The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World
The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests (German: The class struggle in the ancient Greek world. From the Archaic Period to the Arab Conquest ) is a book in English by the British Marxist ancient historian Geoffrey de Ste. Croix . It was first published in 1981 and had 732 pages in the first edition. There are quite a few new editions.
The aim of the book is to apply Marx's historical model to almost all of ancient Greece and the period immediately afterwards, namely from 700 BC. Chr. To 650 AD, and with its help to explain the structure of society, historical events, processes and institutions.
This includes the application of Marxist methods: Above all, the concepts of class , that of class struggle and that of exploitation play an important role. The aim is to analyze the social and economic structure of Greek society and answer questions such as: which classes were there, who was exploited? In this context, it is also important to understand Marx's view of history, according to which there are different phases in human history , whereby antiquity is placed in a larger context of social development. Like Marx, de Ste. Croix assumes that socio-economic conditions are the decisive driving force behind political developments and that a permanent class struggle must be assumed.
Ste. Croix over its predecessors
Ste. In his work, Croix criticizes the general disinterest of the English ancient historians in Marx. He goes particularly hard to the court with researchers like Fergus Millar , because they are not historians, but mere antiquarians, because by rejecting modern theories they ultimately cannot offer any analyzes and explanations, but only collections of material. Even stronger criticism is received from those who see not economic conflicts but rather rivalries within the elites as the driving force behind the internal struggles ( stasis ) in ancient Greece. Ste. Rejects their position. Croix with reference to the fact that the dichotomy poor versus rich is omnipresent in the sources and therefore cannot be discussed away. In a few other places he deals with Marxist and other socially critical authors who have dealt with ancient society before him. He criticizes George Derwent Thomson and Margaret O. Wason as Marxist theorists who wanted to impose their concept of class on ancient reality and thus constructed ancient classes that in reality had little meaning or did not even exist . Ste. Croix to the non-Marxists Eduard Meyer , Max Weber and Georg Busolt , who spoke of “commercial aristocracies” in Aegina and Corinth ; however, he considers other aspects of her work to be valuable, especially for Weber.
At another point he goes through authors who, in his opinion, misinterpret Marx's concept of class or misuse it in their preoccupation with antiquity. The book The Ancient Economy , a standard work by Moses I. Finley , values Ste. Croix overall very high, but Finley is attested to have insufficient knowledge of Marx. Applying the Marxist concept of class, as Finley interprets it, to Greek antiquity, would mean simply dividing society in two (according to the means of production) and ending with free wage workers being the same as slaves. That Finley thinks of such a procedure, "It doesn't seem like a very sensible way of analyzing the history of the ancient world," puzzles Ste. Not Croix - it's just a simple misinterpretation of the Marxist concept of class. Marx writing in the Communist Manifesto , that in capitalist society almost only two major classes (bourgeoisie and proletariat) facing it "but in the earlier epochs of history [...] almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders , a manifold gradation of social positions ”. Despite his criticism of Finley, Ste. Croix continue what Finley started, namely a more critical historiography of antiquity, which also focuses on the economic basis of society and the associated life situations of the lower classes - which is also noticeable in the fact that a lot of the topics dealt with in the two books are exactly the same overlap. This continuation takes place under Marxist auspices, especially with regard to the use of the term class - Finley prefers to speak of a social stratification from a spectrum of statuses and classes (“spectrum of statuses” instead of the term “class”) and orders ").
Ste. Criticizes a primarily political - instead of economic - expression of their class concept. Croix to Finley, Ralf Dahrendorf , Edward P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm .
Even the French Charles Parain and Jean-Pierre Vernant , who are definitely Marx-affine, would have, according to Ste. Croix, Marx misinterpreted. First, they differentiate between a fundamental contradiction of Greek society - between slaves and slave owners - from a, second, principal or dominant contradiction - between poor citizens and rich citizens. The latter brought about a class struggle within the citizenship. For Ste. Croix, this distinction is mere phrase-rubbing and does not contain any useful thought. Pierre Vidal-Naquet follows the two, but then moves even further away from Marx by claiming that the slaves would not take part in the class struggle (which takes place on a political, not an economic level) - that is, they do not form a class of their own. Together with Michel Austin , Vidal-Naquet rejects an analysis of antiquity in terms of classes, a position that Ste. Croix by no means shares.
Aristotle and Plato
Aristotle is for Ste. Croix is not only the most important empirical scientist (for example in the subjects of zoology and constitutional history), but also the most important political scientist and sociologist of antiquity, whose social analysis comes very close to that of Marx. Aristotle takes it for granted that the economic - and not the political - position is the decisive factor for a person's position in society in general. So he divides society (of the adult, male citizens) in two places into rich, poor and hoi mesoi (those in between), whereby “those in between” should form the majority, there between rich and poor always tensions (up to armed conflict; see class struggle) exist. A state that according to Ste. Croix was realized in classical Athens.
