Wesleyan University

Marx and Morgan

Author(s): William H. Shaw
Source: History and Theory, Vol. 23, No. 2 (May, 1984), pp. 215-228
Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2505007 .
Accessed: 21/06/2014 22:20
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Wiley and Wesleyan University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History
and Theory.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

MARX AND MORGAN

WILLIAM H. SHAW

Marx held that human society prior to the dawning of civilization represented
a primitive kind of communism, and this belief is widely thought to lend a
rather tidy cyclical form to the pattern of history envisioned by historical
materialism. This "primitive communism" -marked, as is communism proper,
by the absence of socioeconomic classes -is the exception, noted by Engels, to
the Communist Manifesto's claim that the history of all hitherto existing society has been the history of class struggle.1On the other hand, Marx and Engels
thought that early society offered no exception to their materialist conception
of history; indeed, they held that scientific studies of primitive society only
corroborated their theory.
Although Marx interpreted pre-history as conforming to his overall theory
of historical development, he never elaborated fully his picture of primordial
communism. Toward the end of his career, however, he became engrossed in
historical anthropology. In the last years of his life, Marx buried himself in
ethnological investigations. He was particularly enthusiastic about the work of
the American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan, wrote ninety-six pages of
manuscript notes on the latter's Ancient Society2 and, according to Engels,
intended to present to the German public Morgan's results along with some
conclusions from his own investigations.3 A year after Marx's death, Engels
wrote The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State-subtitled In
the Light of the Researches of Lewis H. Morgan - ostensibly to fulfill this bequeathed project, drawing not only on Ancient Society but also on Marx's extracts and notes. Engels too, evinced nothing but the highest regard for Morgan's book. Describing it as "one of the few epoch-making works of our time,"
he wrote that "Morgan rediscoveredin America, in his own way, the materialist
conception of history that had been discovered by Marx forty years ago, and
in his comparison of barbarism and civilisation was led by this conception to
the same conclusions, in the main points, as Marx had arrived at."4

1. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works (Moscow, 1969-1970), I, 108-109n.
2. Lewis H. Morgan, Ancient Society (New York, 1877); Marx's notes are available in The
Ethnological Notebooks of Karl Marx, ed. Lawrence Krader (Assen, 1972).
3. Selected Works, III, 191; Engels to Kautsky, 16 February 1884.
4. Selected Works, III, 191; cf. Engels to Sorge, 7 March 1884; to Kautsky, 26 April 1884; to
Borgius (Starkenburg), 25 March 1894.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

216

WILLIAM H. SHAW

Marx's and Engels's respect for the work of Morgan has, of course, been
widely acknowledged; indeed, the resulting reverence for Morgan on the part
of subsequent Marxists has led, in effect, to his honorary induction into the
socialist pantheon. But despite the continuing interest of scholars in the work
of Morgan, the reasons for Marx's and Engels's enthusiasm for Morgan have
not been spelled out. Nor has the issue been resolved of whether, or in what
sense, Morgan can be seen as a proto-historical-materialist. Did Morgan really
rediscover the materialist conception of history, as Engels claims?
The point of this essay is to compare and contrast the thinking of Marx and
Morgan. In section I, I aim to explicate why the founders of historical materialism felt Morgan's approach and beliefs to be so congenial to their own theory,
while section II indicates how their thinking differs from that of Morgan. In
the final section, I discuss an unresolved issue raised for the materialist conception of history by Marx's and Engels's study of Morgan.
Before going on, three procedural comments are in order. First, I limit my
attention to Morgan's Ancient Society, ignoring his other work. This prevents
the presentation of a full and balanced portrait of Morgan, but such an
account is not my goal. It is the Morgan of Ancient Society that interests me,
since no evidence suggests that Marx or Engels were much influenced by -or
that Marx even read -any of his other writings. Second, I do not summarize
Ancient Society, Marx's notes on Morgan, or Engels's Origin, nor do I discuss
the accuracy of the anthropology of any of these texts. I am interested in what
light Morgan's book sheds on Marxist theory, and vice-versa, and not in evaluating their respective ethnological claims. Finally, since Marx is conceded by
Engels and everyone else to be the prime author of historical materialism, my
main focus is on him. Marx and Engels were not intellectual twins -they
differed in their intellectual formations, interests, and talents -and, accordingly, their particular contributions to "Marxism"need to be distinguished. Nonetheless, I find no significant divergences between the two in the subject under
consideration (though a few minor variations are noted).
I. WHY MARX WAS A MORGANIST

