Civilisation as a Vampire Death Cult

The term ‘civilisation’ is normally used when a society is being praised for glorious technical, social and cultural achievements. I want to turn that assessment on its head. I will use a sociological term for what are typically called ‘civilisations’. Class society. What are the common features of class societies throughout history?  Class is not inevitable and is in fact an invention. Yet, since class society has been established, it has been difficult to dislodge. Understanding how the class machine works can help us to see why.

Transcript

Ch 17: Civilisation as a vampire death cult
Terry Leahy 2025

This part C of ‘Riddles of History’ is about class society. How class society comes about, what is class society, different theories from sociologists, archaeologists and historians on these topics. 

One way of talking about this is to talk about ‘civilization.’ This term is usually used to heap praise on some society. Look, they have ‘achieved’ civilisation. This way of looking at it has become slightly less popular as people have made the point that Indigenous societies are also praiseworthy. One response is to start using the term ‘civilisation’ for any social regime whatsoever. For example, Native American civilisation and so on. I do not do that. For me the term civilisation at the least implies cities.  A hallmark of what I am most likely to call ‘class society.’ The most common way of looking at world history is to use the term ‘civilisation’ in the old way, to indicate a higher order of human social organisation. 

I want to interrogate that positive view of civilisation. A view that we find in the media and popular documentaries. To suggest that ‘civilisation’ is more like a vampire death cult. 

So let us start off by using the language of sociologists. What we hear called civilisations are what sociologists refer to as ‘class societies.’ So, what is social class? The approach I favour could be called a ‘humanist’ approach. It is premised on ideas about human nature. As discussed in more detail in part A of Riddles of History. 

So, the first aspect of the definition of social class is that social class is a form of exploitation. In a humanist approach, exploitation is defined in relation to the basic desires that make up human nature. Autonomy, creativity, sexuality, sociability, hunger, health and comfort. In the context of this humanist approach, exploitation works like this. Exploitation is a relationship between at least two groups. A ruling group and an exploited subordinate group. In transactions between the ruling group and the subordinate group, the ruling group regularly gets satisfactions of the basic desires of human nature from these transactions. Whereas the subordinate group gets frustrations of their basic desires. Or at least they don't get an equivalent return of satisfactions of their basic desires. There's a systematic pattern of unequal transactions, which tend in one direction rather than the other.

If you take that as being a general theory of exploitation, then let's look at social class as a form of exploitation. Using the terminology used by Marx, the ruling class extracts a surplus product from the work of the subordinate class. In my humanist reading of this idea, the ‘work’ of the subordinate class is always a frustration of some of the basic desires of human nature. At the very least autonomy in the sense that they must do what they're told to do. But also, in terms of creativity. They don't express themselves in their work. Also, sociability in the sense that at work, they must worry about what the boss wants them to do rather than about good social connections with other workers. Members of the subordinate class are inevitably in competition with each other, for the rewards in basic needs that the ruling classes control. In the work process itself, they don't have the power to make decisions. The distribution of what they produce is out of their hands. So is the way that the work is done. 

The surplus product that the ruling group extracts enables the ruling class to satisfy their basic desires. At the very least food. They don't have to work to produce their food.
The ruling class gets autonomy by using their control of production to direct the labour of the subordinate group. They can maintain an army or a class of tradespeople by providing food for them. Using this power to satisfy desires for prestige, creativity, sexuality, comfort. 

Summarizing this as an exploitation, the ruling class delivers no equivalent product to the subordinate class. The transaction is all in one direction. 

So, now let’s look at social classes as a particular kind of social mechanism. 

The units of class society are workers but also families. Families, taken as a whole, have a class position. The members of the subordinate classes cooperate as families to produce the surplus extracted by the ruling class. Taking different roles in enabling that production. They share their class situation — dependence on the favour of the ruling class for a share in the social product. Class society divides the subordinate population up into family households, diminishing the role of wider cross family identities of kinship, clan, moiety.

The ruling class has control of the basic necessities required for survival. What Marx calls the ‘means of production’ are objects used to produce these basic necessities. For example, land. Most crucially, the ruling class controls those things necessary to produce food. They may do this directly by owning the land on which people grow crops. Or they may do it indirectly by just sending in their soldiers to make sure that people are paying a tribute in food. They use this power over basic necessities as leverage to ensure the compliance of the subordinate class. In other words, if you don't do what they say, then you don't eat, or you don’t live. They use this compliance to extract a surplus product. You will produce more than you need yourself and surrender the surplus to the ruling class. 

But control over the means of production also extends to other productive resources. For example, they own the tin and copper mines, which produce the bronze used in weapons. Of course, more recently, factories to produce industrial goods, weapons, media and communications services. 

Agriculture and the storage of cereals are the fundamental technological requirements of class societies. No class society has ever existed which did not depend upon on agriculture and the storage of cereal crops. 

The basic structure of all class societies has three parts. 

1. The ruling class. 
2. The enforcing class. The army and police force. Also in this middle class are artisans or merchants supplying the ruling class.
3. The subordinate class. The class producing the surplus product.

The subordinate class produces the basic material goods and services, which the ruling class uses to control the enforcing class. The ruling class uses the surplus product to pay their armies, whether that's through money (used to buy goods from the subordinate class) or in kind (direct transfers of food). As well as they use that surplus product for their own subsistence. In other words, for the ruling class to live and eat. Also to feed and house the workers who produce the lavish lifestyle and the military hardware that they need to maintain their rule and to live well.

All class societies have myths that justify this exploitation. There is an imaginary compensation for the unfairness at the heart of class society. For example, the ruling class is bringing some huge benefit to society. This benefit more than compensates for their exploitation of people’s mundane labour. The rituals that they perform at the temple ensure that the rain will fall, and the crops will grow. Perhaps the ruling class are appointed by the gods or are themselves gods. The gods give us everything. The very earth in which we grow our crops. Those appointed by the gods have a right to command our obedience. Out of gratitude for what they provide for us. Out of fear that the gods will punish us for our disobedience. The extent to which the subordinate classes have believed these mythologies is hard to assess. Written records come from the ruling classes. Rebellions, popular heresies and criminal assaults show us the subordinate classes were not entirely convinced. The next few chapters will consider examples of this broad approach to class society.

