From: Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: "A fisher or hunter is averse to society"
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 22:09:21 -0600 (CST)


Lou P writes: "What Marxism and bourgeois liberal historians share is a
notion of "stages"  of history based on contending modes of production."

No. What *some* Marxists, including *Marx SOME of the time* share with
bourgeois....

You are well aware Lou that large numbers of Marxists at the present time,
and Marx in a good deal of his writing, are by no means committed to a
"stagist" theory of history, by which I presume you mean a predetermined
"staircase" of progressive stages through which all human societies must
proceed. The embryonic communist party in the Congo distributed leaflets
(this would have been in the 50s or early 60s) arguing that the Congo was
then in a "tribal" stage and before it could have a socialist revolution
must become a "slave society," then a "feudal society" and so forth. I
believe it was a party of 5 or 6 which rapidly vanished.

So it is not incorrect to polemicize against stage theories, because they
are a constant temptation for marxists of varying degrees of
sophistication, but it is incorrect and leads only to confusion to make
sweeping statements about what "MARXISM" does and does not teach.

Carrol



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