Transitions between modes of production

[Aurorus Ruber]

One of the key themes of Marxist theory is the transition between modes of production, from hunter-gatherer societies to ancient slavery to feudalism to capitalism, and eventually to communism. Indeed the ultimate purpose of Marxism is building the revolutionary movement that will deliberately overthrow the capitalist mode of production and build communism in its place.

Yet it has always seemed to me that the transition from capitalism and communism in Marxist thought differs fundamentally from previous transitions between modes of production. The shift from feudalism to capitalism, for instance, happened rather blindly and gradually over many centuries. No one ever made the conscious decision to replace an economy based on feudal land ownership to one based on markets and generalized wage labor. It simply evolved through numerous piecemeal changes and countless people acting in their own interests. The same holds true for the transition between primitive communism and the ancient world and so forth. No one consciously decided to demolish the Roman Empire and replace it with feudal Europe, etc.

So why will the transition between capitalism and communism, uniquely among modes of production, occur through conscious and deliberate action rather than blind historical and material forces?

[Tim Cornelis]

Simply because of the way capitalism is organised. The incremental, piecemeal changes you mention, the quantitative changes, happened in feudalism but they have also happened in capitalism. Correspondingly, this will result in a qualitative change. In capitalism, this is the socialisation of labour which works against private appropriation. Individual ownership and control has been transplanted by large-scale private ownership, and the concentration of capital socialised labour globally. The source of a qualitative change toward communism is rooted in the socialised character of labour, whose character is currently being restricted by private property. Consequently, private property must be overthrown for communism to be realised.

It is not necessary, however, for the working class to be entirely conscious. The SPGB disagrees with this and argues workers first need to want a moneyless, classless, stateless society, but this is not true and it implies a degree of voluntarism in my opinion. The working class will need to want to expropriate the means of production and bring them under their own control, this will harmonise the methods of production with the methods of appropriation resulting in the withering away of money since then social production will be directly social and there will be no need for an intermediate to regulate the exchange of goods. The workers don't need to know that the results of their actions will be the disappearance of money, their consciousness has to lie in the emancipation of labour.

[Blake's Baby]

I agree with Tim, but would like to add that the transition from Antique Slavery to Feudalism, and the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, also took place in limited areas over time. Feudalism was not a world system in the way capitalism has become. The transition to capitalist society took about 500 years, which means that for a long time capitalism and feudalism existed side-by-side. The new ruling class was able to defeat or come to an arrangement with the old ruling class. Sometimes, the aristocracy was replaced; sometimes, it was assimilated.

The future proletarian revolution won't be like this, because capitalism is a world system, so it needs to be defeated worldwide, and therefore we can't spend 500 years gradually making more and more of the world 'socialist'; and because capitalism is a class system, the bourgeoisie were revolutionary, but not exploited, under feudalism. The working class is both exploited (naturally) and revolutionary under capitalism. No exploited class has instituted a new form of society before, and because the working class doesn't have the liberty (as the bourgeoisie did) of relying on a new class to exploit, it can't build its economic 'power' inside the old system. We're too busy being exploited.

What it boils down to is that we don't have property of our own to build up and take over society by economic and then political means (as the bourgeoisie did over 500 years). All we have is our organisation and power over the bourgeoisie's economy, with which to expropriate the bourgeoisie and then reorganise production and distribution; so the proletarian revolution is 'backwards' compare to previous transitions - political, then economic.

[khad]

Honestly, one of my main disagreements with Marxist staging theory is the fact that it was formulated at a time when we knew little about the social structures of ancient societies. Now, the latest archaeology seems to indicate that feudalism existed prior to and after slavery as a mode of production, which was actually a formation quite limited in its application (basically only Ancient Greece and Roman core). An interesting aspect of slavery is that in order for it to actually become a mode of production, a high degree of commercialization had to emerge in a society, in order to facilitate the transfer of so many goods and people - perhaps one point of congruence between ancient and capitalist forms of slavery.

