Re: Jared Diamond

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Sure, Diamond's no Marxist, but his general framework in his Germs & Guns book can be used as part of part of the materialist conception of history. (As with any source, including Marxist ones, it should be used with care.) Toward the end of the book, he introduces a theory of the state and its origins which he gets from  V. Gordon Childe, the Marxist anthropologist (MAN MAKES HIMSELF, etc.) A lot of the history that Diamond deals with is of pre-state/pre-class societies. 
 
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine 

________________________________

From: PEN-L list on behalf of Louis Proyect
Sent: Fri 12/31/2004 9:52 AM
To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Jared Diamond



>Also, the environment that Diamond focuses on is part of (or should be
>part of) the concept of the "economic base."  See, for example, Paul
>Burkett's or John Bellamy Foster's book on capitalism and the environment.
>
>JD

Jared Diamond's heart is definitely in the right place, but he still misses
the point. Here is an interesting take on the Gladwell article on Jared
Diamond that appeared in last week's New Yorker from Mike Friedman on
Marxmail. Mike is working on a PhD in evolutionary biology.

---

You should take the Gladwell review in the context of Diamond's thinking.
He *has* tended to an ecological or biological determinism, or rather a
reductionist view in which social evolution can be attributed to one or a
few or even various neatly causal environmental factors. He has no concept
of mode of production as any kind of mediating factor between the
environment and "culture." For example, his discussion of Rwanda: surely
the "steep hills farmed right up to the crests, without any protective
terracing; rivers thick with mud from erosion; extreme deforestation
leading to irregular rainfall and famine; staggeringly high population
densities; the exhaustion of the topsoil; falling per-capita food
production," played some role in the explosion that ensued, but what
happened to the imperialism that led to that environmental destruction and
starvation or that fanned the flames of tribalism or that armed the Hutu?
Or the class divisions within that country itself that led some to benefit
from the massacre? Sometimes, as in this case, Diamond's work verges on
crude neo-Malthusian, victim-blaming rubbish.



Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org