Re: Dialectics-Maoism-"Feudalism"

[cbcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Carrol Cox)]

Rahul, Zeynep,

    About a decade or so ago I read an article (I cannot remember either
author or title or source--the latter may have been the Socialist
Register) which suggested that all pre-capitalist class societies be
lumped under the heading of "tributary societies," in which political,
religious, and or military power was used to directly extract a surplus
>from the primary producers. Examples: European feudalism, ancient
"Palace economies" around the mediterranean, Sparta, Chinese landlords,
the Roman Empire (and all other ancient empires). Rome, for example,
made no changes in the local social/economic structure of the lands
it conquered: it just demanded tribute from them. According to this
article, Francis II of France and Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire
(King of Spain, Emperor of Austria) both tried to build ancient
tributary empires when the social/economic base had been transformed
by the early development of capitalism--and that is why both empires
failed.

    The main point, is that using this classification finesses the
endless theological arguments about what "feudalism" is.
    Carrolexit


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