Date: Thu, 30 Mar 95 00:28:18 BST
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: Re:  Mayans


Alex, 
Thanks for your interesting post :

<snip>

 > 	Anyway, my whole point in bringing up the case of the Mayans had 
 > to do with the stages-of-production thread of discussion several weeks 
 > ago; I was trying to show that the marxist schema of a necessary progression
 > in modes of production as a prerequisite for communism doesn't necessarily 
 > hold. The revolt of the lower classes in Meso-America did not result in a 
 > higher stage of civilization but in its abandonment, not in a higher mode 
 > of production but in the virtual abandonment of production (some farming 
 > was still done post collapse, but for the most part they returned to the 
 > rain forest to gather and hunt).

"... a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary 
re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the 
contending classes".

from the third page of the Communist Manifesto.

Regards,

Chris Burford




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