StockholmSyndrome
10th December 2010, 18:01
In this article, renowned historian K. N. Chaudhuri critically analyze's Marx's Asiatic model, while at the same time validating Marxist epistemology as a tool for understanding pre-colonial Asian societies:
Chaudhuri, K. N. 1994. Tides of History? The Indian Ocean Societies, History Today 42, no. 7 (June 30). http://www.historytoday.com/kn-chaudhuri/tides-history-indian-ocean-societies
The collapse of scientific socialism as a structuring principle in world politics justifiably raises the question of the validity of Marx's master-model of social dynamics as a tool of historical analysis. Of course, historians have long contested the relevance of the model not just for European history but for Asian and African societies in the past.
In a penetrating essay entitled 'Feudalism in Africa?' (in his Technology, Tradition, and the State in Africa, 1971), Jack Goody pointed out some of the difficulties in applying European historical 'stage theories' to Africa, without denying the usefulness of a comparative approach and the contributions of medievalists to the study of African institutions. While Moody belongs to the school of social thinkers for whom an intellectual methodology is validated by rigorous argumentation, there is yet again another group found mainly among the so-called 'empiricists' for whom an application of theory, philosophical, social, or economic, involves a fundamental denial of historical truth. Little distinction is made by the latter school between a generalised theory and the Marxist variant, thus unconsciously highlighting the fact that it was Marx's model which in the first place popularised the use of' theory in history. Thus Gordon Johnson, Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, commented in a review of my recent book Asia before Europe: the Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (1990):
And unfortunately, Braudel's is not the only spirit lurking in Chaudhuri's wordprocessor. Like some latter-day Dr Faustus determined to sound the depths of every branch of learning, Chaudhuri draws at random from mathematics, philosophy, and all the sciences – natural as well as social – with the result that his theoretical sections lack relevance and coherence. More sinister still are the objects of Chaudhuri's veneration: Derrida, Foucault, Gramsci, Levi-Strauss, de Saussure and Wittgenstein – a roll-call of those whose acolytes exert so baleful an influence on contemporary research – all permeate the text and find a place in the bibliography. (Times Higher Education Supplement, August 2nd, 1991).
In Asia before Europe, I attempted to evaluate the role of Western philosophical and social theories in writing history and suggested an alternative approach and epistemology. What is especially remarkable and has not been stated by any European thinker is the fact that the problem of dealing with a totality and its constituent parts, the continuity and discontinuity, unity and disunity, all of which were fundamental to Marx' theoretical writings, found a parallel treatment in the work of Western mathematicians and scientists since the 1870s. Thus historians, whether they are looking at Europe, Asia, or Africa, would find themselves facing two separate theoretical questions: firstly, the validity of problems which are present in any theory of knowledge and secondly, the form and content of a set of hypothesis which are developed to explain a particular course of historical development.
The point is readily seen in the context of Marx' three-fold transition from the age of antiquity to feudalism, from the disintegration of feudalism to the rise of commercial capitalism, and finally, the emergence of nineteenth-century industrial capitalism. Marx was aware that his model could not analyse or even describe the logic of Asian history and hence, he was forced to improvise an alternative model which he termed the 'Asiatic mode of production'. The theory was built on two premises.
Firstly, the centralised bureaucratic empires in Asia historically exercised, it was postulated, a strong role in the construction of irrigation works which were vital to the success of the indigenous agricultural systems, and secondly, the village economy of most Asian societies were taken to be essentially self-sufficient and self-contained. The state had to assume the responsibility for providing the necessary capital for public works and by definition, it was in a position to appropriate a large proportion of the economic surplus of the peasantry. At the same time, agrarian life remained undifferentiated because there was no private property in land. The state was the official owner of land and the largest landlord.
Apart from the question of the accuracy of the historical evidence, we can also see that the theory of the Asiatic mode of production was a static model which failed to take into account not only regional differences but also the entire course of Asian history. It is clear that a theory of 'stages' based on the Western experience of a unilinear progression from the classical period to that of the scientific and technological revolution of the eighteenth century cannot be applied to the Indian Ocean societies. Great empires and state systems with highly organised administrative structures could rise and fall in rapid succession, although their underlying economic life might continue relatively unchanged for long periods of time. Social and economic changes juxtaposed with demographic fluctuations are clearly discernible in the millennium from 622 (when the Islamic association came into being) to 1750, the beginning of European imperial presence in the Indian Ocean. But such changes did not necessarily coincide with larger, long-term historical movements.
Within the complex pattern of an internal chronology, it is possible to separate several major developments. The continuous expansion of Islam and Islamic political power in the Mediterranean and in the Indian Ocean from 632 to 1500 was paralleled by a similar movement of Chinese empire and cultural influence in Central Asia, the Far East, and South East Asia. These stronger tendencies eventually checked the earlier Sanskritic and Buddhist expansion as important civilisational forces. From about 1000 AD the migration of war-like nomadic people from the Central Asian steppes in the direction of the Middle East, Europe, India, and China introduced a catalytic force which eventually overwhelmed the political order of the ancien regime throughout the Indian Ocean. The rise of the Ottomans in Western Asia, the foundation of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent, and the Manchu conquest of Ming China were the last great nomadic military movements. Finally, the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean in 1498 and the subsequent maritime expansion of the Dutch and English East India Companies represented the beginning of another long-term movement which is perhaps still continuing in our times.
