Tribal society has survived up to the present day... How this transition took place varied from place to place, and is shrouded in the mists of time. We know that in ancient Greece, as a result of trade, there were large numbers of foreigners living in the midst of their society and a money economy developed, leading to a situation where the tribal lands were all mortgaged to money-lenders. The local tribes re-asserted their power by imposing a constitution institutionalised the rights of landowners and made provision for slavery.
While the story doubtless differs in every case, wherever tribal society has given birth to class society out of its own development, it has been the increase in the productivity of labour which is the essential feature responsible for the breakdown of tribal life:
“The increase of production in all branches – cattle-raising, agriculture, domestic handicrafts – gave human labour-power the capacity to produce a larger product than was necessary for its maintenance. At the same time it increased the daily amount of work to be done by each member of the gens, household community or single family. It was now desirable to bring in new labour forces. War provided them; prisoners of war were turned into slaves. With its increase of the productivity of labour, and therefore of wealth, and its extension of the field of production, the first great social division of labour was bound, in the general historical conditions prevailing, to bring slavery in its train. From the first great social division of labour arose the first great cleavage of society into two classes: masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited.” [Origins of the Family, Chapter 9]
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