Marx was enthusiastic about the work of Morgan for the simple reason that
he thought it confirmed and expanded upon his own materialist approach.
While neither Marx nor Engels agreed with Morgan on every point, they saw
him as furnishing scientific support for their general conception of history.5
And, as we shall see, by reading Morgan through their historical-materialist
spectacles, they were able to interpret his work to make it even more compatible
with their own.
One fundamental element of Morgan's thought, which was clearly attractive

5. Cf. Georgi V. Plekhanov, The Development of the Monist View of History (Moscow, 1972),
213: "True,Morgan arrived at the view-point of economic materialism independently of Marx and
Engels, but that's all the better for their theory" (emphasis omitted).

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

MARX AND MORGAN

217

from Marx's point of view, was his evolutionism. Ancient Society tells the story
of humanity's development from the rudest savagery to civilization, with
Morgan undertaking to explain "how savages, advancing by slow, almost imperceptible steps, attained the higher condition of barbarians; how barbarians,
by similar progressive advancement, finally attained to civilization; and why
other tribes and nations have been left behind in the race of progress."6This
development is portrayed as a natural and necessary process, even if slow and
gradual. Although progressive, humanity's advance is neither designed nor
directed. Rather, it is part of the natural history of our planet, reflecting in large
measure society's increasing mastery of nature. Today, such a view is startling
only in its banality. Indeed, though Morgan had read and met Darwin, his
evolutionism is rather diffuse and vague; by today's standards he would be considered more of a Lamarckian than a Darwinist.7 Still, while Morgan's evolutionism was not original, the significance one hundred years ago of a serious
and competent presentation of an evolutionary perspective on humankind
should not be belittled.
Although more advanced societies can speed the progress of backward neighbors, Morgan stressed that it was not possible for human society as a whole
to skip steps, that no section of humanity had any privileged developmental
path, and that the tale of human advance is really a single narrative interweaving many threads. Throughout Ancient Society he underscores the unity of human development: "Since mankind were one in origin, their career has been
essentially one, running in different but uniform channels upon all continents,
and very similarly in all the tribes and nations of mankind down to the same
status of advancement."' Morgan repudiated any attempts to explain the contemporary survivals of barbarism as the result of the degradation of a part of
mankind.9
Morgan's thinking here fits well with Marx's own. Obviously, Marx had an
evolutionary view of society, and while the extent to which Marx's vision of
future communism accommodates social vicissitude is controversial, his conception of primitive communism was clearly not one of a single uniform type
of organization: "The archaic or primary formations of our earth consist themselves of a series of layers of different age, superimposed upon one another.
Similarly, the archaic structures of society reveal a series of different social
types corresponding to progressive epochs."10 And again: "Primitive com6. Morgan, vi.
7. See Elman R. Service, "The Mind of Lewis H. Morgan," Contemporary Anthropology 22
(1981), 27-29, 33, 34.
8. Morgan, vii. Although some scholars have espied racist beliefs of a typical nineteenth-century
sort in Morgan, the gist of Ancient Society runs counter to any racialist account of social advance.
Cf. Riidiger Schott, "More on Marx and Morgan," Contemporary Anthropology 17 (1976), 733;
Service, 27, 30.
9. Morgan, 7-8, 59-60, 506-508. This exemplifies the intellectual backdrop against which fairness requires that Morgan's work be measured.
10. Marx and Engels, in The Russian Menace to Europe, ed. Paul W. Blackstock and Bert F.
Hoselitz (Glencoe, Ill., 1952), 223. Reference is to the second draft of Marx's 8 March 1881 letter

