Was Cesar a progressive figure?

[Blanquist]

I have heard some claim he was and others say he wasn't.

What are your thoughts?

[Rafiq]

I'm not too knowledgable on the Subject, but perhaps this (http://www.amazon.com/The-Assassination-Julius-Caesar-Peoples/dp/1565847970) may provide itself of use to you.

[ed miliband]

third world caesarean socialism

[kashkin]

Roman politics at the time is generally characterised into two main 'parties'. One being the Optimates, the other being the Populares. Neither were distinct parties in the modern sense. Also, the names are misleading. The Optimates did not fight to retain the oligarchy and the Populares weren't supporters of democracy. The names refer to their means of seizing power: Optimates worked their way through the establishment while Populares gained support through the urban population but did not support them*.

Caeser belonged to the Populares camp, his support base was among the soldiers and urban poor, but he did have some support among the landed aristocracy and the knights (who generally sided with the Senate)**. While some of his reforms were 'progressive' as such (some land reform IIRC), he was simply a populist dictator.

* However, there were the Gracchi brothers who were progressive reformers (though I would say their progressiveness is overstated). But most Populares were simply people who belonged to relatively poor/non-noble families (as the consulate was tightly kept between a few families) and saw the People's Tribunes as a way to sieze power (e.g. Marius).

** This situation has always interested, it seems a bit like the situation in German from 1848 through to Bismarck (and even under him), the rising middle class (in the case the Knights, though they wre no where near as strong or numerous as the bourgeiousie) generally sided with the landed aristocrats in the Senate against the urban poor and small peasantry (or what remained of them).

[A Marxist Historian]

Roman politics at the time is generally characterised into two main 'parties'. One being the Optimates, the other being the Populares. Neither were distinct parties in the modern sense. Also, the names are misleading. The Optimates did not fight to retain the oligarchy and the Populares weren't supporters of democracy. The names refer to their means of seizing power: Optimates worked their way through the establishment while Populares gained support through the urban population but did not support them*.

Caeser belonged to the Populares camp, his support base was among the soldiers and urban poor, but he did have some support among the landed aristocracy and the knights (who generally sided with the Senate)**. While some of his reforms were 'progressive' as such (some land reform IIRC), he was simply a populist dictator.

* However, there were the Gracchi brothers who were progressive reformers (though I would say their progressiveness is overstated). But most Populares were simply people who belonged to relatively poor/non-noble families (as the consulate was tightly kept between a few families) and saw the People's Tribunes as a way to sieze power (e.g. Marius).

** This situation has always interested, it seems a bit like the situation in German from 1848 through to Bismarck (and even under him), the rising middle class (in the case the Knights, though they wre no where near as strong or numerous as the bourgeiousie) generally sided with the landed aristocrats in the Senate against the urban poor and small peasantry (or what remained of them).

The really "progressive" figure back then was Spartacus, who led the big slave revolt.

According to Karl Kautsky's classic history of Christianity, the Roman Empire was basically a blight on western civilization, slowly taxing all the Roman colonies to death and leading inexorably to the dark ages. So I'd put him Julius, who really got the whole thing going, down as a reactionary figure.

Economic imperialism was bad news back then too.

I understand there's a somewhat more recent pretty famed Marxist analysis, "Class Struggles in the Ancient World," by Moses Finley. Quite influential, though controversial, among the ancient historians. I've never seen it though.

-N.H.-

[Manic Impressive]

I'm not too knowledgable on the Subject, but perhaps this (http://www.amazon.com/The-Assassination-Julius-Caesar-Peoples/dp/1565847970) may provide itself of use to you.
If you can't wait for the book to come in the post there's always this talk by the author Michael Parenti http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IO_Ldn2H4o

[Die Neue Zeit]

I have heard some claim he was and others say he wasn't.

What are your thoughts?

Augustus and afterwards? No.

Julius Caesar of people's history? Oh yes.


third world caesarean socialism

Indeed:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=948

[kashkin]

The really "progressive" figure back then was Spartacus, who led the big slave revolt.

According to Karl Kautsky's classic history of Christianity, the Roman Empire was basically a blight on western civilization, slowly taxing all the Roman colonies to death and leading inexorably to the dark ages. So I'd put him Julius, who really got the whole thing going, down as a reactionary figure.

-N.H.-

I agree regarding Spartacus, it's just that he doesn't really fit into the scope of the question.