The enormous importance of the categories “poor” and “rich” can also be seen in Aristotle's descriptions of the oligarchy . In theory, an oligarchy is simply the rule of a few, but in practice it is always the rule of the rich. He goes so far as to say that one can speak of an oligarchy even when a rich majority rules over a poor minority. According to Aristotle, a poor man is always a democrat , a rich man is always a supporter of the oligarchy. With other authors (e.g. Plato , Xenophon , Thucydides , Herodotus , Euripides ) Ste. Croix distinguishes between rich and poor, with “those in between” (as a middle class, moderate with modest possessions) often having a stabilizing function. He concludes from this that, like Marx, they all assume "that the essential determining factor in the political behavior of most individuals is the economic class".
Aristotle's division of society as a whole or of the mass ( plethos ) into parts ( mere ), the smaller units of which are the individual families, is described by Ste. Croix highlighted. According to their role in production, Aristotle differentiates between the following mere in society: farmers, artisans, traders and wage workers.
Aristotle's interest in empirical questions distinguishes him after Ste. Croix of Plato . The latter was exclusively a philosopher and "largely uninterested in historical facts [... and] unwilling to analyze what Aristotle was [...] concrete situations." Ste. Croix not only criticizes Plato's “doggedly repressive” and “impractical” utopia, but also his anti-democratic representation of democracy (Ste. Croix is not entirely satisfied with Aristotle's representation of Athenian democracy either). Real ancient democracy "showed little resemblance to his ugly portrait of democracy." As for Plato's utopias in the Politeia and the Nomoi , Ste. Croix believes that Plato recognized the contrast between rich and poor as the cause of contemporary political tensions and did not take the side of the oligarchic party, but that in the end his utopias were nothing more than a rigid oligarchy - a rule not of the Rich, but the guardians and philosophers - sign out. Out of an “arrogant contempt” for the working population, Plato wants to exclude them from all political rights.
Definitions
class
Estates are institutionalized, legally stipulated and fixed social functions that are not - like classes - based on the role that the people to be categorized play in the production process. Next. Croix is neither the class, nor the social status , nor the political position the fundamental criterion for the division of a society, but precisely the class concept aimed at the economic position. This is always connected with the concept of exploitation, that of class society and that of class struggle .
There are many different definitions of class, Ste. Croix would like to stick to Marx as far as possible. Against Max Weber's concept of class he delimits himself by indicating that a class is not ideal-type construct, but a term that is actually empirically identifiable group of people - can apply - a class.
Ste. Croix defines a class as follows. It is the "social expression of the fact of exploitation, the way that exploitation is contained in a social structure". Where there are classes, there is exploitation, and it has been in every society (since the primitive). For the classification of a certain person in one of the certain classes of a society, it is crucial whether and how and how much he or she is exploited or exploited. People who are judged similarly in this respect form a class together. This intentionally general class concept can therefore not only be applied to one or the other, for example our capitalist society (that would be a special class concept), but to all societies (including the ancient one) in order to analyze them in class theory. This general class concept should not be forcibly imposed on antiquity, Ste. Croix attaches great importance to an empirical investigation that wants to take antiquity as it presents itself and the results of which must agree with the class concept just defined.
Ste expresses itself even more clearly and concisely. Croix made this in his Rede Class in Marx's Conception of History . Here, a primary Marxian definition of class is distinguished from some merely secondary definitions that also occur in Marx: "Class is [...] a relation of exploitation." The concept of exploitation defines the concept of class and the concept of class is in its effectiveness and usefulness a key contribution to any social analysis. Exactly this class term, defined by exploitation, is used in Ste. Croix major work applied to ancient society.
It is also important to note that a class (in itself) exists even if the people of this class have no class consciousness (if it is not a class of its own), they can, but need not, know that they are part of a class are and do not have to lead a common political struggle (which already presupposes class consciousness). If the existence of a class necessarily presupposed a developed class consciousness, then in Greece there would only have been the ruling class of aristocrats. If one defines class in such a way that class consciousness of its members presupposes - which according to Ste. Croix is wrong - one cannot speak of a class society in antiquity.
One can highlight Ste. Croix's approach of foregoing the study of the behavior of individual individuals and looking at the actions and behavior of classes. This approach assumes that people often do not behave in accordance with their self-interest and their own convictions, but rather place a certain class interest above themselves. From today's point of view, basically unimaginable facts, such as the sometimes cruel treatment of slaves, can be made understandable to some extent. Slaveholders and slaves can thus be understood - also in the sense of Marx - as "personifications of the economic relationships that exist between them". But on an interpersonal level, Ste. Croix, a cruel act towards a slave is inexcusable in spite of everything.
