Class Society paper

[JazzRemington]

FOr my Social Problems class, we have to write 3 5-page papers on social problems of our choice. I chose drug abuse, unemployment, and class society. Here is what I have written for the class society paper. I'm a little stuck on how to explain exactly how the surplus created through agriculture caused the rise of class society, though.


It would be a fallacy to claim that all so-called “social problems” are just merely diseases; that they can be cured individually because each operates in a vacuum and are not affected by another. The masses of individuals marching in tune with one another pleading for this drug to be outlawed or that discrimination to be ended have it only at best one-tenth right. There is a greater disease, gnawing away at society as an animal that eats its own mother upon birth. It would be easy to claim it has no cause for it is the cause, the single cause which caused all other causes, both social and individual. Let the banners the protesters carry not be inscribed with a utopian cause such as “end male oppression,” but rather with “end class society,” the disease of which all other social problems are symptoms.

Class society cannot be understood in its present sense without understanding where it came from and how it got to be the way it is today and yesterday. The key to understanding anything is within the murky depths of history. In the beginning, human beings lived largely non-hierarchical lives in constant strife with nature, struggling against it to just survive and live another day. Then, through the human being’s shear intelligence he mustered enough strength to conquer nature via agriculture. Due to the creation of surplus, class society began to form. This process allowed groups to settle in place, mostly near water sources, and generate food in larger quantities, much more than a typical hunter-gatherer society could handle in one instance. We cannot say for sure exactly how this caused class society to develop but it is important to note that it was this instance that caused the creation of the god-head. Through various classes struggling against one another both in armed and unarmed conflict, class society evolved slowly but surely into what we have today: the primitive slave owning society was dethroned by the feudal lords, who were dethroned by the capitalists.

But how would this end up causing other forms of social problems? We will briefly examine two problems and demonstrate how they are related to class society: sexism and racism. These are both the oldest social problems and the most studied. Problems such as drug abuse and unemployment are not nearly as old but rather are side effects of living in an “industrial society.”

As stated earlier, the hunter-gatherer societies largely lived non-hierarchical societies. The only division of labor was based on sex: men hunted and women gathered. During this time, women were highly valued because of the fact that they could give birth.

[afrikaNOW]

gnawing away at society as an animal that eats its own mother upon birth

that was a real brutal description :blink:

[JazzRemington]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 04:42 PM
gnawing away at society as an animal that eats its own mother upon birth

that was a real brutal description :blink:
I couldn't find any such animal that does that. I'm almost positive there is, but I can't seem to remember wha tit was called.

[bcbm]

I'm a little stuck on how to explain exactly how the surplus created through agriculture caused the rise of class society, though.

The surplus of food meant that not all members of the community needed to be involved in the production of food; they could perform other tasks: division of labor. Those professions that proved more important to those in power (scribes, for instance), or those capable of accumulating more (merchants, bankers) were given better positions or acquired them and over time this evolved into full-fledged class societies.


In the beginning, human beings lived largely non-hierarchical lives in constant strife with nature, struggling against it to just survive and live another day. Then, through the human being’s shear intelligence he mustered enough strength to conquer nature via agriculture.

Although this description fits nicely with the tone of your piece, it isn't particularly accurate.

[JazzRemington]

Originally posted by black banner black [email protected] 20 2006, 05:03 PM

In the beginning, human beings lived largely non-hierarchical lives in constant strife with nature, struggling against it to just survive and live another day. Then, through the human being’s shear intelligence he mustered enough strength to conquer nature via agriculture.

Although this description fits nicely with the tone of your piece, it isn't particularly accurate.
I'm not sure what you mean.

[afrikaNOW]

He means that that is isn't accurate in terms of historical materialism,(human beings shear intelligence progress was made).

Also, humans lived hierarchical lives. Different modes of production pre capitialism shows that. Feudalism, Slavery, State, etc.

[JazzRemington]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 05:34 PM
He means that that is isn't accurate in terms of historical materialism,(human beings shear intelligence progress was made).

Also, humans lived hierarchical lives. Different modes of production pre capitialism shows that. Feudalism, Slavery, State, etc.
I understand and changed teh part about intelligence. But, the part about hierarchical lives is related to pre-agriculture. The minimal division of labor meant that individuals within hunter-gatherer societies lived largely non-hierarchical lives.

[JazzRemington]

Here is an updated version of the paper. Note that the part about the development of class society may seem condensed and lacking in some parts, but I had to condense it to fit it all in a 5-page paper.


It would be a fallacy to claim that all so-called “social problems” are just merely diseases; that they can be cured individually because each operates in a vacuum and are not affected by another. The masses of individuals marching in tune with one another pleading for this drug to be outlawed or that discrimination to be ended have it only at best one-tenth right. There is a greater disease, gnawing away at society as an animal that eats its own mother upon birth. It would be easy to claim it has no cause for it is the cause, the single cause which caused all other causes, both social and individual. Let the banners the protesters carry not be inscribed with a utopian cause such as “end male oppression,” but rather with “end class society,” the disease of which all other social problems are symptoms.

