The ABC’s of Communism Bolshevism 2011

Jason W. Smith, Ph.D.

 

Chapter 10: The Stage of Slavery

The best artistic representation I have yet seen of the way of life existing in the Slave Stage is shown in the HBO series Rome. Rent it and watch it and internalize the very nature of slavery as a sociocultural system.

The two Chiefdom Stages foregoing constitute what we may call the First Transitional Period. They took humanity out of the primitive communism of the First Egalitarian Epoch {and its three Stages of Hunting and Gathering Bands and its Stage of Tribal Agriculture} into the Servitude Epoch {and its three Stages that we know from the historical record: Slavery, Feudalism and Capitalism.}These two Chiefdom Stages were the First Transitional Period. In the Old World they begin in Egypt, Iraq and China about 7000 years ago and come to a climax around 5500 years ago.

In these three centers of the origin of class and state society (the first Stage of which we call Slavery) the beginning appears around 5500 years ago and within half a millennia say about 5000 years ago (roughly 3000 BC) we have Imperial Slavery in Egypt and Iraq that continues until about AD 400; frequently, under new management (e. g., Greece and Rome.) The collapse of the Roman Empire West into Feudal Kingdoms and Fiefdoms is the special and peculiar political/polity form of Feudalism in Europe and much of Arabia.

The Old World Slave Stage

In China, on the other hand, we see an early rise of the ATC’s and true class division soon thereafter. In fact, this is the earliest yet known class division in the world. From at least 3500 BC slavery lasted in China until 221 BC. China experienced in that period the most advanced technology and “state” social organization of any Slave Stage anywhere on the globe. So advanced in fact, that we know of two early experiments during this three and a half millennia period, in Feudalism. Although in neither case was the experimentation successful in becoming permanent. Rather, we have the Slave Stage lasting as I have said, until 221 BC. The last part of said Slave Stage is called the Warring States Period (481 – 221 BC). In the end Slave Kingdoms were replaced by Imperial Feudalism.

The Imperial Feudal regimes of China and elsewhere in Asia, invariably feature the replacement of nobles and aristocrats which earlier had constituted the boss hierarchy in these areas, as they did in Feudal Europe and Feudal Japan for much longer periods of time, with a New Class of professional specialists similar to “Nome Bosses” in Egypt.

In China this New Class was huge; they were called “Eunuch Scholar Bureaucrats”. Castration of these scholar-bureaucrat officials was ruling family policy in China. Under the Imperial Feudal Regime that begins in 221 BC castration was mandatory for the 250,000 scholar bureaucrats the ruling family and its retainers employed to rule over the vast empire. The theory of the thing was that castration would prevent ill-gotten gains of the bureaucrats from being passed down (in such societies it is a “given” that all bureaucrats steal) although in practice many of the Scholar-bureaucrat eunuchs succeeding in passing down great wealth and in building dynasties via nephews and nieces.

The Asiatic Mode of Production

Similar great New Class run societies existed at one point or another in the Ancient World on the Indian subcontinent, Indochina and Indonesia (what Europeans thought of in their “dark ages” as the fabled “Spice Islands.”). It is, by the way, the existence of these concentrated populations ruled over by professional bureaucrats that gives Chinese Feudalism and these other imperial systems their special “Asiatic” character with regard to the Feudal Mode of Production.

This is a reference to Marx’s interest in the East and what he called the Asiatic Mode of Production. As you can see this “Asiatic mode of production” is in reality just the imperial bureaucrat run slave and feudal stages of South Asia, the Far East and Indonesia.

Old World West and East are then mirror image opposites in terms of polity, but exactly the same thing in terms of sociocultural Stage evolution. In each and every case, East and West, Slavery is replaced eventually with a half-way house between chattel and wage slavery that we have come to know and call “Feudalism.”

(Note 1: in the use of the term “feudalism” in discussions of this sort – i.e., sociocultural stages – we do not imply anything about the political form it might take. In traditional uses of the term “feudalism” in western historical literature the term was heavily loaded with the idea of small “fiefdom” organized society. This is an entirely different use of the term and irrelevant here.

Note 2: Some many years ago a conference was held on Marx’s “Asiatic Mode of Production” where the “intellectuals” attending spent their time analyzing the psyche of Karl Marx and a variety of equally irrelevant things rather than focusing on the obvious course which would have been to study the historic and prehistoric record for the origin and evolution of these Asiatic systems. That would have produced the accurate and useful result herein. Instead as usual from these types we got wasted trees and garbage.