 Ch 18: Some pre-capitalist class societies
Terry Leahy 2025

This chapter will look at some examples of class society. To show how the definition given in chapter 17 applies to particular cases. Even though these class societies are widely separated in time and space, they are remarkably similar in how they work. Class society is a random invention at all its points of origin, and this random historical creation manifests in the remarkable differences between class societies. At the same time, the fundamental mechanism of class societies works on a universal substrate of human nature. The same in all these cases. Along with an invention, agriculture, also recreated across the globe. 

Ancient Egypt

In ancient Egypt, the monarchs or pharaohs are supposedly incarnations of the falcon god Horus. Not an entirely arbitrary fiction, as falcons are birds of prey and hover in the air, surveying the world below. Their divine role is not limited to incarnating the falcon god Horus. They are also supposed to be the sons of the sun god Ra. Literally the offspring of the cosmic body that makes all growth and life happen. The pyramids were constructed with this mythology in mind. After death, the spirit of the pharaoh rises from the tomb and ascends out of the top of the pyramid to join his father Ra in the sky. 

The ceremonies that the pharaoh conducts with their priests supposedly secures the regular flooding of the Nile. They make offerings to the gods to ensure their largesse. In other words, the action of the pharaoh is essential for the irrigation agriculture that feeds the population. A paradigmatic example of the way the ruling class portrays itself as the bringer of gifts more than equivalent to the tribute they extract. These ceremonies are also supposed to protect crops from diseases and wild animals. Continuing a theme here. 

This role has a more grounded manifestation. The pharaohs conduct hunting parties to kill hippopotamuses. These animals can be a menace to crops. They organize their armies to fend off attacks from other states and to expand the kingdom. 

Overall, their role is painted as containing chaos. The chaos that might come with an invasion, a popular rebellion, the failure of the agricultural system. A striking metaphor conveys the role of the pharaoh in containing chaos. He is pictured with a ceremonial crook. The tool used by the shepherd to herd sheep. A long hook for grabbing the legs of the sheep. The population at large portrayed as a flock of sheep while their king is the only human person, herding the sheep. Later eating them! As with the falcon, a dark analogy of predation and surveillance. 

How is this rule manifested in the countryside and how is the surplus extracted?  The clan of the pharaoh appoints representatives at the village level. An aristocratic elite, the ruling class for which the pharaoh is the peak representative. The subordinate class, the peasants, produce the staple crops which are wheat and barley, grown with the use of irrigation agriculture. The Nile floods every year and inundates the fields with fertile alluvial soil. Elaborate irrigation channels and systems of buckets (shadouf) irrigate the crops while they are growing. The surplus is extracted in two forms. A tax paid in kind with wheat or barley. And a labour service. Like working to construct the pyramids or irrigation works. The surplus of grain extracted through taxes feeds the ruling class. Made up of the pharaoh and his family, the local aristocracy and the priests. The priests of the temples are the bureaucracy that organizes the tax systems and the irrigation. 

A third key class are the soldiers who maintain the enforcement necessary to keep the system of taxation going. Along with protecting the ruling class from rival states. We can also consider artisans of various kinds as part of this middle class. These are the workers who are producing the weapons and the luxury goods. They are organising the building of the temples and pyramids that glorify the power of the ruling class. Doing the more detailed artistic work necessary to portray the grand life of the elites in friezes on the walls of their tombs. This middle class of soldiers and artisans is also fed from the surplus produced by the peasantry. 

An inequality in the satisfaction of basic human needs is the effect of these class mechanisms. For example, the peasantry starves in famines when the Nile does not flood. The ruling class survive on stored supplies during these years of shortage. The life expectancy of workers on the pyramids is between 18 and 40 years while the members of the aristocratic elite generally live to between 50 and 75. The bones of the common workers show the effects of over work in arthritis and back degeneration. All in all, a vampire death cult!

Sparta

I will now turn to a completely different society. Ancient Sparta, one of the key Greek city states. Operating between about 600 BC and 300 BC. 

We can think of Sparta as a three-class system that functions slightly differently to the typical three class pattern of class society described above. 

The citizen or landlord class

The ruling class of Sparta are its landowners. The men of this class are ‘citizens.’ They take part in its political decisions, having the power to vote. Their state represents them through this process. The state owns the estates on which people who are the subordinate class produce the surplus product. It also owns these subordinates as ‘helots’, the third element of the class structure. The state allocates land and helots to the citizens. The citizens are required to become soldiers and to participate in civic duties – running the state. They are not allowed to trade or use money. Only the very top layer of the citizen class, the top aristocrats, avoid service in the army.

I have described the typical structure of class societies as including a middle class of soldiers, artisans and traders, with a separate ruling class above them. Here in Sparta the most important part of this soldier class are also members of the ruling class. The class that extracts a surplus agricultural product from the subordinate class. As though a part of the middle class has fused with the ruling class. 

The periokoi or middle class

There is a middle class of non-citizens who trade and carry out most manufacturing and craft work. Other than the menial work done by the helot class. For example, making weapons and other artefacts of bronze and iron. Pottery, weaving and tailoring. They are the ones responsible for the trade in agricultural products that is a key aspect of Spartan wealth. For example, grains, wine, olives, livestock, timber. In addition, they also serve in the Spartan army, recruited as periokoi contingents to that army. They would serve as the typical middle class of any class society – the soldiers and artisans. Except for the quirk that the strongest part of the army is drawn from the ruling class. 