Status and status
Class is not the only category for analyzing ancient Greek society, but the fundamental one that “helps us understand Greek history and explain the process of change that takes place in it, […] as well as the reasons for human behavior and social change ". A person's social status and political power can be derived from their class position. Differences that have other than economic foundations ultimately amount to economic class differences. Still, Ste. Croix counter positions through.
As a first alternative to analyzing Greek antiquity with the concept of class, there are the concepts that the Greeks themselves used to describe groups within their society. Ste. Croix wants to leave this to the "antiquarians" among the ancient scholars and prefers the analytical instruments and concepts of modern research. In contrast to the theories of social stratification , the Ste. Attributing Croix to functionalism (he names Durkheim , Bronisław Malinowski , Radcliffe-Brown , Talcott Parsons and Robert K. Merton ), he rejects the idea that they want to explain social institutions primarily in terms of their function of maintaining the existing social structure. This is poorly suited to explain social change.
Exploitation, particular class, class society and class struggle
The term exploitation, which occurs mostly in connection with the possessing and non-possessing classes, denotes the appropriation of part of the product ( surplus ) of the labor of another.
Direct exploitation or individual exploitation is the exploitation of one person (wage worker, slave, debtor) by another (employer, slave owner, moneylender). Indirect exploitation or collective exploitation is exploitation through taxes, compulsory military service or forced labor that must be performed by certain classes (or villages etc.). Often these services have to be provided for a state that is dominated by a higher class. A special form of direct exploitation is that by leasing land and by lending money for interest.
An identifiable particular class is a group within a community that occupies a particular position within the system of social production. This position within social production is determined by the relationship in which a certain class stands to the conditions of production , means of production and labor, as well as to other classes. If one or more particular classes (an economically and socially superior minority) exploits other particular classes (majority), one can speak of a class society. The relationship between the exploiting and the exploited class, the class antagonism or contradiction, produces the class struggle. As I said before, a class does not require class consciousness. In this sense it should also be understood that one can speak of class struggle even where none of the participants know about it. A class struggle that has already been waged, for example through the political struggle for legal equality, on the other hand, presupposes class consciousness.
Regarding the class struggle it should be noted that after Ste. For Marx, Croix was the direct driving force of history and, moreover, a continuous characteristic of all societies since primitive. Finally, the fact that the exploiting class tends to install forms of political domination and oppression, whereas democracy has a weakening effect.
Added value (surplus) and social formation
With the word “surplus” Ste. Croix uses both the term added value and the term surplus (e.g. the production of a peasant family). The surplus value is the part that is deducted from a producer from what he has produced, either directly through another person or indirectly through rent, taxes or taxes. It is not impossible to use added value not for the personal enrichment of individuals but for the benefit of society as a whole (celebrations, public spending).
The Greek slave-holding society
Now to the determination of the social formation in antiquity. Marx says “Only the form in which [the] surplus labor is squeezed from the immediate producer, the worker, distinguishes economic social formations, e. B. the society of slavery from that of wage labor. ”The essential criterion when differentiating between different social formations is not so much how it is produced (industrial, agricultural etc.), but how the possessing classes achieve surplus value (through slave labor, wage labor etc.). In antiquity, however, direct forced labor was the main way on which the possessing classes got their surplus, whether the majority of total production came about through unfree labor (e.g. slavery) or not. It was also possible to gain added value through exploitation through wage labor and through rental income for the leasing of land, ships and buildings - but the former was not very widespread and leasing did not generate high profits. So one can speak of a society of slavery or slavery economy of a society of slavery in ancient Greek society . Ste. Croix is aware that Marx's talk about the ancient slave-holding society has also been interpreted differently. Thus, some modern Marxists, who know that Marx and Engels referred to ancient Greek and Roman societies as slave-holding societies, assume that it is therefore in these societies that slaves necessarily produced the essential part of total production. That it is historically wrong to speak of an ancient slave-holding society in this sense, Ste. Croix already discussed and today there is general consensus. Ste. Croix also speaks of an ancient slave-holding society, but in a different, just sketched sense. Ste. Croix regards it as a historical fact that the slaves neither provided the majority of the labor force nor did the greatest amount of social labor. Speaks Ste. Croix nevertheless from a slave-holding society, then because, as I said, the way in which the exploiting classes achieve surplus value is decisive. And the exploitation of slaves was irreplaceable for the preservation of appreciable added value. The decisive role of the free peasant producers for the general economic management of the ancient world was - like Ste. Croix notes - also no secret to Marx: the "form of free parcel ownership by self-employed peasants as the ruling, normal form [...] forms the economic basis of society in the best of classical antiquity".
Building the ancient Greek class society
It must be made clear right from the start that Ste. Croix 'division into classes, exceptions permitted. So the slaves are generally subsumed in the class of the exploited, but a slave who was allowed to earn money and who had working people under him can definitely be counted - albeit differently than a suitor - in the class of the haves. Other examples are people who belonged to the small farmers and the wage laborers at the same time, or slaves who - almost exactly like free farmers - managed farms as administrators for members of the higher classes.
| Exploiting class 2-3% of the total population |
Large landowners | Landowner |
| lessor | ||
| Mine tenant | ||
| Owner of large workshops (with 20–50 slaves) | ||
| Moneylender | ||
| Others | Ship owner | |
| House or apartment landlords | ||
| Dealer | ||
| The seldom exploited and, if so, only little and indirectly exploited class made up the majority of the total population |
farmers | real estate |
| tenant | ||
| restricted landowners in Hellenism | ||
| Craftsman | ||
| Dealer | ||
| Metics | ||
| Exploited class | Wage workers | unskilled workers |
| mercenary | ||
| small owners of donkeys, carts, oxen, mules, wagons, barges, etc. | ||
| Slave labor | slaves | |
| Serfs (e.g. the Helots in Sparta) | ||
| Debt servants (e.g. banned in Athens) | ||
The exploiting class
The exploiting or possessing class included those who lived on their own income but did not have to work for it, e.g. B. an owner of a farm that he had managed by a slave or a tenant of a mine who had slaves work there under the supervision of other slaves. In Class in Marx's Conception of History, Ancient and Modern , he roughly estimates the exploiting class at two to three percent of the total population, with variations depending on time and place.
The only means of production available to a significant extent were agriculturally usable land and unfree workers (also: forced laborers). The land, as well as the possibilities to force unfree labor, were in the hands of one class. Since wage labor played only a minor role and the free peasants and artisans could not be directly exploited, the class of the haves was only able to obtain significant direct surplus value through the exploitation of unfree labor. A large part of slave labor naturally took place in agriculture, which was by far the most important economic sector. Consequently, it was also essentially the possession of agricultural land that made appreciable wealth possible. The second important factor in income and wealth - besides the profitable use of slave labor - was the size of the land holdings. Wealth essentially equated with landed property, and the ruling class of all Greek states consisted mainly of landowners without exception. Land ownership was therefore the means necessary to exploit slave labor.
It was far less common for someone to get rich through trade or by owning a manufacture. Probably also because the mere enlargement of a workshop increased production, but not its effectiveness - on the other hand, the danger of restlessness and lack of discipline among the workers increased.
The following groups in particular belonged to the owning class: owners of large and medium-sized farms, on which slaves worked under an enslaved administrator; Landlords of large and medium-sized farms against rent (which, however, yields less profit); Workshop owners with from 20 and up to 50 slaves, as well as an enslaved manager; Tenant of a mine in Laurion with slave laborers and enslaved managers; Owners of some ships (some with slaves) that could be rented to traders or used for trading; Money owners who hid it for interest (with little risk and gain for loans for land or with more risk and gain for sea loans); Homeowners who have rented out their house or their apartments (there were already tenement houses in Athens and Piraeus , the synoikiai ).
Superstructure: The ideology of the upper class
Part of the upper class ideology was, according to Ste. Croix's overemphasis and appreciation of free time. The despised and often thought to be mind-numbing work, however, was associated with unworthiness and slavery. Something else is what Ste. Croix calls it "gentleman farming". If rural life and agriculture are praised by ancient authors, then it is about healthy work for leisure, mere command and delegation, or agricultural science . Large landowners did not have to work; occupations such as politics, military command, intellectual employment, art, hunting and sport were appropriate.
They were men who lived such a “free” life, from whom almost everything was produced that has survived, whether in terms of art, literature, science and philosophy. What we know about Greek society from ancient writings, we know of such men, so it is not surprising that they are at the center of our image of ancient society. In addition, they made up a large part of the armies.
Although they led their lives mainly at the expense of the slaves and not so much of the free citizens, the upper class was always against democracy (nevertheless almost all of its leaders came from the upper class).
Compared to the Persian or the later Macedonian and especially Roman empires, the Greek were downright poor. Dominated areas were also exploited to a greater extent by the Romans than by the Athenians. One reason for the wealth of the Roman upper class was certainly that there was no democracy in Rome and poorer citizens could not defend themselves politically. Ste. Croix suspects that the ideology of the possessing class not only circulated in the upper classes, but also spread to parts of the rest of the population. The views of a dominant class are to a certain extent always accepted by the lower classes, especially by those parts that are closest to the dominant class and strive for social advancement.
The middle class: farmers, artisans, traders, metics
For Ste. Croix it is a fact that a large part of the total production was brought about by small producers, mainly farmers, but also artisans and traders. These formed, as it were, a middle class between the exploiting and the exploited classes, which themselves rarely exploited anyone - except under certain circumstances the head of their own family - and which was also not exploited by anyone to any significant extent. This class lived with minimal surpluses just above the subsistence level.
The members of this extremely heterogeneous class, made up of peasants, artisans and traders, were poor; only in exceptional cases did some manage to generate surpluses, to obtain modest wealth, to employ slaves and no longer have to work themselves. What they had in common was that they lived independently and independently from their own daily work. It was difficult for them to get into the class of property.
The middle class made up the majority of the population and also produced the majority of total social production. In connection with this work it is important that Ste. Croix Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries BC And some other Poleis explicitly excludes in this point, among other things because the prices for slaves here are likely to have been lower.
Usually it was the possessing class, i.e. a minority, who kept slaves and thus gained added value. The majority of the peasants and craftsmen, i.e. the majority of the population, had no or hardly any slaves. Why one should speak of a slave owner society anyway, Ste. Croix established elsewhere. The political demands of this middle class have always been debt relief and land redistribution. The former was sometimes supported by radical reformers (such as Solon). The overwhelming number of people belonging to this class were - hardly surprising for an agricultural society on a low technical level - small farmers.
Farmers and smallholders ( peasants )
Ancient society was an agrarian society. The majority of the population lived hard working and in extremely humble circumstances in the country. The farmers produced little more than was necessary for a living. The Greek small and medium-sized peasants were either small landowners or land tenants, their agricultural means of production belonged to them themselves. They worked essentially as families, sometimes with slaves or wage laborers and probably lived mostly in small villages ( kome ). Ste. Also counts the workers in the village ancillary businesses (craftsmen, construction workers, transport workers, fishermen). Croix to this group.
In non-democratic poleis, the free peasants had fewer rights and fewer political opportunities to defend themselves against direct and indirect exploitation than in Athens. If you go like Ste. Croix assumes that lasting military strength primarily depends on economic, social and political factors, one also comes to the conclusion that the free peasantry of ancient Greece, for example, made the victories over the Persians possible in the first place. Their "indomitable will to fight" was linked to the polis, a political community of free men based on widespread property and access to political rights for the entire citizenry, but at least for the wealthy.
Craftsman
In addition to ordinary crafts, this category also included artists (sculptors, painters, etc.). The artisans, like the small farmers, were not exploited by anyone as long as they did not run into debt. This, their independence, the possession of simple tools and their technical expertise set them apart from the wage workers. Some craftsmen - like small shopkeepers - could also afford one or two slaves. Ste. Croix believes that although their prestige among the upper class was low, the artisans of ancient Greece had already developed a certain professional pride.
Others: dealers, doctors, hetaires, metics
The wealth and prestige of doctors are only likely to have increased during the Hellenistic period. In the classical period they were often done in a group with the artisans. Ste. Also counts hetaires and other service providers who earn well. Croix to the middle class. Among the traders he differentiates small local traders and shopkeepers from traders who trade (mostly by ship) between cities. The latter sometimes achieved a certain wealth. Ste also counts the most metics . Croix, although they had different professions, to the middle class. They hardly succeeded in getting rich, after all they were excluded from the right to own land; on the other hand, they could not be exploited to any great extent, since they had the opportunity to simply move away at any time.
The exploited class
Next. Croix have the "slave class" and the "free working class" enough in common to bring them together into a "group of classes", which he calls the exploited class. The difference between a free worker and a slave lies in their different legal status, which can also affect the type and intensity of exploitation.
Wage workers and day laborers
It has already been mentioned that wage labor did not play an important role in ancient Greece. It seldom occurred and the jobs carried out by the wage laborers ( misthotoi , thetes ) were mostly simple auxiliary work. As already mentioned, Aristotle distinguishes four types of workers, the peasants, artisans, traders and wage workers. The wage laborer differed from the craftsman ( technites , banausos ) in that he had neither tools nor manual skills. In addition, the independent craftsman did not work for anyone else, but for himself. With Plato and Aristotle, the wage workers, who can only sell their labor, are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Not so much because of their relative poverty and poor pay, but because of their (slavish) dependence on their employers. Ste. Croix thinks they were exploited hard.
In Athens the wage workers waiting for work - for whom there were both temporary and work contracts - gathered in a well-known place, the Kolonos Agoraios (or Ergatikos or Misthios ), which was probably located at the western end of the Athenian agora . One of the areas in which wage laborers were employed was that of Ste. Croix did not deal with mercenaries, then - which could have been widespread, but for which there are hardly any sources - they were hired as harvest workers in agriculture, in construction and for auxiliary work in the port, etc.
Also very far down in the social hierarchy were the free, independent service providers in the transport sector. They were, for example, owners of a boat, donkey, cart, mule or ox. So probably the overseers of agricultural goods employed by the property classes. You often earned more than a day laborer here, but you were constantly dependent on it. This activity was often carried out by slaves.
Finally, the relationship between wage workers and slaves should be considered. Basically, the more profitable slave labor clearly predominated. One can speak of competition between the two groups insofar as it is possible that cheap slave labor could have depressed the wages of wage workers and day laborers in certain situations. But not insofar as wage workers were affected by unemployment due to slave labor . There was no unemployment in antiquity, the vast majority of those in employment were completely outside of wage labor, most wage workers were completely destitute and unskilled. In any case, it is certain that if you needed permanent labor, it was more profitable to employ slaves who could also be rented for short periods of time. A workshop owner who did not employ slaves was unable to attain even modest wealth.
Forced laborers: slaves (and slave owners)
To the extent that the possessing classes in capitalism gained surplus value through wage labor, in antiquity they gained surplus value through slave labor. In what sense and on what does Ste. Croix claims this has already been quoted.
The forced laborers (or unfree workers) Ste Croix divided into property slaves ( chattel slaves ), serfs, debt servants and those who had to perform forced labor (e.g. in times of war). For the Attic democracy , all these groups except the slaves can be neglected because they did not exist at all or to a small extent.
Basically, Ste. Croix that the existence of slave labor should not be denied or belittled where there is little or no evidence of it. That's because our knowledge of antiquity comes mainly from a handful of literary texts and there is simply no reason to expect such evidence there. As with work in general, slave labor is also severely underrepresented in our sources, even where we know that it existed.
Ste. Croix defines slave labor according to the League of Nations Slavery Convention of 1926. A slave is a person "over whom property or rights are exercised" (Article 1).
Slavery certainly played a central role in production. Although it is often said otherwise, Ste. Croix, a large number of slaves (also in Athens) were employed in agriculture, which was ultimately the main industry. Here too, however, the sources are poor. It is simply impossible to give any reasonable estimate of the relationship between the agricultural production produced by slaves and that produced by free peasants. But if you ask who did the work on the big farms of the possessing class, you may no longer ask for direct evidence of slavery. How different than through slave labor? Ste asks. Croix, is the agricultural work supposed to have been done for the possessing classes? How else could this land-owning class get their surpluses? The extent of the exploitation of slaves in the mines of Attica was also not to be underestimated.
There were considerable differences within the class of slaves. Apart from the slaves exploited in agriculture and mining, there were also house slaves in a completely different life situation. Also worth mentioning are the higher-ranking supervisor or manager slaves, as well as slaves with special z. B. manual skills.
First, the class of slaves, together with the class of wage-workers, as the class of the dispossessed, stand against the class of the haves; second, the class of slaves contrasts with the class of slave owners (which almost completely overlaps with the class of property owners); thirdly, the class of slaves contrasts with the class of free wage laborers, who have been exploited in a different way by the class of the haves.
On a note, the Ste. Regarding Croix more as a repair than a criticism of Marx, he writes that the slave stands in opposition to the slave owner but not to the free, as Marx writes twice. Because the difference between slaves and free people is not an economic one, but a class difference. Also, as I said, most freemen had no slaves.
The prices for slaves were according to Ste. Croix in Greece and especially Athens, very cheap (compared to other slave holding societies). So in the 5th century BC A slave 200 drachmas, which was the equivalent of a half-year salary for a craftsman (especially after wars, cheap slaves were often available in large numbers). Also, according to Pseudo-Aristotle , a slave only needed three things: work, punishment and food to keep him alive. For the owner, births, if they were allowed, were a business risk, as the woman could die in childbirth. In addition, it took a while until the loss of work was paid off by the offspring. The ratio of male and female slaves probably depended on what was more profitable.
In spite of everything, the owners must have treated the slaves reasonably well - as long as the prices were not completely in the basement. After all, a slave - like any head of cattle - has a value, and the death of a slave always means a loss. A satisfied slave also works better than a dissatisfied one. Ste. Incidentally, Croix also deals with the paradoxical case that in dangerous situations a slave life can be more valuable than that of a free worker. If the worker dies, the employer simply has a small loss, as if one of his slaves died in his place.
Kenneth M. Stampp says so Ste. Croix that the owner of an American Negro slave was of little interest in his social and legal status, that the different legal status of a slave actually only served the blackmail of work, i.e. an economic purpose. For the Athenian upper class, the exploitation of slaves was the only way to be able to afford a life without work. The only option because Athens was democratic and the rights of the poorer citizens had to be respected. This left the slaves with no rights to exploit all the more. Therefore slaves were more important in Athens than elsewhere and their exploitation took place to a much greater extent. For Ste. Croix, these explanations explain Finley's statement that freedom and slavery went hand in hand in Greece.