The New World Slave Stage

Secret of the Spanish Ronin’s Conquest of the New World

We have seen why in the New World, which is to say in Mesoamerica and the Central Andes, the Stage of Tribal Agriculture lasted several millennia longer than in the Old World. Namely, to reiterate, because there were virtually no potential animal domesticate stocks in the New World and far fewer domesticateable grasses. Thus, the experimentation with domesticated grasses (corn, and a variety of other wild grasses that didn’t really pan out) in a sedentary, or even semi-sedentary village setting, took longer in the Americas to get to the point of substantial reliance on cereal, as a basic foodstuff, than it did in the Old World with its penned sheep, pigs, goats, horses, cattle (not to mention fowl and pondable fish). Fortuitous natural differences that brought sedentary and semi-sedentary agricultural village life to the fore in the eastern Hemisphere, several thousand years earlier than in the western Hemisphere.

In other words, the simultaneous Old World domestication of the wild grass species we call oats, rye, barley, wheat, rice and millet, whose progenitor forms were spread far and wide in the Old World, and which therefore underwent domestication very early, alongside the villages with penned animals of all types, could not happen “mirror image” in the Americas. Therefore the sociocultural evolution from Tribal Agriculture to each successive stage, took longer in the New World, without these wild stocks.

Interestingly, in South America, people proved they could duplicate the surplus potential of domesticated grass seeds by the creation of a stable agricultural equivalent to a cereal staple, in the domestication of tubers to produce manioc and, of course, potatoes. Yet despite the difference in grain or other carbohydrate-protein staples the processes underlying the reorganization of society are (were) identical.

At any rate, this is why the Stage of Slavery does not emerge in the New World until about the time of Christ. A full three thousand five hundred years later, than in the Old World. It had earlier taken that much longer for Tribal sedentary agriculture to emerge in the Americas, with so few plants and animal domesticates on hand, and upon which to experiment. In other words, once the Tribal Agricultural Stage was delayed in the New World, in reaching its fullest modernization, by at least three and a half millennia, then each successive New World sociocultural evolutionary Stage was likewise offset in temporal sequence, by comparison with the Old World.

In the overall evolution of Homo three thousand five hundred years is an insignificant amount of time. However, when contact did occur in 1519 and 1534 (Mexico and Peru, respectively) the difference was enough to make the destruction of one sociocultural stage and its replacement by another inevitable. Indigenous Slavery gave way virtually overnight to foreign Feudalism. In this case thirty five hundred years was more than enough difference in technical development, and most importantly social organizational development, to give the Spanish ronin the decisive edge as the two stages went head to head; the one giving way to the other like anti-particles in collision with the one simply disappearing in a puff of history.

More on the Origin of the State

Society could advance when confronted with civil war and the failure of the persuasive capability of the religious authorities only when there was a new option. Namely, the option of the richest families, to use their newly acquired ability to pacify the mass of farming families, with fire, sword and club. Those with the money had now to use it, to pay thugs to suppress by arrest and brigandage those in opposition. This is the origin of the state everywhere. Which is to say, again, that what we call the “state” is at-bottom, just armed force in the pay of the richest families. (“The state” in scientific terms then is armed force in the private pay of the wealthiest classes. “The state” is not “government” nor is it the “armed force of the people as a whole.” Rather “the State” in scientific terms, as used in this text refers to the Army and Police (or in more modern times the military-intelligence establishment and the police.)

There were no exceptions then, and there are no exceptions now in the Servitude Epoch. Nor, for that matter, in the Second Transitional Period (which began in 1917) where “the state” is in the hands of the working class via its vanguard political Party. - And, “state” society must continue until the reasons for the existence of “the state” (class struggle, class war, classes) no longer exist.

 Note: Neither should you confuse “the state” with the use of violence. As Engels pointed out, armed force of the masses existed before the Servitude Epoch and will exist after the Servitude Epoch. In the latter case, for example, in the form pictured for us by Gene Roddenberry, that is Star Fleet. But these ancient Tribal War Parties, and these future forms of armed force, such as a communist Star Fleet (engaged primarily in exploration and only secondarily in defense), are an entirely different matter than armed force in the very private pay of exploiting families. The latter are used to force the mass of producers into submission and obedience.