Regarding Kautsky's book, I haven't read, but I went to a talk where the speaker took several points from the book which were quite weird. She claimed (and based this off Kautsky's claims) that Rome had a slave army and that the pushing of the small peasantry off the land contributed to Rome's downfall.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

I heard that even Caligula was a lot more working class oriented than Caesar. He was often viewed as a working class hero who tormented the evil aristocratic Senators. One time, when he was at a gladiator match, he suddenly got bored and commanded that all the people in the first few rows of seats go fight the lions in the arena. Of course, the people in the first few rows were all aristocrats and the laborers in the back rows went wild with delight at the spectacle that ensued.

[Blanquist]

If you can't wait for the book to come in the post there's always this talk by the author Michael Parenti http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IO_Ldn2H4o

He sounds like a Stalinist, justifying Caesar to justify Stalin by proxy.

Need more sources.

[Manic Impressive]

He sounds like a Stalinist, justifying Caesar to justify Stalin by proxy.

Need more sources.
Parenti isn't a stalinist but he is a Leninist or was he now calls him self a progressive, I don't think that much of him as a communist but I don't reject sources due to their ideology. To do so is more than moronic.

[Blanquist]

Parenti isn't a stalinist but he is a Leninist or was he now calls him self a progressive, I don't think that much of him as a communist but I don't reject sources due to their ideology. To do so is more than moronic.

I have to reject the source on a topic because I don't know much about it. I can't let a charlatan influence my politically virgin mind.

[Manic Impressive]

If your mind is virgin territory, politically speaking, then how do you know he's a charlatan? I don't even remember him mentioning Stalin in that talk but he might have done. He defends Stalin but usually in a anti-american way. He's actually very critical of some things about Stalin, perhaps watch his talk named "reflections" so you can make up your own mind about whether he's a Stalinist.

Anyway you probably shouldn't listen to me I'm a Marxist not a Trotskyist, which means I must be a heretic.

[Blanquist]

If your mind is virgin territory, politically speaking, then how do you know he's a charlatan? I don't even remember him mentioning Stalin in that talk but he might have done. He defends Stalin but usually in a anti-american way. He's actually very critical of some things about Stalin, perhaps watch his talk named "reflections" so you can make up your own mind about whether he's a Stalinist.

Anyway you probably shouldn't listen to me I'm a Marxist not a Trotskyist, which means I must be a heretic.

You can't be a Marxist without being a Trotskyist, but thanks anyways.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Cesar was a Politician. This means he was a manager of class pressures, as all politicians. I wrote a blog about the progress of the beginning of dispossession of working people (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=7805) in ancient Rome. Cesar knew he had to make land reforms to keep the increasingly dispossessed workers at bay and away from revolt, but this angered the increasingly wealthy class of senators, who ended up killing him and throwing Rome into revolt.


History is the History of Class Struggles how correct he was.

"Why did a group of Roman senators gather near Pompey's theater on March 15, 44 B.C., to kill Julius Caesar? Was it their fear of Caesar's tyrannical power? Or were these aristocratic senators worried that Caesar's land reforms and leanings toward democracy would upset their own control over the Roman Republic? " This is bullshit, it's about classes.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

As to how "Progressive" he was, this is Bourgeois bullshit. Only the productive forces are progressive in history, and the dialectics between classes.

[Sten]

I would say he was populist, more than progressive.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

You can't be a Marxist without being a Trotskyist, but thanks anyways.

Yeah you can.

[honest john's firing squad]

You can't be a Marxist without being a Trotskyist, but thanks anyways.
Can you actually plunge off a reasonably high cliff? Thanks.

[Left Leanings]

You can't be a Marxist without being a Trotskyist, but thanks anyways.


Can you actually plunge off a reasonably high cliff? Thanks.

And if he doesn't, can somebody please push him :rolleyes:

[Die Neue Zeit]

He sounds like a Stalinist, justifying Caesar to justify Stalin by proxy.

Need more sources.

That is a bit of polemical slander by the ISO when it reviewed his book.


"Why did a group of Roman senators gather near Pompey's theater on March 15, 44 B.C., to kill Julius Caesar? Was it their fear of Caesar's tyrannical power? Or were these aristocratic senators worried that Caesar's land reforms and leanings toward democracy would upset their own control over the Roman Republic? " This is bullshit, it's about classes.