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

218

WILLIAM H. SHAW

munities are not all cut to a single pattern. On the contrary, taken together they
form a series of social groupings, differingboth in type and in age, and marking
successive phases of development.""
Although long before writing the above Marx identified different types of
primitive social organization, their progressive ordering- in fact, the entire
geological analogy of the first passage - reflects Marx's study of Morgan.
Morgan argued that the "threedistinct conditions" of savagery,barbarism, and
civilization "are connected with each other in a natural as well as necessary
sequence of progress."12 In a later passage Morgan writes: "All the facts of
human knowledge and experience tend to show that the human race, as a
whole, have steadily progressed from a lower to a higher condition." He continues in a vein strongly reminiscent of Marx: "The arts by which savages
maintain their lives are remarkably persistent. They are never lost until superseded by others higher in degree. By the practice of these arts, and by the experience gained through social organizations, mankind have advanced under a
necessary law of development."13Human evolution, on his view, followed a
basically unilinear course, and in this he appears to have influenced Marx,
whose pre-Morgan writings seem by contrast to have allowed for truly divergent
paths out of primitive communism.14 Engels, certainly, and Marx, apparently,
were won to Morgan's elaborate division of mankind's early development into
distinct stages, each the necessary forerunner of its successor.
Although Morgan perceived a single evolutionary course for humankind,
this does not imply that every group on earth follows an identical trajectory.
The middle stage of barbarism, for example, was marked by different achievements in the Eastern Hemisphere than in the Western, owing to the different
natural endowments of the Old and New Worlds.15 In addition, as has been
noted, higher forms may interact with lower ones, thus hastening the latter's
development. Nonetheless, there may still be said to be one necessary path of
advance for mankind as a whole. The same point holds true for Marx's theory
of history. Although Marx characteristically denied propounding "any historico-philosophic theory of the marche getnefraleimposed by fate upon every
people," this oft-quoted remark did not prevent him from discerning a logical
and necessary pattern of development from Western feudalism through capital-

to Vera Zasulich, selections from the three drafts of which are presented there. Eric Hobsbawm
offers a brief portion of two of the drafts in Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (London, 1964), and Selected Works, I, contains the entire first draft. Originally published in Russian
by Ryazanoff in the first volume of Arkhiv Marksa i Engel'sa, a full German version of the three
preliminary drafts - written by Marx in French- is available in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
Werke(Berlin, 1956-1968), XIX.
11. Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, 144.
12. Morgan, 3. Savagery and barbarism are each subdivided into three states. Civilization itself
divides into "ancient" and "modern."
13. Morgan, 60. Marx underscored these last three sentences in his Ethnological Notebooks, 143.
14. See my Marx's Theory of History (Stanford, 1978), 115-119.
15. Morgan, 34-35, 532-535, 540.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

MARX AND MORGAN

219

ism to socialism.16 Thus, the famous "Preface" to The Critique of Political

Economy should be interpreted as listing the general stages in the socioeconomic evolution of human society as a whole -not rungs which history obliges
every nation without exception to climb, uninfluenced by societies above or
below it on the ladder.
Morgan estimated the progress of mankind to the threshold of civilization
to have occupied 19/20ths of the duration of human existence. The development of private property and with it civilization and class society was for him
a stupendous achievement, obtained only with great exertion. That Marx and
Engels concurred with him in this militates against neat religious-eschatological
interpretations of their work which analogize the emergence of private property
to mankind's "fall" in Judaic-Christian mythology. Morgan breaks man's precivilization into six progressive stages, and while it would strain the relevant
texts to interpret these as successive modes of production in Marx's sense, there
is much in common.
For one thing, Morgan's stages are social wholes, and each of the various
aspects of any particular one is historically appropriate to it:
Each [ethnical period] . . . will be found to cover a distinct culture, and to represent
a particular mode of life.
Each of these periods has a distinct culture and exhibits a mode of life more or less
special and peculiar to itself. This specialization of ethnical periods renders it possible
to treat a particular society according to its condition of relative advancement, and to
make it a subject of independent study and discussion."

Morgan's periods, however, are more like ideal types than strictly empirical or
historical realities. Although he draws on historical material, Morgan is presenting a theory of historical development, a study of the logical progression
of certain social forms, rather than writing history as such.18Accordingly, he
allows that differenttribes may exist in variegated conditions at the same time,
that any given society may be the consequence of various alien, exogenous
influences, and that social forms may appear exceptionally at a stage of society
to which -within limits - they do not correspond, either as remnants of an old
period or as germs of the new.
Marx's theory of history, too, draws a similar distinction between theoretical
models and historically specific societies. The stages identified by historical
materialism are basically idealizations or theoretical abstractions from actually
functioning social formations. Thus, a specific society for Marx may comprise
several distinct modes of production. Marx is especially clear about this with
regard to his study of capitalism. Although Capital draws extensively on
English data, and England is used to illustrate his points, Capital is not a study
16. Shaw, 79-81, 140-141.
17. Morgan, 9 and 13.
18. Emmanuel Terray,Marxism and "Primitive" Societies (New York, 1972), 29 and passim.
Compare Marx's approach to capitalism, discussed in his Grundrisse (Harmondsworth, 1973),
460-461.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

