Jerry Monaco wrote:
>
>
> _But my basic question was more along the lines of "Why should we
> accept that this kind of degradation of tools and beasts is the
> general tendency of all slave systems?"_
For a long time it was assumed by _all_ marxists that ancient modes of production (esp. slavery) slowed up technological development. E. Gordon Childe, for example, argued that all the ancient advances in technology came at the very beginning of class society, then stagnated. And as Joanna mentions, Anderson kept to this tradition. But I believe that historians of the last few decades have decisively rejected this. I read a lot on it about 15 years ago but my memory of detail has faded already. Nuch earlier marxist historiograpny probely depended too much on a kneejerk acceptance of progress automatically emerging from a clash of forces and relations of production.
Carrol