How a Savage became a Citizen?

The below article is my attempt at understanding human history of civilization through the writings of Friedrich Engels' The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State. Engels in his theory links the creation of family to the origin of private property which ultimately birthed the state.

Engels begins his narrative from the phase of human history which he calls by the name 'Age of Savagery'. The age is characterised by the classification of human societies as 'tribes' which ultimately formed its smallest social unit. People had not yet learned to split themselves into the present day social units called 'families'.There had not yet been any kind of political divisions such as provinces or nationalities since there was no concept of even a 'governing state' as yet. This eventually meant that there was no king or an associated police force or an army and hence no need for taxation that shall support the state apparatus.

People heavily depended upon hunting for subsistence and whatever came out of it was shared equally among the tribe. People occupied their inhabiting lands as a whole tribe and since there was no further subdivision of the society there was no need to split and distribute land for individual or family possession.

The mother-right:

This kind of primitive society allowed people to mate among themselves and there had not yet been any restriction on part of the individual when it came to choosing sexual partners. People mated freely with their siblings, uncles or aunts and even with sons or daughters. As time progressed, there was need for some kind of restriction due to various reasons and tribes decided to prohibit people from engaging in what we call now as 'incest'. A tribe was eventually split into a 'gen'. This subdivision forced women to marry/mate with any men but not with those belonging to their own gens. Hence there was officially allowed polygamy in place even after restrictions had been imposed within the tribe.

At various places in the book, Engels tries to find out the point from where the tribe begins to get rid of polygamy and move towards monogamy. There is a Greek legend which speaks about the story of a son slaying his mother who killed his father since he had objected to her mating with another man. Engels posits that 'jealousy' on part of the male which ultimately led to killings and destruction would have forced the tribe to implement a new form of marriage which goes by the name 'group marriage'.

According to this custom, a group of men belonging to a gens within a tribe shall enjoy conjugal association with a specific group of women belonging to another gens. From this point onwards, the communal property which had so far been accumulated by the tribe and belonging to them as a whole, began to be split among its subdivisions- gens. In other words, with relation to property each gens had become a separate 'tribe'. This necessitated the development of new regulations with respect of dividing property among the gens. The regulations were strongly in favour of the mother lineage or mother-right which meant that on the death of the mother, the property belonging to the mother's gens will remain within the gens and will not be enjoyed by her husband since he belongs to the other gens. This phase of human development is of tremendous importance since this marks the beginning of division of property which was hitherto common to the whole tribe and hence indivisible.

During these times women were equally involved with men with respect to occupation and even after the emergence of agriculture, men could not deprive women of their position in the society.

Primitive democracy:

The tribe or the aggregation of gens had a 'council' that did not allow unrestricted power to any individual especially in times of peace. The military commander could issue orders only when they had to fight and could be deposed by the council if people unanimously voted him out. All decisions were reached democratically and no individual's opinion had a higher precedence over that of others.

It is to be noted that wars were fought only as a result of personal enmity that could have been triggered by say, an abduction of a woman from a tribe by another, etc. These wars were not fought over material possessions most of the time which is a way of saying that there was no need of plunder since most of the tribes were economically self-sufficient. They produced through agriculture or hunting whatever they needed and consumed it themselves. Since wars were far and few, there was no need for the masses to rally behind a single individual who would promise them safety to ensure their survival. When an individual was hurt, the tribe as a single unit felt that it was their duty to avenge it and this ensured wholesome participation in their assault. In other words, it was 'all for one and one for all'.

Monogamy and the rise of 'family':

As time progressed, man was becoming a 'barbarian' from being a 'savage' as Engels puts it. This phase of human development had already witnessed the splitting of tribes into numerous gens each of which had already graduated into becoming a separate tribe. As you may have already noted, this division was created owing to restrictions in marriage. By this time among various tribes in different parts of the world, there were newer rules that prohibited free marriages significant among them being 'the sibling nature of nephew/niece'. None could marry their nephew or niece or cousins which in course of time led to some inchoate set of prescriptions as to who should marry whom. Some groups of gens described themselves as a 'phratry' which means 'brother gens'. Hence marriage was not possible within the phratry even if one was to marry someone belonging to another gens of the phratry, since it was tantamount to marrying his/her own sibling. These restrictive practices slowly eliminated group marriages and with it the practice of polygamy. Please note that the concept of phratry and elimination of polygamy were not born together and that the latter was a result of passing of many generations of such restrictive practices in marriage.

It is to be noted that the emergence of phratries had brought with them newer restrictions with respect to property relations.

The elimination of polygamy slowly gave rise to monogamy which prohibited adultery on the parts of both male and female. Thus monogamy further split the hitherto smallest social division of gens into an even smaller unit- the 'family'. The man, his wife and children composed of a family and hence the property relations were radically altered during this phase. People who had hitherto accumulated property for their tribe or gens began to do the same for their families.

One remarkable event that probably coincided with the advent of 'family' was the division of labor among societies. In earlier societies there were not many occupations that a tribe had to engage themselves in, for the sake of subsistence. They hunted game, gathered fruit and sometimes involved themselves in horticulture. This did not require a diverse set of skills and each member of the tribe were able to manage all of them seamlessly. Man slowly learned to rear cattle for wool, meat and milk which was an entirely different occupation from hunting which meant immediate killing of an animal for immediate consumption. Man also learned fishing and even mining of metals to improve his agriculture and other household activities. Hence human intelligence led to development of science which expanded man's avenues to diversify his means of subsistence. A single individual obviously cannot master all these occupations since each occupation required a specific set of skills that need to be cultivated in him right from his childhood.

