Primitive Communism [Archive]

ckaihatsu

20th February 2009, 14:39

God forbid.

And why were there chiefs in this 'pure communism'?

Exactly. Too many people, especially liberals / "progressives" / etc., *idolize* the Native American culture for being so perfect when in fact many of us in the modern world would look upon it as an endlessly unchanging hell. It may very well have continued in its same mode of existence for eternity if it had not been for the Western invaders -- not to say that Western *social ways* are in any way superior to those of any other, but the Europeans did bring with them improved technologies, like the horse, and, ultimately, incorporated {the remaining} Native Americans on an *individual basis* into the modern world, prejudiced and racist though it is....

The modern world allows for more individuality and freedom of self-determination than tribal life can provide, if only because of the range of technological implements available to the consumer. Many will argue with this interpretation of *freedom* or *progress* but I think the true verdict has been decided long ago, so it's not as controversial a statement as some would make it out to be.

I realized a few years ago that the well-known political spectrum of left-right is also a layout of historical progress, from the right-wing (backwardness, or most the distant historical past) to the left-wing (civilizational progress, or the best anticipated revolutionary society). This one-page diagram depicts this layout:

Ideologies & Operations

http://tinyurl.com/yqotq9

On this basis we can actually consider indigenous societies -- in a general sense -- to be quasi-* fascist *, because of the lack of progressive options, on the whole.

Yes, many tribal leaders had to implicitly have popular support, and yes, many tribes entered into larger confederations, but overall there was a de facto allegiance to kin and clan that was societally / materially determined, for *everyone* -- as inescapable as the ground and the sky.

We can call it 'primitive communism', or we might just as accurately call it 'primitive fascism' -- what good is a flatness of power if there's nowhere to go and nothing new to do anyway?

Chris

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-- Of all the Marxists in a roomful of people, I'm the Wilde-ist. --

John Lenin

20th February 2009, 22:44

"Only when the last tree has withered, the last fish has been caught, and the last river has been poisoned, will you realize you cannot eat money." ~ Cree Proverb

Vanguard1917

21st February 2009, 02:56

"Only when the last tree has withered, the last fish has been caught, and the last river has been poisoned, will you realize you cannot eat money." ~ Cree Proverb

A little 'proverb' i just made up: Without mass industrialised agriculture you can't feed a world of 6.5+ billion people.

John Lenin

26th February 2009, 23:06

Native American culture

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/30/l_48c23418b8cbfdc49d80ab6c2b20c80a.jpg

ex_next_worker

7th March 2009, 14:11

I dunno if you're aware of Marx's idea of history, where society goes through stages-
Primitive Communism > Slave Society > Feudalism > Capitalism > Socialism > communism

I'm not sure if you're aware, but history has shown societies which did not transit to capitalism, yet did to 'socialism'. So, put that nice idea into thrash.

Exactly. Too many people, especially liberals / "progressives" / etc., *idolize* the Native American culture for being so perfect when in fact many of us in the modern world would look upon it as an endlessly unchanging hell. It may very well have continued in its same mode of existence for eternity if it had not been for the Western invaders

What a fucking racist statement. I really can't believe my eyes that people actually think in the same identical way the colonialists thought of colonized people. You've obviously been educated on natives from John Wayne movies, and I'm probably understating it.

And don't even get me started on our dear friend Vanguard. God forbid we'd go "back", there's nothing outside of the growth (fetish)... well, except the millions of years of humanity without industry and 'worker managed' factories (and of course, the smart vanguardists who allow the stupid masses to do this! praise them!).

ckaihatsu

7th March 2009, 14:41

I'm not sure if you're aware, but history has shown societies which did not transit to capitalism, yet did to 'socialism'. So, put that nice idea into thrash.

You're referring here not to socialism, but to "socialism", right? I'm quite sure you meant to use double quotes, indicating a term that's less than accurate in meaning. More specifically you mean to use the term Stalinism, which was a monstrous counter-revolution of a bureaucratic elite.

Exactly. Too many people, especially liberals / "progressives" / etc., *idolize* the Native American culture for being so perfect when in fact many of us in the modern world would look upon it as an endlessly unchanging hell. It may very well have continued in its same mode of existence for eternity if it had not been for the Western invaders

What a fucking racist statement.

No, it's not a racist statement. I have no prejudice against Native Americans, people of color, or *any* culture or individuals whom I know nothing about in advance. I do not pre-judge.

Nor do I advocate any treatment of *any* section of society to be out-of-line with the treatment of society's members as a whole. I am not a racist.

What you're taking exception to is my * value judgment * about Native American (material) culture as a whole. I stand by my statement and note that it wasn't even due to anything that the Native Americans did -- it was about the *material circumstances* that they happened to be in.

I really can't believe my eyes that people actually think in the same identical way the colonialists thought of colonized people. You've obviously been educated on natives from John Wayne movies, and I'm probably understating it.

No, you're misunderstanding me, for the reasons above.

And don't even get me started on our dear friend Vanguard. God forbid we'd go "back", there's nothing outside of the growth (fetish)... well, except the millions of years of humanity without industry and 'worker managed' factories (and of course, the smart vanguardists who allow the stupid masses to do this! praise them!).

Revolutionaries, including vanguardists, do *not* have an "[economic] growth fetish", as you're suggesting. Again, you're misunderstanding. What *is* important is to *collectivize* the material improvements that technologized society has come up with, so that society *as a whole*, particularly workers, can take control and consciously decide *which* technologies to use, and *in what ways*.

bcbm

8th March 2009, 06:30

but the Europeans did bring with them improved technologies, like the horse, and, ultimately, incorporated {the remaining} Native Americans on an *individual basis* into the modern world, prejudiced and racist though it is....

Which turned out very well for most of them. Ever been to a reservation?

The modern world allows for more individuality and freedom of self-determination than tribal life can provide, if only because of the range of technological implements available to the consumer. Many will argue with this interpretation of *freedom* or *progress* but I think the true verdict has been decided long ago, so it's not as controversial a statement as some would make it out to be.

Work for one fucker or another for hours much longer than most gatherer-hunters worked so you can afford to buy lots of crap. Yeah, what freedom we have.

Vanguard1917

8th March 2009, 06:41

Work for one fucker or another for hours much longer than most gatherer-hunters worked so you can afford to buy lots of crap. Yeah, what freedom we have.

Do you like the idea of hunting and foraging for a large part of the day for your survival, not knowing how to read or write, not knowing anything about the world outside of the relatively tiny area in which you hunt and forage, and seeing 4 to 5 out of every 10 kids born around you die before the age of 15?

If so, build yourself a time machine and go back 15,000 years.

If you instead want to change society for the better by building on the achievements of past generations, stay.

bcbm

8th March 2009, 06:52

Do you like the idea of hunting and foraging for a large part of the day for your survival, not knowing how to read or write, not knowing anything about the world outside of the relatively tiny area in which you hunt and forage,

Gatherer-hunters had more leisure time than most people enjoy today, particularly in climates with more food resources. Reading and writing wouldn't matter if there were nothing to read, though some societies did develop means of communication in images and they probably actually knew a great deal about a wide range of area and peoples as that lifestyle requires near constant mobility as one area of land is used up. Certainly I don't prefer it (we've had this discussion before as you might recall) but the consistent lies used about indigenous peoples and their lifestyles before oh-so-wonderful Europeans came and saved them from themselves. :rolleyes:

If you instead want to change society for the better by building on the achievements of past generations, stay.

I fully intend to but that doesn't mean I have to accept that modern society is some great and free thing. We work more than almost any generation preceding us except those in the past 200 years and have relatively limited choices in how to spend our time, particularly in the sphere of work.

commyrebel

8th March 2009, 07:06

OK yes the Native Americans had a very good system that was almost perfect, and the colonist destroyed this. But to improve it you must create a communist country, then over time make changes in till there is no need for a system of leader or laws because everyone has no hate or despise and just enjoys a perfect life and in time there would be invention that would make it so there little to no work to be done and everyone just has fun(smokes out a little) ands just think about theories thats the perfect society

Vanguard1917

8th March 2009, 07:09

Gatherer-hunters had more leisure time than most people enjoy today, particularly in climates with more food resources.

Source? I think it would be more accurate to say that life in hunter gatherer societies involved daily stretches of backbreaking work in order to merely survive.

We work more than almost any generation preceding us

Actually, the empirical evidence shows the opposite; working times declined, and in some places halved, in the last century.

Reading and writing wouldn't matter if there were nothing to read, though some societies did develop means of communication in images and they probably actually knew a great deal about a wide range of area and peoples as that lifestyle requires near constant mobility as one area of land is used up.

