rr gy Marx's concept of the Asiatic mode of production: @ genetic analysis* Heinz Lubasz Abstract ‘Marx's concept ‘Asiatic mode of production’ doesn't conceptualize production in Asia, which Mare knew very litte about and never axtempted to theorize, but the hypothetical zemote ancestzy of modern bourgeois production, which he knew a lor about and spent a lifetime theorising. In Marx's writings from 1857/8 onwerds, the AMP figures as the aboriginal, primitively communal mode of production muchas in his ings before that date the family, tribe, or clan figure as the aboriginal, primicively communal social formation, ts putative cheracteristics derive, less from Marx's examination of its actual structure, than from his reuro- spective rational reconstruction, out ofthe ‘categories’ af che capitalise ‘mode of production and the logie of dialectical development, ofa schema Which would embrace ‘al? modes of production in a single progressive (though not steaightforwatdly successive) system of the ecoromie formation of society Nothing in Marx's writings addresses the non-European world more directly than does his concept of the Asiatic mode of production, Certainly it has been at the centre of Marxist debates concerning Asia — and much of the rest of the non-European World — for more than a hundred years.! ‘These debates have ranged from issues of immediate and vital political significance — strategies of revolution, directions of social and economic develop- quent — to broad questions concerning the interpretation of world history and the study of economic anthropology. aAt times these debates bave, to be sure, descended to the level of political mud slinging and Marxological pedantry, But, one way ot another, the oncept of the Asiatic mode of production has mattered greatly — hhas mattered enough, for example, to be banned by Stalin from Public discussion in the Soviet Union for twenty-five years, Hence ‘here is bitter irony in the fact that this concept now turns out to Beonomy and Society Volume 13 Number 4 November 1984 (© RKP 1984 0308—5147/84/1304~-0000 $1,50Ne Bey pos beorso of he Aste made predution 487 pe fundamentally flawed, Today we know, thanks to 4 mast of Bfoaxist and nonMarxist research and analysis, what the concept of Asiatic mode of production is empirically untenable and se onticrlly indefensible And yet, because it is always possible Oy say — rightly — that empirical evidence is not by itself EGncktsive, and because it is alvays, posible, given sufficient EGgenty, to introduce theoretical modifications, the concept stil ine rits adherents I therefore present a different kind of critique, IniSthe hope thar the ghost of this profoundly misleading concept ity at last be laid to rest. By means of what one might oul Tietic analysis? I attempt to go to the root of the concept, by Beccing how it was conceived in the first place and then developed, {yeh analysis shows that the concept ‘Asiatic mode of production” Soesn't conceptualize what it seems to, but something else instead. t is a pseudo-concept. ‘What the concept ‘Asiatic mode of production’ conceptualizes js not Asian society, which Marx knew very litte about and never Netempted to theorize, but the hypothetical origins of modern pourgeois society, which Marx knew a lot about and spent a life- time theorizing. ‘Marx's overriding purpose was to create a new theory of history, not as such, butas an overwhelming, objective ‘demonstr~ ation” of the force of his argument against modem, bourgeois society, The whole schematic view of history which he devised was ‘ded by this polemical intent. And his polemical incent was to SSrove’ that modern bourgeois society — or, to give it its other ‘Marxian name, the capitalist mode of production ~ was bound to yield to communist society. Capital, and the capitalist mode of production with it, was — so Marx maintained — a transitory’ phenomenon end ‘not ~ as the classical political economists Ehought ~ the perennial core of man’s economic society operating ‘at last in accortlance with its etemal natural laws, Marx therefore most urgently wanted to show that capital was no ‘natural’ thing, but a social form or relation; that it was no perennial or ubiqui- tous phenomenon, but a historically specific form which, as it had come into being, so it would pass away — to give place to the next hhigher (and final) stage in the systematic historical process of the economic formation of society. Given this overriding, polemical Durpose, Marx set out to construct what | think is best understood 2s & systematic argument in the form of a systematic theory of history. He conceived of the bourgeois society of bis mic-nine- teentli-century, western European present as at once 2 mode of production, a form of domination, and a system of social conflict. Tn order to demonstrate that it was, in all these respects, a transitory reality, he devised a view of the whole of past history as488 Heloe Luboee a systematic and progressive sequence of modes of production, forms of domination, and systems of social conflict; a sequence ‘of stages or epochs in the economic conformation of socie (skonomische Gesellschaftsformation)* which was bound, all along, to lead to the present stage — and beyond it. Thus the whole systematic sequence of historical formations devised by Marx served no other purpose then to demonstrate the force of his argument Tt was the sole purpose of the concept of the Asiatic mode of production to serve as the starting point of that whole fateful process. In general terms Marx's schematic presentation of the course of history is widely familiar, But it is not generally realized that two versions of this scheme are to be found in his writings.