How did class society emerge out of "primitive communism"?

[Red Nightmare]

What were the conditions that led to the formation of classes? Was primitive communism really classless? If so, does this mean class society can emerge from a classless society? If not, should it really be considered a form of communism? Did the means of production exist under "primitive communism"?

I am just curious because I have heard references to primitive communism when studying about the Marxist interpretation of history.

[AConfusedSocialDemocrat]

I'd say it came about with the agrarian life style, you need farmersto till the fields, soldiers to guard the grain, priests and wise men who could interpret the stars/know when it was right to sow et cetera. I wouldn't regard it as communism though.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I am no expert on the subject, but from my simple gatherings, Class society and therewith the State arose through the advance of a primitive stage of the productive forces, the Plow around 4,000 B.C. which could only be utilized by the Male, stronger Sex. Men created a higher surplus for society, and hence women were reduced to a lower social standing. Also, as the wealth created by the human Laborer grew with the advance of the productive forces of labor, Trade between villages arose, bringing with it the Merchant class which had to transport expensive goods as early as 10,000 B.C. throughout Central Europe, on long and dangerous roads. Walmart today is the equivalent of the Merchant, who certainly felt compelled as well to protect his privileges against Patriarch's.

I would be interested in finding out when exactly Warring began in Europe.

[Tim Cornelis]

I'm no expert either, but I think it wasn't the merchant class that emerged as the primary class relations. The neolithic revolution allowed for specialisation, it also meant those first to invent agriculture could use the labour of nearby tribes to cultivate the land for them so they waged war and enslaved other tribes. Hence the emerging of slave society.

[human strike]

If I remember correctly, Gilles Dauvé's essay 'Capitalism and Communism' is relevant and pretty damn good: http://libcom.org/library/capitalism-communism-gilles-dauve

[Ravachol]

As far as I know, there isn't a single, clear-cut cause. The rise of class society is a complicated process involving many factors developing over time, neither of which provide a clear line of demarcation between classless and class societies. There's really a lot of phenomena contributing to the decomposition of primitive communism and neither of them are like some kind of 'original sin'. Ie.: there existed small-scale classless societies which engaged in horticulture and were more or less sedentary.

For example: the rise of agriculture and the associated dynamic of sedentism, both strengthened by environmental events (such as a series of droughts or small-scale ecological imbalances), bound communities to the land. Whilst initially this took the form of a pastoral phase (one of semi-sedentism with communities following semi-domesticated herds), various simultaneous dynamics, such as an emergent (gendered) division of labor, the rise of shamanism (who were initially predominantly women btw) which separated communities from their spirituality (through a division between the 'sacred' and the 'worldly' with the shaman as the mediator), etc. added to this process and eventually contributed to a situation where communities lost the skills that allowed them to part with their land. This, in turn, led to the accumulation of surpluses to outlast harsh winters and the emergence of methods of accounting for those surpluses, which favored the rise of bureaucratic tendencies. In some regions, such as Mesopotamia, the burdensome erection and maintenance of waterworks for irrigation led those communities to spread out and enslave the remaining hunter-gatherer tribes in their areas, drawing more and more communities into the orbit of class society.

In addition, the early mentioned process of domestication (http://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/agdom.htm) laid the groundwork for what would later become the seeds of capital: animal herds (http://libcom.org/library/beasts-burden-antagonism-practical-history). The Latin word for money, pecunia, is derived from pecu, cattle (from Proto-Indo-European *pek'- (“pluck out (hair, wool)”)) whilst the very word capital is etymologically related to the word cattle, to the point that 'cow' and 'property' were often the same in many indo-european languages.

