Summary 295 support the entire population, hard and never-ending toil is required. In sueh soeieties, both peasants and those who live from what the peasantry produee, i.e. the state administration, clergymen and the nobilitv, have one interest in common: to keep as much land as possible under the plough and to prevent land from lying fallow. The legal system of such societies will therefore favour those who use land in the appropriate manner, and it will pay comparatively little attention to those who desert their land or who do not themselves defend their rights. Societies with low levels of technology and productivity will be more favourably disposed towards rights based on use and labour, especially if they have a small population. But as technology begins to transform traditional agriculture, the legal system will slowly start to change. More advanced technology and other types of investment (such as enclosure) will demand capital, and owners will only be prepared to risk capital if they have complete security of tenure. Gradually, more attention will be paid to invested capital than to invested labour, especially if the population is also growing, making abandonment of land less likely. There are good reasons to classify seventeenth-century Sweden as a society of the former type, and nineteenth-century Sweden as a society of the latter type. It should come as little surprise, therefore, that in 1442 ancient usage was explicitly described as a legal entitlement, but that in 1826 it was regarded as something which might inspire people to commit criminal acts.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=