Transition from Slave to Feudal Relations

[Tim Cornelis]

If we look at the emergence of liberal democracy (political capitalism in a sense), we see that this was the result of the emergence of a new class independent of feudal social relations. If this is key to a culmination of class struggle and the establishing of new social relations, this poses a problem for socialists as the working class is not independent of capitalist social relations. A socialist revolution will not be as 'easy' as the bourgeois revolution was. It requires political organisations that foster independence from the bourgeoisie (through mutual aid).

Now, what allowed for the transition from slave to feudal relations? Were slaves no longer reliant on their slave masters (or vice versa)?

[Lucretia]

If we look at the emergence of liberal democracy (political capitalism in a sense), we see that this was the result of the emergence of a new class independent of feudal social relations. If this is key to a culmination of class struggle and the establishing of new social relations, this poses a problem for socialists as the working class is not independent of capitalist social relations. A socialist revolution will not be as 'easy' as the bourgeois revolution was. It requires political organisations that foster independence from the bourgeoisie (through mutual aid).

Now, what allowed for the transition from slave to feudal relations? Were slaves no longer reliant on their slave masters (or vice versa)?

Consult the work of Pierre Dockes (Medieval Slavery and Liberation) and Guy Bois (The Transformation of the Year One Thousand).

[Blake's Baby]

If we look at the emergence of liberal democracy (political capitalism in a sense), we see that this was the result of the emergence of a new class independent of feudal social relations. If this is key to a culmination of class struggle and the establishing of new social relations, this poses a problem for socialists as the working class is not independent of capitalist social relations. A socialist revolution will not be as 'easy' as the bourgeois revolution was. It requires political organisations that foster independence from the bourgeoisie (through mutual aid)....

The revolution that disposes of capitalism will be different, yes. The class that was rising in economic dominance under feudalism that eventually instituted a new mode of production and became the new ruling class, was not in itself an exploited class. It became a new exploiting class. Socialism is different because the proletariat is an exploited class, but will not become an exploiting class.

This implies several things:
1 - the proletariat cannot build its own power in capitalism because it cannot build it on the back of another class, because we don't exploit anyone else;
2 - the proletarian revolution, because it does not institute a new exploiter/exploiting relationship, must do away with the state instead of taking it over, and it must therefore be worldwide;
3 - instead of building our economic power for a few hundred years in capitalism before taking over as the bourgeoisie did in feudalism (see pt 1), the proletariat must stage its political revolution before the economic transformation of society.


...Now, what allowed for the transition from slave to feudal relations? Were slaves no longer reliant on their slave masters (or vice versa)?

The slave economy (particularly the Roman Empire) was in crisis. New classes embody new property forms, new ways of extracting 'work' in the broadest sense. Many attempts had been made to fix the economic problems of the empire at least as early as the reign of Diocletian (286-305) but the crises continued. The civil wars and the breakdown of imperial order threatened the ability of society to compel labour from slaves, who would run away or rebel. meanwhile, the technically free but poor were increasingly lumped together with slaves as 'humiliores', something like 'the very lowly' and were on their way to becomming feudal peasants, tied to the land as the cultivators of great estates, held not by the patricians of the old senatorial class, but by a mix of the 'equites' - the old 'knights' - and the incoming barbarian warlords. It was these predominantly military classes that established feudalism proper, when the 'answer' to the problems of the slave economies was to establish a system of service for miltary protection.

All economic systems have a period of expansion and a period of increasing crisis. Feudalism was 'allowed' to develop (or be developed) as a result of the crises, the death-agonies even, of the antique slave system, particularly after AD300 or thereabouts (but I wouldn't be unhappy if you wanted to date the 'deacdence' of the Antique slave system earlier) just as capitalism was 'allowed' to develop by the decadence of feudalism after about AD1300.

Very very briefly and somewhat schematically.

[Rafiq]

Social revolutions, class struggle does not simply amount to a class forming which is independant of certain relations, which the bourgeois class was not in totality, but the emergence or existence of a class of which's actual interest, it's class consciousness is diametrically opposed to other classes. This doesn't mean that the class has a "different perception or opinion" but that it's actual relations to production produces it's own interest as a class, class interest being that which ideologically distinguishes them as a class. For example, the serfdom and the feudal aristocracy, two obviously seperare interests, and none the less classes with different relations to the mpde of production. The fact that the bourgeoisie developed and took class dictatorship as opposed to the peasantry (peasants war in germany for example) is not a result of historical teleology but of mere chance.

