Re: Lisa's Anthro, Engels' OFPPS: econ base, 'group marriage'

[cbcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Carrol Cox)]

    In her latest comments on Engels, Lisa speaks of "examining the '
'economic base' and its effects upon social relations."

    This doesn't make sense, for it leaves "economic base" empty of
content.  The "social relations" **ARE** the "economic base," so it
makes no sense to speak of the economic base having  "effects" upon
itself.

    In traditional Marxian terminology, Lisa is confusing the forces
of production with the relations of production. It is the latter, not
the former, which  constitute the "economic base." Hence while studying
how "patterns of resource characteristics" affect foraging behaviors,
it does not in itself tell us anything about the "economic base," i.e.,
the social relations into which the foragers enter with each other *in
order to be foragers*.

    Just *how* forces of production constrain, determine, influence, what-
ever, the econmic base is one of the dark and bloody grounds of 20th
century Marxism. The followers of Mao, at their wildest, claimed there
was no relationship; that the relations of production (economic base) were
quite free from the constraints of the forces of production. The USSR
under Stalin (there can be an argument here, but this is one of the usual
stories) claimed that the forces of production rigidly determined the base.
   Oops; screen hanging up on me. Carrol Cox


     --- from list marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---

     ------------------