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- cross-posted to:
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On May 5th, 1818, Karl Marx, hero of the international proletatiat, was born. His revolution of Socialist theory reverberates throughout the world carries on to this day, in increasing magnitude. Every passing day, he is vindicated. His analysis of Capitalism, development of the theory of Scientific Socialism, and advancements on dialectics to become Dialectical Materialism, have all played a key role in the past century, and have remained ever-more relevant throughout.
He didn’t always rock his famous beard, when he was younger he was clean shaven!
Some significant works:
Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Critique of the Gotha Programme
Manifesto of the Communist Party (along with Engels)
And, of course, Capital Vol I-III
Interested in Marxism-Leninism, but don’t know where to start? Check out my “Read Theory, Darn it!” introductory reading list!
It’s the reverse, actually. Tribal hunter/gatherer societies are themselves the first Mode of Production, each paving the way for the next. Tribal societies worked out of necessity, and did not have a multiplication of productive forces, as they worked with tools and not large scale machinery that magnifies the productive labor of an individual. Further, each tribe only shared ownership over its own resources, not global humanity as a whole.
You can be an AnPrim if you want, but it’s overwhelmingly clear that you can’t be a Marxist AnPrim. You have to toss out the entirety of Historical Materialism, and simply hope that what has happened every time agriculture is discovered, that is, the creation of class society, somehow doesn’t happen this time.
Tools are force multipliers. Hunting game is several times easier with a spear, boomerang, or bow than with bare hands. Gathering firewood is easier with a stone or copper axe.
Drag isn’t an anprim. Remember that thing drag said about trying to understand the whole argument? Drag said primitive communism and industrial communism are the same communism. If drag doesn’t believe in a meaningful distinction, why would drag want to avoid industrialised communism? No, your assumption doesn’t make sense. It’s like you forgot our whole conversation and just responded to drag’s most recent message in isolation. You’re probably overworking yourself, having so many arguments all the time, and that’s why you can’t pay attention. Slow down, breathe, and read carefully. Try to empathise. Drag’s comments will still be here later. Try to get into fewer arguments so you can devote the proper attention to each one. It’s disrespectful to pay so little attention.
Spears, boomerangs, and bows are indeed force multipliers. Simple tools like those lasted for millions of years since inception, because they are the peak of hunting technology among tribal hunter/gatherer societies. These did not multiply and scale larger and larger into abundance, instead agriculture is discovered and class society and the division of labor emerges.
Tribal hunter/gatherer societies are not the same as global systems of highly industrialized production based on equal ownership across all of humanity. drag is calling a fish a tree, because both are alive, and is resorting to personal attacks because drag doesn’t have an actual argument. The qualifier “Primitive” in “Primitive Communism” and the lack of a qualifier for “Communism” as described in the above quote from Critique of the Gotha Programme alone tells us that these are not the same system.
Primitive communism and industrial communism are both communism, just like pepperoni pizza and cheese pizza are both pizza. The above quote doesn’t have a qualifier because it describes both kinds of communism.
Tribal production did not come from large industry as created by Capitalism, did not rapidly increase the productive forces but largely stagnated until the discovery of agriculture and thus the beginnings of class society, and labor is the means of want in tribal society, not life’s prime want.
There are similarities between the two, but ultimately both form entirely different structures and modes of production, hence why Marx spent his whole life advocating for advancing to Communism as a highly industrialized and global society, and against those who want to turn that clock back.
Drag thinks you forgot that drag isn’t an anprim again. Otherwise the last paragraph is pretty random to include.
drag is arguing that tribal society and Star Trek are the same formation of society, which is wrong. I’m well aware that drag don’t consider drag an AnPrim, that’s not the point of the last paragraph, the point was to show that Marx considered tribal society to be entirely distinct from Communism. Hence, when Marx describes Communism, we find immediate discrepancies with how tribal society is formed and run.
Well it wouldn’t make any sense for him to advocate for a return to primitive technology, because he wasn’t a primitivist. He advocated for the kind of communism he could see in Europe’s future. He was a European historian interested in predicting and making European history.
Your arguments are weird. You’re citing the fact that Marx talked to Europeans within a European framework as evidence he didn’t respect indigenous societies as communists. That doesn’t make any sense. Of course he did that, it doesn’t mean he thought the people he called communists weren’t communists. It just means he had an area of specialisation. Drag has specialties too; drag doesn’t know the first thing about Jewish communism, so drag doesn’t talk about Kibbutz-es. That doesn’t mean drag doesn’t respect Jewish communism. Marx is the same way. Everyone is the same way about whatever part of their field they’ve specialised in.
Marx didn’t disrespect tribal societies by calling them “primitive communism,” it was a way to denote how the classless, stateless, moneyless society in tribes inevitably moves towards class society with the advent of agriculture, and it’s only through Communism as he described that class, the state, and money can be permanently ended. Marx was an internationalist, he saw Communism as a global system that would eradicate borders, not erect hard borders around Europe.
And, for what it’s worth, you should disrespect modern Kibbutz, they all depend on settler-colonialism and the genocide of Palestinians.