Page 186 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

163 Historical Materialism

which were already discovered in the neolithic revolution could now
be utilized on a large scale: the intensification of cultivation and
stock-farming, and the expansion of the crafts were the results of the
enlarged organizational capacity of class society. Thus there emerged
new forms of cooperation (e.g., in irrigational farming) or of ex-
change (e.g., in the market exchange between town and country).’’ ®
3. If it holds up empirically, this argument could also explain
how opposing developments are connected in social evolution;
namely, the cumulative learning process without which history
could not be interpreted as evolution (1.e., as a directional pro-
cess) and, on the other hand, the exploitation of man by man,
which is intensified in class societies.°" Historical materialism
marked off linear progress along the axis of development of
productive forces and adopted dialectical figures of thought for
the development of productive relations. When we assume learn-
ing processes not only in the dimension of technically useful
knowledge but also in that of moral-practical consciousness, we
are maintaining [the existence of } developmental stages both for
productive forces and for the forms of social integration. But the
extent of exploitation and repression by no means stands in in-
verse proportion to these levels of development. Social integration
accomplished via kinship relations and secured in cases of conflict
by preconventional legal institutions belongs, from a develop-
mental-logical point of view, to a lower stage than social integra-
tion accomplished via relations of domination and secured
cases of conflict by conventional legal] institutions. Despite this
progress, the exploitation and oppression necessarily practiced in
political class societies has to be considered retrogressive in com-
patison with the less significant social inequalities permitted by
the kinship system. Because of this, class societies are structurally
unable to satisfy the need for legitimation that they themselves
generate. This is, of course, the key to the social dynamic of class
struggle. How is this dzalectzc of progress to be explained?
I see an explanation in the fact that new levels of learning
mean not only expanded ranges of options but also new problem
situations. A higher stage of development of productive forces
and of social integration does bring relief from problems of the
superseded social formation. But the problems that arise at the