220

WILLIAM H. SHAW

of England but of the capitalist mode of production itself. Of course, Morgan's

ethnological stages do not have the same richness of structure that Marx found
in the capitalist mode of production. But given their relative economic simplicity and the transparencyof their social relations, it is not clear how they could
be expected to. Nor do Marx's own reflections on pre-capitalist history suggest
that anything like a Das Kapital is possible for non-market societies.
Morgan links his ethnological periods with improvements in (to use his
phrase) "the arts of subsistence" and distinguishes the stages of society's
advance by reference to its inventions and instruments.19He frequently stresses
the importance of man's expanding material production which improved
technique makes possible. The bow and arrow, for example, bring the upper
stage of savagery while barbarism hinges on the domestication of animals, the
discovery of cereals, the utilization of stone in architecture, and the smelting
of iron ore.20Morgan envisions these specific inventions and discoveries as indicators of the differentlevels of progress characterizing the different ethnical periods.21This is obviously the same way in which one should interpret Marx's
famous remark from the Poverty of Philosophy that "the hand-mill gives you
society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist." Marx clearly intends these particular implements to symbolize entire
technological levels.22An exception to this point, however, is the special importance Morgan places on one specific technical advance, namely, the invention
of iron.
The productionof ironwasthe eventin humanexperience,withouta parallel,and without an equal, besidewhich all other inventionsand discoverieswereinconsiderable,or
at least subordinate. . . in fine, the basis of civilization. . . may be said to rest upon
this metal. The want of iron tools arrestedthe progressof mankindin barbarism.23
Throughout Ancient Society Morgan stresses the evolutionary importance of
what Marx would call the "productive forces." Thus, he writes, "The most advanced portion of the human race were halted, so to express it, at certain stages
of progress, until some great invention or discovery, such as the domestication
of animals or the smelting of iron ore, gave a new and powerful impulse forward."24Advances in the realm of material production play a crucial and frequently accented role for Morgan; they are intimately connected with changes
in society's property system and other social relations. Marx's bilingual extracts
from Morgan display the consonance of their thought on this point.
JedeethnischePeriodezeigt so markedadvanceupon itspredecessors,nichtnur in der
ZahlderErfindungen,sondernebensoin varietyand amountof propertywhichresulted
therefrom.The multiplicityof the forms of propertywould be accompaniedby the
growthof certainregulationswith referenceto possession and inheritance.25
19. Morgan, 9, 19.
20. Ibid., 10, 42.
21. Ibid., 9.
22. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works (Moscow, 1975-), VI, 166.
23. Morgan, 43; see also 535, 539, 553.
24. Ibid., 39-40.
25. Ethnological Notebooks, 127 (extracted from Morgan, 525). Emphasis is that of the quoted
author unless stated otherwise.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

MARX AND MORGAN

221

Morgan's text (and Marx's extracting) continues: "The growth of property is

thus closely connected with the increase of inventions and discoveries, and with
the improvement of social institutions which mark the several ethnical periods
of human progress."
Engels concurred with this, contending that the stages of mankind's primitive evolution as presented by Morgan are "incontestable"because their features
are "taken straight from production."26Not long after writing The Origin,
Engels emphasized in a letter to Kautsky the importance of the level of the
productive forces in the determination of primitive society:
The tools of the savage condition his society as much as the newer ones condition
capitalist society. Your [contrary] view amounts to this: that, true enough, production
now does determine social institutions but did not do so before capitalist production
because the tools had not yet committed the original sin.
As soon as you speak of means of production you speak of society, specifically the
society determined by those means of production.27

Morgan's emphasis on the fundamental role of the productive forces in primitive societies may have emboldened Engels here, but it is an emphasis which
is in line with historical materialism's pre-existing commitment to the explanatory primacy of the productive forces.28Thus, in an earlier discussion of primitive society, Marx himself had written: "In the last instance the community and
the property resting upon it can be reduced to a specific stage in the development of the forces of production of the labouring subjects-to which correspond specific relations of these subjects with each other and with nature."29
In addition to the attractiveness, from the historical-materialist view of history, of Morgan's study of early society, Morgan himself adopted a criticalhistorical perspective on the reign of private property, which could only have
endeared him to Marx and Engels. He held that the dominance of private
property was only temporary, and in a famous passage near the end of Ancient
Society, which is worth quoting at length, Morgan decried the system of private
property for its social contradictions and discerned a more egalitarian future
for humankind.
Since the advent of civilization, the outgrowth of property has been so immense, its
forms so diversified, its uses so expanding and its management so intelligent in the interests of its owners, that it has become, on the part of the people, an unmanageable
power.... The time will come, nevertheless, when human intelligence will rise to the
mastery over property....
A mere property career is not the final destiny of mankind,
if progress is to be the law of the future as it has been of the past. The time which has
passed away since civilization began is but a fragment of the past duration of man's existence; and but a fragment of the ages yet to come. The dissolution of society bids fair

