Talk:Primitive communism

Apparent Studies

The article currently states that primitive communism has been studied by Bronislaw Malinowski and Marcel Mauss. But Malinowski explicitly attacks the idea of primitive communism in Argonauts of the Western Pacific, just as he attacks "economic man". Marcel Mauss also seems inappropiate, since he primarily studied gift exchange, and his characterizations do not seem to fit the bill. I cannot comment on Mead, but this line seems misleading and innapropiate and I will remove it. Nik323 (talk) 22:28, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Still not factual

"Because society produced a surplus of food, there was the opportunity for private ownership and slavery, with the inequality that it entailed. In addition, since food production no longer required everyone's full-time attention, a portion of the population was freed up for other activities, such as manufacturing, culture, philosophy, and science. This stratification is said to lead to the development of social classes."

Or can anyone give a good and rellevant source for this? (I doubt that) I will remove this part soon if noone can motivate it...

Is it factual anyway? It's likely that stone age societies had priests and chiefs who got more than an equal share of mammoth meat in exchange for talking to the Big Sky Fella or leading the charge against the tribe in the next valley. Primitive communism is a nice theory but unproven.Vortinax (talk) 13:18, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with those who say that whether it is factual or not is beside the point. It is a fact that Marx and Engels and other early communists embraced this idea, and thats the point. Presently, it is only the introductory quote that makes this clear, the rest of the article proceeds as if it were proven fact, and this should be changed. Then we can have a battleground section that discusses the factual accuracy, pro and con, highly referenced, of course. PAR (talk) 23:37, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Hunter gatherer societies do not, in fact, have hierarchies in the sense you are describing. It is one of the hallmarks of these groups worldwide. The only example of evidence for a priestly caste or hereditary rule in hunter gatherer societies has been found in the Amazon rainforest, among groups that we now know (from archaeological evidence) used to live in large agricultural societies before the devastations caused by European diseases. In those cases the current situation is a remnant from a former agricultural societal state. --129.11.13.73 (talk) 02:07, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

If Vortinax had pondered the consequences of his proposal, he might already have seen the problem: What would a priest or chief do with his enlarged share of meat? The point is that in a primitive society like this, you can only consume as much as everyone else, and you cannot store food for very long, so accumulating possessions is impossible and pointless, and the "more than an equal share of mammoth meat" would be useless. Obviously he has no concept of how a truly primitive (hunter-gatherer) society works and therefore anachronistically conflates his attempted portrayal of one such society with non-primitive (non-hunter-gatherer) societies, employing concepts alien to the one but familiar from the other. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:34, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Fine - These are all statements that are unreferenced. With references, they could go into a section outlining possibly conflicting, published points of view on the subject. They should be published results from anthropological or sociological scientists, not propaganda tracts from one side or the other. PAR (talk) 23:07, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

The section Hunter-gatherer#Social and economic structure is referenced and does support the general idea. It is true that I was overgeneralising a bit. Hunter-gatherer societies are all different, and there are exceptions to seemingly almost every rule. For example, the Jomon of Japan were essentially hunter-gatherers, not agriculturists, but they were sedentary and even had pottery. The exceptional fertility of the Japanese archipelago is the reason why they could afford to be sedentary despite not practicing agriculture (or only in a rudimentary form). Conceivably, such a society need not be as egalitarian as a more typical foraging society. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:41, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

"What would a priest or chief do with his enlarged share of meat?" Eat it. You are the one who is not pondering consequences. People living in hunter gatherer societies were almost constantly impoverished, so if someone was able to acquire a greater share of food, they would use it. You also seem to forget that some people are more skilled at hunting or tracking or foraging than others, so even if they didn't get more material possessions, they still had power over others, therefore indicating a hierarchy, by definition. Their number one concern was survival, not egalitarianism. Therefore The idea that hunter-gatherers were communistic and stateless is clearly false, based on simple logic.174.73.5.74 (talk) 01:03, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Primitive commmunism

Marxism quizm: What was exactly described in Marx works: primitive communism or primitive socialism? Mikkalai 07:04, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Primitive communism - because this system involved no social classes, no private property and no state, thus fitting the description of communism rather than socialism. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 20:12, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Merge