In other words, armed force of the people as a whole and armed force used by the exploiters against the exploited are two totally separate categories. Armed force of the Tribe and/or Star Fleet has nothing in common with armed force of secret police, spies, regular police and the army. Marx and Engels were clear about the difference between “the State”, “Government”, and “violence”, as all Marxists have been since then. We have become increasingly convinced of the accuracy of this view by the unfolding prehistoric (archaeological) record and the numerically increasingly qualitatively penetrating historical studies of many researchers.

This is the Fatal Error of Anarchist Theory

 It was, and is, the inability of anarchists and their offspring [anarcho-syndicalists] to understand this difference which was the at-bottom reason for the split in the First International between Anarchism and Marxism and our subsequent parting of ways, forever. The state is a peculiar instrument of class power and only that. In class war one class or the other must persevere via its use of its own state power. It is not this state which is the source of all evil but the class system from which it comes and in the course of eliminating classes it is only a communist class instrument (the state – the army and the police) which can make “the state” as a social institution whither away by destroying the class and state nature of society first. Then our communist state must hold its own sway over the society in question until the entire Servitude Epoch class and state system is eliminated in favor of communism.

Anarchist ideology misses all this and denounces all state organization and furthermore makes this “state absence” idea the basis of their concept of social revolution. The most concrete expression of this primitive world view is what it amounted to in practice - the ridiculous and hypocritical anarchist organization of Andalusia and Catalonia in Spain during the Spanish civil war (1936-1939). For more on this skip to Chapter 16 on World War II.

By getting it wrong, right from the start, the anarchists split from us theoretically. Then they split from us organizationally, when Marx kept them from getting control of the First International by sending it to the USA (pick this up below in US Labor History).

Getting Rich and Believing in It

How the financially most powerful families got rich is not the point. That could have happened in a variety of ways as I have described before, and did happen in a variety of ways, as is well known archaeologically, and for that matter in much of the historical record. (For example, Professor Rathje proved many years ago the origin of wealth in the Mayan Lowlands in the hands of a small group of families came because they controlled long distance trade in essentials and created profit on both ends of these deals. As often military leaders emerge because of their success in some popular campaign. Michener describes the emergence of thuggery in the South Pacific prior to the migration to Hawaii as a function of enforcement by Advanced Theocratic Chiefdom bosses.)

What is key is that the ideology of people is now committed to selfishness, and indeed sadism, so that the altruism of primitive communism no longer stands in the way. Now the victors “believe they should be richer than the masses and should domesticate the masses as they have animals and plants.” - And, accompanying this fundamental change in the superstructure are the armed men and women who will work for food, shelter, pay - and, fun! These are the thugs. Thuggery will be institutionalized in the form of police and soldiers.

This new basally imprinted ideology existed by the time that the Advanced Theocratic Chiefdoms approached crisis. This independently supported thuggery existed by the time the ATC’s were on the eve of civil war. It remained only for the privileged ranks to throw off their sheep’s clothing and appear for what they were – classes with title deed to property in their individual hands and the willingness and ability to make it so. Thus, Engels could not have been more correct. The “state” does, always, arise as the product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. – And, for no other reason. (See Frederick Engels classic synthesis of his and Marx’s work with that of Lewis Henry Morgan in one of its many editions: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.)

Yes, classes now exist. The ranks have become classes.

- And, the financially most powerful classes use their thugs (the first “state”) to suppress the less powerful classes. In the process many poor farmers and craftspeople are reduced to slavery. One could say that the few have domesticated the many. These are the polar opposites of the first “civilized” societies everywhere.

This does not mean that all poor people in Slave Stage societies were slaves. Far from it. But it does mean that the common denominator of the cost of labor-power is now determined by whatever the cost may be of keeping slaves (1) alive and (2) in submission.

The mechanisms institutionalized, by which slavery is introduced and maintained, include debt, capture in war, and punishment for civil and criminal offenses, being born the son or daughter of a slave, self-sale into slavery to satisfy some overriding need.

The new General Contradiction of society now expresses itself in a new prime directive, which is for the master class to maximize profit from the surplus value column at any cost, regardless of the amount of value and surplus value being created. The General Contradiction, in other words, is the opposite of what it was under the conditions of the First Egalitarian Epoch, as is the resulting Prime Directive. Now there is the tendency to maximize production (for the ruling families,) whereas before, there was the tendency to limit production to that of value needed (by society as a whole.)

