Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 09:35:58 +0100
Subject: M-G: Germanic "democracy"


Over on Marxism-Godena/Shining Barf, Barkley R claims:

>> " From a political standpoint, the home of democracy was
>> indeed Viking Scandinavia where Rome never ruled and where
>> there was never serfdom.

There was slavery. It was called thralldom. At a late period, in Iceland,
the Irish were favourites as slaves/thralls (hence the number of red-headed
Icelanders today).

Jim B comments:

>> Give us some evidence that Viking-period Scandinavia was more democratic
>> than small, segmentary and chiefdom societies in a thousand other parts of
>> the globe. This seems to be the tired old myth of the "democratic"
>> "Germanic Tribes."

No myth. The collective discussions and courts (things, moots, etc) at
which all free members of the clan could participate were as real as
Athenian "democracy", and the law-speakers, who carried the laws in their
heads and recited them at regular intervals in public (pre-literate
necessity), had very high status. The legal systems of the tribes
(naturally rooted in very powerful and fundamental social practices) were
strong enough to compete successfully with Roman law in the new nation
states (such as England and the Scandinavian countries).

They only had one problem. Carrying out the sentences handed down by the
courts was up to the individual not the community. So however free he was,
the poor bastard got screwed and the rich bastard went free unless he got
up the nose of someone even richer. Some sentences were communal, however,
such as outlawry, but even here, the protection of a rich bastard helped
immensely.

Also the Germanic peoples interacted directly with the decaying remnants of
Rome, taking over municipalities and occasionally the whole of what was
left of the Empire. Large-scale examples are the Goths and particularly
Charlemagne and his German Franks.

All this irrespective of hydraulic systems and oriental despotism.

It's worth noting that the interaction between the Germanic tribal system
and Rome led to feudalism, whereas the interaction between nomadic
steppe-dwellers like as the Huns and Oriental Despotism led to a dynamic
and militarily successful form of rule that  conquered huge areas of land,
but was much less stable than feudalism or the fusion of Rome with Oriental
Despotism that was Byzantium and its successor states.

Cheers,

Hugh




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