11-18-2020, 02:20 AM
Einzige -- I see multiple drivers of history, and the class struggle, although important, is not everything. Religious and philosophical values are important. There's a huge difference between Quakers and ISIS, for example.
The class struggle between feudal landowners and the destitute peasantry was always just beneath the surface, but if there ever were a peasant rebellion, the feudal lords invariably drafted the indecisive as warriors against those peasants who rebelled. Those waging war against the masters who still claimed near ownership of the peasants invariably lost the struggle, and those who survived would be made examples of -- impaling, crushing, or burning. Everyone knew because the pattern was well known.
I also recognize the role of geography. Climate dictates what crops can grow or how else people can feed themselves and that often decides what sort of social order is possible. I doubt that we need go little into the details except to say that livestock could be everything and land nothing worthy of attachment if one herds livestock in marginal grassland; that if one relies upon irrigation in a desert that water rights are everything and that land that can't be irrigated is worthless -- and food may have to be stored and accounted for (which made the 'hydraulic' societies civilized so early) . But have cropland with reliable water, and one has property to defend. In contrast, in some rainforests, nothing can be stored, so there is no wealth.
Don't ignore technology. We are at or near the end of the line for the assumption that greater production and consumption makes people happier. Until recently the best way in which to get rich was to exploit shortages. That is just about over. Maldistribution is more the problem.
Marxism is obsolete. It had its heyday, such as it was, and that time is gone. What is wrong with capitalism is the scummy behavior of elites, which has always been a big problem.
The class struggle between feudal landowners and the destitute peasantry was always just beneath the surface, but if there ever were a peasant rebellion, the feudal lords invariably drafted the indecisive as warriors against those peasants who rebelled. Those waging war against the masters who still claimed near ownership of the peasants invariably lost the struggle, and those who survived would be made examples of -- impaling, crushing, or burning. Everyone knew because the pattern was well known.
I also recognize the role of geography. Climate dictates what crops can grow or how else people can feed themselves and that often decides what sort of social order is possible. I doubt that we need go little into the details except to say that livestock could be everything and land nothing worthy of attachment if one herds livestock in marginal grassland; that if one relies upon irrigation in a desert that water rights are everything and that land that can't be irrigated is worthless -- and food may have to be stored and accounted for (which made the 'hydraulic' societies civilized so early) . But have cropland with reliable water, and one has property to defend. In contrast, in some rainforests, nothing can be stored, so there is no wealth.
Don't ignore technology. We are at or near the end of the line for the assumption that greater production and consumption makes people happier. Until recently the best way in which to get rich was to exploit shortages. That is just about over. Maldistribution is more the problem.
Marxism is obsolete. It had its heyday, such as it was, and that time is gone. What is wrong with capitalism is the scummy behavior of elites, which has always been a big problem.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.