[Marxism] Re: Asiatic Mode of Production

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I recommend reading Hal Draper's chapter and appendixes on the Asiatic
Mode of Production in the first volume of his study of Marxism on "State
and Bureaucracy." He argues that what Marx meant by Asiatic mode of
production was primarily the version in China-India of the tribal
communal possession of the land.

The stage from the course of development of Western civilization that
was missing there was not feudalism, but slavery as a generalized mode
of production. Slavery, and with it Greek and Roman, the development of
Rome as a cosmopolitan urban center, the fall of Rome, the division of
Europe by the Germanic tribes, etc.,  the Muslim conquest of North
Africa and Spain, and so on.

So in essence a form of feudalism did come to being but quite different
in its political structure and with strong survivals of local communal
ownership, with the grandees and collectors of feudal dues and labor
duties being holders of government authority over the land rather than
direct owners or fief holders in most cases.

In the basic ways that surplus was extracted from THE basic producing
class, the peasantry, the process seemed to basically resemble
feudalism, although calling it feudalism seems to convey a rather
Eurocentric image of a structure that differed in many ways -- such as
the greater degree of unification.

Also, I think, the survivals of communal land ownership made the
internal development  as well as relative isolation were obstacles to
the development from internal forces of capitalist production -- not
necessarily insuperable but serious.  And in fact, partly due to the
fact that China was never fully conquered and drawn into the capitalist
and imperialist world system completely, China ended up to a degree
skipping over a distinct and separate capitalist stage of
development,not unlike what Marx and Engles thought might happen through
a socialist revolution in Russia.

I am leaving aside what all this may mean today for the prospects of
capitalism in Russia, since the country is now in the throes of the
greatest wave of capitalist development in its history -- although not,
I believe, under the auspices of a capitalist state.
Fred Feldman


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