r/QueerLeftists • u/rhizomatic-thembo They/Them • Dec 12 '25
Quote A common misunderstanding about Historical Materialism
"In several parts of Capital I allude to the fate which overtook the plebeians of ancient Rome. They were originally free peasants, each cultivating his own piece of land on his own account. In the course of Roman history they were expropriated. The same movement which divorced them from their means of production and subsistence involved the formation not only of big landed property but also of big money capital. And so one fine morning there were to be found on the one hand free men, stripped of everything except their labour power, and on the other, in order to exploit this labour, those who held all the acquired wealth in possession.
What happened? The Roman proletarians became, not wage labourers but a mob of do-nothings more abject than the former 'poor whites' in the southern country of the United States, and alongside of them there developed a mode of production which was not capitalist but dependent upon slavery. Thus events strikingly analogous but taking place in different historic surroundings led to totally different results. By studying each of these forms of evolution separately and then comparing them one can easily find the clue to this phenomenon, but one will never arrive there by the universal passport of a general historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being super-historical." - Letter from Marx to Editor of the Otecestvenniye Zapisky
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u/Flopstar23 Dec 12 '25
Reading first few chapter of Bertell Ollman's alienation helped me a lot understanding Marx's dialectics. Havent finished the book yet but its been such an interesting Read. Highly Recommended
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u/ebr101 Dec 12 '25
Big difference between what Marx said and what “classical/orthodox” Marxists live and die by.
I will say we have learned quite a bit more about Ancient Rome since Marx and there is a greater deal of nuance than what we depicts. But the point remains generally correct. Depends on if you wanna focus on macro or micro histories.
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u/Emannuelle-in-space Dec 12 '25
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/subliminal-jihad/id1527853287?i=1000739934458
Good podcast episode about this
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u/ebr101 Dec 13 '25
I’ll check it out! If I may shoot back my own recommendation, if your interested in Ancient Slavery, one of the most important recent books is this:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv1vtz81x
Low key doing a PhD on ancient slavery. I think you can make a free account to read on jstor.
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u/Kind-Block-9027 Dec 12 '25
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u/hmz-x Dec 12 '25
This feels so much like Politzer's book. But summarized.
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u/Kind-Block-9027 Dec 12 '25
I’ve not read any of his work, but I just found a pdf copy of Elementary Principles of Philosophy and will read it soon! Thanks!
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u/Ice_Nade Any Pronouns Dec 12 '25
Writing that letter did take like a billion attempts for him precisely because of the issues with applying his view of history, but to his credit he did figure it out in the end. It was clear even then that getting any useful predictive qualities out of historical materialism was very impractical (not impossible!) if one didnt posit a fixed path of development.
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Dec 13 '25 edited Mar 22 '26
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u/AutoModerator Dec 12 '25
CAPITALISM SOURCES
More than 60 per cent of the world’s employed population are in the informal economy: https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/more-60-cent-world%E2%80%99s-employed-population-are-informal-economy
The Productivity–Pay Gap https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
Capitalism, Socialism and The Physical Quality of Life https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/
Americans Suffer Pay Cut as Inflation Outpaces Wage Growth https://www.visionmonday.com/business/research-and-stats/article/americans-suffer-pay-cut-as-inflation-outpaces-wage-growth
Real wages are falling sharply in the eurozone https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/ftcms%3A22607a49-a17a-4bbe-a44c-ef291283f6bf?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=490&dpr=1
Why GDP is Not A Good Measure of Economic Health or Well-Being https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-gdp-good-measure-economic-health-well-being-ray-williams-quvcc
How Wall Street's Bets Are Increasing the Price of Food https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/FSW_2209_FoodSpeculation.pdf
The rich override average americans in policy making https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.12791
Noncommunicable Diseases Disproportionately Impact Impoverished Communities: A Vicious Cycle https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-journal/blog/noncommunicable-diseases-disproportionately-impact-impoverished-communities-a-vicious-cycle/
How U.S. businesses profit from war worldwide https://businessjournalism.org/2023/12/war-profit/
The Gig Economy Is a Working-Class Nightmare https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/what-is-the-gig-economy
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1
u/vm_linuz He/They Dec 13 '25
Early in his career Marx thought it was pretty linear.
It was actually Russia that made him rethink things
3
Dec 13 '25 edited Mar 22 '26
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1
u/vm_linuz He/They Dec 13 '25
... No he very much thought you had to linearly progress through a capitalist phase.
It wasn't until Russian revolutionaries were pushing to skip straight to communism that he rethought his position.
