Sub-phases of Slavery and Feudalism

[Comrade #138672]

We all know that Capitalism went through different phases, each being more or less reflected by some ideology. For example, in its early stage, the free market reigned, which was reflected by Liberalism. Later Capitalism entered the stage of imperialism, which gave rise to Fascism. Still, it is Capitalism.

It is natural that we know Capitalism a little better than other systems, because it is the current system, and therefore more relevant. However, I would like to know whether Slavery and Feudalism also went through different stages, and if so, what kind of stages, and also what the corresponding ideologies were.

Or is it a unique characteristic of Capitalism to go through different stages, because the other systems were more or less stable for a long time, while Capitalism is continually reinventing itself? This is probably true to some extent, but I can hardly imagine that Slavery and Feudalism didn't go through some important changes themselves.

[Geiseric]

Well people owning people was generally unchanged from Babylon to feudal era france. When new technology comes around which necessitates less labor for processing mostly cotton, and when more food can be made by fewer propertyholders is where we saw ironically slavery get worse in the American south and the Caribbean islands where about a third of the total slaves lived.

Chattel slavery is different from antiquity style slavery, in the old world slaves sometimes could be wealthy although they were bound to property. Often when they've worked for a while they could be freed, this kind of thing happened in Egypt and rome.

[Luís Henrique]

Feudalism very clearly evolved from its "classical" phase into absolutism.

Slavery usually evolved from debt slavery into foreign prisoner slavery.

Luís Henrique

[RedMaterialist]

Marx noted somewhere that the original family structure is the natural product of slavery: the wife and children are the property, slaves, of the patriarch. There must have been a transition from an era of female slaves captured in war for purposes of marriage to the capture of slaves for use in agriculture, thus the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy.

[L.A.P.]

yeah, the Holy Roman Empire was an elective monarchy for most of its early history and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was elective at its peak in feudalism

absolute monarchy/divine right of kings wasn't a thing in feudalism until the aftermath of the European religious wars revealed the threatened stability of the aristocratic order.

House of Bourbon's divine right of kings policy only lasted 146 years until the French Revolution occured

[Luís Henrique]

Marx noted somewhere that the original family structure is the natural product of slavery: the wife and children are the property, slaves, of the patriarch.

Did he say something like that? Sounds so not-Marx to me.


There must have been a transition from an era of female slaves captured in war for purposes of marriage to the capture of slaves for use in agriculture, thus the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy.

Why?

Luís Henrique

[Jimmie Higgins]

It seems that all class systems have these tendencies, not just capitalism. One factor is how class struggles within those kinds of organization impact those systems; and so, for example, a weak ruling class is not going to be able to rule people in the same ways that a strong ruling class might be able to. Another factor may be the relations of groups of rulers to eachother, or conditions in the world-wide trade.

No system has an "ideal" form - it's always an ongoing development around certian basic relations. It's like in Capital where Marx describes Capitalism in an idealized way, but then also shows how these are just the tendencies and, in the "real world", there are tons of variables acting on the system which cause things to develop in the concrete ways they do.

[RedMaterialist]

Did he say something like that? Sounds so not-Marx to me.

"The social structure is, therefore, limited to an extension of the family; patriarchal family chieftains, below them the members of the tribe, finally slaves. The slavery latent in the family only develops gradually with the increase of population, the growth of wants, and with the extension of external relations, both of war and of barter." The German Ideology, Ch. 3.



Why?

Luís Henrique

Well, I would say that it is fairly clear that when hunter-gatherers went to war they made slaves of the women and children captives, the men were mostly killed or tortured to death for entertainment. The women and children were "adopted" into the clan.

The "modern" form of slavery for use in agriculture, personal service, artisan manufacture, etc. must have transitioned from the earlier form. I believe, although I haven't seen anything specific on this, that once agriculture began to develop, the "owners" of the land, the clan, would not want to do the extremely hard work of farming the land. Sort of like the U.S. southern plantation owners, they had a perfect source of labor, slaves. And therein lies the history of modern civilization: the development of class society, with slavery, serfdom, proletariat.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Feudalism can generally be seen to have been in decline from at least as early as the 14th century, the culmination of a fairly long process of peasants firstly emancipating themselves from serfdom bondage, and then accumulating land and wealth, to eventually become akin to a minor gentry, rather than the stereotypical type our minds may wander to when we think of the word 'peasant'.

Though - and I can only speak for the UK as that's where my research has been focused - the decline of feudalism and in particular of its defining feature, serfdom, was not evenly spread. Some areas of the country (Kent, areas of the Midlands) had large levels of peasant freedom very early on (i.e. Hoskins' 1957 study of Wigston Carta in Leicestershire points to a majority of free peasants from the 11th/12th centuries), whereas other areas, such as Somerset, Norfolk (I think) etc., were retained as strongholds of serfdom under manorial lordship's coercion well into the 14th century.

Really, late feudalism is an area that has been hugely and tragically neglected by a great many marxist philosophers. It's a really interesting period of history and, in addition, can really aid our understanding of 1) the origins of capitalism and pre-capitalist systems, and 2) the mechanics of change and upheaval in terms of analysing social systems in their entirety.

[Jimmie Higgins]

@The Boss,

I've been reading this book, History as Theory, which is a collection of essays about historical modes of production and understanding their internal "laws of motion". It's not really an introduction and parts of the more nitty-gritty descriptions of specific temoral/regonal expressions of feudalism or ancient slave societies are a bit over my head frankly because my knowlege of pre-capitalism is mostly broad strokes. But it is very thought provoking and has made me re-examine some assumptions I've adpoted or taken for granted and made me want to read more a long those lines. Anyway, one of the first essays compares English feudalism in it's "high" phase with "2nd serfdom" in Eastern Europe much later so your post brought the book to mind.

If you have any suggestions for anything like that, or if you are familiar with the author's argument's I'd love to get more reading suggestions and hear your take on that author's perspective.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I'm not hugely familiar with the second serfdom in Eastern Europe - i've been researching the decline of feudalism/origins of capitalism (i.e. its genesis) for the past year. A really terrific book is something i've recommended in another thread, The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (Aakar Books 2006, reprint of Verso edn 1976). As well as a new introduction by Rodney Hilton, it is basically a collection of essays from the late 40s, 50s and 60s that were in Science and Society and Past and Present journals - mostly a dialogue between Maurice Dobb and Paul Sweezy, with some contributions from Takahashi, Hill, Hobsbawm and a few others. It's a really useful collection for understanding feudalism in its late phase of decline, and essentially the period between c. 1350 and 1600, which we cannot definitively call either capitalist or feudalist fully. It's a question which wasn't answered adequately in the book, but it's a good introduction to the debate. I'd love to re-ignite the debate because it's something that hasn't received serious discussion in the marxist literature for like 50 years.

A few other good sources might be:

Scofield (2003) - Peasant and Community in Medieval England 1200-1500
Hilton (1983) - The Decline of Serfdom in Medieval England
Hilton (1975) - The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages