Re: [Marxism] re Iroquois democracy

["acpollack2@xxxxxxxx" <acpollack2@xxxxxxxx>]

I'm sending a shorter version of this to the Times.

To the Editor:
Professor Mann?s otherwise inspiring depiction of Iroquois democracy
(?The Founding Sachems,? Charles C. Mann, July 4, 2005), contains a
typical, gratuitous ? and wholly inaccurate ? slap at Friedrich Engels?
views on the subject. Says Mann: "?This gentile constitution is
wonderful!? Friedrich Engels exclaimed (though he apparently didn't
notice its emphasis on limited state power).?

It?s unlikely that Professor Mann could be so uninformed about the most
rudimentary basics of Marxism as to be unaware that Marx and Engels
(and their followers) called for the withering away of the state.  So
even without any further knowledge of Engels? writings on the Iroquois,
one would assume Engels? found their example so inspiring precisely
because it proved that a society could manage its affairs without a
state.

And so, in fact, he did.  In the very last page of the last chapter of
the book by Engels? which includes his survey of Iroquois society ? The
Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State ? Engels gives
Henry Morgan, upon whose research about the Iroquois he had drawn so
heavily, the last word:

?And now, in conclusion, Morgan's judgment of civilization: ?Since the
advent of civilization, the outgrowth of property has been so immense,
its forms so diversified, its uses so expanding and its management so
intelligent in the interests of its owners, that it has become, on the
part of the people, an unmanageable power. The human mind stands
bewildered in the presence of its own creation. The time will come,
nevertheless, when human intelligence will rise to the mastery over
property, and define the relations of the state to the property it
protects, as well as the obligations and the limits of the rights of
its owners. The interests of society are paramount to individual
interests, and the two must be brought into just and harmonious
relations. A mere property career is not the final destiny of mankind,
if progress is to be the law of the future as it has been of the past.
The time which has passed away since civilization began is but a
fragment of the past duration of man's existence; and but a fragment of
the ages yet to come. The dissolution of society bids fair to become
the termination of a career of which property is the end and aim;
because such a career contains the elements of self-destruction.
Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and
privileges, and universal education, foreshadow the next higher plane
of society to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily
tending. It will be a revival, in a higher form, of the liberty,
equality and fraternity of the ancient gentes.?
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm)

?A revival, in a higher form.?  So for Engels Iroquois society is
inspiring precisely because he ?notice[d] its emphasis on limited state
power" ? and predicted that a society of more abundance would revive
its nonrepressive nature on a more fruitful material basis.

(Engels? comments on the Iroquois, earlier in the book, include the
following:)

And a wonderful constitution it is, this gentile constitution, in all
its childlike simplicity! No soldiers, no gendarmes or police, no
nobles, kings, regents, prefects, or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits -
and everything takes its orderly course. All quarrels and disputes are
settled by the whole of the community affected, by the gens or the
tribe, or by the gentes among themselves; only as an extreme and
exceptional measure is blood revenge threatened-and our capital
punishment is nothing but blood revenge in a civilized form, with all
the advantages and drawbacks of civilization. Although there were many
more matters to be settled in common than today - the household is
maintained by a number of families in common, and is communistic, the
land belongs to the tribe, only the small gardens are allotted
provisionally to the households - yet there is no need for even a trace
of our complicated administrative apparatus with all its ramifications.
The decisions are taken by those concerned, and in most cases
everything has been already settled by the custom of centuries. There
cannot be any poor or needy - the communal household and the gens know
their responsibilities towards the old, the sick, and those disabled in
war. All are equal and free - the women included. There is no place yet
for slaves, nor, as a rule, for the subjugation of other tribes. When,
about the year 1651, the Iroquois had conquered the Eries and
the "Neutral Nation," they offered to accept them into the confederacy
on equal terms; it was only after the defeated tribes had refused that
they were driven from their territory. And what men and women such a
society breeds is proved by the admiration inspired in all white people
who have come into contact with unspoiled Indians, by the personal
dignity, uprightness, strength of character, and courage of these
barbarians.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch03.htm

Andrew Pollack


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