The helots or subordinate class

Most of the helot population are slaves working on the land owned by Spartan citizens and their state. They produce agricultural commodities such as barley, wine, cheese and figs. They surrender up to a half of what they produce. Some of this goes directly to their owners and some is passed on to the state. They are not allowed to be bought or sold and are instead allocated roles by the state. In addition to their role in agriculture, helots are recruited as domestic workers, sex workers, wet nurses. Also, for menial industrial tasks. In the mines that extract ores later turned into weapons. Building roads, cleaning the toilets. It is estimated that there were seven helots for every Spartan. It appears that after they had looked to their own needs and contributed to the State, they could sell any extra surplus. 

The mythical history

In the mythical or real history of Sparta, Doric invaders came from the north and conquered the regions of Laconia (in which the city of Sparta was founded) and Messenia (a neighbouring region). The ruling landlord class of these regions fled. The middle class of the towns in Laconia became the periokoi. The rural peasantry of Messenia became the helot class. 

Class relationships

As indicated above, the main subordinate class were the helots who produced the agricultural surplus on which the whole system rested. This was extracted by their Spartan citizen owners. The Spartan citizens were fearful of a slave revolt. In fact, several revolts were attempted and put down. As an ongoing means of terror, random killings of slaves were a part of the initiation rites of Spartan citizens. In a coming-of-age ceremony, the State would declare war on the helots, giving the young men the right to go and kill a helot to demonstrate martial vigour. In one of these ‘wars’, four thousand helots were killed. From a population close to 40,000 in total. Staged humiliations of the slave class included plays mocking the helots as idiots, along with regular beatings. 

The mythology that backed up this Spartan class system treated the ruling class as superior by virtue of their courage and martial prowess. They were also regarded as civilized, in comparison to the uncivilized barbarians of other neighbouring societies. There is no mythology of benefit to the subordinate classes animating this ideology. The Spartans pioneered the fascist ideology of might is right. The rule of the best, defined in practice as those who have won battles. The key role of the Spartan army in fending off the Persian state is well known. One vampire death cult facing down another.

It is unclear how the periokoi related economically to the other two classes. The written sources come from writers who were from outside Sparta and not particularly interested in these details. It seems that the periokoi paid taxes to the Spartan state. This might have been in money or in kind. In either case, the Spartan state clearly had access to manufactured goods produced by the periokoi. Including the helmets, swords, cuirasses and greaves that sustained their military power. In addition to the goods imported from other parts of the Mediterranean. The Spartan ethos was that a Spartan citizen spurned luxury and indulgence. The periokoi were not expected to show such restraint. One possibility is that the periokoi bought agricultural supplies from the helots and in return the helots bought necessary manufactured goods from the periokoi. Alternatively, the Spartan state may have sold food to the periokoi and provided the helots with necessary manufactured goods that they had bought or taxed from the periokoi.

As a system of unequal exchange, Sparta is somewhat unusual. The extraction of surplus products by the ruling class was achieved through their control of the agricultural surplus. At the same time, the citizens eschewed displays of luxury and wealth. In other words, it is hard to portray their extractions as motivated by ‘greed’ as we normally understand it. They certainly appropriated necessary manufactured goods and food. But these were the necessities needed for soldiers and for a ‘Spartan’ lifestyle. At the same time the exploitations of the Spartan citizen class included autonomy, sexual access and the status of the ruling class — at least in their own eyes. Complete control over all political decisions. Along with daily autonomy vis a vis the other two classes. We can see the system as set up to provide satisfactions related to toxic masculinity. An economy constructed to reassure the Spartan citizens that they were ‘men’ in relation to women, the helots, periokoi and foreign enemies. 

The slaves produced the food on which the elite depended. A middle artisan class did the blacksmithing required to make the weapons they used. The citizens were released from the necessity to do agricultural work so they could spend time training as soldiers. A mechanism in which the slave class grows food and produces a surplus. They are kept in check by an army composed of a ruling class — feeding on the surplus they produce. A mechanism that pre-supposes a will to live and a need for food as key aspects of human nature. A mechanism that depends on the surplus of storable food produced by cereal agriculture. In addition, aggression as a capacity of human beings. Along with the competitive masculinity engendered by patriarchal socialisation.

The Incas

The parallel and independent creation of the American class societies and those of Eurasia is surely one of the most interesting riddles of history. As I will show in relation to the Incas, these American class societies were very much like the class societies of Eurasia. Even down to writing, cities and the use of money. Like other class societies, they depended on an agricultural surplus produced by the subordinate class. A surplus that could be accumulated, stored and distributed by the ruling class.  The other aspect of this riddle is that these class societies arrived in history not too distant in time (several millennia later) from those in Eurasia. For 180,000 years, the human species had got along quite well with hunting and gathering. Then agriculture and not too long afterwards, class societies. Not that all agricultural societies developed class and the state. As we shall see in the next chapter. 

It seems very unlikely, if not completely impossible, that the American class societies drew inspiration from what was going on in Eurasia. The coincidence in timing here remains a mystery. What we can say is that agriculture as an invention enabled class society to be invented. As well, that the class machine works with human nature and the nature of the earth to produce some typical outcomes. These accompany the extraction of an agricultural surplus. There is no other way to do class society once you have made that key move in arranging the social order. 

The subordinate class in the Inca society farmed maize, cassava, quinoa, and potatoes as cereal crops. Along with companion crops such as squash, peanuts and beans. They also had llamas and alpacas, for carrying loads and for their wool. With guinea pigs to eat.  The empire of the Incas was populated by 10 million people. It followed on from smaller states in the same region. The ruling aristocracy of the empire was only 40,000 people. They extracted a surplus product in the form of taxes in kind and labour service (mit’a). So, remarkably like the Egyptian state. Food, such as grains, meat, vegetables, fruits. Labour service in building roads, maintaining and constructing the irrigation terraces, mining for copper and precious metals. 