26. Selected Works, III, 208; but cf. 203 for a slight qualification.
27. 26 June 1884.
28. Recent scholarly studies of Marx's theory of history have stressed this commitment; see
G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (Princeton, 1978); John McMurtry, The
Structure of Marx's World-View(Princeton, 1978); William H. Shaw, "'The Handmill Gives You
the Feudal Lord':Marx's Technological Determinism," History and Theory 18 (1979), 155-176; and
Allen W. Wood, Karl Marx (London, 1981).
29. Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, 95.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

222

WILLIAM H. SHAW

to becomethe terminationof a careerof which propertyis the end and aim; because
such a careercontains the elementsof self-destruction.Democracyin government,
brotherhoodin society,equalityin rightsand privileges,and universaleducation,foreshadow the next higher plane of society. . . . It will be a revival, in a higher form, of
the liberty, equality and fraternity of the ancient gentes.30

Although this passage is, strictly speaking, obiter dictum and not argued for
by Morgan, Marx and Engels seem to take it for granted that its critical perspective on property and its prognostication of a more fraternal tomorrow reflect Morgan's materialist and historical approach. Although Marx would not
have formulated matters in the way that Morgan does, Morgan's sentiment
obviously struck a responsive chord,31 and Engels concludes The Origin by
quoting the above passage in full.
II. WHY MORGAN WAS NOT A MARXIST

Although Morgan's peroration on property was warmly welcomed by the

fathers of scientific socialism, neither Marx nor Engels would have made the
mistake of inferring that Morgan had worked himself to a political position
like theirs. A careful reading of this famous passage, with its talk of human
intelligence mastering property and its omission of any reference to class,
clearly revealsits limitations from a Marxist political stance. Indeed, it is inconceivable that a Marxist could write, as Morgan does in the immediately preceding paragraph, that "severalthousand years have passed away without the overthrow of the privileged classes, excepting in the United States."32 In the draft
of a letter to Zasulich, Marx refers to Morgan as a "writer who can certainly
not be suspected of revolutionary tendencies," and his notebook refers to Morgan as a "Yankee Republican."33While Marx was generally quite willing to
debate theoretical points with political colleagues, he did not see the deficiencies of Morgan's political outlook as particularly relevant. The extent to
which Morgan's scientific study had led an ordinary bourgeois to a critical and
progressive point of view was, of course, significant, but for Marx and Engels
what really mattered was not Morgan's political judgments, but rather his theoretical approach to primitive times and the assistance Ancient Society gave
their theory in treating pre-history.
Morgan's theoretical stance itself, however, appears from the Marxist viewpoint deficient in one respect. His apparent scientific materialism is compromised because of his theism. Although Morgan refers only rarely to God,

30. Morgan, 552; see also 341-342.

31. Marx, for example, underlined twice the sentence beginning "The dissolution of society," and
where Morgan writes that civilization and the property system have been "but a fragment" Marx
interpolates "(u. zwar sehr kleines)." Ethnological Notebooks, 139. Engels wrote to Kautsky on 16
February 1884 (and similarly to Sorge-on 7 March) that Morgan's book "concludes . .. with directly communist demands."
32. Morgan, 551-552 (emphasis added).
33. Selected Works, III, 153-154; Ethnological Notebooks, 206 (cf. Selected Works, III, 273).

