Re: Dialectics-Maoism-"Feudalism"

[Walter Daum <WGDCC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carroll et al:

This sounds like the work of Samir Amin, who wrote several books and
articles based on this thesis.

Walter Daum

On Wed, 29 May 1996 21:13:40 -0500 (CDT) Carrol Cox said:
>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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