In theory the Inca and his family own all the land in the empire. He allocates this land in parcels to aristocrats. Aristocrats live off the labour services and food produced by the subordinate class on their estates. Through this system the aristocratic ruling class has bureaucratic control over whole regions

There was no writing, so no written records to organize the extraction of the surplus and the provision of labour service. Instead, the bureaucracy used a system of records kept through knotting on cords. So, a symbolic system of accounting and counting, even if not in writing. How big was a family’s plot, what were their contributions, the calendar of seasons. 
Again, not that different to the Egyptians. In other words, this kind of accounting and quantification is actually a necessary tool of any class society. 

Now let's look at the ideology. The ruling family are descended from the sun god. A remarkable parallel with Egypt. Human sacrifice is part of the rituals of the Inca empire. These rituals were designed to maintain the seasons. In other words, the ruling class presents itself as having an essential role in the agricultural system and its earthly requirements.  Rituals with human sacrifice also celebrate victories and elite burials. Men of the aristocratic elite were commonly buried with two young women. At one funeral for an Inca, they killed and buried four thousand people. 

Pictorially, in sculptures and paintings, the ruling elites were portrayed as pumas or birds of prey. Including vultures that feed on corpses. A common theme of class societies. Predators. Death from above. A panopticon of surveillance. 

I have suggested that the army is generally a middle class of class societies. It rules over the peasant classes but is ruled in turn by the ruling class. In Inca society, this role is achieved through a system that selects one peasant in fifty from each village to do labour service by joining the army. The aristocracy leads the army. The most well-armed part of the army is the aristocratic elite, but the peasantry contributes through their numbers. For a total population of between six and ten million, the army was about 200,000 people. Within the armed forces a special royal guard of 10,000 were members of the aristocracy. The elaborate system of roads enabled deployment of the army to trouble spots. It allowed the extraction of the surplus and the siphoning of this surplus to urban centres.

As with other class societies, the surplus provided by the subordinate class provided the food necessary to maintain the army and the craft workers and builders. These conscripted workers constructed the monuments to ruling class power. Huge temples of stepped pyramids. Elaborate costumes for rituals. Lavish burials with weapons, luxury goods and slaves. 

Typical of class societies, war is not just defensive but an element of the structure of the regime. At the death of the Inca, only one of the sons could become the next Inca. The siblings would inherit the taxes that were coming from the current Inca realm at this time. To provide for his own needs, his army and his bureaucracy, the new Inca would have to conquer new lands and people and expand the empire through that. At a first glance, a ridiculous and impossible system. But maybe a system built to ensure that no rival state got established on the border to challenge the Inca empire. Not that different in many respects to the constant expansion of the Roman empire out of Italy and beyond.  

The Inca empire was founded on irrigation agriculture. Common for early states as we shall see in the next chapter. Tests done recently show that the Incas could get four times the yield of potatoes on their irrigated fields, compared to fields without that. These irrigated lands were surrounded by deserts. Once the class regime established itself it was difficult for the subordinate class to escape. The population gets to a size allowed by the irrigation technology, and it is impossible to live without it. The irrigation infrastructure was maintained by the labour service of peasants organized by the aristocratic bureaucracy. Backed up by the army. Archaeological evidence shows that the peasantry of Inca society was in much worse health than neighbouring tribal people at the same time. Basically, a diet made up of staples with minimal protein. Add to that overwork and the concentration of the population in towns, allowing the spread of diseases. 

Feudal Europe

Most people have some idea of what Feudal Europe was like as a class system. Indeed, the mythology of capitalism still references feudalism as the yoke which modernity has broken. Popular references abound, from Monty Python’s ‘Holy Grail’ to endless re-makes of the Robin Hood story. 

So let us take feudalism in Europe as the period roughly between 700 and 1500. A typical feudal kingdom works like this. The king supposedly owns the whole of the land in the kingdom. He is appointed by God, no less. His authority is absolute, based on his ‘divine right’ to rule. So, the king in turn appoints the aristocracy to rule over the land on his behalf. A patchwork of landed estates or ‘manors.’ Land is also allocated to the church for monasteries and landed estates. There is no private ownership of land as a commodity, as in capitalist societies. The lord of the manor must pass on their estate to their son, usually the eldest son. You cannot sell your manor. You've been granted the right to use that manor on behalf of the king, because you're a loyal subject of the king. What is your obligation in return? You provide a tribute in armed knights and foot soldiers to fight the King's wars. This overall structure also ranks and arranges the aristocracy. More powerful lords have dependent knights who supply them with armed support. There is always a possibility that these armed grandees will rebel against the king instead of supporting him, attempting to take the crown. 

The same structure of obligation and dependency applies between aristocrats and their serfs. The serfs are obligated to obey and pay tribute to a particular lord, who theoretically owns the land which they farm. The tribute is usually in kind. For example, grains or some kind of labour service. Even making the lord’s bed, feeding his hounds. Military service when required. This is the surplus that the peasant class produces and that the ruling aristocratic class appropriates. In later feudalism, tribute might be in the form of monetary rent or monetary payment to use a mill to grind your flour. A move in the direction of capitalism. This system is maintained by armed force. The armed knights on horseback can almost always defeat a rebellion staged by peasants with hoes and pitchforks. As of course happened during the later feudal period. 

What myths animate all of this? What does the aristocracy and the king give back to reward their dependents? Peasants are rewarded in heaven for their obedience. They are informed that they will go to hell if they disobey the king and the aristocracy. Clearly the Church works as the key ideological apparatus to sustain this mythology. Leading to another possible point of conflict — secular authorities versus the church. So, this mythology returns an unreal product to the peasantry. A life after death. In God's grace and surrounded by angels. Not provided directly by the ruling class but by God — who must be a close friend of that ruling class! Clearly this interpretation of Christianity is somewhat implausible, and more egalitarian interpretations seeded the rebellions of the late feudal period.

