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The quest for social justice,
a fact-based critical analysis and guide to effective action.
CHAPTER 8. STRUCTURAL ISSUES.
§ 1. QUESTIONS. People will ask questions such as the following.
- Haven’t self-serving features (the individualistic pursuit of personal wealth, disparities of power, domination by the most industrious and/or circumstantially most favored, and the underlying hobbesian “war of all against all”) always been present in human societies?
- Doesn’t “human nature” render the socialist ideal of a non-hobbesian civil society an impossibility?
- How would a socialist order take shape?
- When the socialist state takes property from its owners, will it provide fair compensation?
- How will public policy be decided and by whom?
- How will the economic, judicial, and political systems operate?
- What will prevent the socialist state from becoming another repressive bureaucratic regime as happened in the USSR and other Communist states?
These are appropriate questions. In order to provide appropriate answers to these and other such questions, it will be useful to examine [in §§ 2 thru 7 below]: the social-order history of humankind, the differences in the institutional societal imperatives of different historical epochs, the effects of property relations, the expropriation issue, and the constitutional framework for the civil society during and beyond socialist construction. Relevant history, of the actual struggles for social revolution and of attempts at socialist construction, is provided below [in Chapter 9].
§ 2. PROGRESSION. Over the course of the past 12,000 years, human society has transitioned thru a number of historical epochs as it progressed from the “stone age” to the “computer age”. A general theoretical framework to identify the foundations and processes, which govern that progression, was produced by Karl Marx thru analysis of the then-available relevant records. Marx’ analysis [1] is limited in that: his primary focus was the transition to capitalism from the preceding social order; and his analysis did not attempt to explain the specific causes of the transitions between earlier epochs. Moreover, the epochal social orders, as identified tentatively by Marx (as well as by Engels), have proven to be problematical. Specialists (anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians) since Marx and Engels have added much to knowledge of pre-capitalist and pre-civilized communities, knowledge which was not available to Marx and Engels. Nevertheless, much of Marx’ basic analytical framework (as presented in his Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy) has withstood the test of time and certainly remains valid when applied to the transitions between epochs (as identified below [in § 3]). Key points follow; and all accompanying quotes are from the aforementioned Preface[2]).
1st. Human dependence upon economic interaction. In order to produce the wherewithal for sustaining their existence, humans, “inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production”.
2nd. Stages. The particular relations of productions in an epoch will be those which are “appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production.”
3rd. Base & superstructure. “The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation [base], on which arises a legal and political superstructure”. Base and superstructure together constitute the social order.
4th. Being & social consciousness. It is the social order which determines the “forms of social consciousness” which tend to predominate. “It is not the consciousness of humans that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”
5th. Fetters. “At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.” For example, the mechanized industry of free-market capitalism was unable to develop and thrive in western Europe until the many restrictions (fetters) of the medieval system of guilds and privileged monopolies were removed. For details, see Maurice Dobb: Studies in the Development of Capitalism [3].
6th. Social revolution. When relations of production become “fetters” upon further economic and social progress, “Then begins an era of social revolution [a period in which humans] become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.” Consequently, “The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.” For example, bourgeois revolutions had to overcome the conservative tributary regime: of the feudal aristocracy with its extortions of church tithes, seignorial dues, et cetera; and of the medieval guilds with all of their many restrictive rules. Revolutionary forces had to replace the tributary regime with the then-revolutionary liberal regime (of free-market capitalism and bourgeois “democracy”) as advocated by proponents such as the economist Adam Smith and the political philosopher John Locke.
7th. Conditions. Social revolution becomes possible only when the requisite conditions have manifested. “new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.” Humankind “thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve […] the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.” For example, the material conditions of stone-age hunter-gatherer societies did not manifest a possibility for the existence of lord-serf or master-slave or employer-employee relations of production; but the advent of free-market commodity production and exchange plus mechanized industry, in post-medieval Europe, constituted the conditions prerequisite for the expansive growth of capitalist wage-labor relations of production and the eventual rule of capital.
8th. Elimination of class antagonisms. “The bourgeois [capitalist] mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production […] but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism”. Individualized production has been replaced by socialized production, namely: large-scale enterprises with masses of workers, interdependent enterprises, firms with research and development departments, and so forth. The antagonism is socialized production versus private ownership and private appropriation of the surplus (which is produced by subjugated labor-power). The solution is to socialize ownership and appropriation.
Noted sources.
[1] Marx⸰ Karl [trans. by Jack Cohen⸰ (© 1964), with Introduction by Eric J Hobsbawm⸰ (© 1964)]: Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (© 1965 by International Publishers) ~ Introduction (especially pp 18—38) ♦ ISBN 978-0-7178-0165-7.
[2] Marx⸰ Karl [trans. by S W Ryazanskaya⸰, ed. by Maurice Dobb⸰]: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy [1859] (© 1970 by Maurice Dobb⸰, International Publishers) ~ Preface ♦ ISBN 0-7178-0041-5.
[3] Dobb⸰ Maurice: Studies in the Development of Capitalism (© 1963, International Publishers) ♦ Library of Congress Catalogue Number 64-13744.
§ 3. EPOCHS. Human society has produced a progression of historical epochs: Foraging, Harvesting, Tributary, and Capitalist. In any epoch, the economic base is largely determinative of the political and cultural superstructure; and that superstructure justifies and reinforces the base. Base and superstructure then constitute the social order. In pre-capitalist epochs, the social order of the civil society manifested the essential features of the epoch but also exhibited considerable variation in structure (especially on account of differences in climate, terrain, available resources, and other geographic factors including external influences). The progression of historical epochs has transpired as follows.
