to what extent is 'the origins of the family, private property, and the state'

[The Grey Blur]

outdated? and is there a more up-to-date marxist analysis of the genesis of these social relations and anthropology generally?

[grooverider]

Try GA Cohen's Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality for a convincing argument against philosophical justification for private property (particularly the means of production).

[The Grey Blur]

i'll add it to my reading list...

[Zanthorus]

For what it's worth, my Penguin classics edition of the book has an introduction by Tristram Hunt (Who wrote a biography of Engels entitled 'The Frock-Coated Communist', on which I reccomend checking out Terrell Carver's review) which claims that most of Engels' arguments are questionable or refuted by later developments in anthropology. For more modern Marxist works on anthropology, Jack Conrad did a fairly interesting two part supplement for the Weekly Worker, 'When all the crap began', which may be of interest:

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004288
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004297

[The Grey Blur]

yeah i've got the tristram version...he's a bit of a bellend though as your review points out. how he gets this gig (he also wrote the foreword for the newest edition of 'ragged trousered philanthropists', which at least is within his academic remit) is beyond me.

i'm not too keen on the weekly worker crew but i'll check those articles out without prejudice.

[ChrisK]

Check out Marvin Harris. His works are hampered by his quasi-Malthusian tendencies when it comes to reproduction, but the are overall not bad.

[The Grey Blur]

cheers

[caramelpence]

Arguably the value of Origins is not so much its accuracy as a work of historical anthropology but as a textual resource for understanding Marx and Engels' theory of the state. We know from the 1859 Preface that Marx had planned to do a theoretical work on the state along the same lines as Capital and we also know from the 1844 Manuscripts what issues relating to the state he wanted to explore from a theoretical perspective, such as the role of political parties, the division of powers, the judicial system and so on, but as it stands the only texts where Marx talks in any detail about the state are contextually-bound, such as The Civil War in France, unlike Capital, which is concerned with capitalism in the abstract - as a mode of production, rather than as a concrete social formation. For that reason, in order to understand how Marx and Engels viewed the state in theoretical terms we have to look at their contextually-bound works and try and extract common currents and theoretical bases.

What Origins does is make it clear that Engels (and probably Marx as well) did not adopt a simplistic or conspiratorial view of the state whereby it emerges in response to the needs of an existing ruling class, rather, Engels suggests that it is from within the state itself (and, in particular, out of the growing division between society and the individuals that society has nominated to carry out certain social functions) that the first ruling class emerges, and that a defining feature of the state, therefore, is that it consists of bodies that are separated from society as a whole, such that the abolition of the state is about the elimination of that separation, rather than the end of decision-making as such.

[The Grey Blur]

thanks for the input. i came to a similar conclusion myself while reading it, ie that as one of the building blocks of a theoretical framework for a marxist interpretation of the state and other social institutions it is indispensable, rather than an exacting anthropological study. i still think it might be interesting to read specifically how our conceptions of early anthropology have changed since engels' time since i really know nothing of that subject.

[Q]

For more modern Marxist works on anthropology, Jack Conrad did a fairly interesting two part supplement for the Weekly Worker, 'When all the crap began', which may be of interest:

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004288
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004297

This is actually a follow up from an earlier supplement from December 2009, called "Origins of religion and the human revolution": Part 1 and part 2.

Also, the Radical Anthropology Group bases itself the work of Lewis Henry Morgan and Frederick Engels, and owing an acknowledged debt to Robert Briffault (1876-1948), adding modern evidense to the propositions. I recently ordered all four back issues of their magazine (they've published one once a year since 2007) for me and a comrade, as we're studying the subject of radical anthropology, Engels, etc. Fascinating subject.

[The Grey Blur]

thanks for the input folks.