Class struggle in ancient Rome

[Belisarius]

a question: how can we specify the class struggle in ancient rome, because in feudalism or capitalism there are very specific relations of production, but rome isn't that clear. what were the different classes and how did they realate to each other?

[AK]

Isn't this mentioned close to the beginning of the Communist Manifesto?

[Belisarius]

it is only mentioned, but not really studied. the problem is that the patrician class was indeed the ruling class, but this doens't necessarily mean that the plebeians were all oppressed by them. there were only a handful of patricians in rome, but not enough to opress the entire plebeian class in the whole empire. and then there are the slaves who were pretty much exploited by everyone. the problem is thus that a large group of society didn't really communicate with other classes (plebeians with slaves, yes, but patricians with plebeians not)

and then there's the political problem. there was indeed a popularist party, but they were themselves patricians and eventually they didn't really serve the people (Augustus, and before him Caesar, became the sole ruler of Rome, but he didn't really do much for the plebeians, some minor stuff, but the stability he gave to the empire was actually directed against the oppressed classes). after the republic, the emperor didn't really serve one class, but ruled quite arbitrarily.

[Dimentio]

In Roman society, we usually overlook the fact that most of the population lived on the countryside. When we are talking about class relations in that world, we are most often referring to the city of Rome itself, but ignoring the fact that the majority of the population were living in peasant communities which were living on the brink of starvation.

There were actually three classes in the urban areas, apart from slaves. There were Patricians, Plebeians and Proletarii/Freedmen. The first group had some heriditary privilegies, while the second group had no hereditary privilegies but possessed voting rights. The third group was nominally free but had no citizenship.

During the transformation from Republic to Empire, there was a deterioration of Patrician rights and an elevation of wealthy Plebeians into Patrician status, at the same time as the cities were forced to parasitise on the countryside due to the need to maintain a welfare system for the third of the free population which was unemployed or living on the brink of constant rioting.

At the end of the Western Roman Empire, the term "Patrician" was actually given as an honour to upstanding citizens. Much like McCartney or Bono are given titles by the British queen today.

[AK]

The entire empire seemed to be built on slavery. I'd say the slaves were the oppressed class, as they were oppressed by plebians and patricians it seems. This is shown in Spartacus' Slave Revolt.

[Belisarius]

i wouldn't say slaves did all the work. maybe they built a lot of buildings, but on the country side it were plebeians who did the job. also in the army there were no slaves, only plebeians.

[Die Neue Zeit]

and then there's the political problem. there was indeed a popularist party, but they were themselves patricians and eventually they didn't really serve the people (Augustus, and before him Caesar, became the sole ruler of Rome, but he didn't really do much for the plebeians, some minor stuff, but the stability he gave to the empire was actually directed against the oppressed classes)

I suggest you read Parenti's The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome. Julius Caesar's assassination was the reaction of patrician opposition to his proposed land reform, something of course benefitting the demographic majority in the countryside.

Caesar was a populist not in the cheap sense, but in the substantive one like Chavez:

"Caesarism": Was Marx wrong? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/caesarism-marx-wrongi-t112185/index.html)

[Dimentio]

i wouldn't say slaves did all the work. maybe they built a lot of buildings, but on the country side it were plebeians who did the job. also in the army there were no slaves, only plebeians.

The plebeians did not live on the countryside per se. Most plebeians lived in the towns and cities and were working in trade or in professions like tavern owners, gladiatorial school teachers, merchants, slave traders, etc. They were the petite bourgeoisie.

Most public works were conducted by slaves, and slaves were involved in most larger operations in the towns. On the countryside, most people lived as subsidence farmers who in many cases did not even have access to the monetary economy (they paid a share of their production directly in taxes). The peasants in Italy and Greece were somewhat privilegied as they didn't pay any estate taxes. But most provincials were on constant brink of starvation.

As for Patricians and Plebeians.

The Patricians were descendants of the original settlers of the community of Rome and their families held the right to represent themselves in the Senate. The Plebeians were descended from Sabinean, Latin, Etruscan and Italic communities who had migrated to Rome during different times. They forced through a generous citizenship and a representation of themselves as they were the majority of Rome during the forth and third centuries before our time scale.

