"Sorry, but I simply don't see "primitive communism" as being in any way "significant", or a useful weapon for historical materialists --- among whom I count myself --- especially since it has not been shown conclusively to have existed. "
It took some time for the penny to drop. I think I can understand the reading of "Primitive Communism" as it may have come to you, I got stuck on the first part of the sentence and missed the implication of the second - the question of its existence!
I believe you must have been presented with an idealisied concept of "Primitive Communism", and on reflection realise that this is common within our movement. The problem with "Primitive Communism" is not the lack of evidence but our familarity with it. In fact, it is something that practically everyone has experienced and known well.
The last surviving element in advanced capitalism of "primitive communism" is of course the family (though relations are much distorted by commdotity production). It is not hard to catch a glimpse of it more extensively in any "ethnic"culture that maintains extended families. Despite the dominance of European culture world wide, the majority of people experience forms of "Primitive communism" (alive but not dominant) to a far greater extent than the Anglo nuclear family (my own experience).
Having spent several years in Australia's North and comming into contact with Aboriginals still maintaining at least the shell of tribal life, the ethic of sharing and communal property is everywhere to be seen.
One of the few times when I was capable of uttering an apt remark, was when on a train I met a nun some twenty years ago who worked on one of the last Aboriginal missions. She stated at one time that the real problem with Aboriginals (ie in the sense of why they don't do better as a group in "modern" society) is that they always give away whatever they had earnt to their relatives (of which there are many) and by this can never accumulate. My simple rejoiner was that they are cursed with wanting to live like Christ (a remark she took in good stead).
Exchanges of necessary labour, which is what is happening within the "traditional" domestic economy is the very basis of "primitive Communism" a once dominant mode of production. It was not that long ago (ie before the World Wars) that domestic production mostly carried out by women was the inescapable foundation for worker's daily reproduction. Lack of preserved and pre-processed foods, lack of refrigeration, lack of modern "labour saving devices" made plain what is now largely disguised.
My grandmother scrubbed the floor boards of her house weekly with a brick, chopped the wood and boiled the clothes daily, rose before dawn to prepare breakfast, did the daily marketing (milk could be kept for two days but meat in our climate lasted but a day and night) mended and preserved fruits in a continuing cycle of domestic production which was at that time irreplaceable as it was overlooked. Her mother (crica 1880s) did not have the convenience of canned fruit, or even running water. None of this labour was commodified, all of it was necessary labour, by long tradition (going back to the convict days) wages were handed over to the women folk and the males contributed aside from this their own necessary labour along the sexual division of labour - the results of that labour were communally consumed.
Grant I would therefore turn your sentaence around and ask what is the evidence that these familar insistitutions are not relationships of "Primitive Commusism"? Even if we do not use this expression, where does the domestic economy based on exchanges of necessary-labour time originally derive, except from some past universal condition?
I raise these matters not because I see your views as an individual fault, rather I think you have said what is extremely widespread misaphrension in our movement. I would be interested in whether or not this effects your viewpoint on the actual nature of "Primitive Communism".
Having straddled the entire latter development of Feminist theory (which I suggest has in the minds of many Marxists supplanted Marx's work in the very same area) I suppose I should not be surprised if the Primitive Communist mode of production has been displaced by a less arguable and notably ahistoric notion of patri-archical oppression, perhaps it is on this that some real debate is needed.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia
--- Message Received --- From: "Grant Lee" <grantlee at iinet.net.au> To: "LBO-Talk" <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 11:32:42 +0800 Subject: Pre-historic human societies
Greg:
No offence taken.
You say that "Primitive Communism as a theoretical concept, though informed by "anthropological" observations actually derives from a deduction based on modern society." Why should we think that modern society can tell us _anything_ about prehistoric societies? And what difference would it make?
This suggests to me the positivism that seeped into the thought of some historical materialists after Marx's death, resulting in at least one grievous burden: mechanistic models of historical development, without a regard for logic or evidence. The positivist influence on Engels has been alleged, although I don't know of any conclusive evidence for this. I do know that Marx held Comte in low regard. I doubt also that Marx would have been enthusiastic about Engels' *Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State* (1886), had he lived to read it.
What is clear is that Engels was far more enthusiastic about primitive communism than was Marx: the 1st ed of the *Communist Manifesto* (1848) opens with: "the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles". Note that "all". This was footnoted by Engels in 1888 with the words "That is all _written_ history". He then goes on to discuss "primitive communistic" land ownership in agricultural societies, apparently assuming "village communities" to be the original form of society in Russia, Germany, India and Ireland --- an idea which I don't believe is borne out by later anthropology, let alone by logic. Engels was still operating in the post Rousseau intellectual milieu of "noble savages" etc; his sources were flawed, especially since --- like most of his peers in anthropology --- he rarely did field work.
"The error in this criticism is that it tumbles over what is a significant part of the intellectual armoury of Historical Materialism..." Sorry, but I simply don't see "primitive communism" as being in any way "significant", or a useful weapon for historical materialists --- among whom I count myself -- - especially since it has not been shown conclusively to have existed. I don't think that's "a minor reason".
Regards,
Grant.