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Mode of Production and Mode of Exploitation: the Mechanical and the Dialectical' DjalectiCalAflthropologY 1(1975) 7 — 2 3 © Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam — Printed in The Netherlands MODE OF PRODUCTION AND MODE OF EXPLOITATION: THE MECHANICAL AND THE DIALECTICAL' Eugene E. Ruyle In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material produc- tive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstruc- ture and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that deter- mines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.2 The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus labor is pumped out of the direct producers, determines the relation of rulers and ruled, as it grows immediately out of production itself and in turn reacts upon it as a determining agent. .. It is always the direct relation of the owners of the means of production to the direct producers which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden foundation of the entire social structure.3 In the first of these two passages, Marx in crypto-Marxist bourgeois social science, and appears to be arguing for the sort of techno- then by exploring the possibilities of supple- economic determinism which has become menting the "mode of production" approach increasingly fashionable in bourgeois social with a "mode of exploitation" analysis. science. The second, however, suggests that this is not enough, and points to a dialectical interplay between the mode of production and, THE MODE OF PRODUCTION CONCEPT IN MARXIST SOCIAL SCIENCE as Marx says elsewhere, "the mode . in which surplus-labor is. extracted from the A literal interpretation of the first Marx actual producer, the laborer,"4 in short, the passage quoted has lead to a causal schema in mode of exploitation. The purpose of this which the progressive development of man- paper is to explore more fully the implications kind's social productive forces is the moving of the second approach, first by critically dis- force behind the evolution of new social cussing the "mode of production" concept as formations: the forces of production change it has developed in Marxist social science and and the rest of the social order is brought into Eugene Ruyle is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the line with them. As Marx notes, "In broad out- University of Virginia. lines Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern 8 bourgeois modes of production can be desig- structures" that are the real actors in history, nated as progressive epochs in the economic but men and women — real, live human beings. formation of society."5 As Marx and Engels noted in a different con- Such an interpretation is illustrated by the text, following passage from a recent Soviet text- book: History does nothing, it "possesses no immense wealth," it "wages no battles." It is man, real living man, that does all that, that possesses and fights; "history" is not a The nature of production relations determines the person apart, using man as a means for its own particular economic system of a given society. This economic aims; history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing system is the basis on which the various social relations, his alms.8 ideas and institutions arise, for the mode of production eventually determines all aspects of life in a given society. Since the basis determines the superstructure, it follows Much the same can be said for the "mode that every change of basis entails a change in superstructure, of production." i.e., in the existing political institutions and ideology. How- ever, the superstructure, though dependent upon the basis, 3. In 1848, Marx and Engels wrote that: can in turn influence production relations and can either accelerate or delay their replacement. The history of all hitherto existing society is the history Every society is thus an integral organism, a socio- of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, economic formation, a definite historical type of society lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, with its own distinctive mode of production, basis and oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to superstructure.6 one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the This conceptual schema is open to a variety common ruin of the contending classes.9 of criticisms, among the most important of which are the following: To my knowledge, neither Marx nor Engels 1. Perhaps the most prevalent criticism of nor any subsequent Marxist has ever declared the Marxist model by bourgeois social scientists this statement "inoperative." Yet the class is that it is mechanistic in that it makes little struggle as an independent generator of histor- allowance for a reciprocal causation from the ical change is simply ignored in this interpreta- superstructure or from consciousness to the tion of the mode of production concept. If it economic foundation, and fails to specify the is incorporated by stating that class struggles mechanism through which change in one part are generated by the relations of production, of the social structure is translated into change so that each mode of production has distinc- in the other parts. This is clearly the case in tive forms of class struggle associated with it, some variants of Marxism, but it equally clear- this simply reduces the class struggle to ly was not Marx's intention, as anyone who derivative and epiphenomenal status. The has bothered to read the relevant Marxist texts, transition from one mode of production to such as Engels' 1 890 letter to Joseph Bloch, another is seen in the narrow interpretation as will know.7 resulting from the development of the produc- 2. It fails to take into account human volition tive forces, not from the class struggle. This, as an active agent in sociocultural causation of course, directly contradicts the Communist and historical change. It is essential to realize Manifesto, which sees the class struggle as that it is not the "mode of production" that resulting in "a revolutionary reconstitution of determines anything. It is an abstraction that society at large, or in the common ruin of the social scientists make in trying to understand contending classes."10 the real world. It is not the "mode of produc- 4. Finally, the evolutionary typology tion," "productive forces," "relations of espoused by this Soviet brand of "Marxism" production," and "legal and political super- is clearly inadequate. The unilineal, Eurocentric 9 model (primitive clan society — slave-owning the Lineage Mode of Production. Although society — feudal society — capitalist society) they appear to put greater stress on the role simply forces Asian, African, and aboriginal of ideological features in the maintenance and American societies into preconceived slots operation of a particular mode of production, with little regard for their characteristics and the basic conception of sociocultural causation development potential. What are we to make, is the same as in the more mechanistic inter- for example, of a "slave system" which lumps pretations, and the criticisms offered above together ancient Sumer, Egypt, and China still apply, although in somewhat muted terms. with the Aztecs, Incas, and the Roman Empire? Or a feudalism that includes the T'ang dynasty THE MODE OF PRODUCTION CONCEPT IN in China, the Islamic caliphates, pre-Taika BOURGEOIS SOCIAL SCIENCE: CULTURAL Japan, and medieval Europe?11 How are we to MATERIALISM understand East Asiatic history without under- standing the major social changes that occurred Most schools of bourgeois social science during the late T'ang and early Sung dynasties, continue to be idealist or eclectic, but there is both "feudal" societies?'2 Surely concepts emerging a "cultural materialist" school with- that can be applied to such diverse societies in anthropology which draws heavily on the have lost their specific usefulness for under- mode of production model given above.'5 The standing the societies themselves. The addition terminology differs, but the basic idea is the of an Asiatic mode of production as a parallel same: "Social systems are . determined by evolutionary trajectory may improve the technological systems, and philosophies and typology, but it too is overly general. Perhaps the arts express experience as it is defined by the incorporation of Trotsky's "law of uneven technology and refracted by social systems."6 and combined development" would transform Although the aims of cultural materialism the typology into a more dialectical and use- reflect bourgeois values, its practitioners are ful one, but it has as yet had no systematic usually viewed by other bourgeois social scien- and comprehensive treatment.13 tists as crypto-Marxists, or worse." For in- There is another, broader interpretation of stance, when Betty Meggers attempted to the mode of production concept, found apply this approach to the analysis of some primarily in the writings of French Marxists. American Indian material, she was castigated According to Terray, "a mode of production by Morris Opler as attempting
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