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The idea of primitive communism is as seductive as it is wrong | Aeon Essays

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Marx’s idea that societies were naturally egalitarian and communal before farming is widely influential and quite wrong

Karl Marx died on 14 March 1883. At the funeral three days later, Friedrich Engels wasted little time on their 40-year friendship, focusing instead on Marx’s legacy. ‘Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature,’ Engels said, ‘so Marx discovered the law of development of human history.’ His friend had died ‘beloved, revered and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow-workers – from the mines of Siberia to California, in all parts of Europe and America … His name will endure through the ages, and so will his work!’ Engels made sure of this. In the following years,…

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