Class society cannot be understood in its present sense without understanding where it came from and how it got to be the way it is today and yesterday. The key to understanding anything is within the murky depths of history. In the beginning, human beings lived largely non-hierarchical lives in constant strife with nature, struggling against it to just survive and live another day. Over time populations began to slowly increase and there was a need to develop a new way of sustaining these populations. Agriculture allowed for the production of food beyond the requirements of the groups, thus allowing for the creation of jobs that did not participate in production of said surplus but rather live off it. Some were placed in charge of managing the new surplus, others developed writing, others still developed art, etc. The individuals placed in charge of the new surplus eventually developed into the ruling class of the agricultural society and the new division of labor wrought from the creation of surplus provided services that were helpful to the new ruling class. Thus, class society was born out of the material experience of relationships to the means of production.

Such a society evolved slowly over time. The new primitive communist society evolved into Asiatic societies, new societies in which the ruling class received tributes that were a testament to their ability to have enough free time to develop various sciences and arts. Cities increased in size, well beyond the agriculture needed to support them and slavery was introduced in order to solve the problem. But the introduction of slavery created its own end: the constant need for slaves. Rome, being built upon the “majesty” of slavery, showed history first hand the inevitable forces that moved history forward: contradictions. After many years of warfare, external and internal strife, and a constant reliance upon slavery, Rome fell apart from the inside due to the reliance on the now-dead slave labor and on the outside due to barbarian invasions. Raids by barbarians into former-Roman controlled territories accumulated many riches for those who were bold enough to do so and eventually these individuals developed a following.

These individuals conquered land and divided it up amongst his followers in return for loyalty and a sworn oath of defense. Individuals who were not as strong or wealthy were forced to work the fields, swearing allegiance to the owners of the land in return for access to the means of production: land. Trade grew important and those involved in trade eventually developed “towns,” where they and other artisans could set up show and sell their goods. With the collapse of many monasteries, who owned much land, and the rise in the wealth of the new merchants, land needed to be obtained to produce “cash crops,” such as wool. The Acts of Enclosure performed such a necessity. Banks grew up to handle the rise in money available to individuals. Eventually, this new wealthy group of people created revolutions that overthrew the monarchies of Europe and established “democracies,” centered upon promoting their interests. Thus, Capitalism was born.

Such is the history of class society: one class growing out of the contradictions of the current mode of production revolting to establish itself, which in turn creates another set of contradictions that creates another class to overthrow it. Now, there are some people who claim that this is natural and good and is not the reason we have wars, violence, racism, sexism, and other social problems. To them, this author would say they are fools. Each problem has roots in class society and cannot be solved or understood without first understanding how they relate to class society. Since there are too many problems to explain this way within the limits on this paper, I will demonstrate one problem in this manner: racism.

Racism can be traced back to the invention of class society because of the development of slavery, which allowed for populations to sustain themselves above the limits of production. In order to justify the use of slaves, the idea was generated by the ruling class that they were inferior to the citizenry using the slaves and that they deserved to be slaves. Greeks and Romans, two societies built upon slavery, did not view slaves upon racist terms, but rather they viewed slaves as just slaves, neither black nor white. Of Greek slaves, Aristotle claimed that they “were necessary ‘instruments’ for the use of their superiors.” Eventually, slave societies kill themselves through the reliance on slaves, but the idea that some were inferior and others superior remained. The rise of imperialism, especially English imperialism, generated the need to justify the rapid expansion of a nation and the idea that one people were better than another appeared again. The first instance of what we can actually term as racism appeared at the 16th century England when the slave trade between Africa and England and the Americas began. Racism increased substantially toward the middle of the 19th century as slavery began to kill itself in America. Just as before, an excuse was needed to justify it in the eyes of the encroaching anti-slavery campaigns and movements. Thus came all the wonderful ideas about God wanting Man to have slaves, etc.

Historically we have seen that each form that class society takes creates its own end eventually. The current, so-called highest form of class society is no different. The contradiction will eventually be strong enough to cause the institution to rot entirely away, allowing the oppressed class to take the stage and do away with the society in favor of another. Thus, we can see that class society will kill itself eventually. Once the current stage of class society has ended, there will be no more class society because there will be only one class and no contradictions to cause it to fall apart from the inside. All other attempts at defeating class society proved useless because of their ahistorical methods of understanding things. The Leninists in Russia proved the more useless because of their insistence to take over State power themselves and use it to develop a type of capitalism in their favor, regardless of the fact that Russia was largely still feudalist and not ready for such a drastic change.

The hippies in the 1960s and 1970s had the numbers and the ambition, but there too lie the ahistorical approach and the selfish, drop out culture that they developed, out of the material backing of the middle class. They, with their anti-revolutionary methods of developing a revolution only degenerated into an almost amorphous orgy of sex and drugs in their communes in the woods, venturing out only to hand flowers to soldiers and claim that we can all cooperate to form a better world. What few who actually did favor an actual revolution to rip the system from its Godly throne in heaven were overshadowed by the strong drug-culture, which the hippies loved and promoted. LSD is Love, or so they say as they see colors spinning before them all the while children starve in Africa due to poor availability of food.