I think we agree that all previous societies were - and all existing societies are - grounded in exploitative relations between classes... Do we also agree that the material content and particular dynamics of those relations (across societies) have been - and are, in comparison to our own - qualitatively different?
This is just like the exchange I am having with Philip it seems to me.
While Marx makes the historical generalization about all hitherto existing societies, my reading of this, is the he does so at a high level of abstraction... a level of abstraction high enough that, when you look at any of his particular studies of specific class relations, you see that the devil is in the details, not the generalization.
The materialist conception of history, it seems to me, generates abstractions like the "all hitherto" passage as a heuristic guide for the kinds of things to look for rather than a suggestion that study will find empirical make-up and dynamic processes of different social formations will be the same.
^^^^^ CB: Actually, Marx and Engels learned that the earliest societies were non-exploitative. Engels added a footnote to the first sentence of the Manifesto on this. _The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_ lays this out.
I'm not sure how this cuts in our exchange here.