* ‘The first, which informs the writings from The German ideology (1845/6) to The Communist Manifesto (1848), reads: primitive communism, ancient society, feudal society, modern bourgeois society, The second, which informs the writings from the Grund risse (1857/8) to Capital, vol. 1 (1867), reads: Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production. In these later writings, the Asiatic mode of production takes the place which in the earlicr writings had been occupied by the primitive com- munism of the family, Each represents the stage of intial con tions from which, once the primitive (naturwnebsig) forms, relations and activities which characterize them have been torn apart, the systematic formative process begins which culminates in the modern bourgeois form of society or — as the case may be = in the capitalist mode of production, The formal characteristics Marx ascribes to the Asiatic mode of production.are the same as those he ascribes to the family: primitive (naturwachsig) unity of form, of relations, and of activities. Just as the family has unity of form’ thanks to the accidents of birth, so the ‘Asiatic’ communal entity (Gemeinwesen)® has unity of form thanks to the accidents of location, Just as the family is not systematically differentiated into parts or organs, so is the land of Asia an ‘indifferent’ (not systematically differentiated) unity of city and countryside. If the family has only a spontaneous, accidental division of labour, so does the ‘Asiatic’ mode of production; and in both the social nature of labour is immediate, and directly perceptible (‘trans parent’), In the primitive communism of the family, those who work ate at the same time the proprietors of what they work on, be it land or the raw materials of domestic industry. ‘The same holds true of the ‘Asiatic’ formation, And in neither form of ptimitively communal production is agricultural labour systemati- tally differentiated from domestic industry. In its principal features, therefore, the Asiatic mode of production is the equiva _:ehibwolpodion ‘srpinshic athe? os pol ‘ade asel revoting ean gales cnet sry fot ‘Nor schematic xedaree to beso “Fak ll bere cone ist tee ation of he 9 stat ofthe suction The silent for.FS nacally ele! ae on sof intial suchrigh fees have been too colnin's ke 1 characteris are the sane sg) unity hasunity command 1 the acciders » differentiated different’ (ect nteyside. te “of hibout, © oth the social ptibte Ceacs ys those who ghey: work oa, ry. The same ther form of nur systerat its princips] the equi | dari’ concept of the Ante mode of production 469 lent of the family: it is primitive communism. (Both, of courss, Sie Gistinguished from. the systematic — fully articulated, deliberately instituted, consciously controlled ~ commun'sn! © the putative fueure precisely by their lack of system: in primitive te Pernisrn, forms, relations and activities are merely mature ‘ouchsig, that is, spontancous and a watcer of accident) Cre ee scmage in Marx's manuscript on the Theories of Sample Value (1862/3) which states the whole matter sn a nuty shell: ‘The original unity between labourer and conditions of labour oe wakes two main forms: the Asiatic communal entity, {primitive [maturwacbsg) communism) and the smal Zam Seenead (with which domestic industry is linked) in one form te another, Both arc infantile forms (Kinderformen} and equally Hitle suited to developing labour as social Iabout and the productive power of social labour, Henee the neces of Separation, sundering (Zerredsung, iteraly: teazing apart, the opposition between labour and property (meaning property i Specs saitions of production). The most extreme form of this Suesdting, in which atthe same time the produetive forces of labour are most powerfully developed, is that of capital. Te i$ Shion the macerial basis which iterates, and via the reveli- cay che working cass and the whole society undergoes, that the original unity can be restored.” ‘One could hardly ask for a more straightforward statement of the Bat of Marx's schematic vision of history, even though there is 20 Explicit veference tothe social formations ox the modes ‘of produc SP ere penveen the primiively communist stage and the capitalist. The initial conditions — here the alimporra relation CPP epoar to the conditions of labour ~ ere primitivaly unitary ord. ne wacty ineapable of development. The orginal uniy rest be aoey Sounder nee two poles which stand in oppesition One the cre then, and only. then, docs that process of diferencia Orne cticulation begin which for Marx is synonymors WI development. ‘The forms which, precede this sundering are primitively. unitary. The forms which sueceed it 2 by contrast, Uieagonistic. And they are, progressively so: ths ‘the capitalist sag ite. most extreme form of the sandering of Ce original inity into opposites, But the most extreme for of disunity is ar he laste ie creates the conditions which make possible the aa aa ieee the orginal unity — of a higher level The original tunity is that of the primitive communism of the Asiatic mode of production. ‘The family is mentioned in the ‘quoted passage a5 an Pguivalent form, But, in contrast to what was the case in Marx’s ee{ 480 Heine Lutwse Giller writings, the family with its farmstead no longer represents did he the hypothetical initial stage in the process of histovical develop. togethe men It is now seen rather as the one institution of modern j The bourgeois society in which the unity of labour and the conditions primiti f labour still survive. The mantie of the primitive family as the exclusi pypothetial initial stage in the process of historical development been 3 ss assed from the family to the Asiatic mode of production. Germa And the Asiatic mode of produetion wears that mantle precisely munisn as the new incarnation of primitive communism, | Urform ‘The important point here ~ 2 point to which we shall return sriiki that the formal nature of the defining characteristics of primitive communism was known to Marx a priort: for, that the al conditions of a process of development are characterized} by a primitive unity of form, relations and activities, isa central | Postulate of dialectical logic. To the extent, therefore, that Marx Sonceptualized the Asiatic mode of production as primitive Communism, the formal characteristics which he ascribed to that mode of production derive, not from any examination and | comm ahalysis of socio-economic life in Asia, but from dialectical logic: vagant they are a priori. But, of course, the concept of the Asiatic node | thesis | | | of Production is no purely formal concept. it has specific content, were Gist content, I suggest, was largely derived by Marx from the distinc defining features —"the’ categories, as he called then of the proper capitalist mode of prod latter, thoug! iatic mode of production — the institu: || "yIke tional forms, the socio-economic relations, and the patterns of at firs activity ~ he derived from the categories of the capitalist mode of 3 the cs production as he conceived it. Having so very little knowledge of the © Asia as he did made it all the easier for Mare to impose upon the Clarity few data he did have the shape called for by dialectical logic and | but wi the content suggested by the categories of mid-nineteenth-century, to me the win European capitalism, The real Asia is all but absent, What ‘| back | the concept ‘Asiatic mode of production’ conceptualizes is not the t Asia 1 mrodeeghomic life of ancient Asia, but the hypothetical roots of condi ™modern bourgeois society | lived : \} and § . idea Hero¢ Before 1 go on to enlarge on that claim, I must pause to deal with classi the Presumably specifically Asiatic character of the Asiatic mode from) gaproduction, After all, Marx did locate primitive commune ea, prong Tah and he did bring Oriental despotism into his teen ot slight pn. questions therefore arise, (1) why should Mars have heataied infor! Primitive communism as specifically Asiatic? and (2) how and why Marx’ |— EN ——————————— ars concept of the Alte mode of prodton together in a single concept? Sete int answer to the frst question is that Marx believed primitive communism to have been originally, bue by no Mee Prclusiely, Asiatic. Marx thought primitive commun been 2 more ot less world-wide phenomenon, the cra thesis that the ea were to be conceptualized in terms of Roman an thought about antiquity was couched in such terms: the Orient with his hypothesis about primi dlid_he bring Oriental despotism and primitive communism Gomnanic, Celtic, Slavic and other variants, The primitive come eran ot Asia was in his eyes simply the aboriginal form, the Urform from whose structure one could desive later pater of Ufo a and of private ownership. ‘This was not an unreasonable hypothesis, since the origins of civilization itself and, with ft the Derinnings of history, were in his day traced t0 the grest ve! 2 Pefiys Asia (Hgypt for this purpose being included with Asia), Tare tase atea stretching from the Nile to the lands berween the ‘Tigris and the Buphrates and beyond, to the valleys of the Indus, the Ganges, andthe ‘Yellow River ~ this was thought to have been. EES, alization, To suppose the earliest forms of settled teimmunal life to have emerged in Asia was therefore no extray agunt hypothesis ~ less extravagant, at any rate, than the hypo st settled relations between land and people \d German legal Yecawtions between property and possession, individual privace ; propery ans communal ownership! But even in respect of the picter, Marx wis no. maverick: much nineteenth-century European a “The answer to the second question is less straightforward. For at fist glance itis indeed pudzling how Marc could have linked the satabiished European common-place about the despotism of ive communism. Clarity on this point depends on our grasping, not what otters: ba hse Man Kianself specifically understood ‘Oriental despotism to mean, The idea thar Asia was ruled by powerful despots goce Dadevee the Greeits, who saw the powerful barbarian empites of ie Minor as 2 constant threat to their independence, and the Condition of slavery in which the subjects of the Oriental despots fived as 2 constant threat to their own ideal of limited governsncnt ING free citizenship. There is little doubt that Marx imbibed this area of Oriental despotism from his reading of Aeschylus, Herodotus, Isocrates and Aristotle, along with the rest of his srerviest education, So, no doubt, did the earlier European writers, Casa cdin and. Harrington to Montesquieu and Hegel, whe pronounced on the subject, even if each of them sayt it igntly different light and with an admixture of additional Information ot. speculation. It has recently been suggests itera ies about Oriental despotism need to be seen in theSENEEEsee is Heine Lise Manes se Tae Of the whole European tradition of thought about Asia? tion 1 as though Marx, hed first absorbed that tradition and then either icriga advanced beyond it or fallen behind it, I know of no evidence, In: direct or inlect, to suggest that Matx came by his partes; primi Be eae ee Oriental despotism in anything like this way, My must ‘Own guess is that he formed his more detailed notion of Oriental to. se despotism by reflection on Aristotle, whose Policies and Nex primi machaean Ethics he re-read with care in the 1850s, Marx’s two conce deualed references to Oriental despotism ~ in the article on "The natuer Beitish Rule in India’ (1853) and in the section of the Granthine them: Known as, ‘PreCapitalist. Economic Formations" indivi (1857/8) — make it plain that what he has in mind is the