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Summary of Historical Materialism

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Engels: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) was developed by Engels from notes by Marx. The title says this is a book on origins, but it is also about the present and future as Engels sees them.

The Origin provides an overview of their historical materialism as they left it.

In the 1840s Marx and Engels linked the history of economic production to the history of government. Engels was struck by the relation between economic facts and politics during his stay in Manchester (See Chronology of the 1830s and 1840s)

In The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx and Engels wrote:

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles"
and

"The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie"

In The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), Engels integrates their earlier views with those of Lewis Morgan, an anthropologist. Morgan related: production, government and reproduction. In this context reproduction means the process of raising and socialising children. If society is to survive, this function is as important as production. Historically production has tended to be the male social role and reproduction the female role.

After the introduction to historical materialism, this web page includes a chart that shows how Engels interrelated production, reproduction and government over the complete span of human history.

Clicking on terms in this chart will take you to explanations and links from the explanations go to the extracts from Engels' work.

We can see what Engels did if we put the three social functions (production, reproduction and government) into columns. I have based this chart on one in Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex (1971). Click on the coloured words to go from the chart to the notes, and from the notes to the chart.

THE ECONOMY (Civil Society) REPRODUCTION
(Family)
GOVERNMENT
(Politics)
SAVAGERY (Nomads)

BARBARISM (tillers of soil)

Development of private property in land, cattle & slaves leads to:

MATRIARCHY (Descent is traced by the female line) GENS This is government based on family connection instead of territory. It suited a nomadic form of economy.

"With the patriarchal family, we enter the field of written history"
CIVILIZATION
as town & country
merchants develop.

1. Ancient mode of production based on slavery

2. Feudal mode of production based on serfdom

3. Capitalist mode of production based on free labour

PATRIARCHY

(Descent is traced by the male line)

takes over as male power is increased by the development of property.

THE STATE:

developed with commerce, because it became necessary to regulate everyone within a given territory, irrespective of family.

The slave state, feudal state and bourgeois (modern) state were different forms.

Revolution leads first to:

SOCIALISM

Then to:

COMMUNISM

The freedom of women becomes possible Under Socialism the state will be used to suppress the old classes. Under Communism the state will wither away.

We see that as one set of practices alters, so do the others.

Morgan argued that the family changed form historically. It advanced as society advanced:

START WITH REPRODUCTION:

MATRIARCHY (Mother-right) was a system where family lineage was traced through the mother. Following Morgan, Engels argues that such systems reflect an earlier history of the family when women had more respect and honour. Extracts

GROUP MARRIAGE was a system where a group of women had a group of husbands in common. Extracts Notice that with this system one can only trace descent on the female side - One cannot be sure who a person's father was. Extracts

The two forms of group marriage that Engels discusses are the consanguine family (which he says is extinct) and the punaluan family, which he says continues in Hawaii.

In the PAIR MARRIAGE one man lives with one woman. The marriage, however, can easily be dissolved by either partner. Before and after separation, the children belong to the mother alone. Extracts

 

PATRIARCHY (Father-right) was a system of tracing family lineage through the father.

ECONOMY AND PATRIARCHY
Engels argued that the development of private property led to patriarchy:

Wealth accumulated outside the home - which was women's domain - and so shifted the power base to men.

Men decided they wanted to ensure "their" wealth passed to "their" children. Men, therefore, had to the sexual possession of the women.

Extracts


MOVE TO
GOVERNMENT:

THE GENS is a form of family government.

Engels defines it as:

"the form of kinship organisation which prides itself on its common descent...and is bound together by social and religious institutions into a distinct community" (Engels 1884 par. 3.2)

He says that the Gens " forms the basis of the social order of most...barbarian peoples" (Engels 1884 par. 2.2.1)

EXAMPLE: IROQUOIS INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA
(Engels 1884 chapter 3

These were the warrior Indians of the Great Lakes in what is now New York State. Their families were named after animals and birds (their Totem) and there is a legend that they could change into animals and birds. (Lycanthropy).

GENS: 1. WOLF, 2. BEAR, 3. TURTLE, 4. BEAVER, 5. DEER, 6. SNIPE 7.HERON, 8. HAWK.

Marriage between members of a Gens is prohibited.

Property and parenthood is traced via the mothers. Property remains within a Gens.

This does not mean that women are in control.

It means that a woman's brother has more standing than her husband (Who belongs to another Gens).

Each Gens elects a Peace Chief: And, when occasion demands, a War Chief.

THE GENS ARE ORGANISED INTO FIVE TRIBES or NATIONS (The MOHAWKS, ONIEDA, SENECA, ONONDAGA, CAYUGA) (See Extracts)

Each tribe has a tribal council. The members of the Council communicate the views of the gens to the council and the views of the Council to the Gens.

THE TRIBES TOGETHER FORM THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY (See Extracts)

The Confederacy has a Common Council. The members of the Common Council communicate the views of the Tribal Councils to the Common Council and the views of the Common Council to the Tribal Council.

EUROPE

In Europe, Engels argues, an analogous family system of government preceded the establishment of the Greek and Roman States.

In Greece and Rome we step directly from the Gens to Civilization (p. 34)

That is, we move from family government to state government.

ECONOMY AND GOVERNMENT

Engels argues that the: separation of town and country and emergence of a merchant class

  1. made family government antiquated and
  2. necessitated a separate institution (the State) to govern a territory rather than a family.
Notice that the move from family government to state government involves the development of "citizenship" - membership of a city or wider political unit in one's own right and not by virtue of family membership.

From the development of private property, patriarchy and the state, we pass through successive modes of production with corresponding changes in the form of the state.

MODES OF PRODUCTION AND STATES IN EUROPE
Corresponding to a mode of production based on:- We have:
Slavery Ancient states:
classical Greece and Rome
Serfdom Feudal states:
Dark ages and medieval period
Free-labour The modern "bourgeois" state
Co-operative labour The "withering away of the state"
The state will have no function when there is no ruling class or exploited class.

WOMEN'S EMANCIPATION

Engels makes a theoretical link between the pre-historic suppression of women and the emergence of a women's emancipation movement in the 19th century.

With the accumulation of wealth (cattle and slaves) outside the home, he says:

"the domestic labour of the woman no longer counted beside the acquisition of the necessities of life by the man... We can already see from this that to emancipate woman and make her the equal of the man is... an impossibility so long as the woman is shut out from social productive labour and restricted to private domestic labour. The emancipation of woman will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims anything but an insignificant amount of her time."

This, he says, is beginning to be possible through the development of large scale industry

-

But only communism will make it fully possible.


© Andrew Roberts 8.3.2001 -

My referencing suggestion for this page is a bibliography entry:

Roberts, Andrew 8.3.2001 - Summary of Historical Materialism
<http://studymore.org.uk/yeng1884.htm>
Middlesex University

With intext references to "(Roberts, A. 8.3.2001)"

See ABC Referencing for general advice.


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