Anything compared to the culture, education, cosmopolitanism and mobility which the modern world has enriched manking with?

Certainly I don't prefer it (we've had this discussion before as you might recall) but the consistent lies used about indigenous peoples and their lifestyles before oh-so-wonderful Europeans came and saved them from themselves.

Why should condemning European barbarism mean having to celebrate the backwardness and poverty of hunter gatherer societies?

bcbm

8th March 2009, 07:33

Source? I think it would be more accurate to say that life in hunter gatherer societies involved daily stretches of backbreaking work in order to merely survive.

Its the general anthropological consensus, detailed in (I believe) "The Original Affluent Society." Its been awhile since I bothered to give a shit about any of this so I don't feel a real need to spend too much effort, given that I've already agreed we need to move forward.

Actually, the empirical evidence shows the opposite; working times declined, and in some places halved, in the last century.

Odd you cut out the part pointing out that this is in comparison to the last 200 years. :rolleyes: Yes, working times have shortly halved in the last century... compared to workers during the beginning of the Indutrial revolution. Though not in much of the world.

Anything compared to the culture, education, cosmopolitanism and mobility which the modern world has enriched manking with?

Probably not but I wouldn't say that "impoverished" their lives since most of the world doesn't have the ability to enjoy those advances anyway. Those who do are a minor portion of the world population.

Why should condemning European barbarism mean having to celebrate the backwardness and poverty of hunter gatherer societies?

Something about championing the deaths of 200 million people because they got to be forced into slavery and be the continued subjects of genocidal ambitions and maybe get a TV and a car out of it seems perverse, sorry. Beyond that, its a vast exaggeration to say all of the indigenous populations were gatherer-hunters in the Americas anyway. The Aztec's capital made most European cities look pathetic and there were a wide range of cultures and lifestyles on those two continents, from gatherer-hunters to basic agricultural societies to cosmopolitan civilizations that could certainly rival their European counterparts beyond lacking firearms and deadly germs.

Hyacinth

8th March 2009, 09:11

Probably not but I wouldn't say that "impoverished" their lives since most of the world doesn't have the ability to enjoy those advances anyway. Those who do are a minor portion of the world population.
There is a world of difference between "doesn't have the ability to" and "don't". Everyone will concede the obvious observation that 5/6th of the world's population do not enjoy the benefits of modern science and technology, but to say that they don't have the ability to just doesn't make sense, we are well capable of providing the entire world's population with a rather reasonable standard of living, I'll need to look up the source of this, but I recall it being cited that everyone could live at a standard of 1970's East Germany, which would be a *huge* improvement for most of humanity, and this is just with the existing means of production and technology, not accounting for what could be attained with further advancement. The reason that 5/6th of the world don't enjoy this standard of living is systemic; it is due to capitalism, not an inherent feature of the technology, the benefits of which can be made widely available.

Something about championing the deaths of 200 million people because they got to be forced into slavery and be the continued subjects of genocidal ambitions and maybe get a TV and a car out of it seems perverse, sorry.
Who's championing any of this? Neither capitalism nor imperialism nor feudalism or any other class system is good, and all of them are quite brutal for anyone who doesn't happen to be a member of the ruling class. Unfortunately, if Marx was right, that is, if historical materialism is true, all of these class societies are necessary developmental stages that emerge out of the material conditions of a given time. Europe just happened to be slightly ahead of other parts of the world in certain areas of technology, i.e. military technology, which allowed it to dominate others areas ushering an era of European imperialism, and all the brutalities that came with it. But North America wouldn't have remained stagnant if Europeans hadn't intervened; it would have undergone, eventually, its own industrial revolution, developed homegrown capitalism, etc. You seem to presume that the choice was between idealized hunter-gatherer society and European imperialism, but the former was not on histories agenda, sooner or later development of the means of production, perhaps imported or imposed by the more developed Aztec civilization to the south, would have resulted in a colossal transformation of North American society, and accompanying that would have also come all the myriad of problems and costs associated with such development. It is an unfortunate, though unavoidable, part of history.

bcbm

8th March 2009, 11:36

There is a world of difference between "doesn't have the ability to" and "don't". Everyone will concede the obvious observation that 5/6th of the world's population do not enjoy the benefits of modern science and technology, but to say that they don't have the ability to just doesn't make sense, we are well capable of providing the entire world's population with a rather reasonable standard of living, I'll need to look up the source of this, but I recall it being cited that everyone could live at a standard of 1970's East Germany, which would be a *huge* improvement for most of humanity, and this is just with the existing means of production and technology, not accounting for what could be attained with further advancement. The reason that 5/6th of the world don't enjoy this standard of living is systemic; it is due to capitalism, not an inherent feature of the technology, the benefits of which can be made widely available.

Of course I believe that it is possible for all of humanity to have a decent standard of living but that isn't where we're at now and I don't think condemning huge portions of humanity to abject misery in the name of "progress" is something to be proud of or look fondly upon.

Who's championing any of this?

Others in this thread.

Unfortunately, if Marx was right, that is, if historical materialism is true, all of these class societies are necessary developmental stages that emerge out of the material conditions of a given time. Europe just happened to be slightly ahead of other parts of the world in certain areas of technology, i.e. military technology, which allowed it to dominate others areas ushering an era of European imperialism, and all the brutalities that came with it.

They didn't "just happen" to be at that point, it has to do with access to specific resources.

But North America wouldn't have remained stagnant if Europeans hadn't intervened; it would have undergone, eventually, its own industrial revolution, developed homegrown capitalism, etc.

This is speculation and speculation not backed up by real historical data, at that. Many societies developed agriculture, some didn't. Same with civilization. And so on. It is based on what existed where those societies existed and isn't just a matter of history pushing things forward. People have lived on Papua New Guinea for 40,000 years but they never developed beyond basic agriculture or gatherer-hunter societies because they lacked the specific resources to do so. Without European intervention they probably wouldn't have even had metal tools.

You seem to presume that the choice was between idealized hunter-gatherer society and European imperialism, but the former was not on histories agenda, sooner or later development of the means of production, perhaps imported or imposed by the more developed Aztec civilization to the south, would have resulted in a colossal transformation of North American society, and accompanying that would have also come all the myriad of problems and costs associated with such development. It is an unfortunate, though unavoidable, part of history.

I'm not idealizing anything, I think gatherer-hunter life was shit but it was certainly better than what imperialism brought and, no, I don't think such developments were inevitable given a lack of the things that allowed Europeans to get where they got. It wasn't one group developing faster for whatever reason, it was developments tied to specific resources available in specific areas that would most likely have never occurred had the people with those resources not struck out to conquer the rest of the world.

ex_next_worker

8th March 2009, 12:17

ckaihatsu

8th March 2009, 13:04

Gatherer-hunters had more leisure time than most people enjoy today, particularly in climates with more food resources. Reading and writing wouldn't matter if there were nothing to read, though some societies did develop means of communication in images and they probably actually knew a great deal about a wide range of area and peoples as that lifestyle requires near constant mobility as one area of land is used up. Certainly I don't prefer it (we've had this discussion before as you might recall) but the consistent lies used about indigenous peoples and their lifestyles before oh-so-wonderful Europeans came and saved them from themselves. :rolleyes:

I'm not idealizing anything, I think gatherer-hunter life was shit but it was certainly better than what imperialism brought

I [don't] have to accept that modern society is some great and free thing. We work more than almost any generation preceding us except those in the past 200 years and have relatively limited choices in how to spend our time, particularly in the sphere of work.

Which turned out very well for most [Native Americans]. Ever been to a reservation?

Work for one fucker or another for hours much longer than most gatherer-hunters worked so you can afford to buy lots of crap. Yeah, what freedom we have.

bcbm,

No one in this discussion can be accused of being a cultural chauvinist, myself included.

You've noted that you're not idealizing anything, either gatherer-hunter societies or modern, Western societies. You also note that industrialization caused historic oppression for Native Americans and renowned exploitation for the working class (which continues today in industrializing economies like China's).

At the same time we can't allow ourselves to fall into the trap of moralism -- it may sound like a strange assertion or accusation, but please hear me out. We have to acknowledge that the flipside of imperialism is -- paradoxically -- a certain democratization of privilege. The access to the fruits of industrial production, through consumerism, is the payoff -- if you will -- of modern society. While you may decide to remain culturally neutral, which is your right, it also happens to be an incorrect position.

Industrialism, even though it occured through the exploitative system of capitalism, has brought certain opportunities, like worldliness -- through mass education -- travel -- through the internal combustion engine -- communications -- through electricity, and so on. Many modern "consumer conveniences" are much more than "consumer" "conveniences", and actually enable a much more knowledgeable, almost god-like, state of existence for millions that would be otherwise unattainable.

