Re: S. Africa/mode of prod. debate

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

> Sorry if this repeats what others have said, I've been out of town and haven't
> read everything.
>
> An important point in the debates in Marxist anthropology and the
> "articulation
> of modes of production" debates regards a tension between the analysis of
> precapitalist modes of production, usually based on Marx's _Formen_ in the
> _Grundrisse_, and the notion of 'peripheral capitalism', where
> social formations
> are analyzed as on the surface appearing to maintain certain aspects of
> precapitalist forms, but actually functioning as part of the larger capitalist
> mode.
>
> It would be hard to argue, I think, that what was going in a South African
> bantustan represents a precapitalist mode--an analysis of
> colonialist capitalism
> intentionally maintaining pockets of subsistence activity to support a migrant
> labor system based on superexploitation (wages below subsistence), and to
> control the population (at the same time allowing some monetization--through
> taxation--and commoditization to develop a market for some goods)--would seem
> more appropriate.  The role of the bantustan in the reproduction of the larger
> colonialist capitalism appears as fundamental.  But there are other
> cases where
> capitalist development was less severe and an analysis of articulation of a
> precapitalist mode or modes--Germanic or domestic modes, e.g.--with
> colonialist
> and global capitalism would be more appropriate.
>
> What determines whether an analysis of peripheral capitalism or a
> precapitalist
> mode in articulation with colonialist capitalism is more appropriate?  (Also,
> can we speak of a 'peripheral capitalist' or 'peripheral colonial capitalist'
> *mode of production*?).  The late Peter Rigby, discussing these issues, wrote:
>
> "The basic issue around which all these questions revolve is this: does the
> application of the concept of the Germanic (or other) mode of production...
> really illuminate and lead to explanation not only of their *form*,
> but also of
> their actual and potential *transformation*?"
> (_Persistent Pastoralists_, Zed Press, 1985).  Or, on the other hand, does the
> application of the concept of a 'peripheral capitalist' mode...
> answer the same
> question?
>
> mat

It's not a matter of typology but a question of historical
transformation.  Everyone here agrees that the area that came to be
South Africa wasn't always capitalist; again, everyone here agrees
that South Africa is now capitalist.  The politically relevant
questions are (A) when & how it became capitalist; (B) what changes
within it have occurred since it became capitalist; (C) how A & B
have impacted its relation to the rest of the world, & vice versa; &
(D) what political implications A, B, & C have for socialists.  After
all, we as Marxists are in the business of social change, so we want
to understand what changes, major & minor, have happened; what
underlying mechanisms have given rise to the observable changes; what
changes must be made to achieve social emancipation; what prospect
for social emancipation the present offers; and so on.

Yoshie