1st. Foraging.
♦ Economy.
+ Production was by individuals, nuclear families, and voluntary cooperating groups. It consisted of foraging (gathering and hunting) for necessary materials followed by preparation of food and other subsistence products (tools, clothing, shelters, and so forth). Its objective was to satisfy individual and communal subsistence needs. Products consisted of use-values (items valued for their utility), not exchange values (commodities for sale in some market).
+ Property. Tools were the property of the individual. Territory (including its land and natural resources) was claimed as communal property by the nomadic clan or semisedentary village.
+ Consumption. The principal product, food, was consumed soon after production, not preserved or stored. Depending upon the success or failure of the hunt (including gathering of fruits, nuts, and so forth), eating was sometimes alternation of feast and famine.
+ Exchange was not for acquisitive gain, but to build and strengthen relationships thru sharing (reciprocal gifting, generosity, and hospitality).
! Survival depended very much upon cooperation and sharing.
♦ Superstructure.
+ There was no basis for institutional social inequalities. Consequently, there were no rank or class divisions.
+ Governance. No person had command authority. Leadership was exercised based upon charm and persuasion, acceptance thereof being wholly voluntary. Elders gave advice. Communal assembly (likely not to exist except in larger, more close-knit groups) might be used to achieve consensus decisions for said group, but was not binding upon those who disagreed. Dissenters were free to separate and go their own way. There was no law beyond social norms. Enforcement was thru the pressure of public opinion which might lead to ostracism or expulsion from the community. Disputes were resolved thru mediation, or retribution by the aggrieved.
♦ Examples (documented as they were before European contact): Arunta (central Australia), Yahgan (Tierra del Fuego), Andaman Islanders, Mbuti people (Africa), San people (Africa). [1]
2nd. Harvesting. The Neolithic revolution marks the transition from the Foraging to the Harvesting epoch.
♦ Production. The essential advance relative to foraging rested upon two economic innovations.
(1) Control over food availability was achieved thru:
- domestication and cultivation of food plants, or
- use of domesticated animals for food and/or as means of transport, or
- seasonal harvesting of a rich source of wild food [⁑] with accumulation of abundant supplies for later consumption (a system which may predate domestication of plants and animals), or
- some combination of the foregoing.
(2) Food preservation and storage resulted in consumption being no longer dependent upon the fortunes of the hunt.
(!) These Neolithic innovations generally facilitated more intensive exploitation of available resources, and that resulted in larger communities and greater population density. Neolithic innovations in production also resulted in some degree of (individual or group) property (farm land, growing crops, livestock, caches of stored food) beyond personal possessions. Moreover, tools tended to be more diverse and more refined in craft.
[⁑] Note. Examples of wild food which was seasonally harvested, preserved, and stored: migrating salmon in northwest coastal North America, and pine nuts in the Great Basin of North America.
♦ Exchange. Unlike in later epochs, exchange within the community did not involve commerce or exactions of tribute. In all harvesting polities, it included direct sharing (reciprocal gifting, generosity, and hospitality). In some (stratified chiefdoms), it also included indirect sharing [as explained below].
♦ Predation. As harvesting societies evolved, their institutions and cultural norms promoted societal cohesion, which then minimized impetus for predation and abuse against other members of the community. In contrast, such constraining institutions and norms did not necessarily exist in relations with a neighboring polity, the latter being often a competitor and possible threat. Consequently, such foreign relations could vary from cooperative exchange relations to hostile raiding warfare, whatever was deemed to be the most expedient means for advancing and defending the interests of the collective community.
♦ Divergences. Harvesting polities took either of two forms: basic (with social equality), and chiefdoms (with social stratification and social inequality).
♦ Basic harvesting communities.
+ Production and exchange. In those harvesting communities with relatively small and/or sparse populations: production units, relations of production, and exchange practices were similar to those in the Foraging Epoch. Consequently, there were no decisive rank or class differences, therefore no institutional social inequalities.
+ Governance. Depending upon the size and density of the population, governance was usually thru: consensus decision by communal assembly (where elders were most influential), or decision by communal Council (if it existed), or decision by accepted institutional chief (who usually could lead only by persuasion). Enforcement of social norms and communal decisions was: by pressure of public opinion, and/or thru vigilante justice, and/or by order of communal Council (if it existed). The organizer of a hunting party or war party might have command authority during the venture, and the group might punish a breach of discipline. In relatively larger communities, community cohesion was reinforced by the presence of influential membership associations (similar to social clubs) which transcended kinship-based lineage and clan identities. Dispute resolution was thru: mediation, or arbitration, or retribution by the aggrieved.
+ Examples (described as they were before transformed by European contact): Copper Inuit, Orochon (a.k.a. Reindeer Tungus of eastern Siberia), Nuer (of African Savannah), Jivaro (of Amazonia), Cheyenne and Crow (of North American plains). [2]
♦ Chiefdoms.
+ Requisites. The transformation of basic harvesting communities into stratified chiefdoms, depended upon the presence of two necessary preconditions, both of which were prerequisite.
- The production of sufficient surplus to sustain institutional inequalities.
- A stratifying relations-of-production condition which was usually either: the creation of heritable property rights in the major means of basic production, or the instituting of needed administrative specialists.