Regarding slave society to feudal society: It was not a result of a political revolution but of a social one.

Edit: There is no such thing as a class existing independant of existing relations. The very notion of a class by default implies a social force with different relations and functions to the same mode of production.

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[Lucretia]

Social revolutions, class struggle does not simply amount to a class forming which is independant of certain relations, which the bourgeois class was not in totality, but the emergence or existence of a class of which's actual interest, it's class consciousness is diametrically opposed to other classes. This doesn't mean that the class has a "different perception or opinion" but that it's actual relations to production produces it's own interest as a class, class interest being that which ideologically distinguishes them as a class. For example, the serfdom and the feudal aristocracy, two obviously seperare interests, and none the less classes with different relations to the mpde of production. The fact that the bourgeoisie developed and took class dictatorship as opposed to the peasantry (peasants war in germany for example) is not a result of historical teleology but of mere chance.

Regarding slave society to feudal society: It was not a result of a political revolution but of a social one.

Edit: There is no such thing as a class existing independant of existing relations. The very notion of a class by default implies a social force with different relations and functions to the same mode of production.

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Yes. Revolutions in which a class based on one mode of exploitation supplants another become inexplicable if we fail to recognize how new relations of production develop alongside older relations until such a point that the state is converted over to one based on the newer, more progressive form of production. The exception to this is socialism, in which the power of the proletariat does not develop through the burgeoning of new relations of production within capitalism. It is only workers' capacity for power which develops through the capitalist socialization of production, with the socialist revolution enabling that capacity to be realized as the transition to socialism advances.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Marx argued that the rise of feudalism had a lot to do with the rise of a powerful military class of warlords and mercenaries who conquered or were given rights by the collapsing Roman government to land in Britain, France, Spain and Germany. Hence the mercantile states of Italy retained a trade-based economy because their economic elites were based on the old Mediterranean trade relations built up by the Romans. This is different from what happened in Northwestern Europe where the collapse of the hegemonic Imperial order of Rome made room for the military classes to seize land, which became the basis of the economy in the areas. These warlords sought alliances between each other, and the serfs sought protection from the least violent warlords if possible, and feudalism began to emerge.

Everywhere where Feudalism emerged, it came out of the introduction of a powerful military class whose wealth is primarily held in landholdings farmed by peasant laborers. That military class became a landed nobility which sought some kind of stable central authority to swear vassalage to in favor of protection. That is also probably why so many third world communist movements saw or to this day see the feudal elites as their primary enemy - the main form of productive wealth was in the form of the land in the countries struggling for colonial independence, which had been obtained by the elites due to their (usually) hereditary relationship with some ancient warlord (and then preserved by their complicity with Imperial domination, unlike those nobles who resisted European intervention and lost much of their holdings).


. This doesn't mean that the class has a "different perception or opinion" but that it's actual relations to production produces it's own interest as a class, class interest being that which ideologically distinguishes them as a class.Presumably, the class interest which develops is going to in part inform people's perspectives and opinions, though not in a determinist sense.

[RedMaterialist]

Now, what allowed for the transition from slave to feudal relations? Were slaves no longer reliant on their slave masters (or vice versa)?

Here's my very simplified theory of the transition from slavery to feudalism. When the barbarians, over 2-3 centuries, destroyed the Roman Empire, the slave owning class was also destroyed. The barbarians, for some reason, had no interest in continuing the slave system; however, they did want to keep the land they had captured. That left two main classes: the landowning class and the former slaves. In these circumstances it seems natural, and more productive, for the former slaves to agree to turn over part of the production of the land in exchange for the right to live on the land. Thus, the share-cropper system, which is, essentially, the feudal system, developed.

Here in the U.S. we may have seen a sort of truncated repeat of this phenomenon. After the civil war the slave owning class was destroyed, as a class. However, they were allowed to keep ownership of their plantations. This left the former slaves, a part of whom did not leave the south, to work the plantations, but not as slaves. The share-cropper system then developed, a modern version of feudalism. The Jim Crow legal system was a natural outcome of this type of production.

