Individuation and agency revisited

pp. 181-233

in: Peter Archibald, Marx and the missing link, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1989

Abstract

Although few if any of Marx's theories were constructed on the basis of systematic observation of "tribal" societies,¹ I am impressed by how well they fit many of the facts about them. In particular, the more sophisticated a people's technology, and, presumably, therefore also the greater the surplus available to them, the more and more differentiated their "culture", material and otherwise, and the more likely they are to have private ownership of land and other means of production; both commodity exchange and slavery, feudalism, or other coercive forms of labour; centralized political and legal decisionmaking dominated by a small minority of the community, such as male elders and/or property owners; repressive laws and punishments for transgressing them; and centralized, institutionalized religions with full-time priests.²