Eubulides wrote:
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> Well heck, I've never seen any evidence that history has or needs an engine :-)
Neither have I -- bad metaphor. But it is hard to see/understand fundamental change, such as has happened 2 or 3 or 4 timesin human history, without giving an awful lot of emphasis to (silent & noisy, tacit & overt) struggle over (a) how to distribute social tasks and (b) how to allocate the social surplus.
As a metaphor for illuminating current struggle it is particularly misleading because of confusion over what classes are & who belongs where -- particularly by marxists (in marxist jargon) workerism and by left liberals (in left-liberal jargon) conceptions of rentiers, elites, & PMCs.
Carrol