Cit. Marx opened the discussion on the question: The Right to 
Inheritance. He said the question had been put by the Alliance of 
Socialist Democrats of Geneva and the Council had accepted it for 
discussion.* The Alliance of Geneva demanded above all the entire 
abolition of the Right to Inheritance. 

There were two forms of inheritance. The testamentary right, 
or inheritance by will, had come from Rome and had been 
peculiar to Rome. The father of the Roman family had exercised 
absolute authority over everything belonging to his household. | 
The Roman family-father must not be compared with the father 
of a family of the present day. The Roman household had 
included slaves and clients whose affairs and interests” the head 
had been obliged to defend and maintain in public. There had 
been a superstition that when this man died his ghost remained as 
a watch in the house to see that things were done right or to 
torment if things were managed wrong. In the early times of 
Rome people had sacrificed to this house-god; even blood-feasts 
had been celebrated in his honour and to appease his wrath.‘ By 
and by it had become fashionable. to compromise with this spirit by 
an heir-at-will. It had been the Roman immortality of the soul.“ 
The will of the deceased had been perpetuated by a testament, but 
this testament had not necessarily brought a fortune to the 

successor who inherited, but the will of the deceased had been 
looked upon as a religious duty. In course of time these 
heirs-at-will had laid claim to the fortune too, but even in imperial 
time had never been allowed more than a fourth by law.* That 
pagan superstition had been transmitted to Christian countries 
and” was the foundation of the right of will as at present emsung 
in England and the United States. 

The German right to inheritance was the intestate ee the 
family right, which treated an estate as a sort of co-proprietorship 
of which the father of the family was the manager. When this 
manager died the property fell to all the children. The Germans 
had known of no other hereditary rights; the Church of Rome 
had introduced the Roman right and the feudal system had 
falsified the German right, because feudal property bearing a 
military charge could not have been divided. The French 
Revolution had returned to the German right of inheritance. In 
England we had all sorts of nonsensical things; the individual had 
the most absolute right to will away his property, even to disinherit 
his own offspring, and by this rule long after he had ceased to 
‘exist.© This right of will might be left for the middle class to deal 
with as it was a point which would work against the aristocracy. In 
Prussia only a little of a man’s property could be willed away. 

The working class who had nothing to inherit had no interest in 
the question. 

The Democratic Alhance was going to commence the social 
would it be policy to do so? | 

The proposition was not new. St. Simon had proposed it in 
1830.7" 

As an economical measure it would avail nothing. It would cause 
so much irritation that it would be sure to raise an almost 
insurmountable opposition which would inevitably lead to reaction. 
If at the time of a revolution it was proclaimed, he did not believe 
that the general state of intelligence would warrant its being 
sustained. Besides, if the working class had sufficient power to 
abolish the right to inheritance, it would be powerful enough to 

proceed to expropriation which would be a much simpler and 
more efficient process. 

To abolish the right to the inheritance of land in England would 
involve the hereditary functions connected with the land, the 
House of Lords, etc., and 15,000 lords and 15,000 ladies would 
have to die before it became available. If, on the contrary, a 
working men’s parliament decreed that the rent should be paid 
into the treasury instead of to the landlord, the Government. 
would obtain a fund at once* without any social disturbance, while 
by abolishing the right to inheritance everything would be 
disturbed and nothing got. 

Our efforts must be directed to the end that no instruments of 
production should be private property. The private property in 
these things was a fiction, since the proprietors could not use them 
themselves; they only gave them dominion over them, by which 
they compelled other people to work for them. In a semi- 
barbarous state this might have been necessary, but it was no 
longer so. All the means of labour must be socialised, so that every 
man had a right and the means to exercise his labour power. If we 
had such a state of things the right to inheritance would be of no 
use. As long as we had not, the family right to inheritance could 
not be abolished. The chief aim of people in saving for their 
children was to ensure them the means of subsistence. If a man’s 
children. were provided for after his death he would not care 
about leaving them wherewith to get a living, but as long as this 
was not the case it would only result in hardships, it would irritate’ 
and frighten people and do no good. Instead of the beginning it 
could only be the end of a social revolution. The beginning must 
be to get the means to socialise the means of labour. 

The testamentary right to inheritance was obnoxious to the 
middle class; with this the state could safely interfere any time. We 
had legacy-duties already, all we had to do was to increase them 
and make them progressive, as well as the income-tax, leaving the 
smaller amounts, £50 for instance, free. Insofar only it was a 
working-class question. 

All that was connected with the present state of things would 
have to be transformed, but if testaments were suppressed they 
would be avoided by gifts during life, therefore it would be better 
to tolerate them on certain conditions than do worse. First the 

means for a transformed state of things must be got, then the 
right would disappear of itself.* 

IT 

Cit. Marx replied: if the state had the power to appropriate the 
land, inheritance was gone. To declare the abolition of inheritance 
would be foolish. If a revolution occurred, expropriation could be 
carried; if. there was no power to do that, the right to inheritance 
would not be abolished.