The next mode of production would have developed which would be understood by anyone who grew up on a farm. Once the kids have left the farm for the city they never go back. The farm kids become the early part of the "burgher" class, the bourgeoisie, along with the "free" workers, the proletariat.

[commieathighnoon]

Here's my very simplified theory of the transition from slavery to feudalism. When the barbarians, over 2-3 centuries, destroyed the Roman Empire, the slave owning class was also destroyed. The barbarians, for some reason, had no interest in continuing the slave system; however, they did want to keep the land they had captured. That left two main classes: the landowning class and the former slaves. In these circumstances it seems natural, and more productive, for the former slaves to agree to turn over part of the production of the land in exchange for the right to live on the land. Thus, the share-cropper system, which is, essentially, the feudal system, developed.

Here in the U.S. we may have seen a sort of truncated repeat of this phenomenon. After the civil war the slave owning class was destroyed, as a class. However, they were allowed to keep ownership of their plantations. This left the former slaves, a part of whom did not leave the south, to work the plantations, but not as slaves. The share-cropper system then developed, a modern version of feudalism. The Jim Crow legal system was a natural outcome of this type of production.

The next mode of production would have developed which would be understood by anyone who grew up on a farm. Once the kids have left the farm for the city they never go back. The farm kids become the early part of the "burgher" class, the bourgeoisie, along with the "free" workers, the proletariat.

This is completely wrong, it would help if you actually read any of the serious writings on these topics.

The existence of large-scale slavery, including in agricultural production (field hands) and other forms of primary product extraction (mining, for example) continued well after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West. The existence of a slave class is well-attested (though not its total extent) as late as the Charlemagne era. "10–20% of the Frankish empire's population consisted of slaves. Likewise, about 10% of England’s population entered in the Domesday Book (1086) were slaves" (Wiki). The existence of "productive slavery" was in deep decline, not only because very large landed estates for large-scale production for primarily urban consumption had declined with the general ecological and demographic run-down of late antiquity, as well as the fragmentation of society, but also because the 'coloni' or land-bound peasantry which had established under the late empire converged with the slaves in status. This was the origin of the serfdom (which, it should be recalled, was itself a stratified institution, with different classes of serf and peasant possessing more or less land and more or less rights vis-a-vis their lord). By the Middle Ages proper, slavery became mostly a household service or luxury item, and wasn't deeply involved in production (in this way similar to slavery in the mainstay under Dynastic China and the Islamic empires).

The bottom line is the apogee of the classic "ancient slave" or "antique" system was in the last century or so of the Roman republic (with the clearly defined essence of the system perhaps from the 200 BC-100 AD), and that following the Crisis of the Third Century all the way up to the Carolingian era it was not clear what new historically dynamic system would emerge. It is only following the collapse of the Carolingian Empire, the dissipation of the Viking raids, and the consolidation of a single Anglo-Saxon crown in England that a distinctly classical true "feudal" system emerged. This system similarly had its heyday arguably in the 11th-14th centuries, and following the Black Death and the 14th c. peasant rebellions in the West which led to the extinction of classical serfdom. From there it was similarly not clear what was to emerge for sometime. The Dutch Revolt which birthed the first bourgeois state wasn't until the 16th c., the capitalistic transformation of the English countryside around the same time, followed by the English bourgeois revolution of the 1640s-1680s, an era which wouldn't be capped off until the Great French Revolution a century later.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The exception to this is socialism, in which the power of the proletariat does not develop through the burgeoning of new relations of production within capitalism. It is only workers' capacity for power which develops through the capitalist socialization of production, with the socialist revolution enabling that capacity to be realized as the transition to socialism advances.

Why should we assume this exception?

[Rafiq]

Why should we assume this exception?

A radical change in social relations on behalf of the proletariat before a political revolution is impossible as the proletariat does not seek to exemplify itself, but to destroy itself.

[Lucretia]

Why should we assume this exception?