An aspect of this ruling class ideology is the theory of the ‘great chain of being.’ Just as God gave dominion over the wild animals to Adam and Eve, God is supposed to have created the whole cosmos as a hierarchical arrangement. There is God at the top, then the angels, then the king, then the aristocrats, then the serfs, the animals and plants down to the humble snail in the garden. To question this hierarchy is to question God’s plan for the cosmos. A nested hierarchy of authority. 

Finally, the king and the aristocracy promise protection from rival ruling class factions, other claimants to the throne, other nations, Vikings and north African pirates. These claims are somewhat hard to believe in the light of the constant warfare and destruction that characterizes the feudal period. In any case, this is a protection racket, with the threat of another ruling class always backing up the power of the ruling class at home. Without kings, lords and knights on horseback there could not be any of these problems. These problems come out of a system in which the ruling class extracts a surplus product and uses that surplus to fund their armed force. To dig the ores, feed the horses and so on. 

An interesting and depressing confirmation of the machine advantage conferred on class society is the fate of the Vikings. In the first instance, Viking society was run by chiefs who consulted their warriors to make decisions. A relatively egalitarian arrangement. In conflicts with more feudal societies the Vikings gradually adopted the full package of feudal class relationships, especially in the areas they conquered in Europe and Russia. In Britain, Normandy, Kiev. But also in Scandinavia itself. They converted to Christianity and took on the hypocrisy of the feudal version of that religion. I am not sure how to interpret this, but one explanation could be in relation to armament. The early Viking armies fought on foot with shields and swords. By the middle of the mediaeval period a feudal army included a cohort of knights on heavy warhorses with fully covering steel armour. To supply one such figure the work of a whole village of peasants would be required. Stratifying the social order between the foot soldiers and the knights. To develop an army of this type, the Vikings adapted to this social order. Their early victories preceded these developments, taking over land as warrior chiefs and becoming feudal as time went on. It may be that Viking bands appropriated the peasantry of the lands they conquered, making them the subordinate class while they became the aristocrats. Their original raids were to take slaves to sell, as well as luxury goods. We know that in the areas they conquered, older DNA markers from the original population combine with the Scandinavian DNA. It makes sense that leading Viking chieftains coveted the power of the feudal aristocracy. They were in thrall to the requirements of toxic masculinity, as much as their feudal enemies, and one thing led to another. 

Conclusions

It's remarkable how similar these class structures are from different periods of history and different places around the world. Places that in some cases had no relationship to each other. Like ancient Egypt and Peru. 

What does that tell us? Social class is an invention of the human species. It is a mechanism that sets up typical structures and cultures of social life. A mechanism that works because it fits in with aspects of human nature. Even if the overall impact is to deny the satisfaction of most people’s human needs. It works on people's fear of death and their desire to eat. As I have explained in part B it also depends on patriarchy, the socialisation into toxic masculinity. Clearly, it cannot exist without cereal agriculture. 

 
Ch 19: Capitalism as a class society
Terry Leahy 2025

I will now turn my attention to capitalism. Capitalism portrays itself as the overturning of previous class societies. An end to feudalism and all similar systems. Freedom, democracy, rights to private property, opportunity for anyone to do well in the marketplace. This is all very misleading. If we look more closely, we can see that capitalism is just another kind of class society, as Marx recognized. In any case this is a perspective that only seems remotely plausible if we restrict our gaze to the rich core countries of capitalism.

A basic Marxist perspective on capitalism

The following outlines a basic Marxist perspective on capitalism. A later section will expand this by considering capitalism in its global context. The ruling class are the owners of capital. Meaning basically things that have a considerable monetary value. But also, in Marx’s language, they are the owners of the ‘means of production’. The things that are used to produce the goods and services which society uses. Land, factories, buildings. The occupy movement talks about this class as the one per cent. 

Money has a vast role in capitalist society. In any society, money gives you the capacity to access the products of other people’s work. Also, if you have enough money, the power to buy hours of work directly from people who need money to live. Having money is a form of autonomy. You can make choices about what things you want to buy with your money. You effectively command the work of other people to produce the things that you are buying. 

Marx argues that the great mass of the population in capitalist societies are effectively slaves of the capitalist class. They are not slaves of any particular ruling class person, as were the slaves of previous class societies. But they must make their services available to some member of the capitalist class. To someone who can pay them for their work. This is because a small minority, the capitalist class, own the means of production. To get access to what these means of production create, you need money to buy products. So, you need to get money to live. You must sell your labour capacity to some capitalist or other.

When you are doing paid work, you do not control the means of production you are using. The boss owns them. He tells you what to do at work and at the end of the day, he takes control of what you have produced. His aim is to sell the products on the market. 

Marx's great discovery is that while capitalism seems to be founded on equality, this is an illusion. Let us explain this illusory appearance. Unlike in Feudal society, you are free to work for anyone you like. It is a market, and you are selling something you own (eight hours of your labour) on the market. You approach the boss, and he offers you a hundred dollars for your day’s work. You think, well that is a fair price, I cannot get any more from some other boss. Just like you might have forty oranges for sale and get a fair price when you are getting what you think is equivalent to the monetary value of those oranges. What the market is generally paying for oranges at the present time. An equal exchange, the monetary value that you are getting in your pay is what your labour is worth on the market. 

However, this equality is an illusion. A day of work produces monetary value – the money that your product can get when it is sold. Or more strictly speaking, the extra monetary value you add to what is there at the beginning of the day. Imagine it as a lump of iron at the beginning of the day and a hammer at the end of the day. What is the cost of a lump of iron and what is the cost of a hammer? The difference is the value you have added. So, Marx points out that there is in fact a form of surplus extraction in this apparently egalitarian transaction. The worker is only getting some of the value of what they produce in their wage. The boss is getting the rest when he sells what you have produced. For example, you are being paid $100 for your day’s work but when the boss goes to sell what you have made, he is getting $150 from the extra value you have added in your day of work. It is this difference that is the surplus product in capitalist societies. Just like making the lord’s bed or feeding his hounds might be the surplus that is taken by the lord in a feudal society. Or a tribute in sacks of wheat. So, in capitalism, this surplus product is the extra value your labour produces that you are not getting paid for. Marx talks about it in terms of hours of work. For example. For six hours of your eight-hour day you are producing the monetary value which you get in your wage. And the other two hours of work you are producing value for the capitalist. This basic relationship enables the ruling class to accumulate capital and increase their market power over time. Because they are constantly getting this feed in of surplus value from the people they're employing as workers, they can use that money to increase their holdings, their means of production. 