al, | they commanding will of the despot visd-vis bis will-less subjects — a behes biceise reflection of the Aristotelian view. In classical Greek, defini Sespotes isthe teem for a master preeminentiy of slaves, Avotele betw. Specifies the relation of master and slave by saying that @ slave fs Marx ‘Pmeone who, having no will of his own, is in all thi igs subject to the { the will of a master, a despotes.? Itis precisely on this view of the gener Marx fastens: the relation between will and will: affori between someone who, having individual personality and whic! {apable of action, and someone who, lacking both finall ' personality and will, is capable only of activity; between perso oes who commands and the slave who obeys, beyo: This comes out very clearly in “The British Rule in India’, where volun Constrasts the way in which artificial irrigation was carried act cj out in Italy and Flanders with the way it was carried out in | is Ms italy and Flanders, says Marx, such works were the distin Tonat °F (Private enterprise’ riven to ‘voluntary cooperation’ im | Thus, the result of deliberate action undertaken by | despe individuals having will and capable, therefore, both of enterprise Th ana,ct wolumtary cooperation. In the Orient, by conteer, pace ment Works were carried out at the behest of the cereal government, It is : bectuse ‘civilization was too low and the terror] oxen tion. {0 call inco life voluntary association’. 1 cannot doubt that what | overt ho inhabined eh tation’ being ‘too low" was that the people“ emer (inhabited the communal villages had not yet developed into subje IIfledged individual Petsons with a will of their own. In the mean consequently, of private enterprise and voluntary co- prod, on the part of the villagers, ‘an economical function 1 econ: Cepaved upon all Asistic Governments’ the hance providing muct public works’, (In my view it is this commitment of Marx's to the + from ce that in Asia the population had noe yet developed individual i Basti Petsonality and will which was responsible for’ his actually oper? Suppressing a piece of information which, as we shail see, he had at his disposal at the tim itAS 465 ein Lobe tare concent ofthe Atle made of proueton t about Asia,* tion that in Asia the communes, too, undertook works of artificial td then either irrigation). no evidence, ABest British Rule in India’ there is as yet no menten of his particular primitive communism or of the Asiatic mode of production, We L this way. My Pust therefore turn to the ‘Pre-Capitalist ‘Economic Formations i on of Oriental to see how Matx links Oriental despotism specifically with L ics and Nico- primitive communism"! It was ttue 4 priori, so far as Marx was | s. Marx’s two Poncerned, that people who lived in conditions ‘of the most neatly : ticle on “The Sanarwticbsig of primitive communisms had not Yet detached 1 he Grundrisse Themselves from the communel ‘lump’, had not yet become _ Formations’ qndividuals, and thus lacked will. Whatever non-routine activities ind is the all- they performed must, therefore, have been performed at the s subjects — a Drea of someone who did have will. And that someone WA by sical Greck, ae cineir master; the Oriental despot. The Connery, aves. Aristotle between Oriental despotism and primitive communiins jg made by : that a stave is Manx on this very point. ‘The corollary of ‘Oriental despotism is : ings subject to “the general slavery of the Bast’: the human being is in completely | s view of the general terms a slave: the slave of the ‘material conditions which t will and will aerert fie sustenance, the slave of the commmural en/iy within | ersonality and | Which he lives almost like a bee within a hive, and the slave, i lacking both iA slave lacks individual finally, of the despot who rules over al ivity; between personality and will, He is therefore incapable of deliberate action } . Beyond routine activity, incapable, of initiate, enterprise; | india’, where Pefottary cooperation. very Oriental’s nonroutine 260° an ' mn was eartied Seer sour at the command of the master, the despotes ‘That : auried out in arenes tion of the ‘general’ slavery of the Hast, ip, ome acks were the is Mare’ notice particular slavery of ancient Greece end Tom pperation’ — in ‘Thus, in Marx’s thinking, do primitive communis ‘and Oriental & ndertaken by despotism go hand-in-hand, i | of enterprise "The systematic place of despotism in Marx's scheme of develop- \ rontrast, such ment lies, like that of primitive communism itself, acthe beginning | | government, Ttis simply the first in a systematic sequenst of forms of domina i xctent too vast Non. Like the other pre-capitalist forms of dominntin, is an ubt that what chert form of domination, a, political form. Only the l iat the people {emergence of capitalism do the relations of domination and jeveloped into Subjestion between the — at feast nomial 7 Rep ors of the own. In the means of production and the population directly engaged iP voluntary co- production cease to be overtly poles form, and become yoy ee Prodectie” Bue these capitalist economic Suton still very Seo ee Tt domination and subjection, 0 deseent much relations Of “Grima despot and the geet Se ofthe From those ote ar the power ofthe capi his actually operation among workess, Marx says, D4 0) of asain et see, he had at by no. means haphazardly: ‘The Powe’ lof conan, Asati n of providing ( the informa- { and Egyptian kings ot Etruscan theocrats “Marx's to the ped individualgy He tse Y pase to the capitalist, be he mw the vase af joinestock, companies, a We then, we wish 1 an individual capizalis or, as collective capitalist,” laeate the Asiatic mode of prodton Mahon the systematic framework of Mean theory, our best the nieveseary stinkish as Mace hint alvays did bene the