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ABC of Marxism
The deepest understanding and demonstration of the laws of social science (Marxism) can be derived from a study of the evolution of society from the beginning of time to the present. This evolution can be divided into four distinct stages: 1) Primitive Communism; 2) Chattel Slavery; 3) Serfdom (Feudalism); 4) Wage-slavery (Capitalism).
The earliest known system of society, of which there exist examples today in certain backward spots of the earth. Men lived together in groups known as gens or clans. These were units of a larger group called the tribe. This type of organization is built up on kinship or blood relationship. There was no private property, and hence no classes. The land was owned and exploited in common. While the simple tools and weapons of the period might be held and used temporarily by the individual, the products of labor were owned in common. Each person got what he needed from the common store or supply. Necessarily life was extremely primitive. Great changes in the material conditions of primitive existence brought about changes in social organization. Domestication of animals and the introduction of simple agriculture permitted man to be less dependent upon the hunt for his food supply. Thus he adopted new habits of life. A long period of social development under savagery and barbarism laid the basis for the system of chattel slavery.
The extension of the domestication of animals and agriculture meant that more labor had to be expended and employed by the shepherd and planter in these industries. Labor become more valuable. Various tribes learned not to kill their captives in battle but to use them as slaves, because the captive could thus produce more wealth than necessary to maintain him. Greece and Rome were the classical slave states of antiquity, although slavery existed in all parts of the world where society was emerging from primitive communism. Slavery arose through the development of private property in land and the recognition of the right” to mortgage, to buy and sell land. The debtor who failed to pay his debt became the slave of the creditor. The rise of private property broke down the old tribal system of life. It introduced a new form of social organization: the state. The state was created by the propertied class to protect their property from those who possessed no property. But the very system of slavery proved its own undoing. Freemen could not compete with slaves and themselves fell into slavery. The system was extended to such an extreme, wealth became concentrated into so few hands, that the whole system was weakened from within by corruption and rebellion and fell under blows from without by invasion. The prevailing mode of production under chattel slavery was agricultural.
Feudalism is the dictatorship of an armed ruling class over an unarmed peasantry based on a system of land tenure. In grows up in the period of incessant warfare following the dissolution of the slave states. A special class of warriors arises to “protect” the toiling peasants in order at the same time to exploit them. The peasants become “bound” to the soil. The military leaders assume hieratical ranks from a king and nobility down to the knight. Feudalism is a “static” system in that it exists in local isolation with fixed customs. Economy is at a subsistence level. Money economy, trade, the new luxuries from the East, the rise of towns within the feudal economy – all these are alien and inimical elements that arise to break down the feudal system and gives way to the modern system of capitalism. Agricultural production gives way to hand tool production (handicraft). Feudal economy loses its fight with handicraft production which is much more efficient. This development gives birth to what we call capitalism.
Capitalism arises out of exchange economy, trade, buying and selling in the market. The rising merchant class spread this system over the entire globe and created the world market. Everything becomes a commodity, a useful article produced not for consumption by the producer but for sale on the market. It is this system that we shall study more in detail in this course. The capitalist mode of production, based on the monopoly and private ownership of the means of production, is distinguished from all other past and future modes of production by 1) wage-labor; 2) commodity production; and 3) surplus value.
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State – Engels
The Communist Manifesto – Marx and Engels
The Evolution of Property – Paul Lafargue
Two Pages from Roman History – Daniel DeLeon
The Mark – Engels
Marxism and Darwinism – Pannekoek
Ancient Society – Lewis Morgan
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Last updated: 7 August 2019