This is just one way that capitalists acquire their capital, the means of production. The other way is what Marx calls ‘primitive accumulation.’ This is when the state or the capitalist class manages to secure means of production without having to pay for them on the market. In other words, a kind of theft of the means of production, even if it is given the green light by the law applying at the time. An example that is often used is ‘the enclosures’ of common land in England in early capitalism. Land that was owned by a whole village was called ‘the commons’ because everyone in the village had a common right to use it. To graze their pigs, collect wood, or plant a crop. In the enclosures, the lords took these common lands as their own. Closing the land off from the rest of the village. By force, without asking permission. Or through an act of parliament. The term ‘primitive accumulation’ also applies to colonizing imperialism. When European states and private operators took over land in the global South, using force. Usually also legitimated by the state back in Europe. Like the white Dutch farmers who took over South Africa. Or the British crown that appropriated Australia. Fighting wars of conquest and genocide against Aboriginal people. Measures like this ended up putting the means of production in the hands of private capitalists. Clearly, their state and its armed forces backed them to enable this appropriation. Allocating conquered lands to settlers and companies. A more recent example of primitive accumulation is the fate of nationalized industries at the fall of the Soviet Union. They were parcelled off and allocated to oligarchs. To capitalist allies of the new government. 

As explained above, every class society depends on an army and police force to keep control of the subordinate class and to fend off rival states and rival ruling classes. Capitalism is no exception. Just as in other societies, the surplus product that maintains this army is provided by the subordinate class. For example, the state taxes people and uses the money to pay the army. The armed forces buy the goods and services they need. Goods and services produced by the subordinate class. Just an elaborate accounting of the transfer of surplus product from the subordinate class to the armed forces. Via the interventions of the ruling class and its state. As in other class societies, the army and police enforce the system of taxes on which this arrangement depends. In the capitalist system, workers volunteer to take jobs as enforcers — as one option for people without access to goods and services except through a wage. The role of the police is largely to enforce the system of private property ownership that constitutes the capitalist economy. The role of the army is to appropriate land in primitive accumulation and to fend off rival states. 

Capitalism and empire

Broadly, the picture of capitalism that I have painted so far follows Marx’s own analysis. However, from the point of view of a post-colonial critique, this analysis needs to be put in brackets. It works best if we focus on the industrial middle period of capitalism, looking at what we can now call the rich or core countries of global capitalism. I have mentioned one issue already that shows why we need to go outside these brackets. The seizure in primitive accumulation of the colonized world. Something that happens outside of the capitalist economic system as such. Conquest is not a business measure. But nevertheless, it provides necessary ingredients for actual capitalism as it takes place in the core countries. The next issue is that slavery of one kind or another takes place in the colonies, and in some capitalist countries. Both direct, legalized slavery, and debt peonage that functions as a semi-feudalism. Alongside wage labour, free labour or whatever you want to call it. This slavery is integrated into the global capitalist system. Slaves grow the cotton that is then shipped to capitalist factories. The factories turn it into clothing and sell it on as commodities to wage labourers. Latin America is an example. A whole region of the world devoted to providing resources for core capitalist countries, with slave like conditions for most of the population. Gold, silver and other minerals, rubber, coffee, sugar, cotton, chocolate. 

It may appear that some of these substances are not totally necessary for an industrial capitalism in the global North. But in practice they all played a key role in making businesses work and creating industries. What is more important, this global capitalist structure dominated the lives of the people of Latin America, preventing their populations from rising to the level of affluence of the ordinary workers of the core countries. Starvation has been pervasive along with brutal repression of all attempts to make radical improvements. 

This analysis asks us to consider the basic class structures of capitalism as global system. The affluent workers of the rich countries are in fact the middle class of the capitalist system. Along with comprador elites in the global South. It is this middle class from which are drawn the soldiers and police force that maintain the whole class system. While most of these people are themselves wage workers, exploited by capitalism, they are also the beneficiaries of a global system that exploits the people of the global South. Only 5 per cent of the value of coffee goes to the workers who have grown the crop. The affluent worker of Europe drinks the cup of coffee. They pay for this from their wage. Maybe they have taken five minutes to earn the cost of their cup of coffee. But the worker from the global South who grew the coffee might have spent an hour in that labour. This is a mediated exploitation. Mediated by the patchwork of ownerships linking these events. Organized through a global capitalist class. But ending up creating these affluent workers as the global middle class. Also, as the enforcers of last resort. This global structure has been maintained through the recent changes referred to as globalisation. The re-location of manufacturing from the core countries to parts of the previously colonial world. 

Mythologies of the capitalist class system

In terms of ideology, capitalism creates its own mythology just like any other class society. In large part to talk up capitalism in relation to other social orders. The best possible form a society can take, the end of history. 

As explained above a key myth of capitalism is that there is no exploitation — although it is hard to deny a difference in material condition. We could call this myth by a popular slogan, a ‘fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay’. In fact, there is nothing fair about it. You are being exploited as much as any mediaeval peasant. While other societies create a myth of balance by supposing the ruling class brings rain and grows the crops, capitalism denies that there is any tribute to be balanced in the first place.

Another key mythology of capitalism is that you are free of control by a ruling class. Capitalism brings democracy. You are free and can vote for any economic arrangement that seems workable. That people vote for capitalist parties just shows a sensible understanding of the virtues of the capitalist system. Countries that are not yet democratic are not yet sufficiently capitalist. 