Regardless of what people on this forum think of them, a lot of work by primitivist authors such as John (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-zerzan-agriculture) Zerzan (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-zerzan-future-primitive) or Kevin Tucker or by anthropologists like Pierre Clastres (http://www.amazon.com/Archeology-Violence-Semiotext-Foreign-Agents/dp/1584350938) or Christopher Boehm (http://libcom.org/history/origins-hunter-gatherer-egalitarianism-christopher-boehm) are a wealth of information in these regards. In addition, 'against his-story, against leviathan' by Fredy Perlman (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-against-his-story-against-leviathan) and The wandering of humanity by Jacques Camatte (http://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/wanhum/) are also very informative.

[Lucretia]

The best work on this question continues to Be Chris Harman's "Engels and the Origins of Human Society." http://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/1994/xx/engels.htm

[subcp]

The ICC have done a lot of interesting work on pre-history, radical anthropology, etc.


Knight's thesis is to some extent a riposte to the theories of the French structuralist Levi-Strauss, who represents a school of thought that is less coy than the Anglo-Saxons about posing the question of origins. According to Levi-Strauss, culture emerges from nature through a kind of social contract among the males in early or proto-human society: it is the men who agree among themselves to exchange females in a manner regulated by custom rather than simply imposing a hierarchy of physical force to establish access to the females. Following Engels, Knight argues that ‘woman' in the earliest human societies was not a mere passive object, a simple instrument for the satisfaction of male desire. In fact, Knight sees the transition from primate to human culture in an act of conscious social rebellion by the female of the species, the ‘sex strike', through which the females overturned the rule of the tyrannical male who had hitherto won the ‘right' to enjoy his female through his monopoly of physical force - a right which was not accompanied by any ‘duties' such as the provision of females with meat or a settled space to look after their young, since females were obliged to follow the male hunters, carrying their young with them, in order to then compete for sexual favours in exchange for a share of the kill. In Knight's ‘myth', the origin of human culture lies essentially in the discovery of the power of solidarity, through the females' collective refusal of sex until the males had brought home the bacon; in doing so, Knight speculates, the females won over the less dominant males, previously excluded from the ‘harem', who could more readily understand the value of forgoing the immediate satisfaction of consuming the product of the hunt.

http://en.internationalism.org/2008/10/Chris-Knight

Here's another article related to radical anthropology that was published 2 weeks ago:

http://en.internationalism.org/internationalreview/201303/6964/womens-role-emergence-human-solidarity

All of which is related to how human culture reached the level that culture emerges and production (to satisfy needs, wants and the creation of value) develops.

[Astarte]

As far as I know, there isn't a single, clear-cut cause. The rise of class society is a complicated process involving many factors developing over time, neither of which provide a clear line of demarcation between classless and class societies. There's really a lot of phenomena contributing to the decomposition of primitive communism and neither of them are like some kind of 'original sin'. Ie.: there existed small-scale classless societies which engaged in horticulture and were more or less sedentary.

For example: the rise of agriculture and the associated dynamic of sedentism, both strengthened by environmental events (such as a series of droughts or small-scale ecological imbalances), bound communities to the land. Whilst initially this took the form of a pastoral phase (one of semi-sedentism with communities following semi-domesticated herds), various simultaneous dynamics, such as an emergent (gendered) division of labor, the rise of shamanism (who were initially predominantly women btw) which separated communities from their spirituality (through a division between the 'sacred' and the 'worldly' with the shaman as the mediator), etc. added to this process and eventually contributed to a situation where communities lost the skills that allowed them to part with their land. This, in turn, led to the accumulation of surpluses to outlast harsh winters and the emergence of methods of accounting for those surpluses, which favored the rise of bureaucratic tendencies. In some regions, such as Mesopotamia, the burdensome erection and maintenance of waterworks for irrigation led those communities to spread out and enslave the remaining hunter-gatherer tribes in their areas, drawing more and more communities into the orbit of class society.

In addition, the early mentioned process of domestication (http://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/agdom.htm) laid the groundwork for what would later become the seeds of capital: animal herds (http://libcom.org/library/beasts-burden-antagonism-practical-history). The Latin word for money, pecunia, is derived from pecu, cattle (from Proto-Indo-European *pek'- (“pluck out (hair, wool)”)) whilst the very word capital is etymologically related to the word cattle, to the point that 'cow' and 'property' were often the same in many indo-european languages.