"And leanings towards populist democracy," to be more precise; this is the more important half, not the land reforms:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/julius-caesar-lost-t147255/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/managed-democracy-ancient-t158688/index.html

Aristotle once wrote of mixed government, combining democracy, (non-hereditary) aristocracy, and (non-hereditary) monarchy. The Julius Caesar of people's history wanted a system combining only the first and third elements, since history has proven that "mixed government" is a cover for classical "aristocracy," oligarchy, etc.

[A Marxist Historian]

I agree regarding Spartacus, it's just that he doesn't really fit into the scope of the question.

Regarding Kautsky's book, I haven't read, but I went to a talk where the speaker took several points from the book which were quite weird. She claimed (and based this off Kautsky's claims) that Rome had a slave army and that the pushing of the small peasantry off the land contributed to Rome's downfall.

Don't know whether the army included slaves or not, sounds dubious. But yes absolutely, the replacing of small farmers by big slave plantations definitely contributed to Rome's downfall. Indeed, one of the major reasons why the barbarian invasions were largely seen as liberating by most of the population, on the anything is better than what we have now theory.

-M.H.-

[kashkin]

Don't know whether the army included slaves or not, sounds dubious. But yes absolutely, the replacing of small farmers by big slave plantations definitely contributed to Rome's downfall. Indeed, one of the major reasons why the barbarian invasions were largely seen as liberating by most of the population, on the anything is better than what we have now theory.

-M.H.-
The issue I have with that is that it happened long before the fall of the Empire. The Gracchi brothers wanted land reform because the increased number of slaves from foreign conquest had pushed the small peasantry off decades before their rise, and they were pushing their reforms in around 160 BC. The displaced peasantry generally joined the urban poor, and the Marian reforms removed the property restrictions on the military, allowing this increasing number of urban poor to join the army, increasing its size.

[A Marxist Historian]

The issue I have with that is that it happened long before the fall of the Empire. The Gracchi brothers wanted land reform because the increased number of slaves from foreign conquest had pushed the small peasantry off decades before their rise, and they were pushing their reforms in around 160 BC. The displaced peasantry generally joined the urban poor, and the Marian reforms removed the property restrictions on the military, allowing this increasing number of urban poor to join the army, increasing its size.

I have read Kautsky's "Foundations of Christianity." That wouldn't conflict with anything Kautsky wrote. Even before the Caesar's, the economic relationship between Rome and its colonies was not that different, the same exploitation of Rome's subjects by ever rising taxation, the same ever increasing numbers of slaves. The Caesars just formulated it all and gave the system a name.

Slavery in the countryside, an ever poorer urban proletariat being given bread and circuses to keep them happy, and the Caesars welcoming them into the army, so more colonies can be conquered and taxed and more foreigners can be enslaved and more small farmers in the countryside get driven into the cities...

So Christianity becomes the religion of the poor and the slaves. Since, realistically, a proletarian and/or slave revolution vs. the empire was an impossibility, well, the poor can get their happiness in heaven...

It's a good book. You should read it.

-M.H.-

[Die Neue Zeit]

Don't know whether the army included slaves or not, sounds dubious. But yes absolutely, the replacing of small farmers by big slave plantations definitely contributed to Rome's downfall. Indeed, one of the major reasons why the barbarian invasions were largely seen as liberating by most of the population, on the anything is better than what we have now theory.

That's the era of Imperial Rome, though, not that of Julius Caesar of either gentlemen's history or people's history.

Anyway, a recent blog:

Parenti: Caesar, debt, and cooked history (http://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/parenti-caesar-debt-and-cooked-history/)

Following up on our previous video post, here’s a presentation by Michael Parenti that debunks the prevailing popular perception of Julius Caesar as an arrogant tyrant, recasting Caesar as one of the original populists, slain, in part, because he slashed the debt burden owed by Rome’s 99 percenters.

Presented on 5 April 1998 in Seattle, the talk reflects the work Parenti was doing on a book published five years later [when it was eagerly read and appreciated by esnl], The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome.

Parenti casts Caesar in a radically new light, as a powerful advocate of Rome’s working class, bitterly opposed by entrenched and super-wealthy elites, including that “noblest Roman of them all,” Brutus, who stands revealed as a brutal slumlord and extortionate loan shark.

It’s a fascinating talk, witty and informed, and the Caesar who emerges from the evidence assembled by Parenti may still a ruthless conqueror, but he’s also a man genuinely inspired to bring a better life to Rome’s poor. It was only the latter which led to his death.