In a critical analysis, the freedom of democratic choice in rich countries is a myth in this way. As an employee, you need a job to live. So, if someone comes up with a wonderful plan to improve society and you think, this will lead to unemployment, you will vote against that. A good example was the attempt by the ALP candidate Bill Shorten to become prime minister. At the time, Adani, an Indian magnate, was proposing to open a vast coal mine in Queensland. The promise was secure jobs in a highly paid industry. The union representing miners was a strong supporter of the proposal. The ALP was also under pressure from inner urban electorates to wind back the coal industry to mitigate climate change. In the preferential voting system of Australia, it was easy for these voters to put the Greens candidates at the top of their list of preferences. The ALP made an electorally fatal mistake and hedged its bets. It did not rule out the option of banning the proposed mine for environmental reasons. They were wiped out in the subsequent elections. The electorates that swung against them were working class. It is not that workers in electorates across the country hoped to get a job in the Adani mine. They voted in solidarity with workers who might conceivably have got a job in the mine. They voted against the middle-class environmentalists who had the hide to put workers’ jobs at risk for environmental reasons. 
In other words, they followed the logic of the economic system to behave politically in a particular way. So, the equal democratic control of political life and making decisions for the whole of society is somewhat mythological. As Marx says, workers under capitalism may not be the slaves of any one representative of the ruling class. But they are slaves to the whole of the class that owns the means of production. 

The myth of democracy is not entirely unlike the myths of ruling class benevolence that animate other class societies. Yes, we capitalists own enormous wealth. Our economic heft dwarfs what you workers own. But we are not telling you what to do. We are not pulling the strings. We are giving you the freedom to choose any policy you like. Of course, countries that do choose anti-capitalist revolution soon realize that this is a hollow promise. Coups, massacres and invasions are de rigeur. Funded and supplied by rich country governments, as Galeano’s account of Latin America makes abundantly clear. 

A second key myth is that the capitalist class ‘provide jobs’ and ‘create the wealth’ on which everyone depends. My aunt was talking to a neighbour who said to her ‘What have the workers ever produced?’. It is the capitalist owners who are the ones who produce things. This is a strange fiction. In fact, they are using their money, their fictitious claim on the social product. To access the dead and living labour of other people. Their money is not physically responsible for this production. It is the work that ordinary members of the community are supplying. On the other hand, there is of course a truth in this fiction. In the context of a capitalist economy, it is only the investment of money that makes production happen. One fiction the logical consequence of another. Again, we can see this as a myth of benevolence, to be expected in a class society. The ruling class donates jobs. 

Another central myth is that the market is economic democracy. Everyone can buy things on the market. By doing that you control what is produced. So, fossil fuels are what people want. They are making a choice to buy things made with cheap energy. They are choosing that option, knowing the impact of climate change. That is democracy at work. To regulate this would be to block people’s right to choose. The market is a tool for linking up preferences with production. A cornucopia of benevolence.

There are a variety of reasons why this is a myth. Most obviously, because the freedom to express your desires through your purchases varies with wealth. It is not an even playing field at all. The other thing is. Things that cannot make a profit are not on the market, or at least they do not do well on the market. Sometimes these are things which are useful to people, but because they cannot make a profit for any capitalist, there is no point in marketing them. So, what does that mean? It means that there are various desires that people have that are not expressed in the choices that come out of the market process. For example, in an ideal world, people would like to be able to commute to work as quickly as possible. If everyone walked to a nearby stop for public transport and went by public transport, that would be the quickest option. But it is also the cheapest option. The one that does not allow a lot of profit for an investor. Instead, if all the commuters buy a private car, there are lots of profits to be made. People are spending lots of money and there are lots of jobs and profits. But of course, the effect is traffic jams and long commuting times. Which nobody wants. But for any individual commuter it is always quicker to take their car. The most profitable option is crowding out the less profitable, but more satisfactory, option. In the recent COVID crisis, suddenly we found there were not enough labs to make all the vaccines we would need. There were not enough supplies of personal protective gear for health workers. Providing these things for a possible pandemic had never been a profitable option for private companies. Governments had not wanted to increase the tax burden to cover the costs. With climate change, we are still hanging on to fossil fuels because the alternative is less profitable or requires considerable government spending. Even though most people would like their grandchildren to survive. There are persistent differences between what people would ideally like and the preferences that get translated into market decisions. 

A final myth worth mentioning is the myth of global ‘development’. In this myth the countries of the global South were undeveloped at the time of colonisation. It takes time for capitalist industrialism to bring about a transition to affluence. The kind of affluence we see in the rich core countries. Along with democracy. This is mythological in treating these different countries as having an independent history and trajectory. In reality, the capitalist class of the global core countries exploited the global South, blocking the development of an industrial base. After independence, a local elite worked hand in glove with the global capitalist class to ensure that demands for higher wages and democracy were blocked. That these countries could function as low-cost suppliers of raw materials and agricultural products. For example, deals between Latin American countries and American capitalists banned Latin America from processing its own coffee for export. Making sure this profitable venture took place in the United States. Coinciding with this arrangement, the working class of the global North used their industrial muscle to raise real wages in their own countries. Through unions, left parties and the threat of revolution. Consolidating their role as a global intermediate class. Since globalisation and the export of manufacturing to parts of the global South this deal is in jeopardy. The working class of the rich countries is losing their power to dictate terms. Real wages stagnate, housing prices go up, government services are in decline, employment is less secure. 

In the mythology of ‘development’, the core countries are bringing the technological knowledge necessary to create affluence. By doing this they are also spreading democracy, freeing people of the global South from their feudal and authoritarian past. A sad travesty. 

Ruminations on Class Society

I will finish these three chapters with a few ruminations about class society. 