We have much better historical documentation regarding the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and that is probably the most useful aspect of staging to modern leftists. I wouldn't sweat the particulars of the earlier stuff, unless you are somehow really really interested in ancient cultures.

[RedWorker]

Older transitions between modes of production have not done away with class society; they have, however, created new class antagonisms, new relations of production and new mechanisms of exploitation. No wonder, then, that certain characteristics shared by the transitions between the older modes of production will be broken away with the communist revolution, which entirely does away with exploitation and destroys class antagonisms.

[Blake's Baby]

Honestly, one of my main disagreements with Marxist staging theory is the fact that it was formulated at a time when we knew little about the social structures of ancient societies. Now, the latest archaeology seems to indicate that feudalism existed prior to and after slavery as a mode of production, which was actually a formation quite limited in its application (basically only Ancient Greece and Roman core)...

As an archaeologist whose main field of interest is the transition from Iron Age to 'civilised' (Roman and Greek) societies, and the transition out again to the barbarian successor kingdoms in the west, I have literally no idea what you're talking about.

Do you want to actually provide some academic meat on those bones you've claimed, by citing some references that I can go and check up in the library?

BTW: Khad - you're alive.

[khad]

As an archaeologist whose main field of interest is the transition from Iron Age to 'civilised' (Roman and Greek) societies, and the transition out again to the barbarian successor kingdoms in the west, I have literally no idea what you're talking about.

Do you want to actually provide some academic meat on those bones you've claimed, by citing some references that I can go and check up in the library?

BTW: Khad - you're alive.

Well certainly, I can recall a lit review piece on the archaeology of ancient state economies by Michael E. Smith. While the piece is more in conversation with scholars who wish to read capitalism back through the ages, the landscape sketched is one in which ancient economies are actually quite variegated and don't really fit perfectly in the typology that Marx laid out on the basis of the Greco-Roman tradition.

There's also Brian Brown's paper on the structure of the Middle Assyrian state (available on Jstor) which asserts a system of devolving vassalage and increased localism accompanied by the decline of commercial activity at around the age of the Bronze Age collapse. Of course, ancient Mesopotamian economies would have been characterized as asiatic under Marx's original typology, with no pathway to mainline feudalism, but it all but spells out a kind of feudal system emerging.


"The textual evidence also supports this view of state structure. The Assyrian ruling class met the challenge of
maintaining its hold over newly conquered territories by handing over not just offices, but de facto control over
land, one of the two main sources of economic power at this time (the other being dependent humans). The larger
holdings permitted—indeed, virtually encouraged—officials to build up autonomous power bases from which
they could obstruct or challenge (or, alternatively, further) the ambitions of the central apical ruler. The history of
the Middle Assyrian period appears as a succession of increasingly smaller, nominally subordinate kingdoms (Hanigalbat,
Mari, Šadikanni) which, despite their relatively small beginning size, still maintained enough of a base to
pursue autonomous policies (see Fales 2011: 31, who sees an “increasing separatism” in the Middle Assyrian state).
Combined with the fact that there is little evidence of movement of goods or resources (e.g., taxes, tribute, bulk
goods) into the center—apart from the admittedly substantial numbers of people deported from the conquered
and outlying areas into the core region—it is difficult to describe the Middle Assyrian state as an empire, the
operation of which is often characterized by a center–periphery dynamic." Moreover, there are studies of the Kassite period that detail an interesting parallel development in Babylon of the late Bronze Age, with regards to the practice of granting hereditary royal fiefs - probably originally initiated as statements of royal largesse, but eventually contributing to the devolution of state authority as it became a more normalized legal process. Some of the more cursory examinations of the topic dismiss the process as rare and exceptional, but they also ignore the gradual evolution of the genre to encompass land grants by officials and private land transactions. They do throw a wrench into the various formulations of the Asiatic mode (either as a uniquely separate mode of production or, in the neo-marxist sense, a transitional mode between the primitive and ancient) in demonstrating the prominence of private land ownership and a hereditary aristocracy.