atevessary and the contingent, In the systemat sequence of| imenles of prochiction sensu stricta, it s primitive communist Which is 4 necessary clement. ‘That its Urform is Asiatic is an sccilent of history and eouraphy, In the systematic sequence of Rrtins of slontination which is interlocked with te systematic jhpreteh ot tales of production, i i despotism whe ee Ianto CetHeUE. That its Urfor is Oriental is an seeder ef ator ant geugraphy. Distinguishing. the necessary from the Santaytent in this way seems to me to clarify much in the concept ‘at the Asiatic mite uf production that has bntherso been snurky erage. lftculies remain. tn one place Manx epak of fhe state ay being a mere instrument of class domination, the see re lasses thus teing its precondition; in another pice, # We Ihave seen, he speaks of a classless society — primitive com: fumisur which, having no classes, has no need of class domine fin. aml vet dacs have a state, Phiinly such a state is no inst iment of chiss domination, In ane place Marx asserts that the state X metely part a the supersirueture which arses on society's base, us ccotionnie structure; in another place he el ims, as we have seen, tht the Griental state performed economie functions so vial ee NHL iigation ‘works ~~ that the whole economie suuctute of SSE coro’ tinetion if they were not performed, Phinly such wan ge he mere part of the iperstcucture. ‘These are diftialties which remain ao matter how one reads Marx, for the simple reason that they re ineradicably there in the texts, yer eannot be re. voneited one with the uther, They ace, it seems to me, simply the anatenided byproducts of an unremitting endeavour eo theorize iwuulern Irourgcois suciety in such a way as to demonstrate that it % the upshot of the whole of past history. Marx wants to show that modern bourgeois society asa mode of production, aa form ot lamination, wu? as a system of social conflict is the sequel to all the antecedent historical formations as eacd anal themselves mules of prexluction, forms of domination, and — with tele exception of primitive communism — systems of social coi, This was an incredibly ambitious project, which Marx tad ; from divergent perspectives on different occasions over the span of 4 whole litetime, If in his several and divergent attempts todo al this Marx doesn't always succeed, and if his various solutions don't all add up, we shouldn't be surprised.imc - ranmell emvmen —————_ 00 tho Astetle mode of production a yous cance of ha sel made of redat 86 3 Go theorization of any actually Asian patterns of social, cemnonn’ BP political life is to be found anywhere in Marx's writings. wards the end of his life, he did, to be sure, study and try (© ‘Thalyze one of the surviving forms of primitive ‘communism ~ the aesne peasant commune, the Russian mir. But thes oo Semparable study and analysis of any Asian formation, ‘And even Che attempted analysis of the mir was rentadyey patchy, tnonclusive, and he left it unfinished. The genesis of ‘Marx’s inccept of an Asiatic mode of production has therefore 10 be Sought, not in the anslyzed presentations ~ there are none ~ & soe litele Marx Knew about Asia, but in the theoretical prossss wnSugh which he formulated his notion of primitive communism Bor that notion, together with his idea of Oriental despotism, i what he read into his scant information about Asia ‘Tt is worth observing, parenthetically, that though Marx knew rather more about the other two pre-capitalist formations, the ancient and the feudal, he never examined say ‘of them in decal Brie Hobsbawm. once noted very justly that Marx. was “not concemed .,. with the internal “dynamics of pre-capitalist systems except in so far as they explain the preconditions of capitalism." He tnight have added that this doesn't mean that Marx picked on only those features of the pre-capitalist systems which pointed towards capitalism, but rather the reverse: that he read into he pre-capitalist. systems those features which he derived from Capitalisin. After all, on Marx’s own view, nothing whatever in primitive communism pointed cowards capitalism. Marx's sk. #8 Pettaw it; was to show why, in light of the conditions required for the emergence of capitalism, primitive communism we, infantile form unsuited to developing labour #5 social labour of, With it, the wemendous productive power of social aboot, Noshing in it pointed to capitalism, And bat perception Wt of course available to him only by looking at primitive ‘communism Fm the light of the categories of the caprealist mode of produeron Comparable things might be said of the other pre-capitalist forma- Toe tA Claude Meilassoux has succinetly put its ‘It was not Marx's intention to analyse the pre-capitalist, formations from Within, bur eather to discover thelr distinctive feamures and their suiccestion, In doing this, his method was to take he basic institu- Tena act feutares of capita as i existed in his time and ©” to trace their past evolution." AAT have Already suggested, Marx’ chief theoretical tools for doing this were two: dialect ‘al logic and retrospective reconstse= tion, Speaking very schematically indeed, one may SY chat dia~ — |aE HeneLabenr | Mane lectical logic provided the general form of each of the modes of are d Produetion and the overall pattcen of the sequence of modes, (amil While recrospective reconstruction meant setting out from the geogrs principal features or categories of the capitalist mode of produe- Activi ton {as Marx analysed it) and reconstructing the pre-capitalist. | mena modes in terms of these categories, Marx himself,éin the well, forme known introduction to the Grundrisse, spelled out the rationale from for this procedure of rational reconstruction, and it will be useful | the sti to remind ourselves