+ Transformation. In some harvesting societies, economic conditions created the need for more complex administration in economy, culture, and governance. Consequently, some individuals acquired the authority to perform the requisite specialist or other administrative functions; and this social division soon transformed the community into a socially stratified chiefdom, as explained below.
+ Possessory property rights. In some harvesting communities, natural conditions engendered possessory property rights in major means of production. Specifics.
- Wherever labor (to clear land and possibly also to construct terraces and/or irrigation works) had to be invested in order to prepare the land for farming; the kin-group which had made that investment thereby acquired a socially-recognized possessory right to exclusive use of its prepared farm land, a right which remained in effect so long as said kin-group continued to use said land.
- In other circumstances (often applicable to livestock as well as to farm land) where continuous possession was deemed to be a more productive policy than periodic reallocation; the possession of productive property and related use-rights likewise remained, thru inheritance, with the possessing family or kin-group.
Inheritance in either such event was nearly universally governed by rank-making primogeniture (stewardship conveyed to the first-born who then would be obligated to provide for younger siblings). First-borns then became chiefs of lineages; lineages descended from first-borns came to out-rank those descended from younger siblings; chiefs of higher-ranking lineages out-ranked chiefs of lower-ranked lineages; and so forth. Consequently, status inequality and social stratification became institutionalized so that the polity evolved into one with hierarchic governance thru society-wide rank-based authority with hereditary chiefs at the apex.
+ Exchange. In addition to direct sharing, exchange generally included indirect sharing (offerings, especially of first fruits, by commoners to chiefs plus redistributions by chiefs thru potlatch [communal feast] and/or other social expenditure). Said offerings were not a mandated tax or tribute. They were dictated by accepted custom, and they benefited the offeror by reinforcing the recipient’s sense of obligation to said offeror or group of offerors. The amount was determined by the offeror and was expected to be commensurate with his/her means. Such indirect exchange served to reinforce social relationships and to enhance the cohesion, functionality, and stability of the community and its subdivisions.
+ Administrative specialists. If farming was dependent upon an intricate communal irrigation system, or there was other major communal project of similar importance; organization of its construction and maintenance necessitated the use of designated coordinators with the requisite administrative authority. Those coordinators were likely to evolve into chiefs. Moreover, the very size of the population might necessitate a hierarchy of chiefs with delegated authority in order: to preserve the cohesion of the community; to direct overall community affairs; to mediate disputes; to organize the communal response in foreign relations (war, alliance, territorial boundary issue, et cetera) with neighboring communities; and to perform other valued community-benefit functions. Insofar as positions of authority became hereditary (as was the usual eventuality), elite status and accompanying privilege tended to follow.
+ Accepted inequality. Social and economic inequality produced rank differences (extreme in some cases). Chiefs and their retainers became an elite group supported by the offerings and/or other dues contributed by the commoners who did the productive labor. Normally, no family household gave up more of its work-product than it could afford and yet satisfy its subsistence needs. Said work-product consisted primarily of food. With chiefs receiving more of it than they could consume, they naturally needed to redistribute all that was beyond their own needs. Consequently, surplus product accumulating in the possession of chiefs was redistributed and consumed in ways which typically included communal feasts. Surplus labor was invested in public works projects. In effect, the economic system manifested inequality but was not rooted in commercial labor-exploitation. Finally, the social order was normally perceived as ultimately serving the entire population (drudge slaves excepted).
+ Governance. Acceptable behavior was dictated by established social norms and the religion. Offenders might be subject to public shaming. The power of chiefs to punish, might be limited to the application of sorcery against the offender. In other cases, chiefs, in consultation with high-ranking associates, might possess the power and authority to consider and rule on disputes and to punish certain infractions in accordance with prescribed norms. Chiefs nevertheless lacked the authority to exercise arbitrary rule. In most cases, they exercised regulatory authority only over some specific matters and did so in ways prescribed by established norms. Chiefs were functionaries, their essential purpose being to perform functions, civic and religious, which maintained the cohesion and functionality of the community. Consequently, there was no real ruling class and no true state.
+ Examples. The ways, in which the foregoing features manifested, varied widely among chiefdoms. Examples (documented as they were before transformed by European contact): Nootka, Tahitians, Trobriand Islanders, Shilluk, Kpelle. [3]
3rd. Tributary. The Tributary Epoch dominated every region of the world with a recorded history throughout all but the last few centuries of the 5,000 years since the beginning of said recorded human history.
♦ Origins. Tributary polities evolved from chiefdoms in either of two ways.
- When the administrative authority in a chiefdom grew its powers beyond the basic integrative functions to the extent that the privileged governing elite transformed itself into a ruling class.
- Or, when a harvesting community was conquered by a war-like alien polity which then required the subjugated population to pay tribute to the governing authority within the conquering or merged polity.
♦ Essential features. A tributary polity was created when societal stratification had evolved to the point that it manifested the following features.