It's easy to take this state of existence for granted when one is used to this mode of living, including use of the Internet. We need to be steadfast on the point that the rest of the world needs to be empowered to be raised up to this level. This means leaving behind *both* cultural chauvinism *and* moralism -- they are both time-wasters and we would do better to raise the floor for everyone rather than curse those who happen to be closer to the ceiling.

ckaihatsu

8th March 2009, 13:12

Neither capitalism nor imperialism nor feudalism or any other class system is good, and all of them are quite brutal for anyone who doesn't happen to be a member of the ruling class. Unfortunately, if Marx was right, that is, if historical materialism is true, all of these class societies are necessary developmental stages that emerge out of the material conditions of a given time.

But North America wouldn't have remained stagnant if Europeans hadn't intervened; it would have undergone, eventually, its own industrial revolution, developed homegrown capitalism, etc. You seem to presume that the choice was between idealized hunter-gatherer society and European imperialism, but the former was not on histories agenda, sooner or later development of the means of production, perhaps imported or imposed by the more developed Aztec civilization to the south, would have resulted in a colossal transformation of North American society, and accompanying that would have also come all the myriad of problems and costs associated with such development. It is an unfortunate, though unavoidable, part of history.

I don't think such developments were inevitable given a lack of the things that allowed Europeans to get where they got. It wasn't one group developing faster for whatever reason, it was developments tied to specific resources available in specific areas that would most likely have never occurred had the people with those resources not struck out to conquer the rest of the world.

Many societies developed agriculture, some didn't. Same with civilization. And so on. It is based on what existed where those societies existed and isn't just a matter of history pushing things forward. People have lived on Papua New Guinea for 40,000 years but they never developed beyond basic agriculture or gatherer-hunter societies because they lacked the specific resources to do so. Without European intervention they probably wouldn't have even had metal tools.

For whatever it's worth, I have to agree with bcbm here. I don't think we can say that Native American culture -- even the Aztecs -- would have *necessarily*, *automatically* made the paradigm shift to commodity production, in the absence of Western invasion. I'd welcome any arguments or links to information that back up your assertion, Hyacinth.

Vanguard1917

8th March 2009, 20:08

Its the general anthropological consensus, detailed in (I believe) "The Original Affluent Society." Its been awhile since I bothered to give a shit about any of this so I don't feel a real need to spend too much effort, given that I've already agreed we need to move forward.

It's not the consensus at all; it's been extensively criticised. For one thing, the hypothesis is based on an inadequate distinction between work and leisure. Read the criticisms of Hillard Kaplan, for example. From wikipedia:

"Kaplan points out that it can be difficult to distinguish between work and leisure in hunter-gatherer societies as members of these societies do not have jobs or employment. Lee did not include food preparation time in his study, arguing that "work" should be defined as the time spent gathering enough food for subsistence. But, Kaplan argues, if work is defined as mere subsistence, people in Western societies would do hardly any work at all (Kaplan, 2000:313). When work is seen as all life-sustaining activity, the !Kung will be observed as working for more than forty hours a week (about as much as a Westerner spends at their job alone) (Kaplan, 2000:308)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society

Odd you cut out the part pointing out that this is in comparison to the last 200 years. :rolleyes: Yes, working times have shortly halved in the last century... compared to workers during the beginning of the Indutrial revolution. Though not in much of the world.

While it's true that working times saw a sharp rise at the early stages of industrialisation, you'd find that today's average worker in the West has a significantly shorter working day than, say, the average farmer in the middle ages.

Probably not but I wouldn't say that "impoverished" their lives since most of the world doesn't have the ability to enjoy those advances anyway. Those who do are a minor portion of the world population.

Yes, so we should try to change society so that everyone can benefit from the best that human society has to offer.

It's as a result of poverty that those people can't.

Something about championing the deaths of 200 million people

No one's doing that.

Beyond that, its a vast exaggeration to say all of the indigenous populations were gatherer-hunters in the Americas anyway.

I didn't say that they were. We're talking about the backwardness and impoverishment of hunter gatherer societies, not American slave societies (Aztecs). Those are two different kinds of social organisation.

The Aztec's capital made most European cities look pathetic and there were a wide range of cultures and lifestyles on those two continents, from gatherer-hunters to basic agricultural societies to cosmopolitan civilizations that could certainly rival their European counterparts beyond lacking firearms and deadly germs.

Why do you feel the need to romanticise non-European societies? The Aztec civilisation was a society founded on slavery and war, not some kind of rural idyll where there weren't any diseases or bad people.

Hyacinth

8th March 2009, 20:39

For whatever it's worth, I have to agree with bcbm here. I don't think we can say that Native American culture -- even the Aztecs -- would have *necessarily*, *automatically* made the paradigm shift to commodity production, in the absence of Western invasion. I'd welcome any arguments or links to information that back up your assertion, Hyacinth.
I don't buy into the European exceptionalism thesis which states that there was something special about Europe which allowed it to undergo industrialization when the rest of the world failed to do so. This is a subject that has been addressed by historians and anthropologists before, the best overview is to be found in Chris Harman's A People's History of the World, which is one of the few works I am familiar with that tries to analyze pre-industrial non-European societies from a Marxist perspective. Harman provides compelling evidence and arguments to the effect that China (twice) and the Islamic world almost underwent industrialization long before Europe, as well as provides accounts of why they failed to do so given the existence of the necessary material conditions for the development of modern industry and capitalism.

History doesn't operate deterministically, of course, but it does make certain outcomes more or less likely; as far as the resources are concerned, sufficient resources existed in North America to permit for industrialization, as was evidenced by the fact that later, under European rule, America became one of the leading industrial nations. This isn't to say that the Aztecs or other Native Americans would have followed an identical developmental path, but I fail to see what makes them so exceptional that they wouldn't have followed the same trends as the rest of the world. This is not, of course, to claim that anyone anywhere will follow this developmental path; the examples given are indeed counterexamples insofar as the peoples cited did not reside in an area where the material conditions were suitable for this developmental path, but North America is not one such region, if anything the resources available are ripe for capitalist development.

Plagueround

8th March 2009, 20:52

I'm going to keep my reply to this thread short. I've done so much defending of native americans on this site and never really thought I'd have to outside of OI.

1. Fuck any and all of you conflating native american life with primitivism. It is not the same thing at all. By the time of european contact, most native americans were not even hunter-gatherers. Anyone confusing the two has not done their homework, rendering most replies in this thread invalid.

2. The ignorance in this thread regarding native american innovation, inventions, and progress is astounding. Native Americans were developing along their own lines and were far ahead of europeans in some areas (and yes, behind in others). The contributions to agriculture, in particular, are recognized to this day as important to the development of humankind on a global scale...which is why referring to them as primitivists with static development is so wrong.

3. Anyone trying to take the often complex and differing (and often very democratic) governance of tribes and reduce them to a simple "chief as a king" system needs to shut the fuck up and do a bit more reading before they post another word in this thread. Yes, the native americans by no means represent the primitive communism Marx was referring to, but they were not "quasi-fascist". Fuck.

4. ckaihatsu in particular:

Do not pretend for a second your analysis is an educated one. It's not. At all.

ComradeOm

8th March 2009, 21:41

The ignorance in this thread regarding native american innovation, inventions, and progress is astounding. Native Americans were developing along their own lines and were far ahead of europeans in some areas (and yes, behind in others). The contributions to agriculture, in particular, are recognized to this day as important to the development of humankind on a global scale...which is why referring to them as primitivists with static development is so wrongOut of curiosity, do you have any examples of these advances? I ask because the one 'native' civilisation that I am remotely familiar with is the Aztecs, who, despite some impressive engineering feats, were essentially a stone/bronze age society at the time of contact with Europeans

Vanguard1917

8th March 2009, 21:44

I don't buy into the European exceptionalism thesis which states that there was something special about Europe which allowed it to undergo industrialization when the rest of the world failed to do so.

That's what needs to be emphasised here. Europe was not found at the forefront of world development at a certain stage in world history because of any superiority of European people, but because of certain historical circumstances.

Those who are bordering on romanticising non-European societies seem to be essentially accepting some of the arguments of those European colonialists who insisted that the people of Europe were innately different from the native peoples. From an objective, historical perspective, however, we know that Europe and America developed differently as a result of historical factors, not because of any innate differences of the peoples involved.

Plagueround

8th March 2009, 21:48

Out of curiosity, do you have any examples of these advances? I ask because the one 'native' civilisation that I am remotely familiar with is the Aztecs, who, despite some impressive engineering feats, were essentially a stone/bronze age society at the time of contact with Europeans

Massive agricultural progress and advanced understanding of plant breeding not seen in Europe until Mendel, Iron working and the ability to work with platinum centuries before Europe figured it out, the invention of the wheel (although American terrain was generally not suited for it or they lacked domesticatable animals, so it was only used for toys, they relied on more suitable means of transportation), and of course common everyday items that have been modified like parkas, snowshoes, etc.