of what he said there: } ie Bourgeois society [wrote Marx] is the most developed and the | ruptar ‘most fully articulated (mannigfaltigste] historical organization crucial of production, The categories which express its relations, the and th comprehension of its structure, also afford insight into the “At | tions which nae relations of production ofall the social forma ine! tions which have passed away, [formations] with whose | sysceni Wweeckage and fragments it [bourgeois society] has built icself | furthe: pp, whose remnants — partly stil! unintegrated — survive within | ficatio it (while what in them were] no more than anticipations [of | version later forms) have developed into fullledged significations. The | anothe ape Byes he human being i a key to the anatomy of the with d ape. By contrast, what in the lower ordets of animals isthe anti- ileeady {bation of a higher form can only be grasped once the higher culmin {otm is already known, Similar, bourgeois economy supplies as beir the key to the ancient, ete." tion w ‘That, I think, is as clear a statement of the theoretical basis of! that fit {aiinal reconstruction as one could wish for. How far the analogy * aetiviti Petween the evolution of species and the history of society is rire contro! {i how far it may be misleading, is an important question, but + Gontral fone we need nor take up in the present context. Nor do we need despot: {0 take up the related question, raised by lring Fetscher and develo} Comelius Castoriadis among others,"” whether it males sense to | where conceive of earlier forms of socio-economic life as moder of begin. Production at all. For our purposes it is enough to know what Patti Marx's procedure was, | ceptual wr iavplly, Marx left no comparable statement of his eoncep- in some Homearstletical ogi. In very cough outline, however, oxe may the rad opie are i a8 follows. Dialectical logic is, among other things, a ‘condit togte of development, I is a way of formulating the inital exe, 4 must ron Po Subleet-substance’s structure, the path of its develop. nediun TAane ftom lower forms to higher, and ofthe modes (modifestions) mediatj fioush which it pases in that process of development to ies fect elation form. The initial conditions are naturwhcbsig: that is, they make capital coe roniely organic whole whose internal structure is sponta: enly in ‘cous, Ron-systematic, haphazard, contingent, Relations within it hbour | eeegreenest cence ‘Mars concept of the Alatle mode of production “7 are determined by the accidents of birth and consanguinity | Gamily, clan, tribe) or by the accidents of settlement (locaton, geography, climate) — in short, by purely natural factors, ‘Ketivites are similarly determined by the accidents of nacure: old men and women may perform different activities from those pet formed by the young, females may perform different activities from males, and the weak may perform different activities from the strong, But these differences are differences rooted in nature. ‘There is no systematic differentiation at all, or else it is at avery tow level indeed, Systematic differentiation begins with the great rupture or sundering which creates a difference ~ for Marx erucially the separation of labour from the conditions of labour, and the systematic division of labour itself. ANAT that point, systematic development begins: the proces of 7 increasingly intensified differentiation, and of the articulation of = Systematic — as opposed to a naturwucbsig ~ structure, The further path of development, through subsequent modes or mod fications, cannot here be univocally reconstructed, because Marx's versions of it vary with his perspective ftom one occasion * another, Bur it need not detain us here, since we are concerned With the initial conditions only. Suffice it to sey — 98 We have already noted — that Marx regards the process a5 having culminated, to date, in the bourgeois or capitalist formation, and as being destined ~ at least conditionally ~ to reach its comple: tion with the restoration of he original nity ata higher level At that final stage, community is not naturwtcbsig but systematic: 1 activities are, so far as natural needs perinit, under the conscicns | Contcol of the community itself, instead of being subject to the Gomination either of nature, or of imagined gods, o of tl Gespots individual or collective, At that point bis partculor development will have come to a close and, as Manx s8ys soe here with besutfal epdimism, ‘real, buman bistory can at last gin, Putting both of these theoretical tools to work, Marx Or ceptuatized the central feature of the Asiatic mode of proeuctioe in something like the following way. Bourgeois soc86) is based on the radi ine ene {Of about from the means of production (OF sos Titus of labour’), Since labour and the means of prods e eet nE Suche together if production is to orcur At ay & medium or mediator must exist which brings te oi hat Taediating role is performed by capital — by the alr Telatlon” bewween labour and ee tmuans of production, In pre Capitalist formations, capital doesn't exist by definite (or exis only in preliminary, ‘antedeluvian’ forms), while the separ the Tabour Rom the means of production has not yet ret0aS 48 Heine Lobare extreme degree which it reaches under capitalism. Thus in pre= capitalist formations generally, labour still has diteet access to the means of production in one way or another, under various forms of property and under various degrees of constraint But in the first formation, that of the initial conditions, labour and the means of production have not become separated at all, and no constraint is required to bring them together. The labour of the communal entity and the land on which that labour works are virtually one, Marx had it on the authority of the seventeenth- century physician and writer, Francois Bernier, that in India there was no concept of ‘mine’ and ‘thine’.!