The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

Morgan's three main stages of human development are:

Savagery, Barbarism, and Civilization Each category represented a qualitative change in production

How do the works of Marx and Engels correlate with the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin?

Strong societies survived and weaker societies didn't. They said that humanity advanced because some societies made changes that made them stronger than others

Simpler societies had immediate self-government, but what characterizes a state?

A state governs a population within a fixed territory, rather than nomadic wanderers, as some savages were A state has a repressive apparatus, such as a police force and/or an army A state taxes its population to pay for its non-producing coercive forces A state tends to rise above the society that produced it

A great deal of ORIGIN is about the changing status of women. How does Engels explain it?

Class society brought about women's oppression Patriarchy replaces matriarchy, and the men wanted to know for sure who is their heir

Why didn't early savages subjugate their women?

Groups of people were barely able to stay alive, total cooperation was needed Women had no wealth to take over People knew their mothers but not their fathers Women were better at some things than men were Before production developed well enough to create surplus and class societies, women must have been treated as well as everybody

Engels did little or no original research in anthropology. How does ORIGIN add anything to our knowledge? Engels gives credit to many anthropologists, especially Lewis H Morgan, for the original material contained in his work. He also credits notes from Karl Marx. But what did Engels add?

He used historical materialism to show that the changes listed had come about for physical reasons Without historical materialism anthropological findings make no sense and has no value but curiosity

What qualitative change made the big difference in early society?

Improvement in production lead to surplus, a ruling class took over the surplus and means of producing it. Changes in the way goods and services were produced

Will women ever be emancipated?

Just as changes in production subjugated women, changes in production will free them. Once women regain an equal role in production, their oppression will tend to disappear

What single development can be said to have brought about the state? One might also ask what brought about the subjugation of women and the subjugation of some categories of people by others

Surplus product The new ruling class, which controlled the surplus and the means of production, needed to keep everybody else in line

Earnest readers take up ORIGIN for which reason(s)?

To try to understand the evolution of human society. Because one cannot change what he/she don not understand

Why is it that most people aren't taught about the advancing stages of human society?

Written language began about the same time as class society States, which control education, have an interest in claiming to have always been the same Each state is controlled by a ruling class, that controls what people are told