There were also several innovations that many tribes had that were on par with European development. I should point out that I am by no means trying to turn this into a "native americans were better" debate, because although I am one, I am not trying to make my ancestors into something they were not. However, I will reject the notion that they were "behind" because this is a vulgar, linear, and uninformed view of history. I simply find that most people know so little about native americans that they fall back to one of the two stereotypes, the ignoble or noble savage. Both still fall into the fallacy of defining an entire continent of people on European terms.

Which is why statements like this are, no matter how much one tries to cover them up, ignorant at best, ethnocentric and racist at worst.

in fact many of us in the modern world would look upon it as an endlessly unchanging hell.

what good is a flatness of power if there's nowhere to go and nothing new to do anyway?

On this basis we can actually consider indigenous societies -- in a general sense -- to be quasi-* fascist *, because of the lack of progressive options, on the whole.

bcbm

9th March 2009, 08:31

bcbm,

No one in this discussion can be accused of being a cultural chauvinist, myself included.

I find suggesting that imperialism has been good for indigenous peoples to be a fairly chauvinist position. It has given them access to some consumer good and other things but the lives of many indigenous people have not been improved. Some exist slightly better than they did when Europeans arrived, others live a "modern" life but are certainly on the edges of it and the victims of prejudice and genocide.

At the same time we can't allow ourselves to fall into the trap of moralism -- it may sound like a strange assertion or accusation, but please hear me out. We have to acknowledge that the flipside of imperialism is -- paradoxically -- a certain democratization of privilege. The access to the fruits of industrial production, through consumerism, is the payoff -- if you will -- of modern society. While you may decide to remain culturally neutral, which is your right, it also happens to be an incorrect position.Nobody will enjoy the fruits of anything truly until we've torn down the bosses and completely "democratized" the means of production in all societies. I don't think murder and near-slavery is a necessary stepping stone in that process.

Industrialism, even though it occured through the exploitative system of capitalism, has brought certain opportunitiesTo whom?
----

It's not the consensus at all; it's been extensively criticised. For one thing, the hypothesis is based on an inadequate distinction between work and leisure. Read the criticisms of Hillard Kaplan, for example.Like I said, I don't really give a shit. The point remains such a lifestyle seems preferable to genocide.

Yes, so we should try to change society so that everyone can benefit from the best that human society has to offer.
I've never said otherwise.

While it's true that working times saw a sharp rise at the early stages of industrialisation, you'd find that today's average worker in the West has a significantly shorter working day than, say, the average farmer in the middle ages.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html

Why do you feel the need to romanticise non-European societies? The Aztec civilisation was a society founded on slavery and war, not some kind of rural idyll where there weren't any diseases or bad people.How is pointing out that a wide range of societies existed in the Americas when we're discussing their colonization romanticizing anything? You can read the accounts of the Europeans who arrived at the Aztec capital; they were impressed and history shows that they did have some advances over Europeans. I never said it was some fucking wonderland- you're just pulling things out of your ass.

I don't buy into the European exceptionalism thesis which states that there was something special about Europe which allowed it to undergo industrialization when the rest of the world failed to do so.Its not European exceptionalism, its history and luck. And there were special things about Europe that allowed it to develop the way it did, namely the resources, crops and animals it had access to.

---

That's what needs to be emphasised here. Europe was not found at the forefront of world development at a certain stage in world history because of any superiority of European people, but because of certain historical circumstances.

Those who are bordering on romanticising non-European societies seem to be essentially accepting some of the arguments of those European colonialists who insisted that the people of Europe were innately different from the native peoples. From an objective, historical perspective, however, we know that Europe and America developed differently as a result of historical factors, not because of any innate differences of the peoples involved.Nobody is suggesting Europeans were in any way superior. Try to prove otherwise. What I was talking about was resources and their distribution and absolutely nothing about one people's superiority over another. You're really stretching it this time.

Bilan

9th March 2009, 11:35

BCBM, I don't know why you're arguing with Vanguard. You know, when someone says you're poor because you can't read and write and not knowing anything in general is exactly the same as saying to someone he doesn't know life because he doesn't have a Jaguar.

At the same time, he's just schizoprenically advocating some nonsense idea about how much work primitive people have. I mean, there's no point in arguing when he's ignoring any resource which counters him (Sahlins's essay being an example and believe me this is not an isolated example).

Bottom line is he's doesn't have any connection to the real world and I'm not surprised his ideas of the labouring Westerner are great and the labour day is short and enjoyable and healthy and whatnot. This is just refusal of the contact with reality.

Everyone appreciates the sensitivity of this issue, but this type of posting is not appropriate.
Please, you are completely welcomed and urged to argument your position - but please do it in a respectful manner, and with posts of substance, rather than stating your opponents are "schizophrenic", or treating them as racist.
That goes for all of you.

ex_next_worker

9th March 2009, 12:30

1.) It is racist to say that a culture is miserable because it does not incorporate commodities into its cultural practices.

2.) I may have been a bit harsh with the schizophrenia thing. Sorry for that.

Bilan

9th March 2009, 13:05

1.) It is racist to say that a culture is miserable because it does not incorporate commodities into its cultural practices.

Where did he say that?

ex_next_worker

9th March 2009, 13:55

Exactly. Too many people, especially liberals / "progressives" / etc., *idolize* the Native American culture for being so perfect when in fact many of us in the modern world would look upon it as an endlessly unchanging hell. It may very well have continued in its same mode of existence for eternity if it had not been for the Western invaders -- not to say that Western *social ways* are in any way superior to those of any other, but the Europeans did bring with them improved technologies, like the horse, and, ultimately, incorporated {the remaining} Native Americans on an *individual basis* into the modern world, prejudiced and racist though it is....

The modern world allows for more individuality and freedom of self-determination than tribal life can provide, if only because of the range of technological implements available to the consumer. Many will argue with this interpretation of *freedom* or *progress* but I think the true verdict has been decided long ago, so it's not as controversial a statement as some would make it out to be.

I realized a few years ago that the well-known political spectrum of left-right is also a layout of historical progress, from the right-wing (backwardness, or most the distant historical past) to the left-wing (civilizational progress, or the best anticipated revolutionary society). This one-page diagram depicts this layout:

On this basis we can actually consider indigenous societies -- in a general sense -- to be quasi-* fascist *, because of the lack of progressive options, on the whole.
Do you like the idea of hunting and foraging for a large part of the day for your survival, not knowing how to read or write, not knowing anything about the world outside of the relatively tiny area in which you hunt and forage, and seeing 4 to 5 out of every 10 kids born around you die before the age of 15?
I can draw all kinds of paralels here with imperialist thinking which coincides perfectly with this train of thought. I'm not sure whether you can put your Marxist lenses away and look at it from another angle, but for many who try to view the world through non-Western eyes, it is humiliating and disgraceful to call someone backwards, an unfreed slave of nature or whatever these Hobbesians try to point out about people who either do not know (or reject as is sometimes the case) the institutions of industriality, commodities, etc..

Bilan

9th March 2009, 14:10

I can draw all kinds of parallels here with imperialist thinking which coincides perfectly with this train of thought. I'm not sure whether you can put your Marxist lenses away and look at it from another angle, but for many who try to view the world through non-Western eyes, it is humiliating and disgraceful to call someone backwards, an unfreed slave of nature or whatever these Hobbesians try to point out about people who either do not know (or reject as is sometimes the case) the institutions of industriality, commodities, etc..

Yes, but see, nothing you've said here contradicts whats being said. What you're doing is slandering him by labeling him "racist", and insisting he is apologizing for "imperialism" without any sort of concrete analysis of why that is "racist", or how what he is saying is wrong.
Being politically correct is not an analysis of history.

You also deliberately didn't bold things which contradicted what you said about him. Primarily, this: "not to say that Western *social ways* are in any way superior to those of any other".

Now, furthermore, "primitive economic modes" - Primitive relating to less developed, and historical modes of production, the negative connotations are unfortunate, but not relevant; and in this case, we're referring explicitly to hunter-gather societies, of which it is utterly absurd to argue were not ' less developed' than Capitalism - should be understood for what they were, and not through political correctness.

Anyhow, I'm just asking you to substantiate your position, rather than making accusations.

ex_next_worker

9th March 2009, 14:43

You also deliberately didn't bold things which contradicted what you said about him. Primarily, this: "not to say that Western *social ways* are in any way superior to those of any other".Partially because he contradicted himself (i.e. if I think of myself as a non-fascist and judge indigenous people as proto-fascist but later state my society is not superior.. well, I guess there's a problem with logic here, you can't conflate all of it), partially because his (contradictory, for me) observations do not render the biased arguments in any way justified or improved.