+ Tribute. The chiefs were displaced by, or transformed into, ruling lords using coercive power to appropriate, directly or thru the state, the production surplus (surplus product or surplus labor) [⁑] created by those whose labor-power produced the food and other goods upon which everyone depended. Said appropriation was effectuated as mandatory payments (tax or tribute, not simply voluntary offerings dictated by redistributive social norms) from the laboring classes. Said surplus was extorted from said laboring classes thru one or more of the following tributary relations-of-production: chattel slavery, serfdom, debt peonage, land rent, and/or taxation by a tributary state. The surplus was appropriated: as compulsory labor, as payment in kind, and/or as monetary payment. Some of this appropriated surplus might be used for public purposes (such as maintenance of public works and defense against foreign enemies) which served to preserve the community in the common interest of ruler and ruled. However, much of it was expended on prestige projects and privileged consumption which benefited only the ruling class (lords and their retinues), not the community as a whole. Whatever part of the surplus was used for the benefit of the laboring classes was ultimately to preserve class peace and thereby perpetuate the tributary social order. In effect, the system of exchange included the extortion of tribute in “exchange” for the purported benefit of paternalistic political administration.
[⁑] Note. Roughly speaking: surplus labor-power is that part of labor-power which produces beyond what is required to sustain and reproduce the laborer, surplus product is the product of surplus labor-power, and surplus value is the exchange value of surplus product.
+ Absolutist rule. Whereas, in the chiefdom, social rules were given (dictated by tradition and religion, and dependent upon the maintenance of popular consent); in tributary polities, the governing power had rule-making power independent of popular consent. Indeed, the governing authority imposed new rules many of which served the narrow self-interest of the privileged ruling class (lords). In its exercise of this power, said governing authority generally made concessions to traditional norms insofar as so doing served the ruling lords by stabilizing the social order and inducing popular acquiescence to the political regime. Nevertheless, the governing power could and did exercise an arbitrary rule over the laboring population (peasants and artisans) and thereby constituted, or acted as agent of, a ruling class (the lords).
+ Enforcement. The ruling lords obtained and retained their position as ruling class thru their exclusive possession or control of the societal power to impose and coerce. The governing power enforced its rules, including any capricious decrees, thru its armed retainers or other coercive policing agency which was answerable, not to the broader society, but solely to said governing power.
♦ Other features.
+ Justification. Many of the tributary polities supported an established religion; and, as in the chiefdom, religious indoctrination was then used to justify and reinforce the social order.
+ Monumental constructions. Tributary polities with sufficient population and prosperity often conscripted some of the surplus labor for construction of monumental edifices to reverence their gods and/or ruling god-kings as well as to overawe the subjugated populace. Illustrative examples: pyramids (Old Kingdom Egypt, Teotihuacan, Classical Maya); massive statues (the Great Sphinx of Giza, Olmec heads in Mexico, the Colossus of Rhodes); massive temples (the Hindu temple Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Christian temples such as Hagia Sophia and western Europe’s Gothic cathedrals, grandiose mosques including those in Mecca and Medina). Appropriated surplus was also used to effectuate, and/or pay for, the construction of lavish palaces for the ruling lords and their retinues.
♦ Empires. Over the course of the Tributary Epoch, hundreds of empires rose and subsequently decayed until they collapsed or were displaced by successors.
+ Formation. As one tributary polity overtook neighboring polities in population and/or military capability; it typically subjugated said neighbors, forcing the latter to pay tribute, thereby forming a small empire. Over time some small tributary states grew, thru their conquests, into large empires. Early examples: Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom Egypt (c. BCE 3100—2181); Akkadian Empire (Mesopotamia, c. BCE 2300—2120); western Zhou Dynasty Empire (northern China, c. BCE 1046—771); Classical Teotihuacan (central Mexico, c. CE 01—600); Aksum/Ethiopia (horn of Africa, c. 100—940); Ghana (western Africa, c. 300—1100). Later (even larger) examples: Maurya Empire in India, Roman Empire, Tang Dynasty China, Abbasid Caliphate, Tatar/Mongol Empire, Inca Empire, Ottoman Empire, Habsburg Spanish Empire.
+ Divergences and transitions. Tributary states took various forms.
- Some (such as: 4th dynasty Old Kingdom Egypt, Qin dynasty China, Inca Empire) were governed thru a centrally-directed bureaucratic hierarchy of appointed civic officials answerable to a single supreme ruler. [4]
- At the opposite extreme, were those polities (such as: early Zhou dynasty China, medieval western Europe, Tokugawa shogunate in Japan) which were governed thru a feudal hierarchy of suzerain and vassal lords. [5]
- Many empires (including: Achaemenid Persian Empire, Roman Empire, Mughal Empire) operated a provincialized system which combined central authority with collection of tribute (typically in the form of taxes) delegated to provincial governors and their subordinates. These empires often also included some self-governed vassal states. [6]
Sometimes, centralized rule would break down so that power would become diffused in a more feudal-type regime. Sometimes also, a suzerain power would rise to the top of a feudal regime and then wholly subjugate the vassals to the extent of making them wholly dependent upon the approval of the supreme ruler and replaceable at his discretion, thereby imposing a more centrally-administered regime.
+ Cyclicality. Tributary empires generally disintegrated with either: gradual devolution of power from center to lower levels, or outright collapse of governmental authority. Such events were caused by some combination of one or more of the following conditions.
- Inherent flaws in the political regime such that provincial governors under the bureaucratic regime or vassals under the feudal regime would exploit any weakness at the center in order to enhance their independence of the central authority,
- Crippling factional strife at the top of the imperial administration.
- Pervasive corruption within the governmental administration.
- Popular revolt against abusive misrule.
- Disruptive attacks by foreign powers.
- Lost capacity to satisfy the people’s nutritional or other basic needs because of causes such as: over-exploitation of available resources, over-population, or economic collapse due to severe drought or other natural disaster.