To claim otherwise is to fail to understand that workers are the first 'truly universal class.' To the extent that they collectively take control of private property within capitalism, they abolish that property's privately owned nature. To the extent that workers acquire power within the confines of private-property and capitalist structures, as individuals or groups, they are simply making themselves better-paid workers, perhaps even transforming themselves into petty-brougeois or new bourgeois forces. This is why workers as a class cannot acquire power within a political system dominated by capitalism, in the same way that petty producers could acquire power within a system dominated by, say, feudalism. Capitalism, by socializing production and concomitantly socializing the dominant form of private property (under monopoly capitalism), transforms class struggle into a struggle against private property itself.

It's all about Marxian dialectics, comrade. Try reading up on it.

[Blake's Baby]

Why should we assume this exception?

I agree with Rafiq and Lucretia.

The bourgeoisie was not primarily an exploited class in feudalism; it was itself an exloiting class, and as a result it was able to develop its own economic power over several centuries before it had its political revolutions - these then marked the transfer of state power from the declining aristocracy to the rising bourgeoisie.

The proletariat has no other classes to exploit. We don't enslave another class on whose back we can develop our own economic power for several centuries in capitalism, which we then oppress and exploit for another couple of centuries after the revolution.

Also, capitalism is the first real integrated world system. Feudalism could be overthrown here and there at different times, because the feudal societies were not fundamentally connected. Their personel certainly were - the royal and aristocratic houses of Europe were very much inter-related - but economically they were not bound together the way capitalist economies are. Capitalism cannot be overthrown 'here and there at different times' because it is an integrated world system. It has to be overthrown worldwide.

The proletarian revolution is very very different, therefore, to the bourgeois revolutions.

[Geiseric]

The "barbarians," such as the Franks, Gothi, Alemanni, and Saxons were the ones who started Feudalism, because they conquered the former roman empire, and the leaders of these tribes divided it up among themselves, seeing as Charlegmane and Clovis needed a way to make sure people stayed loyal. The Holy Roman Empire was the first Feudal state, which started in Western Europe, which was founded by the Christian convert Charlemagne.

Pagan Scandanavia had Feudalism brought to them by King Olaf, who was overturned by the former pagans at first, but the christians eventually won and fully instituted Fuedalism. Scandanavia was one of the last Feudalized and christianized regions.

The Catholic Church and Feudalism go hand in hand in later centuries, I'm not sure the pagans had a feudal structure, it was more of an archaic, slave and warlord thing.

Feudalism was not brought around voulantarily, it was basically a "Winners take all," conquest of europe by invading tribes, and the conquerors needed some semblance of stability, since obviously the peasants didn't want to be slaves or be ruled at all. They needed to intimidate people into staying as peasants, and staying in service, which was what Knights were for.

Japan had a feudal system for a long time as well, with various Shoguns (Lords) and Daimyos (Barons) always conflicting, but supporting ultimately the same emperor, who was simply the strongest family.

[RedMaterialist]

This is completely wrong, it would help if you actually read any of the serious writings on these topics.

The existence of large-scale slavery, including in agricultural production (field hands) and other forms of primary product extraction (mining, for example) continued well after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West.

I didn't say the transition happened overnight


The existence of "productive slavery" was in deep decline, not only because very large landed estates for large-scale production for primarily urban consumption had declined with the general ecological and demographic run-down of late antiquity, as well as the fragmentation of society, but also because the 'coloni' or land-bound peasantry which had established under the late empire converged with the slaves in status.

The question is why that happened. The Roman Empire was an economy based on slavery. The Middle Ages was based on feudalism. How do you explain the change?



and following the Black Death and the 14th c. peasant rebellions in the West which led to the extinction of classical serfdom. From there it was similarly not clear what was to emerge for sometime.

It was certainly not clear at the time what would emerge. Marx since has taught us that the emergence of slavery from the patriarchal family, serfdom from slavery and capitalism from serfdom were dialectic, material processes with their own laws. What Darwin did for biology, Marx did for history and economics (to paraphrase Engels.) It is no longer acceptable to say that things were "not clear" or that classes somehow vaguely "converged."

You offer no real scientific evidence of the reason for the transition from slavery to serfdom. You only say that the transition happened. In other words, you assume what it is you are trying to prove.

[RedMaterialist]

The "barbarians," such as the Franks, Gothi, Alemanni, and Saxons were the ones who started Feudalism, because they conquered the former roman empire, and the leaders of these tribes divided it up among themselves...