The atomization of society into smaller units of families came in handy at this moment as each family decided to pursue one among different occupations. Since there was no diversified occupation hitherto, men had been producing whatever they needed and consumed it themselves. But this was going to be no longer possible as each family slowly identified themselves with a specific occupation. The herder family needed cereal for their consumption and had to 'buy' it from the farmer. The miner needed milk and meat and had to purchase it from the herder. This was the beginning of the concept called 'exchange' which was hitherto immaterial and hence non-existent.

The exchange, as many of us would know was achieved through barter system. Something that needs special notice here is the fact that man till then had not produced more than what he needed. Since the emergence of diversified occupation, man began to produce more than what was needed, probably because he did not know how much was needed by the market. This led to surplus production for the first time in human history.

Since man needed someone to enable him to gauge the demand of the market, a new class of people called merchants was created. Before we go into mercantilism, we will check how the property relations had been altered ever since 'family' took the place of gens.

Private Property:

The emergence of family subsequently altered the rules of inheritance which allowed man to accumulate property and pass it on to his wife and children for the forthcoming generations. Property which was hitherto communal belonging to none but the tribe as a whole, began to be split leading to the emergence of 'Private Property'. This engendered what we call individual pursuit of prosperity. Man who was hitherto concerned about every individual in his tribe was slowly concerned only about his family. The well-being of society came secondary to him or sometimes as a superfluous concern when all that was paramount to him was his family's welfare. He no longer was worried about exploiting others to sustain himself. With such a diversified society, each family owning a means of production began to find ways to accumulate more wealth by exploiting the other families. The crudest form of such exploitation was slavery where the owners of surplus production needed slaves to accumulate more wealth. Such families had more than what they needed and were able to purchase slaves to expand their fortunes. Engels makes a point here that the word familus which gave rise to the word family, means a group of slaves whose head was their master along with his wife and children.

By this time, the class of merchants who had been created merely to bring the producer and consumer together began to assume more power over the processes of production. For the first time in human history, someone other than the producer of a commodity and the consumer of it, determined the way how the commodities must be produced. By then, the military commanders of the tribal days began to wield more power than they had hitherto since the class of merchants and producers, each class in pursuit of more markets for their products, had rallied behind him goading him to engage in war and conquer more territories. More territories meant more markets for the producers and merchants and hence more profits. The commander was well taken care of by them along with his retinue. The difficulties associated with barter were beginning to be felt which gave rise to a new concept called money. For the first time in human history, something other than a commodity that could be of some use in daily activity began to assume more value than others. A bunch of useless coins was soon bestowed with more value than a sackful of grain.

The emergence of money as a means of exchange allowed merchants to hoard commodities to generate demand thereby increasing their prices. Engels calls this phase where money was invented as the beginning of 'civilization'.

The State:

When merchants through speculative trading and landlords through surplus production by the labor of slaves, accumulated money, for the first time a highly disturbing and unprecedented 'contradiction' was beginning to be felt within the society. This was nothing but a feeling that for the first time people realized that in spite of being directly involved in production they were no longer able to access what they produced. When man was a barbarian, he labored hard and secured his means of subsistence and all the fruits of his labor was consumed by himself. But now, the more he labored the more his master accumulated while his wage or payment remained unchanged.

This realization among the masses manifested itself leading to slave conflicts and uprisings. The master did not have any forces at his disposal to suppress the uprisings and had to apply to his beneficiary, the military commander who had already become the king. The king realized that these conflicts were inevitable and systemic and his authority felt the need to create a state owned armed force to keep these elements in check. To maintain these forces the king, who had already been showered with lands and money by his merchants, needed funds. Taxes were brought into vogue which demanded a specific percentage of money from all that was produced, the majority of which had to be paid by the consumer who was part of the laboring class. The armed force will not only take care of any internal class conflict but also assist the mercantile class to expand its market by waging wars. The people were concerned about a sudden eventuality of an alien country invading them for plunder. This fear made them trust the state and its armed forces to ensure their security. In other words, the laboring class had to pay from its own pocket to support the apparatus that will keep itself in check.

This was the origin of state which was nothing but a higher power above the exploited and the exploiter to ensure that the status quo was maintained.

Aftermath and Conclusion:

As everyone would be aware, the state which was birthed by the interests of private capital needed legitimacy in the eyes of the people, which it believed could be achieved through universal suffrage. The primitive democracy of savagery which valued the interest of every individual equally, had withered with the beginning of human civilization. Men backed by private capital rose to the positions of contesting elections and people had to choose the less pernicious among them as their representative. The decimation of mother right and the emergence of father right, as a result of the monogamous family, showed women their places in their kitchen and empowered the financially independent man to subjugate his woman.

As we have seen so far, as long as man was in groups, he needed no money, no state to protect his interest since there was no need to depend upon someone else to ensure his subsistence. The origin of mercantile class with the displacement of barter by money system engendered speculative practices which took away the means of control of production from the producer and the consumer. This resulted in the consumer remaining oblivious to the dynamics of market forces which were every moment controlling the prices of commodities that he needed, ultimately holding his subsistence at its will.

As I wish to conclude, I would like to acknowledge the arbitrariness of whatever that is stated in this essay. The book by Engels, whose review is what I attempted to produce, is nothing more than Engels’ own interpretation of human history. I could find many gaps in its chronicling the history of civilization which I have to an extent filled through my own knowledge obtained from various other sources. Anyone who may wish to contest my postulates may write to me to which I would gladly revert.

 - JEEVA P