The General Crisis of Slavery

The General Crisis of the Slave Stage is that ever deepening crisis created by the cost of maintaining the thuggery (the State) which is essential to keeping the masses in servitude. Our formula helps focus our attention on the new key diagnostic factors of profit for the rulers and the cost of their means of social organization (thuggery; i.e., the state.)

lp + t à V1, V2 + SV

  State/Profit

lp = labor-power of the slave mediated by the overseer

t = Bronze and Iron Age technology

V1 = cost of keeping slaves alive

V2 = cost of maintaining technology

SV = surplus value resulting from the homogenized collective labor input of gangs of  slaves measured by some daily “clock.”

State = cost of army/police

Profit = that which is appropriated by the slave owners

The more slaves, the bigger the army and the police needed to keep them in that condition must be. The cost of the state is a drawdown on the surplus value column. That drawdown reduces drastically the profit margin. This is the locus of the General Crisis of Slavery.

The Origin of Egypt’s Great Pyramids

Furthermore, as capital is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer families - until just one family rises above all the others - as, for example, with the emergence of one ruling family over all of Egypt with the beginning of the Old Kingdom c.3000 BC - the boss hierarchy over the slaves becomes a dangerous internal element for the ruling family and its directly dependant ruling classes. For, if that hierarchy of bosses is allowed to use that slave labor power for its own devices, then it shall have the financial wherewithal to challenge the ruling Pharaoh, and associates, for power (and its concomitant license to incredible wealth.) Thus, that labor-power (of the slaves, and those subject to mandatory labor-drafts) must be kept busy in tasks that deny the boss hierarchy access, even when such tasks are non-productive. This is the reason for the sudden undertaking of such labor intensive tasks as the construction of all of the Old Kingdom monumental funerary architecture (e.g., the pyramids.).

These military dictators {the Pharaohs were always military dictators} had no religious illusions. They knew they couldn’t trust their own Nome bosses. (The Nile was divided into administrative units called Nomes.) So, what abstracted labor-time was theirs, that did not need to be gainfully employed by them (the Pharaonic family,) they put to work in a socially justifiable way that denied the Nome boss-hierarchy access to it. End of story.

The motive force for stability was the ruling elite’s interest in maintaining and deepening the enslavement of the masses by whatever means. The prime mover for social change was the resistance and rebellion of the most oppressed segment of society – i.e., the mass of slaves.

The in-between strata were pushed into institutionalized poverty, because they couldn’t compete with slave-labor except at the lowest common denominator. Which was the cost of socially necessary labor-time; in other words, the cost of keeping the slaves alive - i.e., Value 1.

The deepening of Slavery’s General Crisis was the same everywhere. In the civilizations of the Mediterranean, slave revolts eventually put paid to the entire process, but it took over 3000 years. In China, the same thing happened. In Mesoamerica and the Central Andes the clay feet of the slavocrats were their Achilles heel, and were cut off by the armed and armored handful of Iberian ronin who found it a simple enough matter to drive a wedge between the slaves, and other subjugated peoples, and their masters; between the subjugated societies and the Imperial Slavocrat New World Regimes.

(Ronin is a special Japanese term for unemployed knights in the Japanese Feudal Era. This is, for example, exactly what Hernan Cortes and his fellow adventurers {and investors} were, from the beginning to the end, in their adventure against Tenochtitlan {the Aztec name for the city also known as Mexico.})

A Marxist archaeological shorthand rule-of-thumb is wherever you have prehistoric monumental architecture you also have rank and/or class division of society. Ruling families control their own boss-hierarchy by controlling their access to labor-power in this way. Keeping the mass of individual providers of labor-power out of the hands of those in the hierarchy who would use it to increase their own wealth and power if they could. For that reason we were never misled about what was happening in the Mayan cultures of Mesoamerica a la foolishness of such writers as Thompson.

Monumental architecture (pyramids, Nazca lines, Great Walls, etc.) now take on much grander size and scope than it had when society was only at the ATC level.

Finally, because we understand sociocultural evolution is the same everywhere and always, and is law-governed, we are never confused about the meaning of surficial similarities among the pyramid building cultures as disparate as Egypt and Peru. Reactionary ruling-class originating writers about archaeology of course have no scientific view such as this and they go off and get lost on the most ridiculous things you can imagine (Von Daniken, Sitchen and others of that ilk are extreme con-man examples, but not that different in their conclusions from barely acceptable diffusionist scholars like Thor Heyerdahl [finally proven by DNA to be wrong about Peru and Easter Island.])