They certainly divided up the land. And on the land were former Roman slaves. What better way to continue production than to set up a share-cropping system? Although I was not there, I can assure you that the barbarians had no intention of becoming farmers.


The Catholic Church and Feudalism go hand in hand in later centuries..

Not only do they go hand in hand but, according to Marx, Catholicism developed out of the feudal mode of production. And later, as the bourgeois mode of production developed, modern Christianity and the Protestants, developed. As Engels said: Adam Smith is the Luther of economy. Not that Luther created Adam Smith, but that Adam Smith expressed the Lutheran quality of capitalism.

[subcp]

Marx since has taught us that the emergence of slavery from the patriarchal family, serfdom from slavery and capitalism from serfdom were dialectic, material processes with their own laws.

The concept of ascendance/decadence is related to this: that modes of production arise from specific material conditions, develop to the extent possible, then enter a period of decline as the contradictions inherent in the mode of production prevent further development of the productive forces (followed by a transition to a new mode of production). Through reading the 'lost' chapter 6 to V.I of Capital ('Results of the Immediate Process of Production') and Grundrisse, Camatte puts it forward that since primitive communism gave way to slavery, the underlying theme of modes of production and social relations has been the growing autonomization of exchange value:



The importance of the definition of capital as value in process


"To develop the concept of capital it is necessary to begin not with labour but with value, and, precisely, exchange-value already developed in the movement of circulation. It is just as impossible to make the transition directly from labour to capital as it is to go from the different human races directly to the banker, or from nature to the steam engine." (Grundrisse p. 259)


The appearance of capital thus presupposes a long historical development, in the course of which we can see exchange-value progressively approaching autonomy.


-Capital and Community

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

A radical change in social relations on behalf of the proletariat before a political revolution is impossible as the proletariat does not seek to exemplify itself, but to destroy itself.

Really? Can you point to point to a consistent tendency for the proletariat to abolish itself? Because beyond some political types claiming to speak for the proletariat I'm not seeing it.

The self-abolishment of the proletarian class might well be an aim for political Marxists, but they are at best a certain subset of the proletariat (at the moment - this could change in the future).


To claim otherwise is to fail to understand that workers are the first 'truly universal class.' To the extent that they collectively take control of private property within capitalism, they abolish that property's privately owned nature. To the extent that workers acquire power within the confines of private-property and capitalist structures, as individuals or groups, they are simply making themselves better-paid workers, perhaps even transforming themselves into petty-brougeois or new bourgeois forces. This is why workers as a class cannot acquire power within a political system dominated by capitalism, in the same way that petty producers could acquire power within a system dominated by, say, feudalism. Capitalism, by socializing production and concomitantly socializing the dominant form of private property (under monopoly capitalism), transforms class struggle into a struggle against private property itself.

Events like the Paris commune and the Spanish Civil War illustrate that workers can in fact gain power under capitalism, except for the fact that those enclaves were too small to prevent themselves being crushed by militarily superior forces. This suggests that if proletarians were to take control of a large enough geographical area with a sufficient industrial base, they would have a greater chance of being able to ensure that direct military confrontation is not a viable option for the counter-revolutionaries.

Of course, the success of that would also depend on the political character of the revolution as well as such factors as the wider geopolitical situation.

In any case, it seems to me that regardless of what happens, if communism is in our future, there will be some kind of transitional period in which capitalist and post-capitalist economic systems exist simultaneously. I don't claim to know how long that transitional period could be apart from longer than zero, since there are such considerations as the wholesale re-organisation of production along social lines to consider.


It's all about Marxian dialectics, comrade. Try reading up on it.

No thanks. If common-or-garden reasoning and logic allied with historical materialism aren't good enough to make your case, then I reckon you need to re-examine your position.


I agree with Rafiq and Lucretia.

The bourgeoisie was not primarily an exploited class in feudalism; it was itself an exloiting class, and as a result it was able to develop its own economic power over several centuries before it had its political revolutions - these then marked the transfer of state power from the declining aristocracy to the rising bourgeoisie.

The proletariat has no other classes to exploit. We don't enslave another class on whose back we can develop our own economic power for several centuries in capitalism, which we then oppress and exploit for another couple of centuries after the revolution.

