Letters from Tomis

An ongoing series of reflections of my thoughts on historical materialism after reading What is Marxism: An Introduction into Marxist Theory by Rob Sewell and Alan Woods. The thoughts, opinions, and any errors are mine alone.

The development of human civilization, in all its grandeur and barbarity, owes an incalculable debt to the institution of slavery. From an historical materialist perspective, this is neither a celebration nor a condemnation, but a cold acknowledgment of the material forces that have shaped history. To understand how slave societies contributed to the rise of civilization is to grasp the dialectical interplay between exploitation and progress, between human suffering and the forward thrust of history.

Marx’s historical materialism insists that the modes of production—the ways in which societies organize labor and resources—form the economic base of society, upon which rests a superstructure of culture, politics, and ideology. Slavery, as a mode of production, represents one of the earliest and most brutal stages of human economic organization. By extracting surplus labor from a subjugated class of people, slave societies generated the wealth and stability necessary for the growth of cities, the codification of laws, the flourishing of philosophy, and the construction of monumental architecture. Yet, this “progress” came at an appalling human cost, a paradox that lies at the heart of historical materialist analysis.

Let us consider ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome—civilizations often hailed as the cradles of Western thought and culture. In Egypt, the monumental pyramids, those enduring symbols of human ingenuity, were built on the backs of slave labor. These structures were not merely tombs; they were manifestations of a centralized economy that could mobilize vast resources and labor to achieve monumental goals. The ability to extract surplus labor from slaves allowed the ruling class to focus on advances in mathematics, astronomy, and engineering, which would influence civilizations for millennia. The irony, of course, is that this intellectual and material progress was predicated on the systematic dehumanization of others.

In Greece, the birthplace of democracy, philosophy, and literature, the institution of slavery was a foundational pillar. Athenian democracy, celebrated as the wellspring of participatory governance, was made possible by the exploitation of slaves who toiled in the fields, mines, and households. This exploitation freed the Athenian citizenry to engage in public life, debate, and the pursuit of philosophy. Socrates could muse on the nature of justice and Plato could construct his ideal republic precisely because they lived in a society where others—excluded from citizenship by their enslaved status—provided the material support for such lofty endeavors. Here lies another paradox: the intellectual breakthroughs that would shape the Western world emerged from a society that denied its very principles of liberty and equality to a significant portion of its population.

Rome, the most conspicuous example of a slave society, carried this dynamic to its apex. The Roman economy depended heavily on the labor of slaves, who worked in agriculture, industry, and domestic service. The wealth generated by this exploitation underpinned the expansion of the Roman Empire, the construction of its infrastructure, and the development of its legal and political systems. Roman law, which remains a cornerstone of Western legal thought, was itself a product of an empire sustained by systemic oppression. The roads, aqueducts, and monumental architecture of Rome—so often cited as testaments to human achievement—were, in reality, the products of an economy that relied on the suffering of millions.

From a historical materialist perspective, these contradictions are not anomalies but the engine of historical progress. Slave societies, through the accumulation of surplus wealth and the concentration of productive forces, laid the groundwork for their own negation. The very material conditions created by slavery eventually led to the development of feudalism, which, in turn, would give way to capitalism and its potential transcendence into socialism. The dialectical process of history reveals that every stage of development contains the seeds of its own destruction, and slavery was no exception. The social and economic tensions inherent in slave societies—slave revolts, class struggles, and the inefficiencies of forced labor—eventually led to their dissolution and the rise of new modes of production.

This perspective, however, does not absolve us of moral responsibility. While historical materialism explains the role of slavery in the development of civilization, it does not justify it. To understand that progress is built upon exploitation is not to accept it as inevitable, but to recognize the necessity of transcending it. Just as the contradictions of slavery gave rise to feudalism and capitalism, so too must the contradictions of capitalism propel humanity toward a future where exploitation in all its forms is abolished.

In the end, the history of slave societies is a history of both horror and hope. It is a reminder that human progress, for all its achievements, has often been built on the backs of the oppressed. But it is also a testament to the capacity of human societies to overcome their limitations, to learn from their contradictions, and to strive toward a world where civilization is no longer dependent on the suffering of the many for the benefit of the few.