A common class consciousness, a unity among the ancient Greek slaves never existed and the slaves had no political means at their disposal. That and the fact that there were no slave revolts in ancient Greece is certainly due, among other things, to the fact that the slaves of a city and often a farm and every business (like the immigrant class today) from such completely different regions as Thrace, southern Russia, Lydia, Asia Minor, Egypt, Libya or Sicily came and therefore also belonged to different ethnic groups. The slave-owning class was very much aware of this. Occasionally a slave escaped, but it was difficult because the owners naturally helped each other. Mass exodus of slaves probably only existed in times of war. The slaveholders, on the other hand, stuck together, formed a unit and acted according to Ste. Croix as such. They kept the slaves down constantly and effortlessly, for example by offering the prospect of release, distributing punishments (e.g. whipping) or even taking children or partners hostage if a slave was allowed to have a family at least threatened to do so and used it as leverage. The propaganda on a small scale must also have been commonplace. The slaves were, so Ste. Croix, convinced that they have to accept their fate, maybe in their own best interests.
Class struggles in ancient Greece
Ste. Croix ', primarily based on the concept of class struggle, the historical representation of ancient Greece begins with a description of an era in which slave-holding aristocratic landowners (the so-called "good") still exercised their power undisturbed at the expense of the other people (the "bad") could exercise (as an aristocratic writer he passes Hesiod , Theonis and Homer ). From 650 BC. BC, however, the time of tyranny began in Greece , which could not infrequently rely on a broad mass of the people and the power of the innate blood nobility - in most of the Pole - broke forever. The tyrants themselves disappeared from the stage after one or two generations, a more “open” society followed: instead of the power of blood and the tyrannical rulers, the class of the haves came to power, and oligarchies arose. The oligarchy, in turn, was replaced by democracy in cities like Athens, and political power was now in the hands of all adult male citizens. The evaluation of the tyrannical phase finds Ste. Croix difficult due to poor sources. On the one hand, he is of the opinion that the old blood nobility would never have given up power by itself and therefore describes the tyranny as a “necessary phase”, a necessary painful experience. - On the other hand, this evaluation stands as a necessary evil Ste. Croix 'simultaneous sympathy for some of the tyrants. The former king ( basileios ) was on the side of the aristocracy, but the tyrant - at least in several cases - on the other, on the side of the people ( demos ). The bad reputation of the tyrants is likely to have arisen later, at least Peisistratos is still represented positively by authors such as Herodotus , Thucydides and Aristotle. About Peisistratos, Ste. Croix even said that he continued the work of the great reformer Solon by enforcing his constitution, which in its day was admirable and progressive.
On the political level, after the phase of tyranny, the (previously exclusively innate) nobility with landed property and the people faced each other. At the head of the people, the ordinary people, were citizens who had achieved prosperity and who were now also striving for political power. According to Ste. Croix, the democracies in the various poleis were often introduced through a violent revolution against the rule of an oligarchy controlled by the possessing class. Essential characteristics of Athenian democracy were, according to Ste. Croix:
- Rule of the majority (both in the popular assembly and in the courts)
- Rule of the people (in the broader sense: the rule of all citizens; in a narrower sense - as noted by aristocratic authors - from the poor to the rich; Ste. Croix means that the establishment of democracy therefore plays a role in the class struggle of the lower bourgeois classes (the "Poor") must have played for a mitigation of the exploitation)
- only adult men were citizens
- Despite all the positives, Greek democracy was always based on slave labor
- The goal of democracy was the greatest possible freedom ( eleutheria ) of the citizens
- each voice counted equally
- the public functions were checked (and: important posts were available for election, less important ones were drawn by lot)
- Rule of law
Here are a few remarks on the class struggle in the classical period:
- The class struggle between the exploiting and the exploited class was clearly dominated by the exploiters without much resistance.
- The middle class hardly took part in the class struggle of the exploiters and the exploited; democracy protected them from exploitation and enabled them, if necessary, to wage political class struggle. In any case, the constitution and control over the state, an important position in the class struggle and the most important in the political class struggle, was in the hands of the people and not in those of the exploiting class.
- Democracy worked, the people - on this political level - could defend themselves well against exploitation, which mainly affected the slaves.
- In Poleis, which were oligarchies, there was very much exploitation of the masses by the possessing classes.
- The democratic movements have always, firstly, needed a leader from the class of the haves and, secondly, always had to use violence against the hiring class to introduce democracy.
- Athens supported - often successfully - democracy movements in other poles (Sparta and Persia often the opposite side, the oligarchy movements and tyrants).
- Only adult male citizens could take part in the political class struggle.
From 508/7 to 322/1 BC Chr. Existing Athenian democracy rated Ste. Croix positive overall. The leadership of this democracy came to Ste. Croix up to 430 from “political families” monopolizing this area, in the years between 430 and 400 BC. BC, however, "new men" appeared, politicians who came from the people or were close to them, the demagogues ( demagogoi ). The most famous representative of this species was Kleon , a full-time professional politician. The ancient authors belonging to the upper classes were constantly polemicized against the hated demagogues, who in turn sided with the lower classes. Overall, however, the class struggle remained, according to Ste. Croix, even at this time rather calm and harmless. This can be attributed, among other things, to the fact that the democratic system was strong enough to protect the lower strata of the free citizens from exploitation, and certainly also to the fact that the rich lived well and safely and were able to gain respect and honor through offices.
The two failed attempts to reintroduce the oligarchy (411 and 404 BC), Ste. Croix as evidence of the struggle for political power between a majority of democrats and a minority of oligarchs. In the 4th century BC BC democracy was well established, all Athenian citizens pulled together, so Ste. Croix, the Macedonian despotism incompatible with democracy, appeared under King Philip and Alexander . In Athens, which was initially undisturbed, an anti-Macedonian movement emerged from the lower classes around the leader Demosthenes . After a revolt of the Greeks against Alexander, however, they were defeated by the Macedonian general Antipater , the Athenian democracy was history and was subsequently completely destroyed by the combined forces of the possessing class, the Macedonians and the Romans.
Of the class struggle on an ideological level, almost only evidence of the struggle of the haves has been handed down. This tried to convince the slaves of the immutability of reality, to force their fear through strength and to make them compliant through threats, rewards and the prospect of release. It's after Ste. Croix to assume that the possessing class did not question slavery, and in some cases even considered it right. A view that may have been adopted by the other sections of the population. After Plato, an intellectual elite was best suited to government, and Ste. Is one of the other explicit anti-democrats. Croix on: Homer, Aristophanes , Archytas of Taranto , the Pythagoreans and Plutarch . According to the theory of "natural slavery" (Ste. Croix finds it especially in Plato and Aristotle), there were Greeks and barbarians (non-Greeks). The latter were enslaved by the Greeks without scruples. As the last two points on the class struggle on an ideological level, Ste. Croix the democratic ideology according to which every citizen was able to govern and finally the opium for the people, the overvaluation of infinite, religious questions at the expense of economic, social and political.
literature
- Geoffrey de Ste. Croix: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests , Duckworth, London 1981 (several new editions)
- Geoffrey de Ste. Croix: Class in Marx's Conception of History, Ancient and Modern . In: New Left Review Volume 1, Number 146, 1984, pp. 94-111
Individual evidence
- ↑ Geoffrey de Ste. Croix: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests , Duckworth, London 1981, p. 210.
- ↑ Geoffrey de Ste. Croix: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests , Duckworth, London 1981, here: Preface .
- ↑ George Thomson: The First Philosophers. Studies in Ancient Greek Society. Lawrence & Wishart, London 1972 (1st edition: 1955)
- ^ Margaret O. Wason: Class struggles in ancient Greece. Gollancz, London 1947
- ^ Moses I. Finley: The Ancient Economy. University of California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles 1973, p. 49.
- ^ Karl Marx: Marx-Engels works. 4. p. 462f.
- ↑ The passages on Aristotle follow: Ste. Croix: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World , pp. 60f. and 69-81.
- ↑ Aristotle, Politics 1295b1 ff. And 1296b34 ff.
- ↑ Aristotle, Politics 1279b16 ff. And 1290a40 ff.
- ↑ Ste. Croix: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World , p. 74.
- ↑ Aristotle, Politics 1290b38 ff. And 1291a33 ff.
- ↑ Aristotle, Politik 1321a5-6 and Chapter IV, 4
- ↑ This section on Plato follows: Ste. Croix: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World , pp. 70-71.
- ↑ Ste. Croix: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World , p. 70.
- ↑ Ste. Croix: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World , p. 71.
- ↑ Ste. Croix: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World , p. 43.
- ↑ Ste. Croix: Class in Marx's Conception of History, Ancient and Modern , p. 99.
- ↑ Ste. Croix: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World , p. 47f.
- ↑ Ste. Croix: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World , p. 45.
- ↑ Karl Marx, Marx-Engels-Werke 23,231
- ^ Karl Marx, Marx-Engels-Werke 25, 815; see. 23.354.
- ↑ Ste. Croix: Class in Marx's Conception of History, Ancient and Modern , pp. 107f.
- ↑ Plato, Politeia 371; Politikos 290a, Laws 918b; 742a
- ^ Pseudo-Aristotle, Oikonomika 1344a.