Carrol Cox wrote:
Secondly, the primary Marxist point about capitalism was that,
destructive of human life as capitalism had been from its very beginning
(the advances for the few from the beginning disguising the greater
horror for the many), it _had_ opened up the possibility of _real_
improvement of human life, a possibility that did not exist within
agrarian society (as superior as such societies had been for the the
vast majority in comparison with capitalism).
The antithesis of capitalism is not "agrarian society"; it is socialism
(looking forward), or feudalism and some variety of primitive communism
(looking backwards). Capitalism is an advance over feudalism solely on
the basis of productivity of labor, etc. It might not even lead to a
higher standard of living if capitalist property relations go hand in
hand with colonialism. Primitive communism is another story altogether,
as should be obvious from my citations from Melville's Typee.
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