There's also Karen Nemet-Nejat's book on Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, in which she lays out some of the features of the Sumerian temple economy, which was a prototype of later Akkadian/Babylonian/Assyrian models, in which the temples featured as important but not as dominant economic institutions:


The best documented farming organizations were those of the temple rather than those of the state. For Sumer, in the Third Dynasty of Ur, large collections of clay tablets furnished detailed information for a centralized administration of agricultural production. Similar accounts from the Neo-Babylonian period provided evidence for large-scale rent farms, that is, privatization. Records of land sales could be annulled by royal decree.

The temple was the main institution of the Early Dynastic urban economy. The temple and city were completely interdependent, with no differentiation made between sacred, secular, and economic duties. The temple included both religious priests and the secular ruler. The architectural splendor of the temples affirms the economic power of this religious elite.

The economic basis of the temple was agriculture. The temple managed its estates, working some of its own land, giving the rest as fiefs to temple employees and private citizens, and renting out some land on a sharecropping basis. The temple was economically self-sufficient, with its own granaries, mills, and bakeries as well as herds of donkeys, cattle, and sheep.

Most land not owned by temple or palace was claimed by the ruler and his family, administrators, priests, and free citizens who owned land jointly as members of a family or clan. Thus the class structure of Early Dynastic Sumer reflected the division of the land into temple, palace, and community holdings.Oh, and before you pull out that tired old talking point - "Slavery exists even today, but what was the form of production that provided the lion's share of economic production in a given age?" - let me just leave this here, from Nemet-Nejat's book:


During the Old Babylonian period the average price for a slave was approximately twenty shekels of silver, but sometimes as much as ninety. The average wage paid to hired laborers was ten shekels per year. Therefore, landowners preferred to hire seasonal laborers, because it was cheaper than owning slaves for agricultural work.P.S. I see what you're doing, and I really don't appreciate your tone.

[Blake's Baby]

OK.

Thanks for the references, they look really interesting. I'll check them out.

[khad]

OK.

Thanks for the references, they look really interesting. I'll check them out.
There's also something that could also be interesting to look at, though I can't really recall good academic sources at the moment, which is the rise of a professional soldier caste in New Kingdom Egypt (strangely enough near the same time as the developments in mesopotamia). In contrast to the seasonal conscription system, these professional soldiers developed into a hereditary force rewarded with royal land grants and war booty. This practice was continued well into the late period where Greek/Libyan immigrants/mercs constituted an increasing share of the elite troops.

There's a brief blurb about the practice here:
http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/people/social_classes.htm

[Aurorus Ruber]

What about the assertion of Marx that "[i]t is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness"? Does that not imply that the proletariat cannot have any other consciousness than what the material and social conditions of capitalism have determined for them? How can they simply decide to abandon that consciousness of their own volition and become communists instead?

[Alet]

What about the assertion of Marx that "[i]t is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness"? Does that not imply that the proletariat cannot have any other consciousness than what the material and social conditions of capitalism have determined for them? How can they simply decide to abandon that consciousness of their own volition and become communists instead?

I would not describe the 'determinism' Marx mentions here as an unalterable law established by mighty, godlike capitalism. Marx basically says that one should not hope for revolutionaries as long as there are no reasons to be unsatisfied with the current situation, as long as the conditions for potential revolutionaries are not given. It's not capitalism, who builds up class consciousness, capitalism allows us to do this. We have the possibilty at the moment, but we are missing the chance, which plays into the hands of rightists.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

One of the key themes of Marxist theory is the transition between modes of production, from hunter-gatherer societies to ancient slavery to feudalism to capitalism, and eventually to communism. Indeed the ultimate purpose of Marxism is building the revolutionary movement that will deliberately overthrow the capitalist mode of production and build communism in its place.