The observation of backwardness doesn't come out of the blue, it comes from a ethnocentric point of view. He's obviously speaking about a group of people, an indigenous group who posess such and such characteristics (not historically progressive) and we who are historically progressive ("though obviously not superior").

Bilan

9th March 2009, 14:50

Are you trying to argue a more developed and complex economic system, which evolved out of less developed economic systems, is more "backward" than a hunter-gather system? Capitalism war born out of the decaying body of Feudal society, its predecessor, and emerged because of the development of production, which allowed for the production of surplus, and in turn, created the basis for commodity production (crudely worded as "primitive commodity production").

It's not a moralist, or political position, but an analysis of economic systems.

ex_next_worker

9th March 2009, 14:59

No, I don't think industrial societies are more backward because I can't measure backwardness in either of the cases. It is simply a construct that observes society from one angle and completely ignores all others.

Bilan

9th March 2009, 15:10

What part does it ignore? And how does it ignore it?
Especially considering that primitive communism identifies an economic mode.

ckaihatsu

9th March 2009, 15:32

In the interest of clarification:

- I am strictly speaking to material circumstances, which do not in any way reflect on the ways or mores of indigenous people themselves or indigenous culture itself.

- I will defer on detailed knowledge about Native American societies. It is outside the scope of this conversation for me to respond to the particulars of the many and varied types of political configurations used by Native American societies. Allow me to note that their overall political options were constrained by the limitations of their material existence.

History doesn't operate deterministically, of course, but it does make certain outcomes more or less likely; as far as the resources are concerned, sufficient resources existed in North America to permit for industrialization, as was evidenced by the fact that later, under European rule, America became one of the leading industrial nations.

This is a spurious line of argument. Industrialization in North America was *entirely due to* its adoption from European trends.

This isn't to say that the Aztecs or other Native Americans would have followed an identical developmental path, but I fail to see what makes them so exceptional that they wouldn't have followed the same trends as the rest of the world.

Off the top of my head, and without doing special research, I'd like to suggest that the material politics (superstructure) of Native American / Mesoamerican societies were nowhere nearly as contentious as European rivalries were. I'll tentatively suggest that there were no incentives towards the innovation of new tools and/or methods for increasing agricultural yields, or any other kind of productivity enhancements. The ruling class hierarchies that existed seem to have been quite entrenched, leaving little leeway for a spark of political or technological upheaval, as occured in Northern Europe in the 13th century.

This is not, of course, to claim that anyone anywhere will follow this developmental path; the examples given are indeed counterexamples insofar as the peoples cited did not reside in an area where the material conditions were suitable for this developmental path, but North America is not one such region, if anything the resources available are ripe for capitalist development.

I'm sure the *material* conditions could have supported the development of agricultural innovations -- to give rise to a commonly available surplus -- but I doubt that the *political* conditions existed to facilitate the same.

Vanguard1917

9th March 2009, 15:34

I can draw all kinds of paralels here with imperialist thinking which coincides perfectly with this train of thought. I'm not sure whether you can put your Marxist lenses away and look at it from another angle, but for many who try to view the world through non-Western eyes, it is humiliating and disgraceful to call someone backwards, an unfreed slave of nature or whatever these Hobbesians try to point out about people who either do not know (or reject as is sometimes the case) the institutions of industriality, commodities, etc..

Firstly, that quote is not from me. I obviously disagree with the 'quasi-fascist' characterisation of Native American life, but i also equally disagree with your idealistic and philistine attempts to romanticise backward societies.

Plagueround

9th March 2009, 21:47

I'll tentatively suggest that there were no incentives towards the innovation of new tools and/or methods for increasing agricultural yields, or any other kind of productivity enhancements.

And I'd not so tentatively suggest you are wrong. If you admit you don't know the details of native american society, then it's time to say "I don't know" instead of continuing your half baked and flawed analysis.

The ruling class hierarchies that existed seem to have been quite entrenched, leaving little leeway for a spark of political or technological upheaval, as occured in Northern Europe in the 13th century.

Yet, you don't know anything about the structures of various tribes.

I'm sure the *material* conditions could have supported the development of agricultural innovations -- to give rise to a commonly available surplus -- but I doubt that the *political* conditions existed to facilitate the same.

Am I reading what you're saying correctly? The political conditions weren't available to facilitate the development of agricultural innovations?

Native americans were not hunter-gathers at the time of contact. Their agricultural innovations and surpluses were what kept the explorers and colonies from starvation.

Led Zeppelin

10th March 2009, 18:41

To get back to the original post; when Marx and Engels used the term "primitive communism" they weren't idealizing such a "communism", they were merely stating the fact that there had been classless "societies" before the advent of private property and commodity exchange:

I would first limit them historically by explicitly restricting them to the economic phase in which alone value has up to now been known, and could only have been known, namely, the forms of society in which commodity exchange, or commodity production, exists; in primitive communism value was unknown.
Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/letters/95_03_11.htm)

The reason they called such societies "communist" was because they were self-sufficient and, to a large degree, egalitarian. Within the limits of their own level of development there was no scarcity; everyone in the community received an equal share of whatever was produced (or gathered) by the community. Of course, out of this logically arises a surplus when the means of production develop, which in turn results in some people getting more than others, and which gives rise to private property etc.

In early communal societies in which primitive communism prevailed, and even in the ancient communal towns, it was this communal society itself with its conditions which appeared as the basis of production, and its reproduction appeared as its ultimate purpose.
Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch48.htm)

Vincent P.

10th March 2009, 22:56

Here in South Pacific there is "primitive communism" as well. I saw it with my own eyes in Vanuatu.
As a matter of fact as soon as there is a white man involved (white people - 20% of the pop - own about 80-85% of the financial ressources) there is some of the worst capitalistic exploitation I ever seen. But money don't go much further than the 2 largest city: as soon as you leave them a communistic economy based on subsistance farming rules, and it works extremely well considering the ressources they have. Most of the children are schooled because the tribe has a common bank account from the kava and coconut exportation (inside the tribe money is absolutly useless) and when one needs health care or if the tribe needs new solar pannels they use this money.

This trip to Vanuatu last year has been one of the most important event in my conversion to communism.

Vincent P.

10th March 2009, 23:03

It is the same in New Caledonia (where I am right now) although it tends to disappear :/. Still, in the "loyalty island" and in the north province that's how it works.

Hope it will survive o_o.

Vanguard1917

11th March 2009, 18:52

But money don't go much further than the 2 largest city: as soon as you leave them a communistic economy based on subsistance farming rules.

Subsistence farming is a product of poverty and lack of development, which is why it overwhelmingly takes place in poor countries. It entails arduous work, which in more advanced societies can be done with machines and modern cultivation methods which radically increase output and free people from backbreaking agricultural labour.

Agricultural production under communism will not be based on 'subsistence farming rules', but on mass, mechanised farming, using the most advanced methods and technology available -- to produce an abundance of output.

Subsistence farming is nothing to romaticise or celebrate. I certainly don't 'hope it will survive'.

Vincent P.

11th March 2009, 21:21

Subsistence farming is a product of poverty and lack of development, which is why it overwhelmingly takes place in poor countries. It entails arduous work, which in more advanced societies can be done with machines and modern cultivation methods which radically increase output and free people from backbreaking agricultural labour.

Agricultural production under communism will not be based on 'subsistence farming rules', but on mass, mechanised farming, using the most advanced methods and technology available -- to produce an abundance of output.

Subsistence farming is nothing to romaticise or celebrate. I certainly don't 'hope it will survive'.

Manioc and everything growing in Vanuatu is almost growing of its own, the volcanic earth being so fertile that they hardly need any deforestation or tillage. Now this may sound romanticized, but I was as surprised as you are before I asked them when I saw their "field". Of course I'm more than aware that this isn't the case everywhere.
If Vanuatese people don't have mechanized farming, that's because they don't need it, and even if they needed it they wouldn't have it. My point wasn't to romanticize subsistence farming, which is more a necessity than a choice, but to show that this communistic system helped them survive in an environment where capitalism among themselves would have killed them.

himalayanspirit

14th March 2009, 16:36

In my opinion, native American culture purely represented communism. There was no concept of paper money. There was no individual land ownership. People worked as a community.

Pawn Power

17th March 2009, 16:48

It's not the consensus at all; it's been extensively criticised. For one thing, the hypothesis is based on an inadequate distinction between work and leisure.

