--- Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > So what explains the transition from the Roman > Empire to feudalism?
You got me there. I don't know, what? I've read and appreciate Perry Anderson's book. When you're talking about an entire ensemble of social relationships and ideological forms of mediation like *the* Roman Empire, and a similarly complex ensemble like "feudalism", I don't think there are monocausal explanations. In addition to the changing structure of production relationships that Anderson deals with with, you'd also have to deal with gender relations, the transformation of ideology and religious beliefs, the splintering of languages, etc. etc. You might think that all of those are merely emergent phenomena of basal class relationships. I don't. > And what is wrong with that? Have you read any of > these works? Nothing is *wrong* with that. It's just very limited. Especially if one goes on the assumption that the relationship between social classes is the determinating final instance. I don't even that for Marx's analysis of Capitalism that class relationships are central. I think the abstract labour/concrete labour contradiction is central for Marx, and all subsequent categories are derivative of that. Even the social classes in Marx's account. "Character masks" is the phrase Marx uses. > Really? Is that what Origins of the Family or Marx's > writings on the > soil fertility crisis amount to? Modular Marxism? Please don't mix up Marx and Engels with Marxists. Okay, maybe Engels shares some of the blame for helping to create Marx-ism, but I certainly don't think Marx's writings on the soil fertility crisis or Engel's Origins of the Family should be unfairly tarnished with the label Marxism, Modular or otherwise. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Cheap talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. http://voice.yahoo.com
