Writings on Anthropology and Marxism

(mostly by date)

NOTE: Some of these are published and should be available in any University Library. Others are still unfinished, others are finished but not pubished. Most are availabe in htm or pdf format and are so indicated. If there are problems, please let me know. I can email a file or snail mail a hard copy of any of these on request.

2011 "The World Revolutionary Process." (pdf) This is the long version of my paper of the same time in the ICSS pamphlet: The Crisis Deepends: Marxist Critiques. It is still in draft form as of May 2011. Comments and critiques are welcome.

Capitalism and World Revolution (1974). This was written at the request of Warner Module Publications as part of a series for students of Anthropology. Its purpose was to provide a brief introduction to the Marxian analysis of capitalism and the Marxist-Leninist theory of revolution. Unfortunately, the parent company was sold weeks before it was due to be published, and the project abandoned. Consequently, it has lain fallow for 35 years. As I read it over, it still retains its validity, so I am making it available on the web. I am currently (December 2009) in process of revising the manuscript to include consideration of the changes since its original writing in 1974.

2009 "Reclaiming Our History: The Soviet Union." (htm) Notes for a presention for the Institute for the Critical Study of Society at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, Sunday, Nov 1, 2009.

2003 The Human Adventure: From Ancestral Communism to the Seventh Generation. This is my major work, still in progress. It will have three parts: 1. The Nature of Human Societies (including Social Thermodynamics); 2. Human Development through 1500 A.D.; 3. Capitalism and World Revolution. I completed a draft in 1990 which I used as a textbook in several courses. This version was slightly edited in 2003 and is available in both pdf and html formats.

2005 "Hobbits and Humans." (htm) (2005) Unpublished paper written as a response to Richard York’s article, “Homo Floresiensis and Human Equality: Enduring Lessons from Stephen Jay Gould,” in the March 2005 issue of Monthly Review.

2004 "With Marx and Jesus: Toward an Ecumenical Communism." (htm) Unpublished mansucrpipt, written in 2004.

2001 "The Two Faces of Capitalism: Underdevelopment and Overdevelopment.# (htm) Unpublished manuscript, written about 2001. Also available as a pdf file.

1998 "The Communist Manifesto in the Light of Current Anthropology." (htm) Paper Presented at the International Conference to Commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto. Social Emancipation 150 Years After The Manifesto. Havana, Feb. 17-20, 1998. Also vailable as a pdf file.

1992 "Multiple Working Hypotheses: A Scientific Method for Marxism." (htm) Unpublished ms, July 1992.

1988-89 "On Protosocialist Nations." (htm) University of Dayton Review 19(2):109-125 (Summer 1988-89).

1988 "Anthropology for Marxists: Prehistoric Revolutions." htm) Nature, Society, and Thought: A Journal of Dialectical Materialism 1(4):469-499 (1988).

1987 "Rethinking Marxist Anthropology." (pdf) In Perspectives in U.S. Marxist Anthropology. Edited by David Hakken and Hanna Lessinger. Boulder and London: Westview Press. Pp. 24-56. (1987)

1985 "On the Origin of Patriarchy and Class Rule (aka Civilization)" (htm) Unpublished manuscript completed in 1985.

1978 "Capitalism and Caste in Japan." (pdf) In New Directions in Political Economy: An Approach from Anthropology. Edited by Madeline Barbara Leons and Frances Rothstein. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Pp. 201-233. (1979)

1979 "Conflicting Japanese Interpretations of the Outcaste Problem (Buraku Mondai)." pdf) American Ethnologist 6:55-72. (1979)

1978 "A Socialist Alternative for the Future." (pdf) In Cultures of the Future. Edited by Magoroh Maruyama and Arthur Harkins. The Hague: Mouton Publishers. Pp. 613-628. (1978)

1977 "Energy and Culture." (pdf) In The Concepts and Dynamics of Culture. Edited by Bernardo Bernardi. The Hague: Mouton Publishers. Pp. 209-237. (1977)

1977 "The Future as Anthropology: Socialism as a Human Ecological Climax." htm Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Anthropological Association (San Diego, California, April 1977), also at the Kroeber Anthropological Society, Berkeley, May 7, 1977. Barely legible pdf version available through ERIC, search for Ruyle.

1976 "Labor, People, Culture: A Labor Theory of Human Origins." (pdf) Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 20:136-163. (1976)

1974 "Mode of Production and Mode of Exploitation: The Mechanical and the Dialectical." (pdf) Dialectical Anthropology 1:7-23. (1974)

1973 "Slavery, Surplus, and Stratification on the Northwest Coast: The Ethnoenergetics of an Incipient Stratification System." (pdf) Current Anthropology 14:603-631 (with CA* comment by 14 scholars and reply). (1973)

1973 "Genetic and Cultural Pools: Some Suggestions for a Unified Theory of Biocultural Evolution." (pdf) Human Ecology 1:201-215. (1973)