Regardless of what people on this forum think of them, a lot of work by primitivist authors such as John (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-zerzan-agriculture) Zerzan (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-zerzan-future-primitive) or Kevin Tucker or by anthropologists like Pierre Clastres (http://www.amazon.com/Archeology-Violence-Semiotext-Foreign-Agents/dp/1584350938) or Christopher Boehm (http://libcom.org/history/origins-hunter-gatherer-egalitarianism-christopher-boehm) are a wealth of information in these regards. In addition, 'against his-story, against leviathan' by Fredy Perlman (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-against-his-story-against-leviathan) and The wandering of humanity by Jacques Camatte (http://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/wanhum/) are also very informative.

I thought this was mostly an excellent account of the rise of class society - my only qualm is that shamanism and spiritual tendencies seem to have existed long before the division of classes and span far back into the most ancient recesses of the paleolithic - this is evident from the paleolithic cave paintings from France and Spain as well as the "Venus of Willendorf". So, the only thing I would like to add is that it was not shamanism that arose with classes and the state, but rather organized religion and an alleged monopoly on spiritual powers by a priest-caste which essentially did to spirituality the same thing as what kingship did to primitive communism.

[Skyhilist]

At some turning point in history, some fuckface recognized that knowledge tends to democratize cultures and societies. So the only thing to do was monopolize and confine it to priests, clerics and elites (the rest resigned to serve), 'cause if the rabble heard the truth they'd organize against the power, privilege and wealth hoarded by the few- for no one else.

[tuwix]

What were the conditions that led to the formation of classes? Was primitive communism really classless? If so, does this mean class society can emerge from a classless society? If not, should it really be considered a form of communism? Did the means of production exist under "primitive communism"?

I am just curious because I have heard references to primitive communism when studying about the Marxist interpretation of history.

Everything is well described in Engel's book “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/).

Briefly, the first differences in terms of property from the state when all is common (primitive communism) start when one tribe encounters another tribe. Then they have goods own and their. Then families start to develops their structures. Gradually each family have own goods. Besides some gangsters (as we'd call them now) starts to enforce rackets on people and there starts private property because later when a gangster call himself a monarch to explain why he enforces a racket to pay, he says that it is his property. And from there all feudal class system. And from feudalism a capitalism emerged.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What were the conditions that led to the formation of classes? Was primitive communism really classless? If so, does this mean class society can emerge from a classless society? If not, should it really be considered a form of communism? Did the means of production exist under "primitive communism"?

I am just curious because I have heard references to primitive communism when studying about the Marxist interpretation of history.

Well this was likely a process that developed not in a straight line, and over a long period of time. But in the big picture what happened was that new productive techniques allowed for the creation of a surplus and a more stable form of life. This surplus meant that not everyone had to focus on mere biological reproduction (but there was not enough surplus to go around) and so the relation of people to production changed and over time maybe a more organic division became custom and the farmer with the bigger stocks who looked over the whole supplies for the community now became a chief who controled the surplus, or maybe even didn't have to produce for himself, but instead protected the store-house from raiding parties.

In some ways being able to create a larger surplus and freeing some people to do other tasks has benifits, settlements could be permanent, wealth could develop, extra supplies could be produced to get through droughts. Pre-class bands didn't have meaningful social divisions, because the labor of everyone in basic production was needed for as long as they were able to contribute. So in places where there was relative abundance this was likely a decent life, but in times of hardship it was probably much more brutal and violent. The development of agriculture and class organization helped give some groups an advantage and eventually it became common enough that this social organization then spread beyond the specific regions where it developed.

I've read that in the middle east the conditions that lead to argriculture and class society may have been due to changes in the environment that changed people's ability to gather food and so the one who were able to begin to cultivate were the ones that thrived.

