Answer with the most upbears will be deemed the one true leftist on hexbear
Edit: what the fuck there's no more upbears what is this reddit
Marx failed to consider that indigenous cultures had complex and diverse organised societies and are not just a lower stage of a linear political development proscribed by Europeans
I would even argue that many of them represented a much higher stage of development. The problem now is that they're mostly gone. Capitalism killed all alternative forms of organization and proletarianized the world.
Wow this is a fascinating insight I hadn't considered before, but you're totally right about capitalism has killed all other forms of organization.
You should read Debt: the first 5000 years. The first two-three chapters shine light on indigenous economics and explain how the idea of it being a 'primitive barter system' is diseased capitalist nonsense.
People forget that western civilization is still fairly new. Many indigenous peoples likely passed through stages of development similar to capitalism millennium ago and already had their revolutions. The only difference with the West is that it developed on the corpse of another empire and took on that form early.
Those more peaceful and self sustaining societies quickly become nothing but sources of cheap labor to imperialists. Basically exactly what happened to the USSR when it fell. A massive deadly restructuring of their societies enforced through violence and extraction.
I would have to strongly diagree with the idea indigenous peoples went through a capitalism phase. hunter gatherers wouldn't have because means of production are just your own hands and a few tools either you or a family member made. Things are already pretty egalitarian all around, so there is no need to change in any direction. it's just infeasable to extract more resources in the environment where those kinds of societies flourish. Most agriculture focused societies operated around nobility inheriting the land with a few smaller farmers and a massive slave underclass. Most indigenous peoples were one of those two kinds of societies. Aboriginal Australians were hunter gatherers, as were most other oceanic peoples, Pacific northwest Native Americans were also hunterer-gatherers. New England Native Americans were farmers, and I do not know if they used slaves or were small enough in population they just worked their own land. The Aztecs and Mayans used slaves, and I think the Inca did but I could be wrong, in their farming. It is wrong to say Native Populations were primitive because they didn't employ a capitalist system, but it is also wrong to say they had capitalism and moved on from it. you need a lot of surplus people and easily-available resources to start capitalism. Aztecs had a lot of people, due to their incredibly effective corn crop, but all the resources needed to be carried through harsh conditions of mountains or rainforest or desert before winding up in the capital, so they couldn't really get going. North America had more available resources, but no real surplus population due to the predominatly hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Cahokia was a pretty impressive city, and well situated for trade, but couldn't keep growing enough to start capitalism. I'd also suspect you need a printing press to start capitalism, but that's more me wondering the why exactly and I don't have enough evidence.
you can't have industry until a lot of people aren't needed on the farm who aren't nobles, and a lot of wood/coal and metal are available to make the machines.
All good points, I was totally wrong to say capitalism because that's a specific mode of production. It would be more correct to say primitive accumulation existed in some form and if there were revolutions in those indigenous societies, they were against enclosure and prevented the formation of a private property system.
Could have helped that many American societies existed over large areas and had nomadic roots so it was harder to proletarianize the population with any form of enclosure.
likely passed through stages of development similar to capitalism millennium ago and already had their revolutions
no like not at all. Latin America had feudal type systems in the most complex societies when the Europeans arrived. They did not "already have their revolutions" that's literally just wishful thinking. And the indigenous people of the Americas weren't so peaceful all the time either, Aztec imperialism was very bloody, though you can't really get worse than the European Renaissance Thunderdome.
They definitely existed within the framework of Marx's theory though. More feudal in nature for sure than anything else. There was some form of primitive accumulation and currency systems, but no industrial development really beyond the more basic agricultural machines.
I used poor phrasing with the idea that they "had their revolutions" in the sense that they were against capitalism. I think they did have revolutions, and those revolutions we're driven by class dynamics of their respective societies, but none of them had the conditions for capital development on the scale of western Europe.
I disagree with that. Europe is not a particularly resource rich place or a particularly great place for Capital development unless you're one of those people who ~loves the struggle~ and argues it inspired them to hustle hard and have sigma grindset. The whole place was practically full by ancient times! Those white devils had to go "OS" and get it how they lived it just to survive.
It's more or less a matter of luck that Europe was the place that got to Capitalism first. Plenty of other societies were headed that way, as people said ITT the Aztecs and others already had the makings of a Feudal society. There's easily a historical timeline where they create some sort of massive Mesoamerican empire that expands overseas.
Like I said in my first comment here, I think the fact that European empire was built on the corpse of the Roman Empire really helped it move along. Rome built a ton of roads and infrastructure as well as trade links that were later exploited by primitive mercantilists and capitalists.
The small size of Britain also made it easier for capitalism to develop. The existing trade routes were strengthened by new sea faring routes, those routes became a great way to get raw material and the enclosure of the commons proletarianized huge swaths of the British peasantry.
As Britain became a global colonial empire, the proletarianization of the rest of Europe quickly followed, then the world through colonization and financial imperialism.
Without the enclosure of the commons, capitalism wouldn't have been able to develop as quickly as it did. In Scotland, the peasants were literally driven to the sea with enclosure and had no where else to go. In larger areas this is harder to do as you need a more developed security force to maintain your private claim on the land.
I do disagree with saying that humans have a "stages of development" that I noticed some other people are saying. Humans are not the most predictable in terms of guessing how something will develop. Anthropology made this mistake, and many others by creating a false ideal of an ancient society they wanted to exist. This is also why need to stop saying any society is was or is "primitive" at all.
I never said any society was primitive. I don't think any good Marxist would call a society primitive in a derogatory sense. When you talk about things like "primitive" accumulation and "primitive" capitalism, you aren't talking about a lower form of society or people, but a precursor form of something to come.