Actually, while there has been dissenters, archeological and anthropological evidence has largely pointed to confirming what BCBM said. In many hunter and gatherer societies, there was much more 'leisure' time then what many workers experience today. When game was so easily found, one large hunt bye a few people could produce ample food for a week. Now this isn't an argument that we should revert to such I state of living, for one thing we coulden't because of the current state of the ecosystem (plus, I don't really want to hunt for food). However, we can recognize the actaully history of these societies without fetishizing them.

17th March 2009, 17:06

Actually, while there has been dissenters, archeological and anthropological evidence has largely pointed to confirming what BCBM said. In many hunter and gatherer societies, there was much more 'leisure' time then what many workers experience today. When game was so easily found, one large hunt bye a few people could produce ample food for a week. Now this isn't an argument that we should revert to such I state of living, for one thing we coulden't because of the current state of the ecosystem (plus, I don't really want to hunt for food). However, we can recognize the actaully history of these societies without fetishizing them.

This is also why many hunter-gatherer societies did not switch to farming right away; in the first days of farming it was actually more work in many cases than hunting-gathering. Many societies implemented farming as a supplement to hunting-gathering at first, and many didn't even implement it until they were conquered by farming societies.

PeaderO'Donnell

18th March 2009, 11:47

I dunno if you're aware of Marx's idea of history, where society goes through stages-
Primitive Communism > Slave Society > Feudalism > Capitalism > Socialism > communism

I believe this is a good theory. Society has developed so much, the only way is forward. We cant go back to that kind of primitive communism. We have to develope society further, into a developed state of communism (which will be a lot better)

No its a eurocentric theory based on the old idea of Ancient, Mediaeval and than Modern which is wrong...there is little continuity between the "Classical" Greco-Roman civilization and the one that arose in the west in the wake of the barbarian invasions with Charlemange and the Franks. The idea of the linear development of humanity is a myth.

"The a priori universal rationality of capitalism can be demystified only when we begin to seriously question the unilinear scheme of human evolution and also the notion that the capitalist mode of production has been progressive for all countries."

Jacques Camatte

Led Zeppelin

18th March 2009, 16:06

No its a eurocentric theory based on the old idea of Ancient, Mediaeval and than Modern which is wrong...there is little continuity between the "Classical" Greco-Roman civilization and the one that arose in the west in the wake of the barbarian invasions with Charlemange and the Franks. The idea of the linear development of humanity is a myth.

"The a priori universal rationality of capitalism can be demystified only when we begin to seriously question the unilinear scheme of human evolution and also the notion that the capitalist mode of production has been progressive for all countries."

Jacques Camatte

The idea of the linear development was based on societies that already did linearly develop to that specific historical stage. So when Marx and Engels were describing the "stages", they were describing the stages of societies that already went through them. Obviously the stages would be different in different areas of the world, because development doesn't take place with the same degree and simultaneously.

For example, North America certainly didn't follow the same linear development as Western-Europe. Marx and Engels took account of this and never claimed that every society had to go through a certain historical stage at a certain period of time before being able to go to the next.

Sorry if this sounds a bit confusing, but allow me to quote someone who can explain it better than I ever could:

It is nonsense to say that stages cannot in general be skipped. The living historical process always makes leaps over isolated ‘stages’ which derive from theoretical breakdown into its component parts of the process of development in its entirety, that is, taken in its fullest scope.

[...]

Marx’s breakdown of the development of industry into handicraft, manufacture and factory is part of the ABC of political economy, or more precisely, of historico-economic theory. In Russia, however, the factory came by skipping over the epoch of manufacture and of urban handicrafts. This is already among the syllables of history. An analogous process took place in our country in class relationships and in politics. The modern history of Russia cannot be comprehended unless the Marxist schema of the three stages is known: handicraft, manufacture, factory. But if one knows only this, one still comprehends nothing. For the fact is that the history of Russia – Stalin should not take this personally – skipped a few stages. The theoretical distinction of the stages, however, is necessary for Russia, too, otherwise one can comprehend neither what this leap amounted to nor what its consequences were.

The matter can also be approached from another side (just as Lenin occasionally approached the dual power), and it can be said that Russia went through all three of Marx’s stages – the first two, however, in an extremely telescoped, embryonic form. These ‘rudiments’, the stages of handicraft and manufacture – merely outlined in dots, so to speak – suffice to confirm the genetic unity of the economic process. Nevertheless, the quantitative contraction of the two stages was so great that it engendered an entirely new quality in the whole social structure of the nation.
Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/tpr/pr06.htm)

Lacrimi de Chiciură

26th March 2009, 00:41

I'm actually shocked by the amount of racist filth and cultural chauvinism pouring out of people's posts in response to the OP. I think this thread was meant to be a statement of respect for the innovations of an oppressed social group, American Indian people, not an endorsement of the destruction of technology.

YSR

26th March 2009, 08:13

Holy anthropology, Batman! A lot of posters in this thread would do well to actually know something about the history of culture before just throwing down assertions. like, for instance: Not all Native American tribes are/were the same! In terms of the development of different types of societies, they were all over the place.

Just to follow up what Zeppelin say, and also bring another perspective, I will quote Marvin Harris' The Rise of Anthropological Theory at length. In this passage, Harris calls on the Grundrisse to say something actually quite more radical than Trotsky's position: Not only can specific "stages" of his model be skipped, but they are not unilineal. There are a variety of differing paths that any given culture can take in its development, much more complicated than the sort of vulgar (and anthropologically abusurd) model of the whole primitive communism-slavery-feudalism-capitalism-socialism-communism scheme. (Not to mention his Asiatic mode of production, which isn't even mentioned here.)

However, in 1939-41 a manuscript written by Marx in preparation for The Critique of Political Economy was published under the title Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Okonomie (Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy). This work, composed in 1857-58, contained a section, entitled "Formen," dealing with precapitalist economic formations which has now become the most important source of information concerning Marx's evolutionary periodization.
In the "Formen," the transition from the stage of tribal economic types is definitely presented as following a number of different routes, apparently dictated by local conditions, the nature of which remains disappointingly obscure. Specifically identified are the oriental, with a Slavonic-Rumanian variant, the ancient, and the Germanic. Marx makes it clear that all of these fonns of property and production may progress into feudalism, although with different probabilities. Thus the stereotyped interpretation of Marx as a unilinear evolutionist is...defective[.]

I don't think we should take Marx as the be-all of anthropology. The fact is that he was living in an age that predated modern anthropological practice in many ways, including a terrible dearth of actual data about primitive societies. But this stance is considerably more nuanced than the "vulgar evolutionism" that is often considered Marx's position. Equally, though Vanguard1984's assertions about Marshall Sahlin's work being "controversial" or whatever he said are predictably overstated, I think BCBM overrelies on him.

What Sahlins says in the Original Affluent Society doesn't necessarily contradict what Marx and other evolutionist-minded thinkers say, that societies can "evolve" in a variety of ways, depending on a variety of factors. Sahlins simply states that this evolution is not neccessarily evolution in a positive direction. What that evolution looks like and what it brings are all debatable. I think it's a difficult position to argue that those in different (read: earlier/inferior in the language of evolutionism, which tends to posit the current society of the speaker as the "most developed," certainly a chauvanist perspective if there ever was one) types of societies should be wherever we are at too just because Marx said so. Or because a host of other bourgeois thinkers said so too, actually. It's anthropological data, not assertions that capitalism is better just because we have more stuff, that can answer that question.

Just because an economy or society has a different level of energy input/output than capitalism doesn't make it inferior. To say so would be to fall into the worst of determinist traps that masquerade as materialism and end up, as some have implicitly done in this thread, supporting acts of violence on a scale previously unknown to the world in the name of "progress."

Cumannach

27th March 2009, 12:20

Just because an economy or society has a different level of energy input/output than capitalism doesn't make it inferior. To say so would be to fall into the worst of determinist traps that masquerade as materialism and end up, as some have implicitly done in this thread, supporting acts of violence on a scale previously unknown to the world in the name of "progress."

I agree with what you said about social evolution being more complex and non-linear.

What you said above is true to a certain extent but doesn't take into account the fact that, other than in the most 'primitive' societies, exploitation of man by man tends always to exist, and often, if not almost always, exists on a grand scale. Capitalism produces the conditions for the evolution of a society without exploitation and the rule of minorities. In this sense it is 'progressive'. But American Capitalism didn't require the extermination of it's Native population anymore than Japanese Capitalism did. By which I mean, for Capitalism to become the mode of production in America, it didn't neccesarily require the vast genocides of Indigenous peoples, and so there can be no defense for that, even allowing for Capitalism being progressive.