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

MARX AND MORGAN

223

the last sentence of Ancient Society prominently mentions the "plan of the
Supreme Intelligence to develop a barbarian out of a savage, and a civilized
man out of this barbarian." Morgan was no doubt sincere in this pious profession, but his theism does not otherwise enter into the argument of the book,
appearing more as a rhetorical flourish; thus Marx and Engels easily discounted it.
At other points, though, there are less superficial aspects of Ancient Society
which appear to render it inconsistent with Marx's historical materialism. We
have seen that Morgan links the stages in the "arts of subsistence" (and, in turn,
his ethnologic periods) directly to mankind's inventions and discoveries-that
is, in Marxist terms, to the development of the "productiveforces." But Morgan
simply identified these stages by the type of food produced.34Missing is anything equivalent to the Marxist concept "relations of production." Although
Engels conveniently ignores this in his synopsis, one senses-at the very point
where Morgan appears most "Marxist"-the gulf between his view and that of
Marx and Engels.
Morgan does, to be sure, affirm the importance of man's developing "arts of
subsistence" for the course of social evolution, and perhaps he would have
agreed with The German Ideology's declaration that "the first premise of all
human existence and, therefore, of all history is ... that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to 'make history.' "I' But Morgan never begins
to specify the relative explanatory weight to be assigned to material production
or the nature of its connection with the other spheres of early society. Despite
all of Ancient Society's emphasis on the arts of subsistence and society's concomitant productive forces -their expansion is said to be a precondition of,
among other things, the species' propagation throughout the earth, the growth
of cities, and advancement of the family36-Morgan can generally be read as
simply stressing that the expansion of material production is a necessary condition of society's advance. But who would deny this? Marx's theory of history
and society, however, says more than simply that the material realm should not
be ignored.
The fact the Morgan does not tie growth in the arts of subsistence to society's
evolution in a truly historical-materialist way is evident in the very structure of
Ancient Society. Morgan initially discusses inventions and the development of
the arts of subsistence and then the growth of the idea of government, of
family, and finally of property. Signally, this was rearranged by Marx in his
notebook so that modifications of ownership relations (resulting from improvements in the arts of subsistence and alterations in the family) are followed by
changes in government. Relatedly, Morgan tends to describe the response of
different levels of social relations to man's developing material conditions as

34. Morgan, chapter 2. The stages of subsistence are: (a) fruits and roots, (b) fish, (c) farinaceous, (d) meat and milk, (e) unlimited subsistence through field agriculture.
35. Selected Works, I, 30.
36. Morgan, 19, 257, 260.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

224

WILLIAM H. SHAW

mediated through "ideas,"as Marx observes at one point in his extracts: " 'Earliest ideas (!) of property' intimately associated mit procurement of subsistence,
the primary need."37And the last three parts of Ancient Society are entitled:
Growth of the Idea of Government, Growth of the Idea of Family, and Growth
of the Idea of Property.38
While Marx understands, roughly speaking, social consciousness as corresponding to, and derivative from, social relations which change as production
develops, Morgan sees primitive social conditions as giving rise to certain ideas
which, following "natural logic," produce progressive systems of government,
family, and property. "Thus slowly but steadily human institutions are evolved
from lower into higher forms, through the logical operations of the human
mind working in uniform but predetermined channels."39At one level this
appears largely a matter of terminology, which Engels easily remedies by omitting in his presentation any suggestion of a realm of "ideas" intervening between the arts of subsistence and the other social spheres. But its significance
goes deeper.
Morgan's talk of ideas does not represent an explanatory idealism, but rather
an old-fashioned kind of physicalism which seems to conflate biology and culture. Thus, the natural logic which guides the evolution of these germs of
thought is "an essential attribute of the brain itself," a brain which has grown
"largerwith the experience of the ages." Moreover, Mormonism and other "excrescences"of the modern age are to be explained as "relics of the old savagism
not yet eradicated from the human brain.

. .

. These outcrops of barbarism are

so many revelations of [the brain's] ancient proclivities. They are explainable as

a species of mental atavism."40Historical materialism has no need to deny the
biological determinants of human existence,41and indeed Marx's theory seeks
to integrate human history with natural history. But it establishes its distinctive
laws and explanations at the social, not physiological, level.
For Morgan social and civil institutions grow from a few primary germs of
thought. While in the course of human development inventions and discoveries
stand in a serial relation, the advance of society's major institutions represents
an unfolding. For example, whereas gentile organization is necessarily surpassed by political organization proper (societas by civitas), Morgan underlines
their continuity:
Out of the ancientcouncil of chiefs came the modernsenate;out of the ancientassembly of the people came the modern representative assembly [and] .

. out of the

ancient general militarycommandercame the modern chief magistrate,whethera

feudal or constitutionalking, an emperoror a president.42
Thus, everyessentialinstitutionin the governmentor administrationof the affairsof
societymaygenerallybe tracedto a simplegerm,whichspringsup in a rudeform from

37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.

Ethnological Notebooks, 127; Morgan, 525.