The expansion of Islam, the nomadisation of the Indian Ocean societies, and the introduction of Western political and economic imperialism in the nineteenth century, all touched on what Marx would have described as the social 'superstructure', though indirectly they also affected the infrastructure. The theory of an Asiatic mode of production contained two unrelated truths. First, the hulk of the state income was derived from an elaborate system of agricultural taxation, involving often a cadastral survey of fields, the estimation of crop yields, and the recording of agricultural prices. Secondly, a highly productive agriculture owed its success to the careful management of water resources and the construction of irrigation works, Its third premise, the insularity of a 'village community' and the absence of private property in land was a misinterpretation of the reality. The alleged insularity or the economic self-sufficiency of the village community was a theoretical device of the nineteenth-century political economists in India to bring into play the concept of an economic market as the main regulator of spare resources. The farmers in India, China, or the Middle East were no more self-sufficient than the nomadic communities, who tended animals on marginal land remote from human settlements. The technology of irrigation works, the elaborate mix of crops running from thirty to forty varieties, the supply of animals for drawing the plough, called for an economic logic which transcended the immediate peasant households providing the necessary human labour. The nomads supplied animals for the plough, a vital technological invention of the ancient world, which made it possible to extend the an a of food production and create a surplus. They needed in turn not only the necessary grain supplies to supplement the diet but also items of clothing, tools, and weapons from the settled society. The peasantry, nomads, the industrial workers, and the traders were all articulated to an ongoing economic structure larger than the immediate locality. The existence of towns and cities, a. large service sector, industrial manufacturers (textiles, metals. pottery, and construction), and long-distance trade, underlined a system of production and distribution that was as complex in its day as our own industrial society appears to us today.
There still remains the question of the burden of agricultural taxation and the extent of the official appropriation of the labour surplus. Historical evidence on this point is not entirely clear. While the theory of taxation implied that a third or a half of the gross agricultural produce was claimed by the state, the actual collections appear to have been a matter of flexible negotiations between the government agents and the peasantry. The provision of capital for agrarian development also remains unclear, though it is known that the state made loans to farmers only in exceptional circumstances such as in the aftermath of a famine or extensive flooding.
The epistemology of Marxist analysis enables us to approach this complex logic with some confidence, because of its assumption of starting with a totality, but the actual workings of Asian societies will be found to have characteristics very different from the features predicted by the Marxist model.
Chaudhuri, K. N. 1994. Tides of History? The Indian Ocean Societies, History Today 42, no. 7 (June 30). http://www.historytoday.com/kn-chaudhuri/tides-history-indian-ocean-societies
The collapse of scientific socialism as a structuring principle in world politics justifiably raises the question of the validity of Marx's master-model of social dynamics as a tool of historical analysis. Of course, historians have long contested the relevance of the model not just for European history but for Asian and African societies in the past.
In a penetrating essay entitled 'Feudalism in Africa?' (in his Technology, Tradition, and the State in Africa, 1971), Jack Goody pointed out some of the difficulties in applying European historical 'stage theories' to Africa, without denying the usefulness of a comparative approach and the contributions of medievalists to the study of African institutions. While Moody belongs to the school of social thinkers for whom an intellectual methodology is validated by rigorous argumentation, there is yet again another group found mainly among the so-called 'empiricists' for whom an application of theory, philosophical, social, or economic, involves a fundamental denial of historical truth. Little distinction is made by the latter school between a generalised theory and the Marxist variant, thus unconsciously highlighting the fact that it was Marx's model which in the first place popularised the use of' theory in history. Thus Gordon Johnson, Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, commented in a review of my recent book Asia before Europe: the Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (1990):
And unfortunately, Braudel's is not the only spirit lurking in Chaudhuri's wordprocessor. Like some latter-day Dr Faustus determined to sound the depths of every branch of learning, Chaudhuri draws at random from mathematics, philosophy, and all the sciences – natural as well as social – with the result that his theoretical sections lack relevance and coherence. More sinister still are the objects of Chaudhuri's veneration: Derrida, Foucault, Gramsci, Levi-Strauss, de Saussure and Wittgenstein – a roll-call of those whose acolytes exert so baleful an influence on contemporary research – all permeate the text and find a place in the bibliography. (Times Higher Education Supplement, August 2nd, 1991).
In Asia before Europe, I attempted to evaluate the role of Western philosophical and social theories in writing history and suggested an alternative approach and epistemology. What is especially remarkable and has not been stated by any European thinker is the fact that the problem of dealing with a totality and its constituent parts, the continuity and discontinuity, unity and disunity, all of which were fundamental to Marx' theoretical writings, found a parallel treatment in the work of Western mathematicians and scientists since the 1870s. Thus historians, whether they are looking at Europe, Asia, or Africa, would find themselves facing two separate theoretical questions: firstly, the validity of problems which are present in any theory of knowledge and secondly, the form and content of a set of hypothesis which are developed to explain a particular course of historical development.
