[Marxism] Fall of the Roman Empire was not so bad after all

[Haines Brown]

> It might be the changes in the delivery of the list or my change of
> email to receive it and participate in it without some the technical
> problems that plagued my road runner account, but I'm finding it
> hard to understand who's saying what.

I hope/assume that your difficulty is the result of the poster's
having his MUA configured so that pasted quotes are not clearly
distinguishable from the main text. I hope I'm not one of the
offenders. In my quotation from your message above, the quotation
should be marked off clearly enough by right angle brackets.

> I did get the idea that someone objected to consideration of the
> eastern empire as Roman on the grounds that it confused the fall of
> a structure with the fall of a regime.  (Or something like that.)
> In either event, I didn't get the point of the objection.

I have difficulty knowing to what you refer, but since I did
distinguish the fall of a regime from the fall of a structure, your
criticism may be directed at me. So let me expand a bit.

Empirical data (whether a dynasty, state form, economy, culture, etc.)
generally represent continua in history; they typically change
incrementally, and seldom "fall" in the sense of simply
disappearing. The problem with such an empiricist approach is that
usually any imposition of a demarcation on a continua becomes
arbitrary and subjective, just as M, L, XL, XXL for underwear. I won't
elaborate further because I assume you both understand and agree so
far.

In contrast with the empiricist position, I believe a Marxist one
shifts attention from empirical data to causal structure. It is this
structure that represents a contradiction, that explains the target
system as a caused process rather than static, and how/why it can
develop. Incidentally, to suggest that Rome's fall really did
represent a structural change necessarily makes one a scientific
realist. 

Now for some theoretical points that do not represent any consensus
and hence should not be taken too seriously.

What do we mean by saying one system ends and another begins in its
place?  In general I suppose it means the replacement of one causal
structure by another. To make this less vague, it surely must mean
that new or different kinds of potentials are being drawn upon to
support development, and this implies a new causal structure.

What determines the causal structure necessary for development is the
empirical constraint we call "superstructure". There's no obvious
reason why a given set of causal relations spontaneously
"falls". However, superstructural constraints are relatively delicate
affairs (they have no causal powers of their own), and superstructural
failure tends to be catastrophic.

That is, in my view, the development of unused new potentials and
unmet new needs are empirical effects of the deepening contradiction
of the prior system assured by superstructure.  This meant a set of
causal relations that drew on _traditional_ resources to meet
_traditional_ needs. Superstructural collapse tends to be catastrophic
because as the contradiction deepens, superstructure requires more and
more resources to cope with it, and at the same time these traditional
resources become ever less accessible. Because the superstructure
constrains the contradictory causal relations on which it depends, its
failure represents a positive feedback.

> Just as a materialist, I don't understand the significance of
> arguing whether Certs is a candy mint or a breath mint.

If you are saying that empiricist categories (such as Rome/post-Rome)
are arbitrary and therefore pointless, I'd fully agree. On the other
hand, if you are saying that history is a meaningless flux and that we
waste our time trying to impose a periodization, such as successive
stages, then I'd have to disagree. Without periodization, historical
consciousness would cease to support liberation.

-- 
 
       Haines Brown, KB1GRM