As long as conditions were suitable; in time, new tributary states typically displaced those in decay or arose on the ruins of their predecessors. Consequently, the imperial tributary system was cyclical: establishment of empire by some entity with sufficient power for so doing, discontinuous but ultimately certain deterioration, collapse or overthrow, another powerful entity establishes a new empire, the cycle repeats.
♦ Dark ages. Sometimes, it was not only the political regime, but the overall civilization, which endured collapse (thereby giving rise to a dark age). A few illustrative examples of dark ages.
+ The First Intermediate Period (circa BCE 2181—2055) following the collapse of Old Kingdom Egypt witnessed: popular rebellion (including desecration of temples and looting of the tombs of recent kings), civil disorder, and political chaos. [7]
+ The Greek dark age followed the BCE 11th century collapse of the Mycenaean civilization. It featured the looting and destruction of the rulers’ palaces followed by two to three centuries with considerable population decline and the disappearance of: centralized administration, most manufacture, most foreign trade, and all writing. [8]
+ The early medieval period in western Europe followed the collapse of the western Roman Empire. It featured: civil disorder, ubiquitous lawlessness and violence, collapse of trade and related manufacture, loss of popular literacy, famines, and depopulation. [9]
♦ Presence of capital. Advanced tributary empires generally supported and encouraged a considerable amount of commodity production and mercantile commerce (in some cases with a shifting mix of state enterprise and private entrepreneurship).
+ The products, which their farms, workshops, mines, and manufactories produced, included marketed commodities: for personal consumption (grain, wine, olive oil, ceramics, textiles, glass-ware, metal-ware, and so forth); as well as raw materials (lumber, metals, wool, flax, leather, et cetera). Roman mines and smelters produced more iron, lead, and copper in the 2nd century than Europe would produce again until the 18th century [10].
+ Merchants operated: locally, between regions, and with foreign countries. Much of the foreign commerce was carried in sea-going ships [11]:
- throughout the Mediterranean, Red, and Black seas, and the Atlantic Ocean from Gibraltar to Britain (by the Roman, Greek, and earlier empires from BCE 13th century);
- across expanses of open Ocean from southeast Asia, to India, to Egypt, and to eastern Africa (from circa BCE 100);
- across the oceans serving ports in lands in the western Pacific, in east-southeast-south-&-southwest Asia, and in eastern-&-northeastern Africa (by Song Dynasty China from CE 10th century, five centuries before Columbus).
+ By BCE 6th century, tributary states (in Greece and Anatolia, in India, in the Achaemenid Persian Empire, in Zhou Dynasty China) minted metallic coins to serve as convenient medium of exchange and thereby encourage and facilitate private commerce. [12]
+ Banks (taking deposits, making loans, changing money, et cetera) were significant players in the economies of some advanced tributary states: Roman Empire (by CE 2nd century), Song dynasty China (10th century). Moreover, some business ventures in Song dynasty China were operated by joint stock companies. [13]
+ Lack of innovation.
- With most productive labor performed by slaves, serfs, tenant farmers, and/or other servile commoners, all of whom would be required sooner or later to surrender their surplus; and with big landowners and other ruling lords remaining aloof from production processes; the former had little incentive to introduce innovations to increase productivity, while the latter were generally too disconnected from the work to recognize potential productivity enhancements. Existing technologies were embraced; but new additions thereto were rare in commodity production.
- The inventive individuals, who made and recorded discoveries in science and technology, almost always came from the elite. They were motivated by intellectual curiosity, not by an urge to apply their breakthroughs to labor-saving productivity enhancements. Consequently, they neither provided their inventions to existing businesses nor created businesses of their own. Example: Roman scientists knew (CE 1st century) that steam power and wind power could be used to power mechanical devices, but the ancient Romans never put that knowledge to practical use [14].
- The manufacture of commodities was generally so strictly regulated by the state and/or the guilds of the artisans that innovation in manufacture was stifled.
+ Confiscation. Whenever merchants and/or other entrepreneurs accumulated much capital, the tributary state eventually extorted it from them thru heavy taxation or other confiscatory action.
+ Business climate. Even when the political regime (as in Song dynasty China) instituted policies to promote innovative entrepreneurial commerce; conditions conducive thereto rarely lasted more than a very few generations because of obstruction such as: anti-entrepreneur policy reversal, great increase of stifling corruption, internal disorder, disruptive war.
+ The societal imperative. For the ruling lords, the societal imperative was the pursuit of power and status. Said ruling lords (state officials, military commanders, owners of landed estates, suzerains and vassals) behaved accordingly. They generally used any financial wealth to obtain land and/or political position which would serve as means: to preserve or enhance power and status, and to engage in status-enhancing conspicuous consumption.
! Because of the failure to innovate in production, because of confiscations of capital accumulations and periodic disruptions of any pro-growth business climate, and because of the ruling lords’ non-capitalistic priorities; productive capital could not grow much in excess of population growth. Consequently, there could be no industrial revolution and no sufficient accumulation of capital to create the basis for the transition to the rule of capital.
4th. Capitalist.
♦ Origins. The capitalist order has existed for only a tiny fraction of the history and pre-history of humankind.
+ Under the tributary order which preceded, merchant and industrial capitalists were often permitted (even encouraged) to operate, but within constraints imposed by the ruling lords. Meanwhile, the lords normally extorted and consumed any substantial accumulations of financial wealth. Thusly, said lords acted to preserve the tributary order with their domination of the civil society.