[Ravachol]

In some ways being able to create a larger surplus and freeing some people to do other tasks has benifits, settlements could be permanent, wealth could develop, extra supplies could be produced to get through droughts. Pre-class bands didn't have meaningful social divisions, because the labor of everyone in basic production was needed for as long as they were able to contribute. So in places where there was relative abundance this was likely a decent life, but in times of hardship it was probably much more brutal and violent. The development of agriculture and class organization helped give some groups an advantage and eventually it became common enough that this social organization then spread beyond the specific regions where it developed.

I've read that in the middle east the conditions that lead to argriculture and class society may have been due to changes in the environment that changed people's ability to gather food and so the one who were able to begin to cultivate were the ones that thrived.

Yes and this is important as the development of agriculture was not (and especially initially) a material improvement in people's lives, contrary to the Hobbesian fable of scared men with wigs about hunter-gatherer existence being 'nasy, brutish and short'. Agriculture has a relatively low return-upon-investment and there's a huge risk that comes with investing a large amount of labor into a harvest that can fail completely, be swept away by drought or by locusts, etc. There's many research in paleoanthropology that indicates that the transition to a full-time agricultural and sedentary existence actually deteriorated living conditions when compared to a hunter-gatherer existence. There's a reason the few hunter-gatherer tribes that still exist in remote areas like the inner amazon don't transition to such an existence voluntarily (whilst they often do practice minor horticulture). The shift was largely the result of collapsing environmental conditions which in turn created a mode of reproduction that didn't allow anyone to turn back as both the skills and the social relations for that were slowly being eroded, with such communities drawing in more and more tribes into enslavement, such as was the case with the famous waterworks of Ur.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yes and this is important as the development of agriculture was not (and especially initially) a material improvement in people's lives, contrary to the Hobbesian fable of scared men with wigs about hunter-gatherer existence being 'nasy, brutish and short'. Agriculture has a relatively low return-upon-investment and there's a huge risk that comes with investing a large amount of labor into a harvest that can fail completely, be swept away by drought or by locusts, etc. There's many research in paleoanthropology that indicates that the transition to a full-time agricultural and sedentary existence actually deteriorated living conditions when compared to a hunter-gatherer existence. There's a reason the few hunter-gatherer tribes that still exist in remote areas like the inner amazon don't transition to such an existence voluntarily (whilst they often do practice minor horticulture). The shift was largely the result of collapsing environmental conditions which in turn created a mode of reproduction that didn't allow anyone to turn back as both the skills and the social relations for that were slowly being eroded, with such communities drawing in more and more tribes into enslavement, such as was the case with the famous waterworks of Ur.Still I think it has to be seen as a historical advance even though new ways of life created new problems. Agricultural tribe societies allowed for larger populations to develop and larger surplusses which allowed people to be freed from laboring solely for basic reproduction. But this is also a problem because it creates classes and since there is some surpluss but not enough to free everyone from reproductive labor, there is a fight over who gets to control that surpluss - class struggle and class rule.

[Q]

I found these articles to be very helpful in understanding the subject:

- Origins of religion and the human revolution: Part 1 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/798/origins-of-religion-and-the-human-revolution-pt1) and part 2 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/798/origins-of-religion-and-the-human-revolution-pt2).
- When all the crap began: Part 1 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/854/when-all-the-crap-began-supplement-part-1) and part 2 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/854/when-all-the-crap-began-supplement-part-2).

[Ravachol]

Still I think it has to be seen as a historical advance even though new ways of life created new problems. Agricultural tribe societies allowed for larger populations to develop and larger surplusses which allowed people to be freed from laboring solely for basic reproduction. But this is also a problem because it creates classes and since there is some surpluss but not enough to free everyone from reproductive labor, there is a fight over who gets to control that surpluss - class struggle and class rule.