My emphasis.
Morgan, 266; see also 17-18.
Ibid, 61.
Sebastiano Timpanaro, On Materialism (London, 1975).
Morgan, 341.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

MARX AND MORGAN

225

humanwants,and, when able to endurethe test of time and experience,is developed

into a permanentinstitution.43
The difficulty here is that Morgan does not specify the connection of these political (or other social) forms to the expansion of material production. This fact
is starkly visible when Morgan proposes to follow "two independent lines of
investigation. . .. The one leads through inventions and discoveries, and the
other through primary institutions."44Although social institutions grow parallel with the arts of subsistence, they also in Morgan's account appear to evolve
according to their own logic, and this leaves the Marxist reader with the lingering impression that Morgan never succeeds in connecting the "base" with the
"superstructure."Moreover, as we have seen, there is no clear structural equivalent in his work to Marx's concept of "relations of production," and there is
no unequivocal endorsement of the explanatory primacy of the productive
forces over the relations of production or of material production over other
social realms. In the end Morgan seems to trace, rather than explain, the evolution of ancient society.
In light of the above, then, it can hardly be considered accurate to describe
Morgan as having discovered the materialist conception of history. But why did
the founders of historical materialism not distinguish their theory more carefully from Morgan's? The very fact that Marx planned to, and Engels did, write
a book based on Morgan shows that they were not content with Morgan's work
as it stood; otherwise, they would simply have endorsed his book and translated
it into German.45We do not know what Marx would have said about Morgan
if Marx had carried through on his ethnological studies, but it is reasonable
to suppose that he would have digested and reworked Morgan in much the
same way as he did his predecessors in classical political economy. In his own
more modest way this is what Engels attempted to do.
But why was Engels so unreserved in his praise for Morgan? The hypothesis
that Engels was unaware of the contrast between Morgan's book and his own
theory is, of course, absurd. What is more plausible is that Engels thought that
Morgan's positive insights vastly outweighed his shortcomings. No doubt, fully
to appreciate Ancient Society's strengths and to perceive its inchoate historical
materialism, one should read it, as Marx and Engels obviously did, in contrast
with other anthropological studies of the period. And since, more than many
books, Ancient Society is open to diverse interpretations, Engels (and very likely Marx) was able to read more historical materialism into Morgan than was
probably there. It would also seem that Engels pursued the intellectual equivalent of a united front policy with regard to Morgan. On the one hand, Engels's
ongoing belief was that the British anthropological establishment had entered
a conspiracy of silence against Morgan's subversive ideas.46Closing ranks with
43. Ibid., 320.
44. Ibid., 4.
45. Regarding his Origin, Engels wrote to Kautsky, 26 April 1884: "There would be no sense to
the whole thing if I merely wanted to give an 'objective' report on Morgan without treating him
critically. . . . Our workers would gain nothing by this."
46. Selected Works, III, 191, 201-202; cf. Marx at 154.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

226

WILLIAM H. SHAW

Morgan was therefore more important than emphasizing differences. On the

other and less honorable hand, one might surmise that, by claiming Morgan
for their own, Marx and Engels hoped to add to the prestige of their own
theory.
III. KINSHIP AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

In the previous section I examined Morgan's failure, from an historical-materialist perspective, to link securely and concretely the progress of social institutions with the development of production. Related to this is the more specific
topic of the nature and explanatory role of kinship relations in early society
and of the proper historical materialist view of the family, a topic which is not
treated satisfactorily by Marx and Engels. In this final section I attempt to illuminate, though not to resolve, the questions that are raised in this area for
Marx's theory.
The bulk of Ancient Society concerns kinship and related social structures.
Morgan himself was one of the pioneers of kinship studies in anthropology,
and clearly perceived them, as many nowadays do too, as crucial to the understanding of primitive communities.47 Likewise, Engels stressed the "decisive
role which kinship plays in the social order of all people in the stage of savagery
and barbarism."48According to Morgan, the gens (or clan) form of organization is the key to understanding primitive society: "This remarkable institution
was the origin and basis of Ancient Society."49Its universality underlies the
unified evolutionary view that Morgan defends, as Engels well appreciated.
"Morgan'sgreat merit," he wrote, lay in his having reconstructed the main features of pre-history "and in having found in the groups based on ties of sex of
the North American Indians the key to the most important, hitherto insoluble,
riddles of the earliest Greek, Roman and German history."50
Morgan depicted the family (in its generic, not necessarily monogamous,
sense) as the active principle which determines the character of the system of
consanguinity, although it is possible for the latter to live on after the given
type of family has outgrown it. Marx and Engels found this analogous to the
relation of the base to the superstructure.5' Morgan writes that the family must
evolve as society advances, and they all agree that the monogamous family develops as a consequence of the ascendancy of private property, the hegemony
of which is in turn facilitated. This, however, is part of the emergence of civilized class society, but what explains (1) the development of the family prior
to this and (2) the significance of kinship systems in understanding primitive
society?
47.
cago,
48.
49.
50.
51.