I merged this page w Primitivism. See Talk:Primitivism. Cheers, Sam Spade (talk · contribs) 12:04, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I unmerged it, because these are two related but distinguishable concepts. Kev 00:27, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I filed an RfC, lets allow others to decide. I might agree w you about some aspects of primitivism, but anarcho-primitivism shoul;d redirect here. Sam Spade (talk · contribs) 08:22, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sam, primitivism and primative communism are two different things. One is an anti-modernist, anti-techonology critique held by some anarchists who advocate the abandonment of technological society, the other is a stage in the Marxist theory of historical development, a theory which is not anti-modernist or anti-technology and does not advocate a return to said historical stage. Conflating the two only causes confusion. There is no reason why they shouldn't be seperate articles given that they reflect different theories and have completely different uses. AndyL 08:53, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sam, primitivism and primative communism are two different things. One is an anti-modernist, anti-techonology critique held by some anarchists who advocate the abandonment of technological society, the other is a stage in the Marxist theory of historical development, a theory which is not anti-modernist or anti-technology and does not advocate a return to said historical stage. Conflating the two only causes confusion. There is no reason why they shouldn't be seperate articles given that they reflect different theories and have completely different uses. AndyL 08:54, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Since you are the only person on either this talk page or the primitivism talk page who advocates merging the articles I suggest you desist from acting unilaterally and allow the articles to remain seperate until and unless you are able to form a consensus in favour of merging. At present the consensus is against it. AndyL 08:54, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Merging primitivism and primative communism is a bit like merging agrarianism and agriculture. AndyL 08:57, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sam's antics are nothing if not amusing. He has a history of attempts to delete content and skew articles written about anarchism, the anarchism, libertarian socialism, and anarcho-capitalism talk pages speak for themselves. He then comes to the primitivism page and attempts to conflate it with another page that is related in subject matter but conceptually distinct. He offers -no- arguments for this, asks no questions, simply makes the delcaration that he has done this. Then, when he finds his attempts reverted, he instantly cries foul, "No one gave a reason for this!" and lists the page on request for comment. Did he try to discuss this beforehand, did he try to discuss it after his newest crusade was reverted and before creating a request for comment page? No and nope, but he found plenty of time to complain when his unilateral behavior didn't net the results he sought. Very consistent with Sam's history of trying to represent himself as following wikipedia form while doing his very best to undermine its process. Kev 14:33, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

not factual

"Life for the earliest humans was difficult and precarious, marked by a constant struggle to obtain food."

i doubt any other undomesticated animal would see their life as being difficult or full of struggle.

To the "not factual" whiners

This article is not (nor is Wikipedia as a whole) necessarily about determining what is true. This particular article is about Marx & Engels' views of what they called "primitive communism." Whether such a state of being ever existed, or whether they accurately described it, if it did exist, is immaterial. The Almagest article doesn't argue with Ptolemy's conclusions, it merely describes them. That's the proper role of an encyclopedia regarding historical subjects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.214.138 (talk) 14:13, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with you that Wikipedia is not about determining what is true but rather present ideas, concepts, events, etcetera in a true manner. However this particular article is at the moment completely wrong. The Almagest article you yourself point to is a very good article because it is very clear from start to finish that it is a book and it presents the contents of that book. In this article the introduction is good, because the citation from the reference hits the nail on the head (e.g. it's an idea by this person and this is what he believes by it). However it then goes on to say that "The model of primitive communism applies to early human societies" which to me (and anyone) sounds like a fact statement that the concept dreamed up by this man actually is a historic fact. Reality is that we don't have any real idea about how life and society was in these very, very early human groups. Andersrask1977 (talk) 11:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

"Voluntary" v "Mandated" sharing

"Moreover, any sharing of food, clothes, etc. is likely to have been voluntary in pre-agrarian societies which is also in conflict with communism's mandated sharing." Interpretations of this line range from factually inaccurate to completely meaningless (What is "mandated sharing"?). It seems to be a poor depiction of (non-primitive) communism, and has no citation on it. Enigmocracy (talk) 23:58, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Merge (2012)

• Do not merge - Article is sufficiently sourced to provide a reasonably detailed stand-alone article for this notable concept. - SummerPhD (talk) 02:19, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
• Do not merge. Concept is notable enough in itself. InverseHypercube (talk) 21:56, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
• Do not merge. it is a concept in its own right Bebel (talk) 22:49, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sorry for no heading.

I like the article as it is without the word 'Marxism' which comes with too much political baggage for some enquirers, such as me. Tolkny 11:04, 4 January 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tolkny (talk • contribs)

I agree that the articles should remain separate. I've seen the term even outside of Marxist literature, which shows that proper coverage of the topic would require going beyond Marxism. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 22:38, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The german article about "Urkommunismus" is a real mess.....

The german Wikipedia-article about "Urkommunismus" is a real mess..... because the German Wikipedia is controlled by counterrevolutionaries bourgeois capitalist Wikipedia administrators which try to block each guy which is not in their own opinion, they want to deny the Urcommunism and don't even know the excavations about Chatal Hüyük by Prof. James Mellaart, Naomi Hamilton, Mehmet Özdogan and Prof. Ian Hodder. Is there someone here which will take care of this little problem and someone who speak german? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.151.14.153 (talk) 11:19, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Iroquois

No comment about the fact Iroquois Nation was/is not of hunter gatherers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 181.9.132.192 (talk) 10:50, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Hierarchy among Chimpanzees and Gorillas

I just wanted to mention a possible criticism of the idea in that both Chimpanzees (our closest ancestor) and Gorillas have a hierarchical society and that they have this even though they lack farming or husbandry. For that matter all social animals, even insects have hierarchy. Sources as follows: https://news.janegoodall.org/2018/07/10/top-bottom-chimpanzee-social-hierarchy-amazing/ https://www.gorillas-world.com/gorilla-social-structure/ https://www.britannica.com/animal/social-insect — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:644:680:6D80:1C13:9D76:3C68:4DFC (talk) 03:32, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Primitive communism/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 20:58, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm taking the whole package, I think! Comments follow soon. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:58, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

1. You give first names for Marx and Engels but not for Morgan … should be consistent
2. which was structure like the – structured?
3. phase which was structure like the populations ancient Germany – but you don't mention how they were structured, this should be specified.
4. With the San people of southern Africa being a basis for Kropotkin's anthropological work on anarchism and gift economies in mutual aid. – doesn't read like an actual sentence.
5. Non-Marxist scholars of prehistory and early history, did not take the term seriously, – comma too much
6. have looked at the applying the term of primitive – something wrong here.
7. Regarding the content: I'm surprised that the aspect of scale is not discussed. Communism, as generally understood, is something of larger scale. I think you could argue that there is some form of communism found to be within modern western families, and the same might be true for some "primitive" groups were everybody knows each other within the group. But isn't this a very important difference to large-scale communism that works for a whole country?
8. There are various "citation needed" tags; these need to be resolved.
9. Article needs a copy edit for language, especially concerning use of commas. It currently does not reach the "well written" GA criterion. Could you go through the article watching out for these issues?

• Article still needs some work to reach GA. Please ping me once the above are addressed, and I will do a second go-through. Thanks, --Jens Lallensack (talk) 13:17, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jens Lallensack: Correspondingly:

1. Changed to match
2. Corrected
3. Specified
4. Corrected
5. Corrected
6. Corrected
7. In criticism added a couple of sentences with citations that support the question of scale, I will try to find more/better citations for it over the next couple of days.
8. Added citations
9. Started to correct, will take a while to go through all, and I am not the best with grammar so my attempts may still fall short. But we will see when you reassess once I've gone through it all.

Thank you for taking the time to review --Cdjp1 (talk) 16:52, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Understood; please ping me when I should take a second look. One more point regarding language, a sentence you just added: Particularly in relation to the difference in scale from small communal groups to the size of modern nation-states. – This is not a complete sentence because a subjective is missing. In this case, you could solve it by combining with the preceding sentence (using a comma). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:50, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jens Lallensack:, some copyediting has been done to try to correct grammatical and structural errors. It has also been submitted to to the CopyEditor Guild for a better and more comprehensive C/E review. --Cdjp1 (talk) 11:51, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

• Engels needs to be introduced in main text.
• what was produced was quickly consumed and this was because there existed no division of labour, hence people were forced to work together – three aspects mentioned here, but I have no idea how they are supposed to be related. I don't follow.
• (the means of production (tools and land), housing) – best avoid the gloss (and especially the double-gloss) by going with something like "such as"
• matrilocal residence and matrilineal descent – link terms?
• was seen as the turning point – why past tense? The lead says "Primitive communism is a way of". And who did see this?
• The characteristics section describes primitive communism but does not make clear who's point of view this is. Does this need to be attributed?
• Egalitarian and communist-like hunter-gatherer societies – is it consensus that they were "communist-like"?
• Lee criticizes the mainstream and dominant culture's long-time bias against the idea of primitive communism, – that seems to go against WP:NPOV
• resistance to primate-style sexual and political dominance – I'm inclined to question this; how is this supported?
• Anthropologists such as Christopher Boehm,[62] Chris Knight[63] and Lewis[64] offer theoretical accounts to explain how communistic – At least the first author doesn't seem to describe these communities as "communistic".
• evolutionary change – what do you mean by that? I doubt it has to do with evolution.
• who has said that – remove "has"?
• Testart does support – Testart is already deceased.
• Marx and Engels, however, did not argue communism brought about equality as according to them equality was a concept without connection in physical reality – I can't follow this one, can this be better explained? Do they argue that equality cannot exist?
• Arnold Petersen has used the existence of primitive communism – But does it exist? There does not seem to be a consensus?

Note: I think that the article still has multiple issues. I questioned various things above (I'm certainly not correct with everything). But I find this review difficult. I can say that the article is not on GA level just yet, but I'm not sure if I have the ability/knowledge to guide you there, or to fully assess this topic. More eyes would really help here, bringing this article into shape is not something a single reviewer can do. What about closing this now and moving over to WP:Peer Review, just to get more varied input which will certainly help? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:45, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Status query

Jens Lallensack, Cdjp1, where does this review stand? There was some reference formatting work a little over a week ago, but otherwise there doesn't seem to have been anything since the most recent posts here. Thank you. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:25, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

BlueMoonset, It hasn't been picked up by Guild of Copy Editors yet, so best to fail for now and I will resubmit once GCE have looked through it. --Cdjp1 (talk) 09:19, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Will close now, then, I feel that the article is still quite a distance from GA, and we may not be able to close that distance during a GAN. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:07, 25 February 2022 (UTC)