® And he had it on the authority of a British parliamentary report that in India villages existed which had retained their communal role of life unchanged since remote antiquity,'? His reading of Bernier suggested to Marx that there was in India no private property; and on the strength of this, plus his information ebout the communal nature of village life in India, Marx concluded that, if property in the villages ‘wasn't private, it must be communal. By this he didn't mean that any explicit concept or institution of property rights existed, of course; but he did mean that the land as a whole was directly available to the community as a whole. He thus readily assumed some sort of primitive communism to have existed in Indian villages from time immemorial; he also assumed that this was the prevailing pattern in India and, indeed, in Asia as a whole. And he assumed all this, so far as 1 can see, precisely because primitive communism was what he expected to find, For he simply ignored information to the effect that in some parts of India ‘private’ Property did exist}? he ignored — though he faithfully reported them ~ the current debates in Parliament about the nature and Variety of Indian forms of land-holding;* and he ignored what he had read, to the effect that the absence of private property in land had not been established in India until the coming of the Muslim conquerors.’ Besides, he didn’t inquire into forms of tenure in China of Persia or Viemnam, and he didn’t attempt to distinguish ‘among different epochs of Indian history. He had some ‘evidence’ that the allimportant capitalist category ~ the relation of labour to the means of production ~ conformed in Asia to the dialectical postulate of « naturwucbsig, primitive unity of form, Since his Concern was not with Asia but with the remote antecedents of the ‘capitalist mode of production, that was enough, 4 Mare himself actually used the term ‘Asiatic mode of production’ only once, It occurs in the well-known statement that ‘In broad Poe eee eetesate bem. Thus in ps aval ret access tke -ettee various fr taint A ditions hte € separated at ber. ‘he bbs: sti shat labour was ‘ef the seventeen f2shat in India dex 1 be had it on te Toot in India villas offife unchanget sggested to Mir. he steengihat oo eatute of silye oivey i the wig stuln’t mean tht “ahs existed y assured Tegin this was de avavhole, Ande » fecnuse primitive besinply iguored 1 tna ‘private fost, reported oat the nature and Bo igneced whathe lind zo the Muslim oof tenure in 3 to distinguish ‘evidence’ seiation af labour ate te sialeetical ¥ foro, Since his araccedents of the sic uf production’ cot that “In broad Mori's concopt of the Asiatic mode of production 400 outline, Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production can be designated progressive stages of the exononie Formation of society. That is all Marx says about it in that place. ‘To find out what the term might mean, one has in fact to ecour Marx's writings for the one newspaper article, the occasional paragraph, the brief passage, the phrase or sentence here and there Fven footnotes become important! Needless to say, no clear picture ever emerges from sich a process of collation: the termi: hology varies, there are shifts in perspective, details change, And because the term ‘Asiatic mode of production’ never recurs, it is in the end impossible ro say firmly chat what Marx meant by it was definitely X or Y. The whole topic is a paradise for devotees of textual exegesis (from whose company I cannot, alas, exclude myself — for obvious reasons!) {in the hope of putting an end to this ultimately fruicless exercise, { suggest that we look at the whole subject in a different Way. I” suggest that, instead of gathering all the scattered comments on Asia or India together and in that way assembling ‘Marx's ‘meaning’, we leave them all exactly where they are, and Took at them ia the context in which they occur, This turns out to be quite an illuminating procedure. For it makes one thing very cleat: all of Marx's remarks about Asia are — much like his remarks about Greece and Rome and Germanic Europe — incidental remarks; and what they are incidental to is his abiding preoccupation with bourgeois society. It would be tedious to take Up literally every such remark, and superfluous as well, Bus if we take a look at each of che four principal occasions on which Marx makes more ot less substantial statements about Asia (or at least about India), we shall find that in every case the statements about ‘Asia ate what one might call auxiliary statements whose purpose is to help Marx make & point about the capitalist, not the Asiatic, mode of production “The four occasions in question are the following: (1) the news paper article on "The British Rule in India’ (1853),"* which tums ‘out to have been a salvo in 2 longstanding quarrel with the ‘American economist, H.C. Carey, about the nature of capitalism in igeneral and about the consequences of British preeminence — Britain the workshop of the world! — for economic development in the rest of the world; (2) the section of the Grundrisse (1857/8) entitled ‘Pre-Capitalist Formations’, in which Marx was trying t0 work out, for his own benefit, the nature of the capitalist relation between labour and the conditions of labour; (3) the sections in Theories of Surplus Value (1862/3)* and the third volume of Capital (1864/7)%7 devoted to an analysis of capitalist ground- rent and, with it, the classification of the specific nature of470 Hee Lobase capitalist surplus-extraction; and, finally, (4) chapter 12 of the first volume of Capital (1867)%, which treats