The point is readily seen in the context of Marx' three-fold transition from the age of antiquity to feudalism, from the disintegration of feudalism to the rise of commercial capitalism, and finally, the emergence of nineteenth-century industrial capitalism. Marx was aware that his model could not analyse or even describe the logic of Asian history and hence, he was forced to improvise an alternative model which he termed the 'Asiatic mode of production'. The theory was built on two premises.
Firstly, the centralised bureaucratic empires in Asia historically exercised, it was postulated, a strong role in the construction of irrigation works which were vital to the success of the indigenous agricultural systems, and secondly, the village economy of most Asian societies were taken to be essentially self-sufficient and self-contained. The state had to assume the responsibility for providing the necessary capital for public works and by definition, it was in a position to appropriate a large proportion of the economic surplus of the peasantry. At the same time, agrarian life remained undifferentiated because there was no private property in land. The state was the official owner of land and the largest landlord.
Apart from the question of the accuracy of the historical evidence, we can also see that the theory of the Asiatic mode of production was a static model which failed to take into account not only regional differences but also the entire course of Asian history. It is clear that a theory of 'stages' based on the Western experience of a unilinear progression from the classical period to that of the scientific and technological revolution of the eighteenth century cannot be applied to the Indian Ocean societies. Great empires and state systems with highly organised administrative structures could rise and fall in rapid succession, although their underlying economic life might continue relatively unchanged for long periods of time. Social and economic changes juxtaposed with demographic fluctuations are clearly discernible in the millennium from 622 (when the Islamic association came into being) to 1750, the beginning of European imperial presence in the Indian Ocean. But such changes did not necessarily coincide with larger, long-term historical movements.
Within the complex pattern of an internal chronology, it is possible to separate several major developments. The continuous expansion of Islam and Islamic political power in the Mediterranean and in the Indian Ocean from 632 to 1500 was paralleled by a similar movement of Chinese empire and cultural influence in Central Asia, the Far East, and South East Asia. These stronger tendencies eventually checked the earlier Sanskritic and Buddhist expansion as important civilisational forces. From about 1000 AD the migration of war-like nomadic people from the Central Asian steppes in the direction of the Middle East, Europe, India, and China introduced a catalytic force which eventually overwhelmed the political order of the ancien regime throughout the Indian Ocean. The rise of the Ottomans in Western Asia, the foundation of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent, and the Manchu conquest of Ming China were the last great nomadic military movements. Finally, the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean in 1498 and the subsequent maritime expansion of the Dutch and English East India Companies represented the beginning of another long-term movement which is perhaps still continuing in our times.
The expansion of Islam, the nomadisation of the Indian Ocean societies, and the introduction of Western political and economic imperialism in the nineteenth century, all touched on what Marx would have described as the social 'superstructure', though indirectly they also affected the infrastructure. The theory of an Asiatic mode of production contained two unrelated truths. First, the hulk of the state income was derived from an elaborate system of agricultural taxation, involving often a cadastral survey of fields, the estimation of crop yields, and the recording of agricultural prices. Secondly, a highly productive agriculture owed its success to the careful management of water resources and the construction of irrigation works, Its third premise, the insularity of a 'village community' and the absence of private property in land was a misinterpretation of the reality. The alleged insularity or the economic self-sufficiency of the village community was a theoretical device of the nineteenth-century political economists in India to bring into play the concept of an economic market as the main regulator of spare resources. The farmers in India, China, or the Middle East were no more self-sufficient than the nomadic communities, who tended animals on marginal land remote from human settlements. The technology of irrigation works, the elaborate mix of crops running from thirty to forty varieties, the supply of animals for drawing the plough, called for an economic logic which transcended the immediate peasant households providing the necessary human labour. The nomads supplied animals for the plough, a vital technological invention of the ancient world, which made it possible to extend the an a of food production and create a surplus. They needed in turn not only the necessary grain supplies to supplement the diet but also items of clothing, tools, and weapons from the settled society. The peasantry, nomads, the industrial workers, and the traders were all articulated to an ongoing economic structure larger than the immediate locality. The existence of towns and cities, a. large service sector, industrial manufacturers (textiles, metals. pottery, and construction), and long-distance trade, underlined a system of production and distribution that was as complex in its day as our own industrial society appears to us today.
There still remains the question of the burden of agricultural taxation and the extent of the official appropriation of the labour surplus. Historical evidence on this point is not entirely clear. While the theory of taxation implied that a third or a half of the gross agricultural produce was claimed by the state, the actual collections appear to have been a matter of flexible negotiations between the government agents and the peasantry. The provision of capital for agrarian development also remains unclear, though it is known that the state made loans to farmers only in exceptional circumstances such as in the aftermath of a famine or extensive flooding.
The epistemology of Marxist analysis enables us to approach this complex logic with some confidence, because of its assumption of starting with a totality, but the actual workings of Asian societies will be found to have characteristics very different from the features predicted by the Marxist model.