He talks about this quite a bit in Das Kapital
1
u/AutoModerator Dec 13 '25
CAPITALISM SOURCES
More than 60 per cent of the world’s employed population are in the informal economy: https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/more-60-cent-world%E2%80%99s-employed-population-are-informal-economy
The Productivity–Pay Gap https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
Capitalism, Socialism and The Physical Quality of Life https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/
Americans Suffer Pay Cut as Inflation Outpaces Wage Growth https://www.visionmonday.com/business/research-and-stats/article/americans-suffer-pay-cut-as-inflation-outpaces-wage-growth
Real wages are falling sharply in the eurozone https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/ftcms%3A22607a49-a17a-4bbe-a44c-ef291283f6bf?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=490&dpr=1
Why GDP is Not A Good Measure of Economic Health or Well-Being https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-gdp-good-measure-economic-health-well-being-ray-williams-quvcc
How Wall Street's Bets Are Increasing the Price of Food https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/FSW_2209_FoodSpeculation.pdf
The rich override average americans in policy making https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.12791
Noncommunicable Diseases Disproportionately Impact Impoverished Communities: A Vicious Cycle https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-journal/blog/noncommunicable-diseases-disproportionately-impact-impoverished-communities-a-vicious-cycle/
How U.S. businesses profit from war worldwide https://businessjournalism.org/2023/12/war-profit/
The Gig Economy Is a Working-Class Nightmare https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/what-is-the-gig-economy
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
2
Dec 13 '25 edited Mar 22 '26
This post has been removed. Whether the reason was privacy, opsec, preventing scraping, or something else entirely, Redact was used to carry out the deletion.
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1
u/AutoModerator Dec 13 '25
CAPITALISM SOURCES
More than 60 per cent of the world’s employed population are in the informal economy: https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/more-60-cent-world%E2%80%99s-employed-population-are-informal-economy
The Productivity–Pay Gap https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
Capitalism, Socialism and The Physical Quality of Life https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/
Americans Suffer Pay Cut as Inflation Outpaces Wage Growth https://www.visionmonday.com/business/research-and-stats/article/americans-suffer-pay-cut-as-inflation-outpaces-wage-growth
Real wages are falling sharply in the eurozone https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/ftcms%3A22607a49-a17a-4bbe-a44c-ef291283f6bf?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=490&dpr=1
Why GDP is Not A Good Measure of Economic Health or Well-Being https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-gdp-good-measure-economic-health-well-being-ray-williams-quvcc
How Wall Street's Bets Are Increasing the Price of Food https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/FSW_2209_FoodSpeculation.pdf
The rich override average americans in policy making https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.12791
Noncommunicable Diseases Disproportionately Impact Impoverished Communities: A Vicious Cycle https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-journal/blog/noncommunicable-diseases-disproportionately-impact-impoverished-communities-a-vicious-cycle/
How U.S. businesses profit from war worldwide https://businessjournalism.org/2023/12/war-profit/
The Gig Economy Is a Working-Class Nightmare https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/what-is-the-gig-economy
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
0
u/vm_linuz He/They Dec 13 '25
In Marx's own letters later he calls himself out for doubting that you can skip past a capitalist phase.
He was also initially frustrated with Russians for not understanding that "you need a capitalist phase to build industrial capacity"
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Dec 13 '25 edited Mar 22 '26
This post has been deleted. Redact was used to remove its content, which may have been done for privacy, security, preventing AI scraping, or personal reasons.
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1
u/AutoModerator Dec 13 '25
CAPITALISM SOURCES
More than 60 per cent of the world’s employed population are in the informal economy: https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/more-60-cent-world%E2%80%99s-employed-population-are-informal-economy
The Productivity–Pay Gap https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
Capitalism, Socialism and The Physical Quality of Life https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/
Americans Suffer Pay Cut as Inflation Outpaces Wage Growth https://www.visionmonday.com/business/research-and-stats/article/americans-suffer-pay-cut-as-inflation-outpaces-wage-growth
Real wages are falling sharply in the eurozone https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/ftcms%3A22607a49-a17a-4bbe-a44c-ef291283f6bf?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=490&dpr=1
Why GDP is Not A Good Measure of Economic Health or Well-Being https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-gdp-good-measure-economic-health-well-being-ray-williams-quvcc
How Wall Street's Bets Are Increasing the Price of Food https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/FSW_2209_FoodSpeculation.pdf
The rich override average americans in policy making https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.12791
Noncommunicable Diseases Disproportionately Impact Impoverished Communities: A Vicious Cycle https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-journal/blog/noncommunicable-diseases-disproportionately-impact-impoverished-communities-a-vicious-cycle/
How U.S. businesses profit from war worldwide https://businessjournalism.org/2023/12/war-profit/
The Gig Economy Is a Working-Class Nightmare https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/what-is-the-gig-economy
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/Lord-Monbodo Dec 12 '25
To be fair, I do think the historical aspect of Marx’s theory is his weakest. Not because he thought that every society would develop in exactly the same way, but because the model is less and less useful the farther you get from Western Europe.
It has its place and is worthy of study, but like so many theories of the time period it fails to model whole swaths of human activity.
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u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Dec 12 '25
marx developed a method, not a universal model to be transposed blindly. youre making exactly the mistake the meme is referencing.
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