MARX AND WEBER: A THEORY OF HISTORICAL CHANGE

Though historical sequences of Western civilization are capable of being described by a simple, unilinear, evolutionary theory of history, attempts to generalize unilinear theories beyond Western cultural areas have failed. Thus the attempts of modern "Marxists" to generalize Marx and Engels' "theory of history" beyond its scope of application, Western civilization, have met with the expected results. Their sequence of stages of history simply do not fit other cultural areas. The Marx-Engels theory of history was explicitly designed for a single case and has little or no application outside that case. The theory therefore has no explanatory power and may be viewed as simply a tool for describing a single case. Extension of the theory beyond that case would require modification, specifically conceptual elaboration, such that it becomes more than simply descriptive. The basis of the stages of the Marx-Engels theory was to be found in the prevailing forms of ownership (or in other words, forms of division of labor). The first historical form was that of "tribal ownership" characterized only by a natural division of labor based on natural differences such as sex and age. In this stage there is no specialized production, and the people support themselves by hunting, fishing, or 'slash and burn' agriculture. An increase in population brings about the second form of ownership, "state ownership," the result of the union of several tribes, some tribes becoming slaves to others, and the development of slaves as a means of production. Private property develops in this stage, and the country becomes divided from the city, with power concentrated in the latter. Marx and Engels seem to have had Rome in mind in their description of this stage. The explanation of the transition from the stage of state property to the apparently more backward stage of feudalism is somewhat elusive. They explain that "Rome indeed never became more than a city; its connection with the provinces was almost exclusively political."1 War,