1. Bob Allen Nuffield College 2008
Marxist Transitions: Technology, Social Structure, and Inequality from the Neolithic Revolution to Soviet Communism
Bob Allen
Nuffield College
2008

2. Marx’s stages were defined by labour and property relations:
Socialism/
communism
Primitive
communism
slavery
feudalism
capitalism
peasants
control
much land
and their
labour.
Support
elite with
money and
labour
dues
no ownership
of land,
independent
producers,
no social
stratification
elite owns
land and
labour
(slaves)
capitalists
own capital
and employ
workers who
only own
their own
labour
land and
capital
communally
owned
The social relations appropriate for the technological challenges of the period.

3. The first stage theory of history was biblical:
Garden
of Eden
Life as we know it
End of Time
Paradise
Paradise lost
Altered Paradise regained
At one with
God
Other people
nature
Alienated from
God
Other people
nature
Reconciled with
God
Other people
nature

4. Rousseau provided a secular version:
State of nature
Life as we know it
democracy
Noble savage
Selfless commitment
to the public good
Self centred behaviour

5. Rousseau provided a second version:
sex, drugs,
rock & roll
State of nature
Life as we know it
Noble savage
authentic self-
realization
Self centred behaviour

6. Marx addressed issues like these:
Socialism/
communism
Primitive
communism
slavery
feudalism
capitalism
Noble savage
No alienation
matriarchy
authentic self-
realization
Self centred behaviour
Alienation
patriarchy

7. Other features of the scheme:
pre-capitalist economic systems are not conducive to economic growth.
they operate according to their own distinctive, non-rational laws
In particular, the determinants of inequality are different in each system and depend on ‘non-economic criteria’.
capitalism (and socialism) lead to economic growth

8. We aim to revisit certain assumptions.
Empirical base of pre-capitalist analysis was travellers’ accounts, classical history, and idle speculation. We know much more today. What does it mean?
The assumption of different economic laws for different systems has been hotly disputed. How much can be explained with modern theory?
Why did capitalism not develop as Marx thought?
How did ‘actually existing’ communism work?

9. Five lectures on: origins of agriculture ancient slavery
origins of capitalism and industrial revolution
inequality during industrial revolution
Soviet communism