As certain conditions are met, new forms of organization naturally occur. Driven primarily through the existence and distribution of surplus. Surplus grain means either more leisure time for the farmers, or the formation of a non-farming population that manages the surplus (early government/kingdom).
Primitive accumulation is just the early stages of what we know now as private property, primitive capitalism/mercantilism was the early stage of financial capital, workshops the primitive form of industrial capital. All of these develop inevitably into modern Imperial capitalism and each has its roots in a specific relationship to productive forces.
Why did Britain do all that and Japan didn't? Why was the legacy of the Roman empire so much more significant than say India or China? Britain was barely part of the Roman Empire, they knew those bog apes were uncivil savages. "Closing off land so one guy gets all the profit" is hardly an Anglo invention unless you think the British race is uniquely evil or crafty or something.
If you or anyone else can recommend some reading on this, I would love to know more.
This is kinda just my personal take on this subject, so don't take it too seriously.
Lol what
I haven't heard of any indigenous societies having achieved a fully classless society with no private property (post hunter-gatherer society). Do you know of any that were truly ruled by the masses as a whole and not cheifs or leaders at the top?
There were a few that had some forms of democracy, the Iroquois had a sort of constitutional monarchy situation as early as 1142.
It's not quite the same as European monarchy as the people still had a lot of say and were able to expel a Chief through majority rule. They didn't have any real idea of private property because private property is a capitalist idea. So yeah, they "evolved" past it by never really having it.
rise of extremely effective propaganda and social control by western bourgeois states that would come about via the experience of the world wars. and related, the effect that universal public schooling by the state would have.
To extend this even further, the Information Age has brought a whole new paradigm of education and resources available to people of all ages. I think in the long term, it will work to the benefit of the Left but it'll be a couple more decades. Facts should eventually win over ideology.
I have no faith in the power of education.
Material conditions and the rate at which they change is the driver of historical events. Imho.
Yes, Gramsci is a key development from Marx and really essential reading as much as Lenin is.
the effect that universal public schooling by the state would have
this was coming into force in his lifetime what do you mean?
it was 1870 when the UK made universal schooling mandatory. marx had already written much of his most famous work by then and of course could not have lived to see the full consequences of having a populace for which the vast majority of all age groups were put through state-run education, as he died in 1883.
what are the consequences he should've considered? like indoctrination or widespread literacy?
Marx failed to consider how I should kill 30 - 50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3 - 5 minutes while my small kids play
Capitalist realism, perhaps because he didn't think society could get fucked up that bad.
There’s also been a lot of work done to update his work with knowledge from sociology. And the superstructure is significantly more complex than he described, which I think critical theory and intersectional theory have done a decent job of addressing
I believe there's a letter from Marx later in his life where he talks about how there's a huge demand to translate his works into Russian more than any other language, so I don't think he'd be too terribly surprised about Russia. I think he also said he expected the USA to become socialist before Europe. That one would probably confuse him.
the disintegration of human liberation into spectacular social consumption
The banalization of liberation movements was probably alsways there, what wasn't there was feds listening and reading everything 24/7 to identify anyone with potential and terminating them in record time.
Hippies were being dipshits posers while Fred Hampton was being assasinated. Now radlibs are being dipshits while today's Fred Hamptons are killed before having any fame or prominence.
See all the early BLM leaders burned alive in cars.
Sone nerd might be able to point out 1800 dipshits snakeoilsellers getting a lot of fame for mentioning social problems and proposing faux "solutions" while being against real revolutionaries with real solutions.
I employed the the technological marvels of machine learning and AI text completion and got the following:
- Marx failed to consider the fact that the war's primary beneficiary is Iran.
- Marx failed to consider the risk that it would lead to a similar situation when the US Congress failed to prevent a similar vote when Congress failed to impeach President Bill Clinton in 1992.
- Marx failed to consider the value theory of quantum mechanics to describe its concept.
- Marx failed to consider that his government "seeks to put pressure on oil companies."
Marx failed to consider that his government “seeks to put pressure on oil companies.”
You joke but one of the most disturbing things I've ever learned was just that climate science is actualy quite old, people were theorizing about greenhouse gas effect in the 19th century already and the effect itself was first discovered in the 1890s. It is quite possible that if he just lived a little longer and with some guidance someone could have pointed Marx towards it and it would be as simple as 1+1=2 you could predict where we are now over 100 years ago.
Yeah it's pretty messed up, Arrhenius figured out the greenhouse effect before the 20th century and there's a newspaper clipping from the early 1900s going around, that talks about the eventual climate consequences of pumping all this carbon into the atmosphere from coal power...
:doomer:
Marx mentions 'metabolic rift' in some of his writings about the effects of urbanization on material flows, based on nascent ecological research of the time
it's very much a recognition of Anthropocene-like concept just on a smaller scale
marx died too early. so did lenin and stalin.
everyone, please uphold marxist-leninist-stalinist-copsdyingisgoodist thought so i too can quickly escape this mortal coil
"value theory of quantum mechanics" We need to get Michael Heinrich on this right away!
Engels first considered labor aristocracy, then Marx, but I doubt either realized the point it would reach.
Commodity fetishism on a scale too immense to imagine. A world where every action and movement is reified and nothing exists outside the commodity form. Even the workers themselves reduced to perceiving themselves and each other as commodity.
Even the workers themselves reduced to perceiving themselves and each other as commodity.
But didn't they talk exactly about that?
Yep, Marx saw the system, I just don't think he saw how bad it would get. Like we exist on a whole new level of commodified reality that was only partially visible in the likes of company towns.