+ Change came because particular conditions (namely the increase in commerce based upon merchant trading and upon the growth of manufacture in towns outside of the direct control of the feudal lords) in 15th and 16th century Europe allowed some merchant-bankers (such as: the Medici[s], the Fugger[s], and the Welser[s]) to accumulate significant wealth, partly thru the lending of money to competing feudal lords (who needed financing for diplomatic and military ventures as they strove to hold and/or expand their realms). With ruling princes become dependent upon money: some of them were induced to grant lucrative monopolies to merchant trading companies, and said princes also often invested their own resources in such ventures. In the west of Europe, monarchies and allied merchant companies sponsored the conquest of distant lands where their protégés subjugated and enslaved the natives as forced labor in mines and plantations. The need for additional cheap labor to work the mines and plantations led still other favored merchant traders to develop the highly profitable trans-Atlantic trade in African slaves. Meanwhile, the growth of the consumer market, plus the great technological advances (especially in the 18th century), led to a great expansion of mechanized manufacturing industry (outside of the constraints imposed by the medieval guilds). These industries produced consumer goods much more cheaply than did the independent artisans who were then ruined. Meanwhile, money-hungry lords dispossessed and pauperized their peasants as they usurped the traditional land-use rights of the latter in order to convert their feudal estates into commercial farms needing considerably less labor. The manufactories then used and cruelly exploited, as cheap wage-workers, these ruined artisans and pauperized former peasants. Thusly was formed the modern working class from the heirs of the peasants and artisans who had been: stripped of all property in usable means of production, and left with no means of obtaining a livelihood except by selling their labor-power. From the foregoing events came also the formation of the modern capitalist class from the heirs of: merchant traders and bankers, planters and mine owners, slave traders, commercial farmers, and owners of industrial manufactories. And thusly was accumulated in European countries (including European settler countries) the great mass of wealth, the original accumulation of capital, which provided the foundation for the present-day capitalist social order and the rule of the capitalists. This growing capitalist class would eventually make itself the ruling and exploiting class throughout nearly the entire world.
♦ Features. With the Capitalist Epoch:
- most economic activity is organized to produce for profitable commodity exchange and/or to grow capital thru extraction of rents (interest, dividends, royalties, rental income, speculative gain, et cetera);
- the societal imperative is the pursuit of private profit and the accumulation of private wealth;
- workers are objectified, as labor-power is reduced to a mere commodity; and
- the superstructure indoctrinates and represses as necessary in order to preserve the social order and suppress its opponents.
A more in-depth descriptive analysis of operant capitalism is presented above [in chapter 4].
5th. Socialist. In the Socialist Epoch, we expect:
- that labor exploitation and class antagonisms and systemic oppressions will be eliminated; and
- that economic activity will be organized so as to satisfy the human and social needs of all of humankind.
The essential features of the socialist order are presented below [in § 7].
Noted sources.
Wikipedia: Mbuti people (2020 Jul 25); San people (2020 Oct 16).
[2] Service: ~ chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, & 9.
[3] Service: ~ chapters 10, 11, 12, & 13.
Krader: ~ chapter Two – Government without the state.
[4] Wikipedia: Old Kingdom of Egypt (2020 Oct 28) ~ § 1 History; Qin dynasty (2020 Oct 15) ~ especially § 2.4 Government and military; Inca Empire (2020 Oct 25) ~ §§ 2, 5, 6.
[5] Wikipedia: Examples of feudalism (2020 Jul 12) ~ §§ 1, 2.5, 2.7.
[6] Wikipedia: Achaemenid Empire (2020 Oct 29) ~ §§ 3, 4; Roman Empire (2020 Oct 31) ~ § 5; Mughal Empire (2020 Oct 29) ~ §§ 3, 4.
[7] Wikipedia: History of ancient Egypt (2020 Oct 17) ~ §§ 3.1, 3.2, 3.3.
[8] Wikipedia: Mycenaean Greece (2020 Oct 26) ~ especially §§ 3 thru 5; Greek dark ages (2020 Oct 26) ~ especially §§ 1, 2, 3, 5.
[9] Wikipedia: History of Rome (2020 Oct 28) ~ §§ 1.2 thru 1.4; Fall of the Western Roman Empire (2020 Oct 27); Early Middle Ages (2020 Oct 10) ~ §§ 1.1, 1.2.
[10] Wikipedia: Roman economy (2020 Oct 20) ~ § 1 Mining and metallurgy; Roman metallurgy (2020 May 12).
[11] Wikipedia: Tin sources and trade in ancient times (2020 Oct 28) ~ § 3.1 Europe, 4.1 Mediterranean; Mycenaean Greece (2020 Oct 26) ~ § 5 Economy; Indian maritime history (2020 Oct 26) ~ § 3 Early kingdoms; Kingdom of Aksum (2020 Oct 20) ~ § 3 Foreign relations, trade, and economy; Song dynasty (2020 Nov 02) § 3 Economy.
[12] Wikipedia: Ancient Greek coinage (2020 Oct 24) ~ § 2 Archaic period; Coinage of India (2020 Oct 25) ~ § 2 Early historic period; Achaemenid coinage (2020 Sep 05) ~ §§ 1, 2; Ancient Chinese coinage (2020 Nov 05) ~ §§ 1.5 thru 1.7.