During Caesar's time, the Plebeians themselves were a minority. The majority of the population of Rome was composed of slaves and free workers without citizenship (Proletarii). Citizenship was something you could buy for your children and was theoretically achievable by anyone, even a former slave.

During the Late Republic already, some Plebeian families had actually achieved greater wealth than the Patricians could dream about. Most of the ambitious politicians had both Plebeian and Patrician ancestry. Octavian Caesar, the first Emperor, was actually from a prominent Plebeian family in what is now Torino.

At the end of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, a large part of the old Patrician families had been purged by Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. New Patrician families were appointed from the ashes by subsequent Emperors, but the status of the nobility declined as the Empire more and more shifted power from the Senate to the Emperor.

It could sound as if the Empire was more progressive than the Republic had been, but that is not correct either. Rather, both the late Republic and the Roman Empire saw a gradual concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands. At the beginning of the Roman Republic, a Roman senator had been a de-facto self-sufficient peasant without pay. At the end of the Empire, a Roman senator earned about 100 000 times more denarius a year than a typical peasant in Italy.

The lifestyle associated with ancient Rome, the urban civilisation characterised by free or cheap public services, came with the price of a ruthless exploitment of the countryside, as taxes continuously increased. Rome was on the verge of virtual bankcruptcy already in the first century.

In the same time, a large unemployed urban proletariat was created by over-taxation of free small farmers and the spread-out of the latifundia estates - large monocultural farms where thousands of slaves were employed.

Emperor Diocletian introduced virtual serfdom in the late third century, by prohibiting people from the countryside to move to other districts or towns, or change profession. That served to break down the entire trading structure of the Empire in a few generations. The establishment of a new capital in Constantinople only worsened the situation.

There was actually technological capacity available to undergo an industrial revolution. Inventors in Alexandria already had working steam machines and experiments in electricity during the second century. But the Emperors prohibited the development as they were afraid of social unrest following increasing unemployment.

If history had been different, maybe the railroads and electricity would have emerged in the third century.

[rebelmouse]

http://www.marxist.com/class-struggles-roman-republic-one.htm

[Floyce White]

Marx's definition of "class" is extremely loose. I ignore it. The basis of class is the presence or absence of a family's claim to own things used by others. Throughout class society, there always were only two classes: the proprietor families and the dispossessed families. The changes from one form of class society to another were clashes among the upper class. One faction would use, say, chattel slavery, while another would use land tenure. The incompatibility of the two systems of exploitation led to intra-class conflict among the rich. Both sides recruited the lower class to use as foot soldiers in the causes of their masters. The Servile Wars occurred in this context, except that the servants started fighting for themselves.

[Die Neue Zeit]

There was actually technological capacity available to undergo an industrial revolution. Inventors in Alexandria already had working steam machines and experiments in electricity during the second century. But the Emperors prohibited the development as they were afraid of social unrest following increasing unemployment.

If history had been different, maybe the railroads and electricity would have emerged in the third century.

Does that mean that Marx was wrong about calling European feudalism an advancement over the slave mode of production? Or was the Roman state, like the states of "Asiatic" modes of production, too centralized (thus too tax-burdensome) to allow this to happen?

[Kléber]

in feudalism or capitalism there are very specific relations of production, but rome isn't that clearI would disagree that things are simpler now. There are thousands of pseudo-left academics who devote their writing careers to trying to prove that pure feudalism never existed, and there is no such thing as capitalism etc. because of the variations which exist(ed) in these modes of production. One can always nitpick, but the dialectic of class struggle is the best way to make sense out of politics, modern or ancient.

[Dimentio]

Does that mean that Marx was wrong about calling European feudalism an advancement over the slave mode of production? Or was the Roman state, like the states of "Asiatic" modes of production, too centralized (thus too tax-burdensome) to allow this to happen?

The Roman state became gradually super-centralised after the Crisis of the Third Century.

I wouldn't claim that feudalism necessarily was an advancement. But neither was it inferior. The precursor to feudalism in Rome did not arrive with the Germans but originated within the Roman Empire, especially after Diocletian's reforms which served to break down the monetary economy.

Feudalism is not only a European phemomenon. There have existed feudal systems before in other parts of the world. Rome's competitor to the east, the Parthian Empire, was at large a feudal society. As was China prior to the unification. It is a euro-centrist myth that Asia never had transitions of social systems.