Primitive communism

[Luisrah]

How long did it last? (approximately)

I read about it that primitive communism was the way it was since the productive forces were so underdevelopped that each individual wasn't able to produce more than for himself.
Since no individual had the means to produce more than he could consume, there was no way that one could exploit the other and thus there were no classes.

If there were 'wars', capture enemies would either have to be killed, released or integrated into the clan (or whatever) since making them a slave wasn't possible (for the reason I explained above).

However, sooner or later the productive forces became developped enough for exploitation to be possible (and thus classes).
However, if I'm not mistaken, Marx said "revolutions are the locomotives of history" and I think I read that it were the revolutions that brought about the new societies. If so, which revolution ended primitive communism and brought about slave societies?

I hope I am making sense lol

[argeiphontes]

The so-called Agricultural Revolution, that started around 10,000 BP (in the Neolithic) and happened over time in various cultures, allowed surpluses to be accumulated and class relations to change. Without agriculture there would be no civilization.

edit: The Agricultural Revolution is also known as the Neolithic transition. It was the transition from hunting/gathering to agricultural production and animal domestication. And sedentary vs. nomadic.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

How long did it last? (approximately)

If you mean the epoch, considering how anatomical and behavioural modernity came about 200'000 and 50'000 years ago respectively, and if you consider the Neolithic to be the end of that epoch, that's around 190'000 to 40'000 years ago, depending on when you consider humans to be human.

If you mean in general, some have existed to this very day.


I read about it that primitive communism was the way it was since the productive forces were so underdevelopped that each individual wasn't able to produce more than for himself.
Since no individual had the means to produce more than he could consume, there was no way that one could exploit the other and thus there were no classes.

Did people really 'produce' in the modern capitalist sense?

Just to keep in mind, while 'primitive communism' and 'hunter-gatherer society' are good descriptions of pre-neolithic societies (and some societies still existent today, such as the Hadza or San), they also make it out that HG societies were some kind of singular societal blob.

This is not the case, hunter-gatherer societies shared things in common, but the economic routines and utilization of collection (produce?) were very different between societies. For example, while there is no evidence of agricultural or semi-agricultural practice among the historic Hadza tribes of Western Africa, most Aboriginal Australian groups intensely terraformed the land in many ways like burning fields of forest for grasslands which wombats would thrive in, pulling out Spinifex grass, or dispersing the seeds of trees they found throughout fertile areas they passed through.
Some historians even suggest that most of Southern And South-Eastern Australia would've looked completely different to the first Europeans if Aboriginal nations had not productively transformed the landscape first.


If there were 'wars', capture enemies would either have to be killed, released or integrated into the clan (or whatever) since making them a slave wasn't possible (for the reason I explained above).

I think this is it. There is also the problem that 'wars' were extremely rare in hunter-gatherer societies (conflicts more common, but wars no). When there was war in hunter-gatherer, it was usually triggered by cataclysmic environmental events. In example, paintings of rigid fighting scenes in Northern Australia began to appear around the time the land bridge between Australia and Papua New Guinea was becoming submerged in water. The anthropological explanation for this is that lots of people were forced to live in very closely aligned communities, with no general knowledge of the region they were in and the ever-growing problem of scarcity. This caused conflict over territory and resources, which subsequently caused wars. The contrast between this period of bloodshed in Australian/Papuan history and the period at which the land-bridge still existed is absolutely shocking, as paintings from the previous period depicted smooth, detailed depictions of cultural festivals, clothing, tools and animals. The paintings that came later were, as mentioned, simple rigid sketches that depicted human figures piercing one another with spears.



I hope I am making sense lol

You're making perfect sense!

Hope I helped in any way.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

A sort of slavery can exist in a society without a slave-based economic model, just as a sort of exchange can exist. "Primitive communist" societies may well have warred and exchanged on a limited capacity with one another, capturing women and men as slaves, "wives" etc. The point was that it was an insignificant part of their economy if it did exist. People did make more than they consumed - otherwise, how would children and the elderly survive? The point is that people produced only a small surplus above what they needed to survive.

Also, there are still primitive Communist societies to this day in places like the Amazon Rainforest, although they are rapidly dwindling and being forced into economic contact with the broader Capitalist world.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

A couple thoughts:

I think it's dangerous to collapse a whole lot of bioregionally (and consequently, sociologically) distinct types of production - ranging from so-called "slash-and-burn" agriculture and horticulture to various combinations of hunting and foraging that often involved a lot more of one or the other. Which isn't to say it's not fair to apply a general label (obvs. capitalism in China and Canada are pretty distinct), but that often a lot gets glossed over.
Secondly, I think the idea that "primitive" societies neither did nor could produce a surplus is often untrue. In many cases, there was significant ritual use of surplus, for example, in sacrifices, or in feasting. What is distinguishing is not that there was no surplus, but rather that the surplus was consumed socially, rather than individually.
Honestly, I think a lot of the idea that there were no surpluses produced by primitive societies says (as anthropology essentially always does) more about the liberal narratives of progress that informed the anthropology of Marx's era than it does about the actual economic relationships within and between various "primitive" communities.
An emphasis should be placed on "between" too - many "primitive" communities were not necessarily historically hunter-gatherers/horticulturalists, but changed/developed in relation to early states, in a sort of antagonistic relationship to grain production and slavery. James C. Scott's "The Art Of Not Being Governed" explores this phenomena in South East Asia in some detail.
Finally, it's not necessarily an "internal" "development" of "productive forces" that lead to the transition from "primitive" to slave/state societies (though this is certainly true in some situations to greater or lesser degrees): in some cases, grain agriculture and the state were imposed by military castes of ethnically/socially distinct origin, essentially imposing themselves and organizing "legible" grain production (in the sense of requiring a sedentary population, producing relatively stable therefore taxable yields, enabling population growth) in a process that, in some ways (though obvs. distinct, given modes of production) is analogous to colonialism.
Anyway, just thought I'd try to make everything in this discussion more difficult and less clear. No need to thank me.

[tuwix]

How long did it last? (approximately)


It lasts until today. Below is movie showing a present primitive communism society. To understand turn the subtitles on which is possible by clicking at CC.

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[argeiphontes]

Ciekawy program. "Tak jak w malej Polskiej rodzinie"--mi sie wydawalo ze Polska rodzina jest troche bardziej zcentralizowana ;-)

Not to derail the thread, but primitive communism (even with the understanding that it's probably an oversimplification) gives me hope for future communism. I happen to think we're a tribal people by nature (similar to other apes) and that makes organization into collectives more likely to succeed.