[13] Wikipedia: Roman economy (2020 Oct 20) ~ § (introduction); History of banking in China (2020 Oct 15) ~ § 1.1; Economy of the Song dynasty (2020 Sep 25) ~ § 2.
[14] Wikipedia: Hero of Alexandria (2020 Nov 01).
§ 4. SOCIETAL IMPERATIVES. Because civil society is constituted of imperfect humans, it will never be able to entirely escape the occasional occurrences of oppressive and malevolent acts perpetrated by vicious individuals. Nevertheless, there is a qualitative distinction between:
- the occasional harmful acts of such individuals, and
- the systemic social evils, which result from the anti-social and predatory pressures and imperatives, which are institutionally embedded in the social order of civil society in the Tributary and Capitalist epochs.
Whereas the societal imperatives in the Foraging and Harvesting epochs were sharing and cooperation for the sake of mutual benefit and societal cohesion; tributary and capitalist societies always manifested systemic predation and class exploitation. In fact, capitalist civil society is innately and thoroughly infused with: predatory and anti-social compulsions, and their consequent social evils. Socialism, because it will be structured to satisfy human and social needs rather than selfish individual pursuits, will not only liberate the working class from subjugation and exploitation by capital, but will remove the institutional imperatives which foster and perpetuate those systemic social evils. Socialism cannot create a perfect paradise entirely devoid of all oppressive acts. However, the systemic social evils, which abound in the contemporary capitalist world need not, and will not, persist under socialism.
§ 5. PROPERTY OWNERSHIP. Real socialism requires public ownership (administered by the civic authority) of virtually all production enterprises. Why? Reform schemes, which call for a so-called “socialism” based upon a mixed economy of public enterprises plus regulated private enterprises (even if limited to petty individual enterprises, worker cooperatives, consumer cooperatives, and so forth), would perpetuate: pursuit of private self-interest, society-wide unequal compensation for work, inequality of wealth, and foundational disparities of power with differential attention to the respective needs of different segments of the population. Many worker-owned and consumer-owned enterprises exist under capitalism; and, although they are useful insofar as they displace power from the capitalist class, they, as proprietary entities, are nevertheless entirely compatible with capitalism. Moreover, the inherent contradiction between regulatory constraints and the pursuit of maximum private profit inevitably eventuates in evasions and de facto nullifications of public interest regulations. Finally, petty private enterprise naturally tends to evolve into ever-larger more powerful and abusive firms just as the atomized competition and petty entrepreneurship of the 18th and 19th centuries evolved into the oligarchic capitalism of the present day. Therefore, mixed-economy “socialism” (actually capitalism with regulatory reforms plus welfare programs) would not fully or permanently cure the inequities and other systemic evils of capitalism. Such a civil society would inevitably either: regress toward the previous more predatory form of capitalism, or progress to real socialism by socializing virtually all production under ownership by the civic authority.
§ 6. EXPROPRIATIONS. Under modern conditions, private ownership of the means of production necessarily results in the pursuit of private self-interest often at the expense of human and social needs. Therefore, socialist construction must ultimately replace private ownership with public ownership vested in the civic authority. Thereupon comes the question: how is this to be achieved? Should the capitalist owners be paid for their property when it is expropriated, or should it be confiscated? The socialist regime will, of course, need to be pragmatic as well as adhere to principle. This means that it will offer compensation to some owners (notably for the capital which they acquired using the proceeds of their own labor). However, it will necessarily have no choice but to confiscate most accumulated capital wealth. Why? Because capitalist exploitation has concentrated nearly all of said wealth in ownership by capitalists while workers own almost none of it. Then comes the question: how can such confiscation be justified? The answer, of course, is to be found in a recounting of the historical processes by which such concentrations of accumulated wealth were created. In fact, nearly all capitalist property is the result of uncompensated expropriations.
1st. Gifts of Nature. Throughout most of human existence, natural resources (land, bodies of water, minerals, wildlife, and so forth) were recognized as being a “gift of Nature”; and humans treated this gift as the common property of their entire community. Nowadays, such natural resources (especially land, water “rights”, mineral and petroleum “rights”, timber “rights”, and so forth) are treated as private property. The transformation of this common property into private property came about as follows.
♦ Titular ownership. Harvesting communities typically allocated possessory use-rights to parcels of the communal land: to individual nuclear families, or to kindreds, or to small localized groups. As human populations evolved civilizations with division by class, their ruling lords unilaterally asserted a claim of titular ownership of the blocks of land (and its natural resources) over which they exercised administrative control. However, the lords needed to keep the subjugated laboring class (peasants) on the land in order to make the land productive and the social order sustainable. Consequently, in any transfer of land between lords, the peasants remained with the land. In effect, the lords’ purported “ownership” was necessarily limited, and the peasants retained access and use-rights in the land so that they could produce the wherewithal to sustain themselves as well as a surplus which was taken and used to sustain the lords and their retainers. In effect, a bilateral property relation was established whereby the lords claimed titular ownership while their peasants retained use-rights.
♦ Private ownership. Capitalism:
- converted economic relations (from paternalistic relationships) into purely commercial dealings; and
- converted nearly every useful thing, over which exclusive control could be exercised, into private property.
In effect, capitalism imposed a conception of land and of many other natural resources as objects which the owner is free to buy and sell in the market as if it were merely chattel. The pursuit of private wealth then led inevitably to the usurpation by the titular landowners of their peasants’ traditional use-rights in the land.
