Progressive Historical Materialism

[Comrade #138672]

Some things about Historical Materialism are still quite troubling to me. Especially the necessity of certain developments and the supposed progression.

What about the transition from Slavery to Feudalism? Was this necessary as well as progressive? The Dark Ages are generally considered to be a regression from an economic point of view due to worsened living standards and stagnated scientific progress. It could be progressive, however, from the oppressed class point of view. But how is it economically progressive?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Some things about Historical Materialism are still quite troubling to me. Especially the necessity of certain developments and the supposed progression.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by necissary developments. Do you mind expanding on the question and what you think is problematic?

[evermilion]

Anything in our evolution that has gotten mankind away from smashing each others' heads with rocks for meat and sex is unquestionably progressive, even if, as a modern man, I find it morally reprehensible.

[Comrade #138672]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by necissary developments. Do you mind expanding on the question and what you think is problematic?Like when Marx said that the collapse of Capitalism would be inevitable due to its inherent contradictions. Likewise the collapse of Slavery was inevitable, no?

[Rurkel]

A better example then the exaggerated "dark ages" is the near-extermination of Native Americans.

[Tim Cornelis]

It would be considered progressive because it furthers the basis of social progress -- not that things would get better. Feudalism would be considered progressive because it contains within the seeds for the establishment of capitalism, whereas slave-societies do not. (Note: I don't know if that statement is accurate, but that is why it would be considered progressive. In other words, like you, I don't know if we can blatantly state that feudalism is progressive). I also don't think the transition from slave society to feudalism was inevitable, as feudalism was in many ways economically less advanced (from the superficial knowledge I posses on the subject). It's also been said that premature steam engines had been developed by the Romans, but never technologically advanced or used in production due to the free availability of labour in slaves. If this had not been the case, and that technology had been cultivated, this would mean proto-industrialisation would have occurred in slave-society, and capitalism could have been the next mode of production.

[Fionnagáin]

What about the transition from Slavery to Feudalism? Was this necessary as well as progressive? The Dark Ages are generally considered to be a regression from an economic point of view due to worsened living standards and stagnated scientific progress. It could be progressive, however, from the oppressed class point of view. But how is it economically progressive?
In the popular imagination, but not by historians. Whatever decline in living standards occurred can be explained by the declining in trade and increasing warfare surrounding the collapse of the Western Empire. The only serious technological regression was in architecture and engineering, because there weren't any authorities capable of pursuing projects of that scale, while in agricultural, metallurgy, textile production and other "day-to-day" forms of production, we actually see significant advances.



It's also been said that premature steam engines had been developed by the Romans, but never technologically advanced or used in production due to the free availability of labour in slaves. If this had not been the case, and that technology had been cultivated, this would mean proto-industrialisation would have occurred in slave-society, and capitalism could have been the next mode of production.
It's not a very realistic proposition. The Romans weren't materially capable of developing steam-power, lacking the metallurgical and mechanical technology to create engines, or access to a fuel source capable of providing sufficient power.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Like when Marx said that the collapse of Capitalism would be inevitable due to its inherent contradictions.Inevitability has often been attributed to historical materialist views (both through crude interpretations by supporters and also through straw-men of competing intellectual views of history and change). However I don't think it is actually a deterministic outlook. In the above example, for instance, I think we could say the main internal contradiction is that in capitalism, the main exploited group (not necissarily the most exploited) is put in a position where they can potentially take over the running of that society. If slaves or pesants took over their societies, however, then there would still not be enough wealth to "go around" and so there would still have to be a large group of people tied to agricultural production and only a little surplus to free people to do other tasks - so this would probably just end up creating a re-organized feudalism or whatnot.


Likewise the collapse of Slavery was inevitable, no?I think all class societies have imbalances and contradictions and some degree of instability because of that, but it's not quite the same. To my understanding, some of these ancient societies, because of the way their ruling classes functioned, esentially undermined the stability of their own societies to the point where people had to simply abandon the cities; or the cities were sacked while in decline but before they had the chance to fully collapse on their own. The difference is mainly that if a ruling order declined, a new class could assert their interests, but it would be a different ruling minority.

[Hit The North]

If we review the facts then it is empirically observable that human history is marked by a progressive increase in the development of the forces of production (although this only becomes clear with the rise of capitalism). There may not be a smooth sequence of advance but the general line of advance is obvious. Whether this leads to progress in terms of human happiness or freedom is open to question. For Marx, every advance in class society leads to the further alienation of humanity from its species being. To realise its species being, humanity will need to overcome class society. In fact, Marx argues that only capitalism contains the potential for the progressive liberation of mankind because only it creates the universal class of the proletariat whose emancipation is the guarantee of humanity's emancipation in general through the ending of class society.

There is no reason for historical materialism to go back to the origins of class society in order to show some inevitability in order to prove its assertions. The historical movement from slave society to feudalism and the revolutionary overthrow of feudal relations by the bourgeoisie had already happened when Marx and Engels were developing historical materialism and so does not need the proof of some bogus teleology.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Serfdom was certainly an improvement on slavery in that it loosened the legal framework of the oppressed-oppressor relationship. Whilst i'm not that familiar with slavery in its historical context, from what I understand, it essentially legally binded a human as the property of their owner; serfdom tended to be progressive relative to this in that the human wasn't any longer the property of their owner - they were coerced into what activities they could fulfil, into what land they should tend, into performing labour services and the extraction of monetary and non-monetary forms of rent from the serf towards the lord. Still yet, of course, capitalism was an improvement on serfdom in that, within a social context and the framework of the legal system, the oppressed was 'free' in such terms to sell their own labour for a wage.

[Fionnagáin]

It's also worth remembering that slaves were a minority in the Roman Empire. Most of them were subsistence farmers held in some form of bondage to the Roman state, initially in a form inherited from pre-Roman rulers. There's a strong argument that the slave-system was just a dead-end that collapsed under its own weight, a weird outgrowth of the privileged status of the nobility within the primitive commune, and that the roots of feudal or manorial society are actually located in these forms of "post-tribal" agrarian bondage.