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.
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.