II.

Primitive Communism

Primitive communism designates a largely self-sufficient village economy where the basic tools of production, animals, land, etc., are the property of the community as a whole. The idea that individual private property is an impediment to a just society has led many writers to imagine a state of affairs without private ownership. Thus in the Republic by Plato the ruling class of guardian-philosophers live in a state of communism so that they may dedicate themselves to the pursuit of justice. Other classes are not so restricted. Communal ownership also characterizes the utopian societies imagined by Thomas More (1516, Utopia) and Tommaso Campanella (Civitas Solis, 1623; The City of the Sun). Similar depictions became common among socialist thinkers in the 18th and 19th centuries, for instance Charles Fourier and William Morris.