MARXIST ANTHROPOLOGY

By Sarah Morrow and Robert Lusteck

https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/marxist-anthropology/

BASIC PREMISES

Marxism is essentially an economic interpretation of history based primarily on the works

of Karl Marx and Frederich Engels. Marx was a revolutionary who focused his efforts on
understanding capitalism to overthrow it. The rationale for the development of capitalism
and the need to move towards communism is developed fully in Capital (1867), but
introduced in The Communist Manifesto (1848). Marx, whose orientation was largely
materialist and historicist, framed his analysis around four central points: the physical
reality of people, the organization of social relations, the value of the historical context of
development, and the human nature of continuous praxis.

As far as anthropology is concerned, the foundational work is Engels’ The Origin of the

Family, Private Property, and the State: In Light of the Investigations of Lewis H.
Morgan (1884). Lewis Henry Morgan’s materialist focus had lead Marx to making
extensive notes on Ancient Society (1877), which Engels would later expand into The
Origin…. Both of these men were influenced by Louis Henry Morgan and his model of
social evolution based on material concerns. Morgan proposed that societies moved from
more primitive to more civilized stages of development. The Marxist version of this
resulted in transitions of stage from primitive communism, through feudalism and
capitalism, to communism; stages are judged in terms of the modes of production which
dominate each stage. Marx did not see these stages as progressive steps that every culture
must progress through, but as being the development of historically contingent
communities and their modes of production.

The modes of production form the base or infrastructure of a society. This base
determines the superstructure (laws, governments, and other legal and political apparati),
and both determine the ideology (including philosophies, religions, and the ideals which
prevail in a society at any one time). Class struggle is the prime mover for such a system
to advance stages. It is inevitable that change will occur and that the classes will realign
themselves. However the ruling classes have a vested interest in maintaining their power
and will seek to resist such change, though futilely in the long run, by whatever means
they can. A key tool of the ruling classes is the elaboration of mystification in ideology,
which results in the false consciousness of the lower class. Social evolution can be
slowed, but not stopped.

POINTS OF REACTION

Marxist anthropology came about through the works of Marx and Engels and their
followers. It developed as a critique and alternative to the domination of Euro-American
capitalism and Eurocentric perspectives in the social sciences. Marx was heavily
influenced by extensive reading of Classical and Enlightenment era philosophers.
Epicurean thought, which focused on the agency of the individual, the absence of a divine
power, and the importance of contingency over teleology, was pervasive in Marx’s
writing, including his dissertation work. Rousseau’s emphasis on history as being a self
correcting tool to validate or contradict the statements of politicians clearly influences
Marx’s understanding of the connection between the structure and the mode of
production.

Hegel’s work, which had the most significant impact on Marx, centered on  the
community (while Kant centered on the individual) and its role in the historically
contingent realities in which it exists. Marx would spend much of his career drawing
from and critiquing Hegel. The emphasis on the ability of humans to produce social
change, the contradictory relationships of power, and the need for systematic
investigation into the nature of social problems was very influential to Marx (see
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit from 1807). However, Hegel advocated a teleological
approach to social change that Marx would reject throughout his later works. When
Darwin posited his theory of Natural Selection in The Origin of Species (1859), Marx
took the argument to be self evident and intuitive to his understanding of both the natural
world and humanity’s role within it.

LEADING FIGURES

Marx, Karl (1818-1883): Marx is often called the most successful social scientist of all
time. Born in 1818, Marx lived during a period that allowed him to document the ways in
which capitalism and the rise of industry influenced class structures. As a Jewish born
Prussian, Marx experienced social divisions from an early age, despite his family being
of notable wealth. His time at the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin would
lead him to explore philosophical inquires relating to the emancipation of man from
religious and political structures. Drawing from Hegel, Marx was an advocate of
understanding economic and political changes as a historically contingent dialectic. His
Hegelian idealism would diminish over the course of his writings and he would begin to
approach his work with a more systematic, scientific approach. The emphasis on
understanding these changes through material concerns would lead Marx to identify
production as being at the heart of class differences.

By looking at capitalism in a holistic fashion, Marx developed a theory of change based

around the need for social classes to become equal as the modes and relations of
production changed. Marx emphasized that the central component of the worker’s
revolution was not philosophical concerns, but action. Through analysis of failed
revolutions, successful revolutions, and nations on the verge of revolution, Marx believed
that the criteria for a successful communist nation could be discerned. In the process, he
developed a set of economic structures and their progressive development. His life was
marked by constant pressure from various governments across Europe, multiple
expulsions from European countries, and a strong family connection to social
movements. Without a doubt, he was one of the first true social scientists and, standing
alongside Durkheim and Weber, one of the most influential social scientists in history.
Engels, Friedrich(1820-1895): Engels was Marx’s colleague and friend who aided Marx
in the establishment of his theories on society and continued to work on Marxist ideas
after Marx’s death. Engels experienced the plight of English workers through the eyes of
a young industrialist. His unique perspective, published in his first major work The
Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1844), allowed him to identify the
working-class as the origin of social action. Engels’ orientation allowed him to connect
heavily with Karl Marx. The two philosophers collaborated until Marx’s death in 1883.

Engels then went on to edit and reevaluate Marx’s notes for futher publication. Engels is
often seen as the scapegoat for the failure of the Soviet Union and other such
manifestations of communism due to his emphasis on hierarchy. This does not seem to be
a fair assessment. Engels and Marx wrote collaboratively, so dividing the work as
belonging to solely one or the other is a difficult, and a questionable, task.

Bloch, Maurice (1939- ): Bloch is a British anthropologist and a well-known defender of

French Marxism and Marxist anthropology. He is often noted as a key figure in the
introduction of the revival of French Marxism to British Social Anthropology. Ideology,
cognition, and language have been at the center of Bloch’s work. These are seen as
indicators of the differential distribution of power within a structured system.

Wolf, Eric (1923-1999): Wolf was a Marxist who proposed three modes of production in
his prominent work Europe and the People Without History (1982): capitalist, tributary,
and kin-ordered. Wolf was a significant figure in the field of American anthropology. As
a student of Julian Steward, Wolf was exposed to Marxism early in his academic career.
Wolf critiqued Western history for over emphasizing the role of aristocratic figures and
underplaying the history and dynamic nature of non-Western and subordinate cultures.
The academic divisions within the social sciences was evaluated as being a false division,
as well, that denied the complexity of humanity. In this sense, Wolf saw Marx as being a
true anthropologist by evaluating capitalism in a holistic sense.
Gramsci, Antonio(1891-1937): One of the leading figures in Marxism prior to World
War II and an Italian communist who formulated the idea of hegemony. He is considered
one of the greatest Marixst philosophers of the 20th Century. Gramsci saw human history
as being key to the Marxist agenda of social change and that nature only mattered to the
point that it interacted with mankind. Here, Gramsci separated his own socialist theories
from from the materialist concerns of orthodox Marxism. The concept of cultural
hegemony was articulated by Gramsci in order to explain why the revolution had not
occurred. Gramsci was imprisoned for his ideas during Mussolini’s reign and died in a
prison hospital.

Althusser, Louis (1918-1990): Althusser was a very influential neo-Marxist in the

1960’s, who introduced a structuralist approach to Marxism. Althusser was known for
taking a critical stance on the French Marxist School and the Structural Marxist School,
but selectively utilizing key theory points from both schools in order to address Marxism
in economics. Althusser’s career was marked by mental illness and the murder of his
wife.

Godelier, Maurice (1934- ): A French Marxist and proponent of economic

anthropology. Godelier is a strong advocate of anthropology embracing a Marxist theory
with a Structuralist bent. His work focuses on understanding what modes of production,
superstructure, and infrastructure would look like for non-Western cultures. Critics of this
version of French Marxism claimed that Godelier tried to force a capital structure onto
the history of non-Western peoples who had not been capitalist societies before contact
with the West.

KEY WORKS

The Communist Manifesto (1848): The best known of Marx and Engels’ works and one
of the most eloquent calls to social action ever published. The Communist Manifesto lays
out Marxism’s basic economic theories, shows the basic struggle between classes, and
recommends action against the ‘specter’ of capitalism.
Das Kapital or Capital (1867): One of Marx’s most complete and mature works, the
aim of Capital is to show how the capitalist system is exploitative in that it “transfers the
fruit of the work of the majority…to a minority” and questions why this condition
continues. Marx’s solution to this problem is ideology, which blinds the workers to the
truth of their plight.

Ancient Society (1877): In this anthropological classic, Lewis Henry Morgan takes a
social evolutionary approach to understanding changes in material culture. This would
become a deeply influential text to Marx and Engels as it verified the central role that
material goods play in developing a centralized economy and the subsequent emphasis
that emerges on private property. This work would become the basis for Engels’ The
Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884): Engels most
influential work in anthropology, it presents the evolution of humankind from primitive
communism, to slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and finally, industrial communism which
would transcend the classes of the prior three stages.

The Evolution of Culture (1959): Leslie White develops his argument about the nature
of culture and the role that material culture plays in this classic text. Here, White
articulates his grand theory about the ways that the technological aspects of culture create
the structural aspects of culture, which in turn create the ideological aspects of culture.
This is a clearly Marxist understanding of culture as material. It is aimed at the
technological sphere with the understanding that demystification at the level of the
ideological sphere can only occur with a clear understanding of the impact of the
technology on individuals. The value of labor is articulated here as the physical energy of
the individual.

Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology (1973): This collection of essays by Maurice

Godelier investigates the potential applications of a Marxist analysis to precapitalist
cultures. By looking at economic systems as historically contingent with the modes of
production, Godelier saw the aspects of culture and society that related to economic
change as multifunctional traits. These traits shifted in response to the needs of the
developing economy and must be studied as scientific objects. This is then applied to
what had been called “primitive” cultures.

The Modern World-System Vols I-IV (beginning in 1974): In this series, Wallerstein
charts the origins of the world system. World Systems theory proposes interconnectivity
between nations in the form of some locations being at the center of the line of
production (core), while others are more peripheral (periphery or semi-periphery).
Wallerstein relates this global movement to the capitalist emphasis on production and the
historical contingency of where and when capitalism enters peripheral locations. This
shift usually occurred in response to power differentials between classes and
Western/non-Western cultures. Here, the system itself is the focus of analysis, not the
components.

Europe and the People Without History (1982): Wolf’s influential critique of Western
scholarship focuses on the power roles that have become ingrained in social science
discourse and the lack of consideration of  unwritten history. While focusing on the
relevant modes of production, Wolf notes that the image of cultures without written
records as being unchanging before contact with European powers is detrimental. This
exoticization of the ‘other’ robs cultures of their history and agency in their own
development. Wolf also advocates for a more holistic, interdisciplinary approach to
understanding the ever spreading reach of capitalism.

Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (1986): Sidney Mintz
reviews the history of sugar as a commodity over the last 1,000 years with an emphasis
on the role of labor and production. Mintz argues that “sweetness” has had a strong
influence on the historical development of power relations and exchange. By focusing on
sugar and its holistic relationship with society, Mintz successfully argues the Marxist
ideal of an integrated approach.
Critical Medical Anthropology (1995): Merrill Singer and Hans Baer investigate the
ways in which medical systems mirror power differentials in social classes. By looking at
the intersection of the individual, economic forces, and political systems, Singer and Baer
argue that current medical practices are indicative of an exchange of goods. Critical
medical anthropology focuses on these violations of human rights through a careful
analysis of the political economy of health disparities.

PRINCIPAL CONCEPTS

Dialectical Materialism: This is the philosophical school of Marxism. A focus on the

dialectical relationship between the historical contingency of the structure, the material
production, and the community is at the center of this theoretical model.

Base and Superstructure: The base consists of the forces and relations of power that are
influential to the community. The superstructure is the political, economic, and legal
organization of the structure. Standing beside this superstructure is the ideological
structure. This system is often cited as a flaw in Marxism and seen as a kind of political
economy determinism.

Labor: This is productive labor, that work which is needed to sustain production and go
beyond the level of the immediate producer. Labor is the sum of the work of the
individual through the means of labor and the subject of labor. Labor disappears in the
product, as the result is its value.

Means of Production: The means of production include both the technology or tools

with which production is being completed (means of labor) and the raw materials that are
being transformed during production (subject of labor).

Forces of Production: The things we use to produce what we need, including the means
of production and labor (including both physical and mental capacities): that is, the
combination of the power of labor, the technology of tools used, and the raw materials
being converted.
Relations of Production: The relationships that individuals are forced to develop to
survive within a capitalist-driven system and to produce and reproduce their means.
These relationships vary between the members of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
Control of the relations of production comes from ownership of the means of production.

Mode of Production: The way in which all required aspects of everyday life are
produced. The mode of production is dictated by the relations of production and the
forces of production. The forces of production determine the general mode of production,
but only within the confines of the relations of production. When the relations of
production conflict with the forces of production, the mode of production must change.
This forced change usually happens when the forces of production advance beyond the
locus of control for the current version of the relations of production, i.e., a class struggle
will occur in response to a disconnection between relation and force. This will continue
until the mode of production meets the needs of both.

Immediate Producer: The immediate producers are those who produce what they
themselves consume and more/surplus. The surplus production is that which is in excess
of the immediate producer’s consumption. In a capitalist system the product is never the
property of the producer, however. The product is the property of the capitalist.

Class: Classes are groups consisting of those individuals who occupy similar positions in
relationship to the  means of production and forces of production. Class divides societies
because some possess control of the relations of production through ownership of the
means of production and some do not. The rise of private property and the state is the
source of these class distinctions. Dialectical materialism states that these class
distinctions lead to social solidarity through a collective consciousness.

Communism: Communism is a classless society in which individuals control their own

labor through a shared structure of general production. ?There is no private property
(beyond personal effects), and all hold in common the means of production.

METHODOLOGIES
Marx did not leave a clear methodological framework for his philosophy. One of the
basic methods of Marxist anthropology is to try to find classes in societies around the
world, and examine the ways in which they interact. Marx, himself, focused on this kind
of ethnographic research by developing individual case studies. When a political order
based on class is found which seems to lack class conflict, special attention is paid.
Attention has also been paid to the ways in which cultures resist the spread of capitalism.
It has often been felt that Marxism is particularly well-suited to ferreting out the hidden
resistance present in religion and ideology.

Marxism is dedicated to examining the modes of production present in any society, and
there may be more than one present. The dialectical method is also an important concept
in Marxism, which is built on the examination of contradictions between classes, ideas,
etc.. When well-applied, the Marxist framework can be used to examine the
developments of some societies at various scales. However, there is no one unifying
method or vision in Marxism. This is complicated by discussions of “Marxist”,
“Marxian”, and “Marxism” as differing concepts (Maquet, 1984).

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Marxism formed the basis for the anthropologies, and indeed, the governments, of both
China and the Soviet Union/Russia. The idea that the most successful groups seeking a
communist life would be societies with a peasant class capable of understanding the
benefits of sharing resources fit well here. The peasant class of Russia was seen by Marx
as the ideal breeding ground for communism. However, the resulting Soviet Union may
not have been what Marx had in mind. In Europe and North America, it was highly
unpopular to be associated with Marxism until well after World War II. The works of
other anthropologists, like Boas and Malinowski, made it further “unfashionable” to be
associated with such ideas. Materialist concerns were not popular with the Boasians, nor
was Marxism an acceptable orientation due to the political implications of Communism
(of  the Soviet sort). The impact of being labeled “red” kept many Western Marxist
anthropologists in the closet until after the end of McCarthyism.
Marxism in anthropology has served to raise a number of questions in anthropological
reasoning. It has resulted in several other approaches in anthropology, including cultural
materialism and cultural ecology. The agenda of Marxism was conveyed by Leslie White
(1900-1975) when he focused American Materialism on the technological sphere of
cultures and its influence on the creation of the structure and the ideology of cultures. In
other words, White identified the mode of production, its relation of production, and the
ways in which the dominant powers utilize mystification to control production and labor
(Peace, 2004). Cultural Ecology was championed by Julian Steward (1902-1972).
Steward looked at the material concerns of mankind in relation to the environment. Marx
had always made a point of noting that humans are a part of the natural world. With this
in mind, Steward looked at the connections between environment and possible modes of
production.

It has also added to the efforts of feminist anthropology and has had a number of
influences on archaeology, an endeavor which centers around the interpretation of the
material remains of social action. Feminist Post-Marxism is drawn on heavily by Judith
Butler (1956-). Here, Feminist and Queer Anthropology see the linguistic differentiation
between genders as an example of a power struggle imposed by structure. Butler
extrapolates further to indicate that utilizing this kind of language is a performance act,
per Marx’s ideas concerning the  recreation of social structure in everyday encounters
and Michel Foucault’s subjugation theory.

The link between gender, sexuality, language, and class power has also been explored by
Sally McConnell-Ginet. Her analysis of the impact of diagnostic terminology and
terminology of social solidarity in gender and sexuality indicates that dominate class
views are deeply pervasive in language (McConnell-Ginet, 2002). The French Marxist
school of thought brought together Marxist philosophy, Levi-Strauss’ Structuralism, and
what would become known as Postmodernism. The post-WWII developments included
the Existentialist Marxism of Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980), the rejection of total history
by Michel Foucault (1926-1984), and the Structural Marxism of Althusser. French
Marxism collapsed after the protests of 1968 and the failure of the revolution.

In recent years, Marxism has been evaluated as being something of a passé model for
theory and has been overlooked in many areas. Anthropology, however, has maintained
an air of Marxism due to the tendency for anthropologists to promote a social justice
orientation. Neo-Marxism has become more pervasive under the name of Political
Economy. Contemporary Political Economy focuses on the tangible disparities between
differing socioeconomic groups due to political influences.

The works of Wolf, Andre Gunder Frank (1929-2005), Immanuel Wallerstein (1930 – ),
and the more recent work of Noam Chomsky (1928 – ) all relate to Political Economy
and Hegemony, while selectively pulling from Marx and Gramsci. Since the publication
of Building a New Biocultural Synthesis: Political-Economic Perspectives on Human
Biology (Goodman & Leatherman, 1998), the connections between class disparities,
health statuses, and access to resources have been clear to applied biocultural
anthropologists. The political economy of language has become a notable area of inquiry,
including the ways in which language is a tool for economic exchange (Irvine, 1989). The
lasting legacy of Marx is this increased awareness of the broader impact of class
structures on virtually all human populations..

CRITICISMS

One of the main criticisms of Marxism is that it is not particularly anthropological in

nature, not being interested in culture and ethnography per se. Marx, however, completed
many case studies on the successes and failures of specific cultures and social groups in
creating his philosophy When anthropologists did apply it in a more anthropological
framework, it looked less and less like Marxism. Marxism has been restricted by its
inability “to deal with culture as a distinct and irreducible order of signs and meanings”.
One criticism of Marxists themselves is that they have often “built their work on
unacknowledged Marxist assumptions about the importance of class and inequality in
social life without properly confronting either the strengths or the weaknesses of Marxist
theory”.

A major criticism is that Marxism has no particular unified aim or method; many
Marxists argue more among themselves than with other theorists. Marxism has also been
criticized on its definition of ideology which puts it forth as a plot created by the ruling
class to mystify the lower class. Further, how the ideology spreads is also unclear.
Another problem that Marxism has faced is in the evaluation of societies that do not
possess any classes; how and why did ‘primitive communism’ change without a conflict
of classes? In many societies, kinship, religion, and ethnicity seem to have provided
stronger connections than has class.

When viewed independently, this critique makes sense. No aspect of culture operates in
isolation, however.  All elements of social systems, such as kinship, religion, and
ethnicity can reflect social class. Other terms in Marxism have also been criticized, such
as the labor theory of value, which states that the value of work is the cost of materials
and labor involved, a definition which assumes voluntary cooperation of laborers and
does not include management costs and responsibilities. Today, Marxism is criticized for
overemphasizing the reach of capitalism.

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