♦! Consequence. Ultimately, the laboring majority were robbed of all their rights in the formerly communal ownership of the land and of the associated natural resources.
2nd. Persisting robbery. The pursuit of proprietary wealth has, throughout the modern colonial era (15th thru 19th centuries), inspired the conquest of vulnerable peoples whose lands and other natural resources were then taken by the conquerors. Even in the present-day, the robbery of vulnerable groups is commonplace. A few illustrative examples:
- the fraudulent acquisition and/or purely uncompensated seizure of the lands of indigenous peoples and of poor peasants in peripheral countries for use as mines, ranches, or commercial plantations [1];
- the taking of the homes and savings of millions of vulnerable homeowners thru predatory mortgage lending practices (as in the housing bubble leading to the 2008 US Great Recession and its subsequent wave of foreclosures) [2];
- the looting of workers’ pension funds and/or defaulting on related pension obligations by their employers [3].
3rd. Appropriation of surplus. Prior to the advent of the capitalist order, accumulated wealth consisted primarily of land and its resources. Meanwhile, the surplus produced by the laboring classes was mostly taken and consumed by the ruling lords. With capitalism, however, the surplus produced by the laboring classes is taken by capitalists who then mostly accumulate it as capital in the form of commercial property and financial assets. Very few capitalists contribute anything to the creation of this surplus, and those few who contribute by organizing productive enterprises are generally compensated far beyond their expenditure of actual labor. In fact, capitalists do not create capital wealth themselves; rather [as explained by Marx in Wages, Price, and Profit (1865)], they obtain it thru the uncompensated appropriation of the surplus created by their laborers. Said laborers once included chattel slaves, indentured servants, and peons (including sharecroppers), but now consist mostly of wage workers [4].
Ω. Finding. As illustrated by the foregoing history, the accumulation and concentration of wealth in the possession of the owning class is:
- the legacy [⁑] of past and ongoing uncompensated expropriations; and
- what is ultimately, thru purchase or inheritance, akin to receipt of stolen property.
Consequently, confiscation of such property by a revolutionary state is justified as simply an “expropriation of the expropriators”.
[⁑] Note: homes and/or modest bits of commercial property acquired by working people thru purchase with savings from their wages are obviously not part of that legacy, therefore an exception.
Noted sources.
[1] YaleEnvironment360: More Than 200 Environmental Activists and Land Defenders Murdered in 2019 (E360 Digest, 2020 Jul 28) @ https://e360.yale.edu/digest/more-than-200-environmental-activists-and-land-defenders-murdered-in-2019 .
Lee⸰ James: Our responsibility to indigenous land defenders (University of Washington, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, 2021 Feb 25) @ https://smea.uw.edu/currents/our-responsibility-to-indigenous-land-defenders/ .
[2] Wikipedia: Causes of the United States housing bubble (2021 Jul 06) ~ § 3 Risky mortgage products and lax lending standards; Predatory Lending (2018 Apr 04).
[3] Schultz⸰ Ellen: How Business Elites Looted Private-Sector Pensions (PSC-CUNY, 2012 Mar) @ https://psc-cuny.org/clarion/march-2012/how-business-elites-looted-private-sector-pensions .
[4] Marx⸰ Karl: Wages, Price and Profit [1865] (Marx2Mao) ~ §§ VI thru XIV @ http://www.marx2mao.com/M&E/WPP65.html or same work under title Value, Price and Profit [1865] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/index.htm .
§ 7. THE SOCIALIST ORDER. Socialist construction will institute a social order with the following among its essential features.
♦ Economy. The means of production will be publicly owned, and they will be administered by the civic authority for the benefit of all of the people.
+ Anarchy of production will be eliminated. Production enterprises will be operated in accordance with a central plan with the specific objectives:
- of protecting the natural environment; and
- of satisfying the needs of workers, consumers, and residential communities.
+ Resources will be allocated and priorities set so as to ensure universal provision for human and social needs: employment, disability and retirement income, childcare, education, healthcare, housing, public transit, emergency services, public security.
+ The surplus will be used: for the benefit of the workers and of the community, rather than to concentrate wealth in the possession of a class of proprietary capitalist exploiters and/or to fund special privileges for a class of ruling bureaucrats.
+ There will be jobs for all persons who are able and willing to work; and every employee will be paid in accordance with the principle of equal pay for equal work. Consequently, labor-power will cease to be simply a commodity.
♦ Judiciary. A truly independent judiciary will act consistently in accordance with the rule of law so that human rights, civil liberties, and due process rights will be protected. Civil liberties will naturally include the right to express disagreement with officials and their policies. The law will prohibit and punish acts (including defamations) harmful to others. There will, of course, be no right to commit, or conspire to commit, acts of: corruption, sabotage, or sedition.
♦ Media. Major informational media will actually serve the public: by publishing information relevant to public concerns, by fairly providing reasonable space for opposing views on controversial public issues, by publishing rebuttals and corrections to misinformation, and so forth.
♦ Civic associations. Civic associations (including workplace collective bargaining organizations) will be accountable to, and free to advocate on behalf of, their members.
♦ Government. The civic authority (government) will be structured so as to ensure control by and accountability to the working class and its allies thru:
- fair electoral processes,
- popular input into civic policy decisions,
- popular oversight over the actions of elected government officials,
- tribunals which will hear complaints and effectuate just remedies as appropriate, and
- constraints upon bureaucratic accretions of power.
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