exerted constant pressure upon the Emperor. When another period of
drought and flood was capped by the appearance of a terrifying comet, the
Son of Heaven dismissed Wang An-shih, revoked his decrees, and called
the opposition to power.
The longest-lasting regime of socialism yet known to history was set up
by the Incas in what we now call Peru, at some time in the thirteenth
century. Basing their power largely on popular belief that the earthly
sovereign was the delegate of the Sun God, the Incas organized and
directed all agriculture, labor, and trade. A governmental census kept
account of materials, individuals, and income; professional “runners,”
using a remarkable system of roads, maintained the network of
communication indispensable to such detailed rule over so large a territory.
Every person was an employee of the state, and seems to have accepted this
condition cheerfully as a promise of security and food. This system endured
till the conquest of Peru by Pizarro [Pizarro, Francisco (1471-1541)] in
1533.
On the opposite slope of South America, in a Portuguese colony along
the Uruguay River, 150 Jesuits organized 200,000 Indians into another
socialistic society (c. 1620-1750). The ruling priests managed nearly all
agriculture, commerce, and industry. They allowed each youth to choose
among the trades they taught, but they required every able-bodied person to
work eight hours a day. They provided for recreation, arranged sports,
dances, and choral performances of a thousand voices, and trained
orchestras that played European music. They served also as teachers,
physicians, and judges, and devised a penal code that excluded capital
punishment. By all accounts the natives were docile and content, and when
the community was attacked it defended itself with an ardor and ability that
surprised the assailants. In 1750 Portugal ceded to Spain territory including
seven of the Jesuit settlements. A rumor having spread that the lands of
these colonies contained gold, the Spanish in America insisted on
immediate occupation; the Portuguese government under Pombal [Pombal,