I agree in part, though I should point out (not saying you imply the contrary just adding to what I posted above) that painting the social reproduction of hunter-gatherers as 'laboring' isn't entirely correct. If anthropological research among the !kung of the kalahari and the aché of eastern Paraguay is anything to go by, the absence of a division of labor in their social reproduction account for the absence of a distinction between work and play. The acts of gathering and hunting are often performed whilst singing, dancing, telling stories and are in and of themselves enjoyed as an art. Contrary to the notion of people dragging themselves through the mud for days at an end, the acts necessary for social reproduction take up very little time and the hunter-gatherers spend most of their day hanging around, telling stories, dancing, exploring nearby areas, crafting artifacts and doing psychedelic drugs.

I agree cultivation (though I'm hesitant to say agriculture as this is a very specific regime) has its benefits and I don't subscribe to original sin myths (nor do most primitivists for that matter), but I think its important to set the records straight with regards to the way pre-civilized societies have been painted throughout history, if only to better understand our own histories.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I agree in part, though I should point out (not saying you imply the contrary just adding to what I posted above) that painting the social reproduction of hunter-gatherers as 'laboring' isn't entirely correct. If anthropological research among the !kung of the kalahari and the aché of eastern Paraguay is anything to go by, the absence of a division of labor in their social reproduction account for the absence of a distinction between work and play. The acts of gathering and hunting are often performed whilst singing, dancing, telling stories and are in and of themselves enjoyed as an art. Contrary to the notion of people dragging themselves through the mud for days at an end, the acts necessary for social reproduction take up very little time and the hunter-gatherers spend most of their day hanging around, telling stories, dancing, exploring nearby areas, crafting artifacts and doing psychedelic drugs.

I agree cultivation (though I'm hesitant to say agriculture as this is a very specific regime) has its benefits and I don't subscribe to original sin myths (nor do most primitivists for that matter), but I think its important to set the records straight with regards to the way pre-civilized societies have been painted throughout history, if only to better understand our own histories.Ok, but labor is still labor in my view even if it's non-exploitative and not alientated. The difficulty of that labor or the urgancy of it was probably mostly determined by geographical and environmental factors.

[Luís Henrique]

Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/precapitalist/ch01.htm) by Karl Marx is an interesting read.

From it:


For instance, where each individual is supposed to possess so many acres of land, the mere increase in population constitutes an obstacle. If this is to be overcome, colonization will develop and this necessitates wars of conquest. This leads to slavery, etc., also, e.g., the enlargement of the ager publicus, and hence to the rise of the Patricians, who represent the community, etc. Thus the [p]reservation of the ancient community implies the destruction of the conditions upon which it rests, and turns into its opposite.

Luís Henrique

[Leftsolidarity]

It seems like there have been pretty thorough responses so I won't waste my time repeating it all again but I think you should read "Origin of the family, private property, and the state" by Engels. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm

[Q]

It seems like there have been pretty thorough responses so I won't waste my time repeating it all again but I think you should read "Origin of the family, private property, and the state" by Engels. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm

And, just as important, what is still correct (or not) about Engels' Origins (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/900/primitive-communism-barbarism-and-the-origins-of-class-society) (if you prefer, there is a video here (http://vimeo.com/30016524))?

[Crixus]

Agriculture and the ability for a minority to control the surplus the community creates. This was different in different places and different times from Europe to Asia. The primitive communist tribes in North America were attacked through a more advanced form of dispossession. Development around the globe has been historically uneven but in each case it has been a violent coercive process not just the 'natural order of things'. The roots of class society or 'civilization' are in agriculture.

[RedMaterialist]

Agriculture requires a lot of labor intensive work, far more than hunting and gathering. Of course, it also produces a surplus. It seems to me that agriculture must have offered perfect conditions for the use of slaves. Formerly captives in war, slaves would have been converted into agricultural workers.

Marx and Engels seemed to have believed that slavery originated in the family, the patriarch owning his wife and children.