Yet it has always seemed to me that the transition from capitalism and communism in Marxist thought differs fundamentally from previous transitions between modes of production. The shift from feudalism to capitalism, for instance, happened rather blindly and gradually over many centuries. No one ever made the conscious decision to replace an economy based on feudal land ownership to one based on markets and generalized wage labor. It simply evolved through numerous piecemeal changes and countless people acting in their own interests. The same holds true for the transition between primitive communism and the ancient world and so forth. No one consciously decided to demolish the Roman Empire and replace it with feudal Europe, etc.

So why will the transition between capitalism and communism, uniquely among modes of production, occur through conscious and deliberate action rather than blind historical and material forces?

Tim and BB have already addressed much of this, although I think Tim conflates the overthrow of the bourgeois state (where consciousness is uneven and often contradictory), and the construction of a socialist society (which needs to be conscious as socialism is a consciously planned mode of production, the first such mode in human history). Obviously if human society, collectively, consciously plans something, it must first decide to do so, consciously.

I would add, however, that your view historical processes seems off to me. They are not "blind" - and history doesn't happen by some sort of magical automatism. In the early Middle Ages, people consciously decided to start attesting their contracts in certain locations that would later become administrative centres. They were constrained to do so, but they didn't do it in their sleep, they were conscious of what they were doing even if some of them were not conscious of why they were doing it. Likewise the proletariat is constrained to overthrow class society or die, along with the present society, trying. This does not mean that the proletarians won't know what they are doing when the revolution comes.


Well certainly, I can recall a lit review piece on the archaeology of ancient state economies by Michael E. Smith. While the piece is more in conversation with scholars who wish to read capitalism back through the ages, the landscape sketched is one in which ancient economies are actually quite variegated and don't really fit perfectly in the typology that Marx laid out on the basis of the Greco-Roman tradition.

Well, yes, I think anyone would expect that. Marx was writing in the nineteenth century from very fragmentary data; it stands to reason the picture he presents would become complicated by the addition of new data. I think, generally, that "feudalism" has become a sort of a catch-all term, and that the differences between e.g. the system in late Carolingian Gaul and "Byzantine" pronoia are far greater than differences between Roman and Greek slavery or American and Taiwanese capitalism. But I'm not sure Marx can be said to present a "stagist" view at all. I think it was read into Marx by later commentators, chiefly Kautsky and Plekhanov.

The material on the Mesopotamian states is interesting, but unfortunately I don't have the time to go over it right now. One thing I will say is that often slavery will postdate something like the Asiatic mode of production, with seasonal labour (sometimes even wage labour, but not really free wage labour) in urban, palatial and religious centres. This seems to have happened in Crete, for example, in the transition from the "Minoan" to the Mycenaean period (please correct me if I've said something stupid, BB, this is your department).

[Tim Cornelis]

What about the assertion of Marx that "[i]t is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness"? Does that not imply that the proletariat cannot have any other consciousness than what the material and social conditions of capitalism have determined for them? How can they simply decide to abandon that consciousness of their own volition and become communists instead?

Communism arises from capitalism. The social existence within capitalism enables communism, materially (objectively) and in consciousness (subjectively).

[Aurorus Ruber]

I would add, however, that your view historical processes seems off to me. They are not "blind" - and history doesn't happen by some sort of magical automatism. In the early Middle Ages, people consciously decided to start attesting their contracts in certain locations that would later become administrative centres. They were constrained to do so, but they didn't do it in their sleep, they were conscious of what they were doing even if some of them were not conscious of why they were doing it. Likewise the proletariat is constrained to overthrow class society or die, along with the present society, trying. This does not mean that the proletarians won't know what they are doing when the revolution comes.

