Property, capital, and production

Wagner nursed a profound hostility toward private property from his Young German days onwards. He was most impressed by Laube’s rejection of property, in Young Europe, which he described as ‘a reflection of Heinse’s Ardinghello’. ¹ This affection for Ardinghello would endure until the end of Wagner’s life; only months before his death, he would laud Heinse for ensuring, ‘when the blessed isles are founded, that the colonists decided not to allow property to intervene between them’. ² Property had been ‘bestowed almost greater sanctity in our national and social conscience than religion. ³ Looking back at the French Revolution, Proudhon had likewise commented: ‘The people finally legalised property. God forgive them, for they knew not what they did. For fifty years they have paid for their miserable folly.’ ⁴ And Rockel recalled the shops in Dresden, which, throughout the revolutions of 1848–49, had both proved and proclaimed the maxim: ‘Property is sacred.’ ⁵