I vaguely remembering reading in Rudolf Bahro's _Die Alternative_ that
Marx was wrong about the notion of trade starting as inter-community
trade.  It was in passing.  Bahro's focus was on drawing a parallel
between the emergence of Asian centralized states at the outset of
civilization and the emergence of actually-existing socialism.

Marx didn't have late-20th-century historical info, but Bahro wasn't
Marx -- and, more importantly, Bahro didn't provide references (Marx
did!) but only presumed it was a fact admitted by modern historians.

In the absence of references to follow up on, I remember asking myself
-- Whom should I *believe*?  Marx or Bahro?  Still, I thought the
first part of Bahro's book was in the best traditions of Marxist
thought.

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