Sure, but people in the Middle Ages had no idea they were laying the groundwork for the capitalist mode of production. They were not planning on overthrowing feudalism but merely pursuing more immediate interests until eventually the economy changed so much that capitalist structures overcame the earlier feudal ones. They were not acting blindly in the pursuit of those interests, obviously, but they were blind to the long-term consequences of their actions, namely the replacement of feudalism with capitalism. Whereas Marxists argue that the proletariat can and should act with the deliberate intention of overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with communism and have formed numerous parties and movements with precisely that intention in mind.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Sure, but people in the Middle Ages had no idea they were laying the groundwork for the capitalist mode of production. They were not planning on overthrowing feudalism but merely pursuing more immediate interests until eventually the economy changed so much that capitalist structures overcame the earlier feudal ones. They were not acting blindly in the pursuit of those interests, obviously, but they were blind to the long-term consequences of their actions, namely the replacement of feudalism with capitalism. Whereas Marxists argue that the proletariat can and should act with the deliberate intention of overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with communism and have formed numerous parties and movements with precisely that intention in mind.

Some of them certainly were planning on overthrowing feudalism - the various peasant rebels for example. That's neither here nor there, though. The point is that communism is unlike capitalism in that it succeeds another global and generalised system and therefore can't grow inside capitalism, and, unlike capitalism, socialism is consciously, scientifically planned by society as a unit ("Social Man"). So the construction of socialism has to be conscious.

[Luís Henrique]

One of the key themes of Marxist theory is the transition between modes of production, from hunter-gatherer societies to ancient slavery to feudalism to capitalism, and eventually to communism. Indeed the ultimate purpose of Marxism is building the revolutionary movement that will deliberately overthrow the capitalist mode of production and build communism in its place.

Yet it has always seemed to me that the transition from capitalism and communism in Marxist thought differs fundamentally from previous transitions between modes of production. The shift from feudalism to capitalism, for instance, happened rather blindly and gradually over many centuries. No one ever made the conscious decision to replace an economy based on feudal land ownership to one based on markets and generalized wage labor. It simply evolved through numerous piecemeal changes and countless people acting in their own interests. The same holds true for the transition between primitive communism and the ancient world and so forth. No one consciously decided to demolish the Roman Empire and replace it with feudal Europe, etc.

So why will the transition between capitalism and communism, uniquely among modes of production, occur through conscious and deliberate action rather than blind historical and material forces?

I am not sure that there is such neat boundary between "deliberate action" and "blind historical forces". The absolute monarchs didn't oppose feudal particularism just out of a blind historical necessity; they did it deliberately. Enclosings were deliberately enforced, merchants deliberately rent looms to websters, then reunited several websters in a single place; guildmasters disenfranchised apprentices and companions quite deliberately, grossbauern deliberately lent money or seeds to poor peasants to make them dependent, and certainly bourgeois revolutions were planned and deliberately executed. Those people may have not had a clear blueprint in mind while acting, but those transformations certainly weren't automatic, independent of genuinely deliberate actions.

The transitions between modes of production seem to me dependent on the internal logic of each mode of production. Feudalism's internal workings paved the way for capitalism, as primitive communism contained in itself the seeds of its own dissolution; but I don't think there is a transhistoric teleology that determinates a necessary succession of modes of production.

The concept of "mode of production" seems to me overrated, and its use among Marxists doesn't seem to match its use by Marx himself (it is quite clear that Marx wrote about two quite distinct "capitalist modes of production", industry and manufacture, for instance, while "capitalist mode of production" is a common trope of Marxism, with no indication of any comprehension of the differences between manufacture and industry, or even of recognition that Marx wrote about two different things.

Luís Henrique

[RedMaterialist]

What about the assertion of Marx that "[i]t is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness"? Does that not imply that the proletariat cannot have any other consciousness than what the material and social conditions of capitalism have determined for them? How can they simply decide to abandon that consciousness of their own volition and become communists instead?

Why should they abandon that consciousness? According to Marx it is that social consciousness that will allow the working class to free itself from capitalism:

Marx,, The Communist Manifesto

The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.