YSR

27th March 2009, 23:53

What you said above is true to a certain extent but doesn't take into account the fact that, other than in the most 'primitive' societies, exploitation of man by man tends always to exist, and often, if not almost always, exists on a grand scale. Capitalism produces the conditions for the evolution of a society without exploitation and the rule of minorities. In this sense it is 'progressive'. But American Capitalism didn't require the extermination of it's Native population anymore than Japanese Capitalism did. By which I mean, for Capitalism to become the mode of production in America, it didn't neccesarily require the vast genocides of Indigenous peoples, and so there can be no defense for that, even allowing for Capitalism being progressive.

I think you're accidentally committing a kind of idealist error here. Capitalism is not an ideal Platonic Form, which exists out there in the ether as an idea unconnected from reality, and then we humans have gone about and created versions of it that, regrettably, involve massive violence and oppression. Capitalism is a system, complex and contradictory, that presents itself in a variety of different forms in different times and locations. All but the most orthodox leftists would consider China to be functionally capitalist today, but its form of capitalism differs tremendously from that of, say, the United States.

So first, let's take apart the idea the capitalism naturally "progresses" from the past and that it could do without things like genocide.

Some really important works that have emerged from the Marxist milieu in the last 50 years have been precisely the texts which challenge the idea that capitalism is natural and progressive. Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch points out the way that primitive accumulation not only brought about the conditions that allowed modern capitalism to come into being, but that these conditions need to be continually replicated. Primitive accumulation, she argues, isn't an event which happened back in England a couple centuries ago, it's something that is constantly occurring. Primitive accumulation, like that of the land theft and destruction of Native peoples in the Americas, is both the antecendent and the perpetual feature of capitalism. As Marx and basically everyone else has argued, capitalism must expand to stay alive. Primitive accumulation, as a concept, must continually occur for capitalism to create more value. As many in the school of Marxist thought that Federici is usually grouped with, the autonomists, have argued, this primitive accumulation has been expanded to include concepts that we wouldn't normally consider able to be "accumulated," like time and history.

So I would argue that capitalism is indeed impossible, or at least considerably more difficult, in North America had the genocide of Native peoples not occured.

Second, the idea that capitalism creates the "conditions for the evolution of a society without exploitation and the rule of minorities" is another oft-quoted Marxist truism, but one that is increasingly coming under attack from evidence that resistance to the imposition of capitalism was not simply reactionary, but in some sectors, genuinely progressive. Again, Federici points out that those who organized against the imposition of wage labor were not just artisans or nobles, but those who would become part of the nascent proletariat and/or urban working class. Linebaugh and Rediker's The Many-Headed Hydra talks in depth about the struggles of sailors, soldiers and slaves to globalization in the maritime age. These resistances against capitalist work ethic and conditions were not simply a desire to return to a guild-run economy, but were expressed in utopian and millenarian demands for an end to the capitalist economy (centuries before Marx put pen to paper, no less.) A favorite topic in recent years is of course the Diggers, who were certainly anti-capitalist but not pro-feudal.

So I think it's dangerous to say that capitalism is progressive. Yes, under capitalism certain technologies have been developed that can/have made life easier and production more efficient. But it's fallicious to say that these technologies had to occur or only occured under capitalism and could not occur any other way because there are no other models of society to judge them against (some could argue that socialism does exist or did exist on a widespread level in the 20th century, and I will politely but firmly disagree. Even so, if socialism did exist in the USSR, it only helps my argument.) Did Einstein need to live in a capitalist society to develop his theory of special relativity? Did any other scientist or inventor need to live under the murderous capitalist system to develop what they did? Sure, those who devoted their life's work to destructive technologies like guns and bombs. But I think we can all agree that those aren't the kind of technologies that a communist society would be interested in developing anyway.

What it gets down to is the problem, the same one that I highlighted in my previous post, of the error of evolutionist models of history. Positing that the stage of civilization that we're at is the "highest" one or more progressive one currently available is interesting but untestable. Furthermore, it tries to simplify the actual details of human history into small boxes that fit into a model that always points towards the future, thus discarding the complexities of history that don't fit into that box. Like Linebaugh and Rediker's rebellious sailors or Federici's witches. Drawing history as a straight line, or even a not-straight-but-always-ending-in-the-same-place series of lines, is an error because it judges human history as a teleology instead of a series of complex events that led us to where we are today, but could have lead us elsewhere if things had gone differently.

CHEtheLIBERATOR

28th March 2009, 04:03

Primitivism is how we were meant to live.But sadly it is impossible now that is why modern communism must take over

Vanguard1917

29th March 2009, 05:07

So I think it's dangerous to say that capitalism is progressive. Yes, under capitalism certain technologies have been developed that can/have made life easier and production more efficient. But it's fallicious to say that these technologies had to occur or only occured under capitalism and could not occur any other way because there are no other models of society to judge them against (some could argue that socialism does exist or did exist on a widespread level in the 20th century, and I will politely but firmly disagree. Even so, if socialism did exist in the USSR, it only helps my argument.) Did Einstein need to live in a capitalist society to develop his theory of special relativity? Did any other scientist or inventor need to live under the murderous capitalist system to develop what they did? Sure, those who devoted their life's work to destructive technologies like guns and bombs. But I think we can all agree that those aren't the kind of technologies that a communist society would be interested in developing anyway.

This is an extremely ahistorical, idealist and one-sided way of understanding technological progress. Technological advancement does not take place in a social vacuum, but comes about under very definite social and historical circumstances. Capitalism generated technological advancement in ways that previous epochs did not as a result of its own particular material dynamics -- its expansion of material production and its expansion and diversification of human needs. And the reason that we need to overcome capitalism is that, as a mode of production, it erects its own barriers to further progress.

nightazday

11th April 2009, 04:19

God forbid.

And why were there chiefs in this 'pure communism'?

why was there "Premiers" in the soviet union there are always leaders in societies

Hoxhaist

11th April 2009, 04:27

primitive communism is anti-scientific, anti-Marxist and absurd. the message of communism is progress going back to spears, tents, and animal skin loincloths would be counter-revolutionary

robbo203

11th April 2009, 14:44

primitive communism is anti-scientific, anti-Marxist and absurd. the message of communism is progress going back to spears, tents, and animal skin loincloths would be counter-revolutionary

What a ridiculous argument. The reference to primitive communism is not an invitation to go back to an age of spears and loincloths. It is a reference to the nature of the economic relations pertaining to such a society to which Marx and Engels approvingly referred (see Engels The Origin of the the State, the Family and Private Property)

As for saying primitive communism is "anti-scientific" and presumably therefore the practitioners of primitive communism were or are just a bunch of ignorant savages, I thought all this high-handed pompous Victorian bullshit about primitve mentality versus modern mentality had been demolished by anthropologists long ago by people like Malinowski and Evans-Pritchard

teenagebricks

11th April 2009, 14:44

primitive communism is anti-scientific, anti-Marxist and absurd. the message of communism is progress going back to spears, tents, and animal skin loincloths would be counter-revolutionary
In essence you are right, but I don't think anyone is suggesting that communists should go live in the wilderness. Look at how other nations operated at the time when the Americans practised primitive communism, the very fact that they were forced to give up their way of life proves that they were way ahead of everyone else at the time in terms of civilisation.

robbo203

11th April 2009, 14:55

Source? I think it would be more accurate to say that life in hunter gatherer societies involved daily stretches of backbreaking work in order to merely survive.?

Marshall Sahlins "Stone Age Economics". Hunter gatherer bands had far more leisure time than modern wage slaves. It was with the invention of agriculture and so called civilisation that the backbreaking toil came into the picture - except for some. Of course, we cannot go back to primitive communism and must move on from here but that doesnt alter the facts of the case which you should at least make an effort to acquaint yourself with

ZeroNowhere

11th April 2009, 15:54

What a ridiculous argument. The reference to primitive communism is not an invitation to go back to an age of spears and loincloths. It is a reference to the nature of the economic relations pertaining to such a society to which Marx and Engels approvingly referred (see Engels The Origin of the the State, the Family and Private Property)

As for saying primitive communism is "anti-scientific" and presumably therefore the practitioners of primitive communism were or are just a bunch of ignorant savages, I thought all this high-handed pompous Victorian bullshit about primitve mentality versus modern mentality had been demolished by anthropologists long ago by people like Malinowski and Evans-Pritchard
They were referring to primitivism, I believe, rather than the people that lived in primitie communist societies.

robbo203

11th April 2009, 17:37

They were referring to primitivism, I believe, rather than the people that lived in primitie communist societies.