Also, capitalism is the first real integrated world system. Feudalism could be overthrown here and there at different times, because the feudal societies were not fundamentally connected. Their personel certainly were - the royal and aristocratic houses of Europe were very much inter-related - but economically they were not bound together the way capitalist economies are. Capitalism cannot be overthrown 'here and there at different times' because it is an integrated world system. It has to be overthrown worldwide.

The proletarian revolution is very very different, therefore, to the bourgeois revolutions.

This is a better answer, but I'm still not entirely convinced. Capitalism may be a global system as of right now, but as far as I can tell that is simply because nothing better has yet to come along - it's easy to be on top when there's no meaningful competition. Who's to say that the nature of capitalism won't evolve in response to the arrival of a viable alternative? The global nature of capitalism means that any struggle against it must be global to be successful, but global development is hardly uniform even in this day and age.

As for no other classes to exploit... What of the lumpenproletariat? They may not be subject to (much) economic exploitation by the proletariat right now, but considering the way capitalism is currently flailing around trying to unsuccessfully resolve its contradictions, the widely-held low regard for lumpen that already exists, plus the degradation and destruction of less skilled labour by advancing technology, it doesn't strike me as beyond the pale that some kind of exploitation of the lumpen by the proletariat could arise in the future.

[Lucretia]

Events like the Paris commune and the Spanish Civil War illustrate that workers can in fact gain power under capitalism, except for the fact that those enclaves were too small to prevent themselves being crushed by militarily superior forces. This suggests that if proletarians were to take control of a large enough geographical area with a sufficient industrial base, they would have a greater chance of being able to ensure that direct military confrontation is not a viable option for the counter-revolutionaries.

Congratulations. You've successfully provided an example that bears out my argument while trying to disprove it. This takes a special talent. Why would capitalism aim to crush the Paris commune? Doesn't this suggest that socialism grows in opposition to, outside of, capitalism, and not within it? In all honesty, this is one of the ABCs of Marxism. And I am both surprised and disturbed to hear you fight it kicking and screaming.

[Blake's Baby]

...

This is a better answer, but I'm still not entirely convinced. Capitalism may be a global system as of right now, but as far as I can tell that is simply because nothing better has yet to come along - it's easy to be on top when there's no meaningful competition. Who's to say that the nature of capitalism won't evolve in response to the arrival of a viable alternative? The global nature of capitalism means that any struggle against it must be global to be successful, but global development is hardly uniform even in this day and age....

Not sure what the relevance is to the question at hand. If a 'better' (better for the workers? Better for the bourgeoisie? Better for an as-yet-unidentified class embodying new relations of production?) system comes along it must either be a new exploitative system - in which case, Marxism as an emancipatory project would be, in my view, dead in the water - or it's socialism. There aren't any other options.


...As for no other classes to exploit... What of the lumpenproletariat? They may not be subject to (much) economic exploitation by the proletariat right now, but considering the way capitalism is currently flailing around trying to unsuccessfully resolve its contradictions, the widely-held low regard for lumpen that already exists, plus the degradation and destruction of less skilled labour by advancing technology, it doesn't strike me as beyond the pale that some kind of exploitation of the lumpen by the proletariat could arise in the future.

In which case the 'lumpenproletariat' would cease to be 'lumpen' and the 'proletariat' would cease to be a proletariat. So the thought experiment fails. The proletariat is the proletariat because of their status as an exploited productive class. The lumpenproleariat is the lumpenproletariat because of it failure to be integrated into exploitative production. If you integrate the lumpenproles they become proles (an exploited productive class); if you move the proles from proletarian to bourgeois status (owners of capital and managers of labour) they become bourgeois.

"If workers became managers and all the unemployed got jobs...", then that would be what we have now, with fewer unemployed. Keynesianism, maybe. Still capitalist- with different personnel.

[Geiseric]

The DotP is the "system" in which the proletariat opresses the bourgeoisie. Quit it with the nuances, people get the idea.

[Blake's Baby]

Who are you addressing that to Broody? If it's me, i have no idea what you're talking about. if it's noxion... I still have no idea what you're talking about.

The proletariat may 'oppress' the bourgeoisie, but they don't 'exploit' the bourgeoisie.