the capitalist division of labour in society and in manufacture, All but the first of these ate concerned with one or another of the central categories of the capitalist mode of production, References within them to pre-capitalist modes serve the sole purpose of identifying, by contrast with them, the historical specificity of the capitalist mode, It thus becomes plain, simply by ‘leaving’ each of Marx's statements about Asia in its original place, that this concept of the Asiatic mode of production — whatever precisely it may have been — was simply an auxiliary device used by Marx to help him theorise the capitalist mode of production, ‘The first of Marx's statements about Asia, however, deals not one of the capitalist categories, but with the nature of the impact of British capitalism on India, As we learn from a letter” he wrote to Engels just after he had finished the article on ‘The British Rule in India’, Marx's axgument was intended as an attack on the views of H.C. Carey. These views were apparently largely supported by The New York Daily Tribune, the very newspaper for which Marx was then writing; and it evidently pleased him enormously to have composed a veiled attack on the paper's editorial policy. Carey believed that the consequences of industrial capitalism upon society at large were intrinsically beneficent and its impact pacific, but that the excessive concentration of capitalist industrialism in Britain tended to retard and distort its development in other parts of the world. It was against this argu- ment of Carey’s that Marx was thundering in “The British Rule in India’, ‘Rubbish’, Marx was in effect saying to Carey (and the editors of the Tribune): ‘Look at the British impact on India. What you find is that British industrial capitalism alone has managed to do what centuries of stagnation in India could never accomplish: it is destroying the structures and patterns which have Kept India socially and economically in the doldrums for tuntold ages; it is thus bringing about “the only socia? revolution ever heard of in Asin” and, by means precisely of a centralizing imperialism, is establishing a dynamic division of labour which places “the spinner in Lancashire and the weaver in Bengal”. It is by such brutal means, my dear Carey, that capitalist industrialism unintentionally carries out its revolutionary mis- sion ~ not theough a samby-pamby distribution of its so-called blessings!” Recall the peroration of Marx’s article: England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest of interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The tetrorapt of thi gestion is, c ental revolt iy have be al of histo mas this pe ‘ex when he alhsis of 1 toed him siding. thi ssuly incaps sekwew it wi My point 4 sihis. Marx een until supation Ehges, of t ogress an Ts only t jtern = ‘Aan prog sapitalise i ‘wy Dut s wis precis seotrast 'a as shat wterly in capable o} for water, for the fa wrote the friend En sas the, ental g providec This ' alow wailabl informa could n betwee! becaust so suri virwall——————————— ars’ concept ofthe Asatie made of produetion an question is, an mankind fulfilits destiny without a funda- seatal revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever nay have been the crimes of England she was the ‘unconscious tool of history in bringing about the revolution. It was this polemical argument, I suggest, that mattered most £0 Mave when he weote ‘The British Rule in India, not an adequate Mls of the Asiatic mode of production. Which is why’ he ‘loved himself to turn communes apparently engaged in providing themselves with artificial irigation into communes prteny incapable of doing anything of the kind. it wasn’t true, and he knew it wasn’t true, but it suited his argument. ‘My point about the communes, to whieh I have alzeady referred, is thet Marx wanted to show how completely stagnant India had been tunel che coming of British capital, He argued that this total stagnation was due to the absence, in the Indian communal Millages, of the systematic division of labour which alone made for progress and ~ in due course — for the transformation of society. Tints only by ‘blowing up’ its ‘economical basis’ could this village pattern ~ the basis of India's/Asia's economy — be destroyed and Ksian_ progress secured, ‘The brutal and destructive impact, of Capitalse incustrialism was tius demonstrated as against Carey's Giew; but so was Marx’s conviction that this brutal destructiveness wwas precisely the vehicle of real progress. In order to present the Contrast between capitalist dynamism and pre-capitalist stagnation nas sharp 2 light as possible, Marx made the Indian villages utterly incapable of any form of enterprise ~ in particular, in Capable of providing even for theic owa most basic need, the need fervacer. That, at any rate is the only explanation Lean think of for the fact that, thotigh Marx had available to him, at the time he {wrote the article, information supplied a day or two earlier by his Friend Engels, to the effect that the provision of artificial irrigation Was the concern ‘either of the communes, the provinees or the Central government’, Marx asserted that central government alone provided for waterworks. ‘his seems to me an interesting example of how Marx could allow his preconceptions to dominate even the information available to him — to the point not only of ignoring certain information, but in effect ‘demonstrating’ that this information could not possibly be sound. (For thatis the effect of his contrast between the enterprising West and the unenterprising East). And because the diserepancy between Engels’ statement and Marx's is so striking on this one point, while in all other respects Marx frtually copies Engels’ report, { present the two texts.