Possibly, re-reading the post now. But the question can still be put - in what sense is primitive communism "anti-scientific" or "anti-marxist". There are researchers out there in the rainforests of the Amazon trying to get a handle on the local knowlege of indigenous people about their environment, flora and fauna, a knowlege and a taxonomy so extensive that to call it anti-scientific is preposterous. I remember reading one of Evan-Pritchards books about the Azande in Africa which makes the very point that even some of their ritualistic and apparently absurd practices like the "chicken oracle" which you might dismiss as superstitious humbug actually employ routine scientific procedures like double-blind tests. The idea that so called primitive societies are pre-scientific or anti-scientific whereas modern societies are not is just a bunch of ethnocentric bullshit frankly. All societies are a mixture of rationality and irrationality in their beliefs and practices

YSR

11th April 2009, 18:26

This is an extremely ahistorical, idealist and one-sided way of understanding technological progress. Technological advancement does not take place in a social vacuum, but comes about under very definite social and historical circumstances. And the reason that we need to overcome capitalism is that, as a mode of production, it erects its own barriers to further progress.

By ashistorical, you mean one that does follow your specific model of human development, right? One that requires people to go through a destructive, violent, horrific stage called capitalism in order to collectivize our society?

History only looks like a straight line if you look backwards. It's teleology.

Capitalism generated technological advancement in ways that previous epochs did not as a result of its own particular material dynamics -- its expansion of material production and its expansion and diversification of human needs.

Again, true, but there's no evidence that these particular material dynamics are unique only to capitalism or that communist societies could not be productive and dynamic.

We have to invert our understanding of capitalism from the classical orthodox Marxist position or we'll never be able to understand why societies and classes have developed the way they do. I'll repeat it: the orthodox Marxist position privileges the perspective of bourgeois society because the bourgeoisie was "victorious" over other classes at the end of the feudal era. Except that neither was the bourgeoisie cleanly victorious (struggle continues unabated from that day) nor did that victory occur over solely reactionary elements. Proto-communists offered clear alternatives to capitalist development but were defeated by capitalism.

Now how do we interpret this? Do we see that history had to occur in a certain way and that all those workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants who were out there building communist experiments were simply born a few centuries too early? Or is this not the idealist position? The real materialist position is to see that capitalism evolved under specific material conditions which do not follow some sacred evolutionist scheme of "how societies must evolve," but happened the way it did because of the specific balance of power between various class forces. To dismiss these protocommunists as "too early" ignores the tremendous amount of power they had and the fear they put into the nascent bourgeoisie and the feudal class.

Obviously, saying "what if?" is a waste of time, but there are concrete applications of this alternative theory of class history. Industrial development that is unique to communist or quasicommunist societies is developing on the micro level as we speak and is utilizing a variety of concretely different styles of industrialization than modern capitalist development. If we see history as a straight line, we should dismiss the efforts of collectivists in the Zapatista movement to sustainably produce and develop their economy off the capitalist grid or the development of urban agriculture movements around the world as not important. I'm sure that Vanguard will do so promptly. But if we see that history is the outcome of a series of class struggles, we can see that these alternative styles of development are of incredibly importance to the modern working class and express, on a micro level, what communist development could look like if we tried it on a larger scale.

black magick hustla

11th April 2009, 18:44

I think the issue with you YSR is that you seem that the most important aspect of communism is collectivism. The main issue of a communist is to fight against capitalist barbarism and to prevent the destruction of humanity by capitalism in its decomposing phase. This might mean striking, propaganda, dessertion, turning the imperialist war into civil war, the formation of workers' unitary organizations in revolutionary times ... So yes, we dismiss the efforts of the the nationalist zapatistas because we don't believe that efforts to be *off the grid* of capitalist development has anything to do with working class revolution. Yes, the indigenous people face a lot of barbarism. I think a lot of them do what they do to survive. However do I look at it as some sort of desirable political development? Of course not - zapatismo offers nothing to communists except perhaps some sort of quaint artifact for white anarchists and negrist modernists to oogle at.

YSR

13th April 2009, 05:37

Marmot, I expected better from you. Calling the EZLN nationalists because they have nationalist in their name is political analysis 101. In the short time I've spent in country, I have yet to meet a Zapatista supporter or someone from within the communities who identifies as a nationalist or believes that the EZLN and the Zapatista communities are engaging in a nationalist project. Rhetoric and practice are not the same thing.

black magick hustla

20th April 2009, 06:16

Marmot, I expected better from you. Calling the EZLN nationalists because they have nationalist in their name is political analysis 101.
I don't call them nationalist because of their name, but because of their political documents and overall political praxis. I don't feel like quoting la sexta declaracion which is peppered with nationalist references because there has been countless of articles about this published by left communists and anarchists. Suffice to say the zapatista project and la otra campana is not a workers project project, but a traditionalist and liberal project that has as its basis a combination of cultural nostalgia coupled with a mentality of nosotros contra los gringos. Perhaps there are more sophisticated anarchists working within the zapatista movement but it seems to me the leadership, or the way it presents itself, caters more to radical liberals and benito juarez fans than anything else. It has very little to do with workers class consciousness. Anarchists like the zapatistas because of their fetish of self-management and *anti-authoritarianism" - whatever the latter is supposed to mean.

In the short time I've spent in country, I have yet to meet a Zapatista supporter or someone from within the communities who identifies as a nationalist or believes that the EZLN and the Zapatista communities are engaging in a nationalist project. Rhetoric and practice are not the same thing.Of course they dont call themselves nationalists. I bet if you ask the leadership they will tell you they are patriots though.

RHIZOMES

20th April 2009, 10:41

Oh look another primitivist who wants to kill off 99% of the worlds population, how nice.

Do you have any clue at all about Marx's conception of the stages in society? Like, at all?

Guevara shadow

21st April 2009, 09:53

hey my comrade i like a lot what you said
Che Guevara said once : with every day going i become sure more that what the ideology we have is that what has the huminaty alwyas dreamed in ..
if you search in many culture you will see that same
in middle east there were a kingdom stayed over 13 years old it was pure communisim too
it was cold " Karameta " kingdome it,s was agriculture communism all the people work in the same socity " this include the king he was a farmer too " and periodiclly the king " Hamdan Al-kurmoti ' was responsable to dived what the land provided the farmer to each person ecxatly equity
the same was happinin in ireland in a day
life long communisit

CHEtheLIBERATOR

26th April 2009, 23:50

Primitive communism is what we were made to live like.But sadly because of the new age it's impossible to create.That is why you must settle with modern day communism

CHEtheLIBERATOR

26th April 2009, 23:53

Also,Native Americans are just one of 1,000,000's of tribes that were like that

ckaihatsu

27th April 2009, 00:12

Primitive communism is what we were made to live like.

"What we were made to live like" -- ??? According to whom? This almost sounds like a creationist kind of argument...!

As far as I can tell we don't come with instruction manuals, so there's no "Live life like this" prescription to follow....

Sure, we obviously have biological and social needs, but as far as what path we should take as individuals, or even society as a whole, it's up to us, and that's that.

There are dumb, outdated ways of doing it, like with the destructiveness and wastefulness of the capitalist system, but there are better ways, too, like with collectivized property and resources, and *automation*.

But sadly because of the new age it's impossible to create.That is why you must settle with modern day communism

Modern-day communism would be waaaaaayyy better than primitive communism. Capitalists know how to leverage accumulated wealth -- *we* need to leverage capitalists so that the *economics* work in favor of *workers* and collectivized factories -- no more private property!!!

el_chavista

27th April 2009, 04:41

It looks like all we must study Historic Materialism a little harder as none of you see primitive communist tribes with Marxist eyes.

For a Marxist, primitive communist tribes are the proof that classless societies exist. Mankind history develops in spiral and a complete turn will be completed when modern communist society arrives.

ckaihatsu

27th April 2009, 05:00

It looks like all we must study Historic Materialism a little harder as none of you see primitive communist tribes with Marxist eyes.

Just for the record I have to take exception to this accusation -- my words *are* consistent with a historical materialist, or Marxist, understanding of historical development.

For a Marxist, primitive communist tribes are the proof that classless societies exist.

Yes, this is correct -- the downside is that because of their primitive material basis they are more or less *stuck* at that level of material development and will not be able to realize any material progression. Historically, advanced techniques -- like industrial production -- have been introduced from without, from Western colonization conquests -- for better and for worse.

Mankind history develops in spiral and a complete turn will be completed when modern communist society arrives.

Historical development is *not* an *automatic*, foregone certainty -- while the class struggle provides a certain logical balance of developmental forces of sorts, we can't simply use it to make hard-and-fast predictions about future class-based, or class-less, societies. Militant class struggle from below is a *subjective* factor that must be consciously built -- how well and how fast that consciousness and militancy are built and effected is a *very* complex variable that we cannot assume as a *given* in any kind of calculation.