Once it has been created, class society appears to be very hard to eliminate. There have been many revolutions and revolts. Almost all of these have been unsuccessful in the long term. Successful demolitions of class power have almost always ended up with a new version of class society taking over. In a few cases, there has been a collapse followed by at least a period of classless stateless society. For example, the Maya collapse or the collapse of the Cahokia in the Mississippi valley. Even the Roman empire. As James Scott points out, a common phenomenon has been states that do not actually control all the territory they claim. With stateless territories on their periphery. For example, in South Asia, Southeast Asia. 

Nevertheless, taken as a whole, if we look through from 10,000 years ago to now, we have a gradually encroaching class society taking over the whole world. Class society takes over classless, Indigenous societies and destroys them, or at least takes control of their land. Class is a mechanism that is massively difficult to undo. 

There have been five or six independent inventions of class. Strangely, these are all in the same period, from 5,000 BC to 1000 AD. The Middle East and later Europe, East Asia, the Indus River valley, the Americas. This remains a puzzle. So is the invention of agriculture in different and unconnected sites just a few millennia prior to this development. 

Class societies have several features in common. Most obviously an agriculture that permits storage and distribution of staple crops. Another part of the material structure is urban centres that are the organizational headquarters of the ruling class. Using that centre to reach out to siphon off a surplus from rural areas and protect a border against rival states. 

More bizarre are the common features of the ideologies of class societies. I take it that it is part of human nature to expect that when you provide something to someone, that they will provide something in return. At least in the long run there will be some reciprocity. The exploitation that is central to class societies contradicts that basic premise of human sociality. Typical mythologies of class societies imagine the ruling class providing the subordinate class with an ultimately magical gift in return for a very material gift of tribute. They say they are doing things they cannot possibly do. Like preventing a drought. Or they are giving a magical gift. Such as an eternity in heaven. If you do as you are told on earth. These magical gifts balance the exploitation that is being carried on at the same time. There are even myths like this in supposedly rational capitalist society.

Another feature of class societies distinguishes them from stateless classless societies. Apart from the Incas, class societies have writing and use it keep records. Along with more artistic uses. Even the Incas had a system of knotting (quipus) that achieved the same effect. This writing is also linked to systems of quantification and to calendars of days and years. These technologies of symbolic coding are necessary for the ruling class to run the mechanism of a class society, to extract the surplus product in predictable ways. To pay their armies. There is a huge administrative apparatus of accounting to make all this work. Also absent in Indigenous societies, that keep track through their memories and oral culture. 

Monumental architecture is not entirely absent in stateless societies, but class societies develop it to a fine art. Monumental buildings are often made of stone, but also mud, wood and earth. They demonstrate the amazing power of the ruling class. They feature in the ideological construction of the ruling class. Sites where the ruling class join the gods after death or make offering to get the favour of the gods. Ceremonies in class society always include regalia. Again, a feature of ceremonies in stateless societies. The difference is that these costumes are used to express the roles of the class system. Kings, princesses, priests. Clothing expresses the class system, with certain garments for everyday wear banned for the subordinate class and expected for the ruling class. This regalia demonstrates the superiority of the ruling class, the status of the ruling class. Spectacles of this kind are very elaborate in class societies. The technological power of the surplus product is turned into glitzy ornamentation. 

Clearly, all these features of class society contribute to the prestige of a ruling class. Itself, a reward in relation to the human desire for social approval. But of course, linked to this for men is success in the competitive status stakes of toxic masculinity. As with the other exploitations of class society, this transfer of status is all one way. The subordinate classes are painted as stupid and ‘common’. Even disgusting. If amusing at times. 

Class societies generally have some form of money. The Incas are again an exception. This use of money in pre-capitalist societies is marginal in relation to the main form of surplus extraction. The means of production are not for sale. Labour services are allocated rather than paid for. Nevertheless, a monetary economy exists. Merchants and the very poor operate with money. Payment for labour services from those who have no rights to any part of the production of basic needs. The exchange of trade goods for money. Cashed in with the purchase of other traded commodities. This should not be considered an innocent paradise of monetary exchange. Debt crises were a common feature in ancient class societies. People were often imprisoned for not paying their debts. Things could get so extreme that a debt cancellation, a jubilee was the only solution to maintain social order. The explanation of money given by David Graeber goes like this. To maintain an army a ruling class could provision it directly with goods appropriated from the subordinate class. An economy in kind as in the Inca empire or Ancient Egypt. Alternatively, the government could pay the army in money and demand taxes in money from the subordinate class. The effect would be to establish a market in food. The soldiers would buy food from the peasants who would then be able to pay their taxes in money. The soldiers would use force if necessary to ensure taxes were paid and debts serviced. Such an arrangement would not preclude other kinds of extraction of surplus in kind. For example, forced labour services or payment of a tribute in grains to the local aristocrat. 

A sense of the uncanny pervades these accounts of class societies. There is something spooky about people being trapped in arrangements that are so bad for their wellbeing. Lifetimes spent doing what you are told. Monocultures that leave people stunted and perpetually hungry. Famines and plagues. Boring tasks designed to be easy to supervise, rather than fun. This sense of the uncanny gets worse as you get to understand the delusions of the ruling class. That they control the climate. That they go after death to live with the gods in heaven. That they are the sons of the sun. That they operate a regime of largesse in the best of all possible worlds. When the reality is so obviously far from that. That this regime has now existed for one twentieth of our history on this planet and seems impossible to shake off. For me the epitome of all this is a documentary on the Cahokia civilisation of the Mississippi valley. The grave of a king was discovered in the temple mound constructed to survey his kingdom. His skeleton is surrounded by shiny shells, traded from the distant coast. They are arranged about him in the image of a falcon. Outside this display are the skeletons of eighteen young women, sacrificed to be his companions after death. Meanwhile our own class society seems hell bent on destroying the whole of the earth with climate change.

The next chapter will look at why class society comes about. How and why ordinary people who were living in egalitarian, communal societies ended up with this disaster.