As a political concept? Not in the exact words we use. Marx is what we can call a “discursive formation” for related and interconnected socio-political theories (just as Freud would be one for psychoanalysis). He gave us the standardized vocabulary, and effectively spoke it into being as we now conceive of it. I’m sure other posters are going to tag in quickly on this, but the tl;dr: there have always been class struggles. I would absolutely say it has always been a political matter. As far as a collectively-realized political concept, this has not always been the case. It really accelerated during the Industrial Revolution and the “Manifesto” pamphlet.
We can’t know how the unwritten portion of humanity went outside what we see in ruins. Modern anthropology seems to indicate that humanity has a deep urge towards social restructuring and politics. To frame it even as broadly as “classless communalism” is to ignore the tendency to reimagine society.
See The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow for more
We can reimagine all we like, and of course something as general as “classless communalism” is going to be reductive. There are many different types of existing capitalist and socialist societies, and there were many types of feudal and slave societies before them. Having social structure is not the same as having classes, either. Far-future communism will be highly structured and yet will not have classes.
Yes, but we’ve observed hunter gatherers who keep slaves, which is a class. And that’s not even touching on gender as a class. The book I referenced is written by an anthropologist and an archeologist trying to not let their left wing ideologies color their vision of the past, but rather to use modern academic ideas of the past as an inspiration and guide for our ability to reshape society going forward. I’d really recommend giving it a read, even if you find yourself ultimately disagreeing with the points.
I’m aware of Graeber’s work. Slaves were among the earliest classes, I agree, and would say that those societies weren’t quite the same as early communalism. The shift of gender to class is also similarly something that largely arose along class society in general as well.
Class is not an ironclad category, but more of an amalgamation of myriad strata tied by common characteristics. Domenico Losurdo’s work on class struggle is particularly interesting, IMO.
The shift of gender to class is also similarly something that largely arose along class society in general as well
The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Legner argues against this.
I’m presenting anthropologists to argue for how structures that predate written records formed. I don’t really see how a historian focused on the 19th and 20th centuries is relevant to whether or not primitive communism existed, much less that it comprises the majority of time prior to the formation of permanent settlements and a society fully and permanently committed to agriculture (as opposed to societies that experimented with it or practiced seasonal agriculture, both of which were described by Graeber and Wengrow). I get that class can be fuzzy and shift, but at the same time we know it when we see it.
My understanding of The Creation of Patriarchy is that it aligns with my point, that patriarchy is a socially constructed phenomenon that arose alongside economic classes, primarily surrounding control of reproductive labor by men. There is nothing inherently inevitable about patriarchy, it can be ended by ending class society and deliberately fighting patriarchy itself. Economic class and gender struggles are intertwined phenomena.
The reason I brought up Losurdo is because his analysis of class also brings us to analyze gender, extending the work of Engels in The Origin of the Family, Property, and the State. Engels provided good early theoretical foundations, and Losurdo carried them forward. Both recognize the origin of patriarchy as one of the earliest forms of class struggle.
Perhaps my writing was unclear? I don’t think we disagree on much in this specific instance, mostly that I am a Marxist-Leninist and you appear to be more aligned with anarchism.
True, however, there at some point is a social revolution creating the conditions necessary for a political revolution. So we have to ask ourselves, at what point did this classless society tip? What changed? I don’t have an answer, but something shifted to necessitate class struggle.
Agriculture created class society. Once it was discovered, the division of labor appeared, and thus from it sprang the division of society into workers and owners. The advancement to the next form of class society came alongside improvements in the means of production and distribution, creating new social relations and thus new classes to overtake the old.
Hasn’t agriculture always existed in some form, and then would class struggle not have always existed? Or do you mean a specific advancement (perhaps a technological point aka social revolution) that caused this division?
Gathering has always existed, but when people started settling down in towns and establishing permanent agriculture, this sprouted the division of labor and thus class society.
As a political concept? Not in the exact words we use. Marx is what we can call a “discursive formation” for related and interconnected socio-political theories (just as Freud would be one for psychoanalysis). He gave us the standardized vocabulary, and effectively spoke it into being as we now conceive of it. I’m sure other posters are going to tag in quickly on this, but the tl;dr: there have always been class struggles. I would absolutely say it has always been a political matter. As far as a collectively-realized political concept, this has not always been the case. It really accelerated during the Industrial Revolution and the “Manifesto” pamphlet.
Edit: forgot to say, that’s a good question!
There hasn’t always been class struggle. Early communalism took up the bulk of human history, and was classless.
We can’t know how the unwritten portion of humanity went outside what we see in ruins. Modern anthropology seems to indicate that humanity has a deep urge towards social restructuring and politics. To frame it even as broadly as “classless communalism” is to ignore the tendency to reimagine society.
See The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow for more
We can reimagine all we like, and of course something as general as “classless communalism” is going to be reductive. There are many different types of existing capitalist and socialist societies, and there were many types of feudal and slave societies before them. Having social structure is not the same as having classes, either. Far-future communism will be highly structured and yet will not have classes.
Yes, but we’ve observed hunter gatherers who keep slaves, which is a class. And that’s not even touching on gender as a class. The book I referenced is written by an anthropologist and an archeologist trying to not let their left wing ideologies color their vision of the past, but rather to use modern academic ideas of the past as an inspiration and guide for our ability to reshape society going forward. I’d really recommend giving it a read, even if you find yourself ultimately disagreeing with the points.
I’m aware of Graeber’s work. Slaves were among the earliest classes, I agree, and would say that those societies weren’t quite the same as early communalism. The shift of gender to class is also similarly something that largely arose along class society in general as well.
Class is not an ironclad category, but more of an amalgamation of myriad strata tied by common characteristics. Domenico Losurdo’s work on class struggle is particularly interesting, IMO.
The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Legner argues against this.
I’m presenting anthropologists to argue for how structures that predate written records formed. I don’t really see how a historian focused on the 19th and 20th centuries is relevant to whether or not primitive communism existed, much less that it comprises the majority of time prior to the formation of permanent settlements and a society fully and permanently committed to agriculture (as opposed to societies that experimented with it or practiced seasonal agriculture, both of which were described by Graeber and Wengrow). I get that class can be fuzzy and shift, but at the same time we know it when we see it.
My understanding of The Creation of Patriarchy is that it aligns with my point, that patriarchy is a socially constructed phenomenon that arose alongside economic classes, primarily surrounding control of reproductive labor by men. There is nothing inherently inevitable about patriarchy, it can be ended by ending class society and deliberately fighting patriarchy itself. Economic class and gender struggles are intertwined phenomena.
The reason I brought up Losurdo is because his analysis of class also brings us to analyze gender, extending the work of Engels in The Origin of the Family, Property, and the State. Engels provided good early theoretical foundations, and Losurdo carried them forward. Both recognize the origin of patriarchy as one of the earliest forms of class struggle.
Perhaps my writing was unclear? I don’t think we disagree on much in this specific instance, mostly that I am a Marxist-Leninist and you appear to be more aligned with anarchism.
True, however, there at some point is a social revolution creating the conditions necessary for a political revolution. So we have to ask ourselves, at what point did this classless society tip? What changed? I don’t have an answer, but something shifted to necessitate class struggle.
Agriculture created class society. Once it was discovered, the division of labor appeared, and thus from it sprang the division of society into workers and owners. The advancement to the next form of class society came alongside improvements in the means of production and distribution, creating new social relations and thus new classes to overtake the old.
Hasn’t agriculture always existed in some form, and then would class struggle not have always existed? Or do you mean a specific advancement (perhaps a technological point aka social revolution) that caused this division?
Agriculture is a relatively recent development. Humans were hunter-gatherers and nomadic previously.
Gathering has always existed, but when people started settling down in towns and establishing permanent agriculture, this sprouted the division of labor and thus class society.