See Meyer Fortes, Kinship and the Social Order: The Legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan (Chi1969).
Selected Works, III, 210.
Morgan, 377; see generally 376-378 and 62-66.
Selected Works, III, 192; see also 201 and Engels to Kautsky, 16 February and 26 April 1884.
Ethnological Notebooks, 112; Selected Works, III, 211.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

MARX AND MORGAN

227

According to Morgan (and Engels following him) the development of the

family through its different phases, essentially the widening exclusion of blood
relatives from marriage, is a result of natural selection, since the progressive restrictions against inbreeding allow the improvement, both physically and mentally, of the human stock. The work of natural selection reaches its completion
with the pairing or syndyasmian family, the precursor of monogamy (which,
by contrast, arises for social and economic reasons).52As for question (2), in
the final instance Engels accounts for this in a negative fashion: by the lack of
productive development. "The less the development of labour, and the more
limited its volume of production and, therefore, the wealth of society, the more
preponderatingly does the social order appear to be dominated by ties of
sex."53Marx's own comments seem to imply a similar view.54The prevalence
and strength of kinship ligatures in primitive society did not strike them as requiring explanation. The natural and traditional character of familial bonds
was well suited to the communal ownership and cooperative work processes
which were a necessary response to the underdeveloped productive forces in the
group's possession.
Marx and Engels, however, do not appear entirely clear on where kinship
structures fit into the materialist picture of society or on their precise relation
to material production. Since this is obviously a crucial issue for understanding
societies dominated by ties of consanguinity, there has been some rather inconclusive discussion of it among Marxist anthropologists.55 Engels, for his part,
in a rather expansive rendering of "material production," assimilates them to
relations of production:
According to the materialistic conception, the determining factor in history is, in the last
resort, the production and reproduction of immediate life. But this itself is of a twofold
character. On the one hand, the production of the means of subsistence . . . on the
other, the production of human beings themselves, the propagation of the human species. The social institutions under which men . . . live are conditioned by both kinds
of production.56

Although a passage in The German Ideology antedates this,57 Engels's treatment of procreation as a kind of production is an anomaly within the writings
of both Engels and Marx.58It would seem closer to the spirit of their work to
52. Selected Works, III, 218, 225, 230; Morgan, 50, 377, 459; cf. Ethnological Notebooks, 109,
118.
53. Selected Works, III, 191-192; cf. Engels to Marx, 8 December 1882.
54. See Capital (London, 1970), 79, 334; Selected Works, III, 267.
55. For example, Maurice Godelier, Rationality and Irrationality in Economics (London, 1972),
93-95; Terray, 143-145.
56. Selected Works, III, 191.
57. Ibid., I, 31.
58. Compare, for example, Engels's description of their materialist conception in Selected
Works, III, 133. Accordingly, Marxists have frequently taken exception to the passage quoted
above: cf. Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital (London, 1970), 224; Oskar
Lange, Political Economy (New York, 1963), I, 46-47; Rudolf Schlesinger, Marx: His Time and
Ours (London, 1950), 203. But see G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

WILLIAM H. SHAW

228

interpret familial and kinship ties both as relations capable of fulfilling economic and superstructural functions (depending on the level of the productive
forces and on the nature of the corresponding relations of production) and as
biologically based social relations (which nonetheless reflect the general character of the mode of production) - rather than as relations of a special branch
of material production.
How to integrate more precisely kinship ties into the conceptual framework
of historical materialism and how to reconcile their special weight in early society with the more general theses of Marx's theory are open questions. Neither
can be answered simply by further scrutiny of Marx and Engels's own work,
for the limits of what they had to say are soon reached. Although the significance of kinship structure has been well stressed by anthropologists since
Morgan, we are still a long way from fully understanding it or the nature of
primitive society. Perhaps it is to Marx's and Engels's credit that in their enthusiasm for Morgan they brought their materialist conception of history into
contact with the important question of the nature of primitive kinship bonds,
even if they did not resolve it themselves.
Tennessee State University

World(Ithaca, 1981), 98-99. The very "orthodox," of course, defend every word of Engels (without
explaining how it can be reconciled with what else he says): Plekhanov, 134f., and V. I. Lenin, Collected Works (Moscow, 1963), I, 150-151.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:20:57 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions