i­ties:

69:9.31. The fam­ily. Man not only craves to ac­cu­mu­late prop­erty; he de­sires to be­queath his cap­i­tal goods to his progeny. But in early com­mu­nal so­ci­ety a man’s cap­i­tal was ei­ther im­me­di­ately con­sumed or dis­tributed among the group at his death. There was no in­her­i­tance of prop­erty—the in­her­i­tance tax was one hun­dred per cent. The later cap­i­tal-ac­cu­mu­la­tion and prop­erty-in­her­i­tance mores were a dis­tinct so­cial ad­vance. And this is true not­with­stand­ing the sub­se­quent gross abuses at­ten­dant upon the mis­use of cap­i­tal.

69:9.42. Re­li­gious ten­den­cies. Prim­i­tive man also wanted to save up prop­erty as a nu­cleus for start­ing life in the next ex­is­tence. This mo­tive ex­plains why it was so long the cus­tom to bury a man’s per­sonal be­long­ings with him. The an­cients be­lieved that only the rich sur­vived death with any im­me­di­ate plea­sure and dig­nity. The teach­ers of re­vealed re­li­gion, more es­pe­cially the Chris­tian teach­ers, were the first to pro­claim that the poor could have sal­va­tion on equal terms with the rich.

69:9.53. The de­sire for lib­erty and leisure. In the ear­lier days of so­cial evo­lu­tion the ap­por­tion­ment of in­di­vid­ual earn­ings among the group was vir­tu­ally a form of slav­ery; the worker was made slave to the idler. This was the sui­ci­dal weak­ness of com­mu­nism: The im­prov­i­dent ha­bit­u­ally lived off the thrifty. Even in mod­ern times the im­prov­i­dent de­pend on the state (thrifty tax­pay­ers) to take care of them. Those who have no cap­i­tal still ex­pect those who have to feed them.

69:9.64. The urge for se­cu­rity and power. Com­mu­nism was fi­nally de­stroyed by the de­cep­tive prac­tices of pro­gres­sive and suc­cess­ful in­di­vid­u­als who re­sorted to di­verse sub­terfuges in an ef­fort to es­cape en­slave­ment to the shift­less idlers of their tribes. But at first all hoard­ing was se­cret; prim­i­tive in­se­cu­rity pre­vented the out­ward ac­cu­mu­la­tion of cap­i­tal. And even at a later time it was most dan­ger­ous to amass too much wealth; the king would be sure to trump up some charge for con­fis­cat­ing a rich man’s prop­erty, and when a wealthy man died, the fu­neral was held up un­til the fam­ily do­nated a large sum to pub­lic wel­fare or to the king, an in­her­i­tance tax.

69:9.7In ear­li­est times women were the prop­erty of the com­mu­nity, and the mother dom­i­nated the fam­ily. The early chiefs owned all the land and were pro­pri­etors of all the women; mar­riage re­quired the con­sent of the tribal ruler. With the pass­ing of com­mu­nism, women were held in­di­vid­u­ally, and the fa­ther grad­u­ally as­sumed do­mes­tic con­trol. Thus the home had its be­gin­ning, and the pre­vail­ing polyg­a­mous cus­toms were grad­u­ally dis­placed by mo­nog­amy. (Polygamy is the sur­vival of the fe­male-slav­ery el­e­ment in mar­riage. Mo­nog­amy is the slave-free ideal of the match­less as­so­ci­a­tion of one man and one woman in the ex­qui­site en­ter­prise of home build­ing, off­spring rear­ing, mu­tual cul­ture, and self-im­prove­ment.)

69:9.8At first, all prop­erty, in­clud­ing tools and weapons, was the com­mon pos­ses­sion of the tribe. Pri­vate prop­erty first con­sisted of all things per­son­ally touched. If a stranger drank from a cup, the cup was hence­forth his. Next, any place where blood was shed be­came the prop­erty of the in­jured per­son or group.

69:9.9Pri­vate prop­erty was thus orig­i­nally re­spected be­cause it was sup­posed to be charged with some part of the owner’s per­son­al­ity. Prop­erty hon­esty rested safely on this type of su­per­sti­tion; no po­lice were needed to guard per­sonal be­long­ings. There was no steal­ing within the group, though men did not hes­i­tate to ap­pro­pri­ate the goods of other tribes. Prop­erty re­la­tions did not end with death; early, per­sonal ef­fects were burned, then buried with the dead, and later, in­her­ited by the sur­viv­ing fam­ily or by the tribe.

69:9.10The or­na­men­tal type of per­sonal ef­fects orig­i­nated in the wear­ing of charms. Van­ity plus ghost fear led early man to re­sist all at­tempts to re­lieve him of his fa­vorite charms, such prop­erty be­ing val­ued above ne­ces­si­ties.

69:9.11Sleep­ing space was one of man’s ear­li­est prop­er­ties. Later, home­sites were as­signed by the tribal chiefs, who held all real es­tate in trust for the group. Pres­ently a fire site con­ferred own­er­ship; and still later, a well con­sti­tuted ti­tle to the ad­ja­cent land.

69:9.12Wa­ter holes and wells were among the first pri­vate pos­ses­sions. The whole fe­tish prac­tice was uti­lized to guard wa­ter holes, wells, trees, crops, and honey. Fol­low­ing the loss of faith in the fe­tish, laws were evolved to pro­tect pri­vate be­long­ings. But game laws, the right to hunt, long pre­ceded land laws. The Amer­i­can red man never un­der­stood pri­vate own­er­ship of land; he could not com­pre­hend the white man’s view.

69:9.13Pri­vate prop­erty was early marked by fam­ily in­signia, and this is the early ori­gin of fam­ily crests. Real es­tate could also be put un­der the watch­care of spir­its. The priests would “con­se­crate” a piece of land, and it would then rest un­der the pro­tec­tion of the magic taboos erected thereon. Own­ers thereof were said to have a “priest’s ti­tle.” The He­brews had great re­spect for these fam­ily land­marks: “Cursed be he who re­moves his neigh­bor’s land­mark.” These stone mark­ers bore the priest’s ini­tials. Even trees, when ini­tialed, be­came pri­vate prop­erty.

69:9.14In early days only the crops were pri­vate, but suc­ces­sive crops con­ferred ti­tle; agri­cul­ture was thus the gen­e­sis of the pri­vate own­er­ship of land. In­di­vid­u­als were first given only a life tenure­ship; at death land re­verted to the tribe. The very first land ti­tles granted by tribes to in­di­vid­u­als were graves—fam­ily bury­ing grounds. In later times land be­longed to those who fenced it. But the cities al­ways re­served cer­tain lands for pub­lic pas­turage and for use in case of siege; these “com­mons” rep­re­sent the sur­vival of the ear­lier form of col­lec­tive own­er­ship.

69:9.15Even­tu­ally the state as­signed prop­erty to the in­di­vid­ual, re­serv­ing the right of tax­a­tion. Hav­ing made se­cure their ti­tles, land­lords could col­lect rents, and land be­came a source of in­come—cap­i­tal. Fi­nally land be­came truly ne­go­tiable, with sales, trans­fers, mort­gages, and fore­clo­sures.

69:9.16Pri­vate own­er­ship brought in­creased lib­erty and en­hanced sta­bil­ity; but pri­vate own­er­ship of land was given so­cial sanc­tion only af­ter com­mu­nal con­trol and di­rec­tion had failed, and it was soon fol­lowed by a suc­ces­sion of slaves, serfs, and land­less classes. But im­proved ma­chin­ery is grad­u­ally set­ting men free from slav­ish toil.

69:9.17The right to prop­erty is not ab­so­lute; it is purely so­cial. But all gov­ern­ment, law, or­der, civil rights, so­cial lib­er­ties, con­ven­tions, peace, and hap­pi­ness, as they are en­joyed by mod­ern peo­ples, have grown up around the pri­vate own­er­ship of prop­erty.

69:9.18The pres­ent so­cial or­der is not nec­es­sar­ily right—not di­vine or sa­cred—but man­kind will do well to move slowly in mak­ing changes. That which you have is vastly bet­ter than any sys­tem known to your an­ces­tors. Make cer­tain that when you change the so­cial or­der you change for the bet­ter. Do not be per­suaded to ex­per­i­ment with the dis­carded for­mu­las of your fore­fa­thers. Go for­ward, not back­ward! Let evo­lu­tion pro­ceed! Do not take a back­ward step.

69:9.19[Pre­sented by a Mel­chiz­e­dek of Neb­a­don.]