My history teacher says “geography is destiny” and made us watch guns germs and steel. I think bad empanada said this narrative promotes a lack of remorse for colonization because it’s characterized as inevitable. He didn’t explain why it was wrong though iirc. My teacher (who likes orwell) says it’s just material conditions. It could be argued that geography is created the original conditions that led to class society before class forced largely took over, though this could be taken to the extent of class being secondary. Anyone know about this?
Isn’t it just relation to means of production? There’s a colloquial or idealist definition, but for the study of history the Marxist one works.
Not really, many things in history have turned towards inequality. Or do you mean that is our task as communists? If so, equality was never our goal, Marx clears this up in the manifesto.
That doesn’t make sense though, even by vulgar materialist logic. You need to develop the technology before that to use uranium. The determinists argue that Europe was able to colonize because they got language, metalworking, and animals from nearby because other civilizations had similar climates and could share technology. They refined those. Meanwhile the “new world” was more geographically split with a lack of civilizations with similar climates to interact with, or productive animals to farm.
That is true to the modern period. But if you owned a farm or company in the medieval period, you’re still a subject of the monarchy. The rule of law and the separation of church and state was a very new concept back then.
The concept of equality is what motivates the masses. It’s something that people can be sold on, and has been sold on.
On the small scale, things have turned unequal occasionally. But on the grand scale, looking at how civilization has progressed, we can see that classes are becoming more and more equal in terms of power and privilege. This is why we can extrapolate communism and the dissolution of class to be where human society is headed.
I was kidding in that last part
You would be bourgeois, not a lord.
I see a trend with the productive forces and accessibility of being ruling class, but there seems to be even more inequality than before. Idk if it’s a valuable concept, it’s common for liberals to proclaim.
Maybe, but I prefer my logical extensions to be accurate based on someone’s real logic, even if absurd or funny.
The bourge used to be a kind of ‘middle class’. They had better material conditions, but didn’t have the same rights as lords to influence policy. Nowadays, with bourgeois democracy, they can just lobby for their interests.
Going from a slave hierarchy to a feudal system to capitalism is becoming more equal. People tend to fight for their rights, and that’s the driving force. I believe it is a very valuable concept, but not for the same reason liberals think it is. Libs think that because of this, capitalism is the most equal we’ve had in history and this trend will stop here. I think that this trend will continue if people can break the illusion of realism and keep fighting.
You still haven’t argued that the definition of class is fluid.
Capitalism may not have rulers ordained by god, but it does have people far richer than any feudal king.
I’ll jump in here if you don’t mind. I think by ‘fluid’ Ronin is referring to the fact that dialectics is the study of change and relations and that every relation is constantly changing. In that sense, everything is historically contingent i.e. fluid. Although the relative fluidity of e.g. mountains or planets is something else and not always the most useful descriptor.
I read the comment as meaning that class is fluid in the sense that it changes with developments in the mode (and means) of production, relations to nature, and mental conceptions.
Class is also fluid in the sense that anyone’s class can change alongside their own relation to the means of production.
As for being redefined, it depends on how generous of an interpretation you give the phrase. It could mean ‘class now refers to working class/middle class/upper class and the ability to buy avocados’. But I would give it a more favourable reading in light of the first half of the sentence.
I read it as putting emphasis on the fluidity as opposed to the static way that bourgeois treat class. Not ‘redefined’ in the sense that class-as-concept is redefined. But in the sense that the ‘ruling’ class was once feudal lords and is now the haute bourgeois, and the working class was once peasants, slaves, and a handful of proles and is now mostly proles, a handful of peasants, far too many slaves, and far too many labour aristocrats. And, in addition, the way that even Marxists have refined their class categories to explain differences between the global south and north. This is all redefinitional and Marxist.
I also think Ronin is right about equality. It’s a useful way of insisting on class struggle. Yes, there’s a liberal way of interpreting the claim, but I get a different conclusion with a more favourable reading, assuming a Marxist intent. Class hierarchy and composition has changed because a ruled class has organised to take power from a ruling class. That seems like equality is a driving force to me. We just haven’t completed the development, yet, which is where socialists and communists come in.
I agree with all that, I just think saying the “concept” is fluid is a poor choice of words that suggests idealism.