People have been predatory for millennia. That is precisely how the Romans, Olmecs, Ottomans, Mongols, Colonial Europeans and Americans built their empires.
Most basic of Marxism: predatory culture is just a byproduct of the predatory practices. It doesn't create it, it is created by it.
What is 'predatory' here? If you are a Marxist Economic Exploitation and the position that you seem to be affirming is that culture is merely the superstructure that justifies and enforces this exploitation but does not dictate it. I believe one can argue more easily for this to apply to the 18th-21th centuries, but falls apart horribly when you look at history before then particularly the Ancient and Medieval world, I will focus on the occident because I can say I am ignorant of mesoamerican history.
I think if you told an ancient ruler Marx's famous 'Man is an economic animal' (as I understand it a play on Aristotles rational animal) the response would be one of amused contempt and would reply with perhaps something to point out that man is a warring animal an animal that wishes to conquer and that the dialectic of history so far as their is one is of fragment 25 of Heraclitus:
'War is both father and king of all, some he has shown forth as gods and others as men, some he has made slaves and others free.'
While it might seem that war can be dictated by economy, it is not the only factor and the question looks more like what economy does for the empire/city/state in times of war dictates history. That is most changes in human history where external and due outside antagonism and if their was a dialectical of this change it's in how the failure of one allowed the other to conquer the other.
So it is war that dictates history primary that is not reducible to economy (only a factor). And the desires of wallstreet are far removed from that of Lycurgus and are very different animals.
Tell me where you disagree, I used to have Marxist sympathies but the more I read the more they dimmed until I realized how many mistakes where in it. As an aside reading Engels metaphysics is one of the fastest ways to lose respect for Engels as his writings on metaphysics are perhaps the worst on the subject to be published of all time.
Not too much. My point is not meant to accept Marxism/dialectical materialism as a broad explanation of society and history. It is more reduced in scope, where the worldview of each person or social group is shaped by how they make money or achieve power.
My understanding is that history and society are affected by a lot more factors than "mode of production".
Yes, I agree and for me this is indeed different different from dialectical materialism and a much stronger Thesis and though related once taken away from Marxist Materialism, implies lots of things that diverge from Marx.
For me the greatest example is Marx's writings on Bonapartism which he tries to understand Napoleon III's political maneuvers which become rather silly and ad-hoc and the best explanation is that he wants to set himself up as an authority that uses the support of the proles and the military to coerce and control and indeed create a culture that supports him.
Crucially he does not support or act on behalf of any group and enforce their position in the actual economy and though he benefits from capital profits from taxes he benefits from workers taxes and does not want unrest.
In short he is employing a common strategy seen throughout history but one that is quite removed from the particulars of the direct economy and could support many different economic models. This for me breaks Marx's claim and his analysis is quite poor on this.
Though of course it seems we agree, so I am just putting this here because I think it's interesting.