An Introduction to Marxist Theories of Undervelopment 0908160933

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INTRODUCTION

RICHARD PEET*

The papers reproduced here are from a workshop on Marxist theories of underdevelopment, in which some thirty-five people

participated, at the Australian National University, November 19-22, 1979. The purpose of reproducing the papers is to provide a quick guide to a literature which takes several years

to read in its entirety.

Hence the papers should not be seen

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as the usual academic essays, but as what they are notes made by participants on the various authors and topics discussed at the workshop. Some of the papers are first interpretations and thoughts on new topics; others are the result of more mature consideration. The idea is to stimulate thought, discussion and interest in an alternative mode of inquiry and explanation. The Marxist perspective on underdevelopment** is still being developed, as are its various theoretical components. yet: already Marxism provides a deep and increasingly coherent insight into regional underdevelopment; already, opposing theories are in disarray; and already, the process of 'borrowing' from Marxism, in an attempt to reconstitute eclectic theories, has begun. The last of these cannot succeed. Pieces

of Marxist theory cannot be plucked out of philosophical context and merged with theories flowing from alternative and oppos'Lt'rg at least they cannot be so treated while retaining contexts

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logical coherence. Hence it is important to begin with the philosophical basis of Marxist underdevelopment theory with dialectical historical materialism and proceed from there.

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in begin, thc=n, at the beginning of the Marxism

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Lhcory.

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significance of Marx's standing Hegel on his head, or rather back on his feet, is that dialectical~historical materialism provides a synthesis of the dialectic, as theory of the dynamics of history, with materialism, the real basis of the structure of all human life. This synthesis yields a conception of the causes and course of human events grounded not in the actions of * Dr Richard peer is Senior Research Fellow, Department of Human Geography, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National university, Canberra.

**

The workshop used a wide interpretation of 'Marxist perspec-

tive' including, for example, Wallenstein's world systems

perspective. 'Marxist, neo-marxist, and associated theories' would be a more accurate description of the area of discussion.

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MARXIST THEORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT

mysterious forces, God, fate or even 'inherent human nature' , but in people with imperfect but changing consciousness acting through social structures which they do not collectively control. These social structures have the common characteristic that they must co-ordinate the material reproduction of life; power in all of them derives fundamentally from control over the means for the production of the material basis of continuing life. The great shifts in human history, the revolutionary breaks which signify whole new ways of life coming into being, are movements from one entire mode of the material production of life to another the embryonic growth of a new mode in the womb of the old, its birth, growth, and eventual dominance in the social formation. `olutionary change, sufficient to create wh 4. (higher) material levels of living, and to support a liberated mass consciousness, can only come from transformation in the forces of production and, more importantly, the social relations which control the operation of these forces and the distribution §~eir output. In the materialistic dialectic, then, the key to 'development' is transformative change in the structure of the mode of the production of life. Thus, the power of the dialectic, as an accurate representation of the dynamics of societal change, has been applied to the real basis of human life, and not (as with Hegel) to the self-development of a supposed 'Idea'. As Marx (l976:l02}* put his difference with Hegel:

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My dialectical method is, in its foundations, not only different from the Hegelian, but exactly opposite to it. For Hegel, time process of thinking, which he even transforms into an independent subject, under the name of 'the Idea', is the creator of the real world, and the real world is only the external appearance of

the idea. with me the reverse is true: the idea is nothing but the material world reflected in the mind of man, and translated into forms of thought. Part I of this volume is an introduction to the basic philosophical ideas of Marxism, the main economic argument and terminology of Marx's analysis of capitalism as contained in Capital Volume 1, and brief outlines of the most relevant sections of classical theory from Marx and Lenin. Readers with little back-grouné in Marxism should spend some time reading this part of the volume, rather than go straight to the parts which particularly interest them, for it cannot be stressed too much that the Marxist theory is a separate, whole *

References for all papers may be found in the bibliography

at

the back of the volume.

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INTRODUCTION

theory with its own internal consistency and its own versions of the use of words (see e.g. Oilman, l971:Part 1, especially Ch.l). Paper Ic is particularly important in providing a background to the theory of imperialism and it is also recommended that readers unfamiliar with the ideas of a spatial Marxism read Harvey f1975). Part II delves into the origins of the capitalist mode of production. In the Marxist analysis, underdevelopment is understood in terms of the characteristics, dynamics, and interactions of the modes of production operative in a

particular social formation. Specifically, the emphasis is on the growth of the capitalist mode of production (which in the view of Marxist theory has been the dominant world mode since the seventeenth century at least) and its interaction with non-capitalist modes. The analysis thus begins with the emergence of capitalism in the dissolution of the feudal mode in Western Europe and Japan. This phase of the analysis has considerable significance for underdevelopment theory.

Most

obviously it explains how and why, initially, Western Europe emerged as capitalist 'centre' a reinterpretation of

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feudalism as a dynamic, contradiction-ridden mode of produc-

tion compared with other non-capitalist modes provides a new aspect to an old problem of historical geography. Then, also, regionally-varying transmissions from the feudal to

the capitalist modes provide historical background to subsequent variations in the dynamics of capitalist development the difference between Eastern and Western Europe, for example (Brenner, 1976). And finally, the transition from feudalism to capitalism provides a detailed picture of the articulation between two modes of production, and while the original articulation of an emerging mode is obviously very different from subsequent articulations between that

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mode now formed and other modes, some analogous data may be

gleaned from such historical studies.

Hence the significance

of part II. Part III then examines the broad ideas developed by Frank and Wallenstein in particular, and the radical wing of

the 'dependency' school in general. This school attributes underdevelopment to the contact between an emerging, expanding capitalism and pre-capitalist societies. This contact has been characterized by the dominance of capitalist over non-capitalist societies, the integration of pre-capitalist societies as peripheral components of the world capitalist

system, and specifically by the expropriation of surplus value

from the peripheral regions to the centre yielding the exist-

ing geography of centre and periphery (see Figure 1). This

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INTRODUCTION

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perspective was _1"w1da9nen°l:aZ to the growth of the Marxist theory of underdevelopment; it remains fundamental. The criticisms of Frank and wallerstein, made for example by Laclau (1971) and Brenner (1977), do not (to my mind) challenge this overall perspective. Rather they deal with questions such as the nature of the articulation between capitalism and feudalism in Latin America (Laclau) and the 2"QZa?'2'.§?.P6 contributions of internal social-relational changes,

and external sources of surplus, in the development o?" the centre (Brenner). Marxism must be self-critical a criticism is the Marxian version of the Iobjectivity* of positivism and the criticisms of Frank anti Wallerstein presented in I papers in Part III should be read in the light of a critical theory restlessly seeking deeper and more correct understanding. Part IV looks at the capitalist world system from a somewhat different perspective. The emphasis remains global and on surplus flows, but the theories presented are more deeply rooted in classical Marxism a :"'1' Er: European developments in that tradition. Samir Amino "M work is perhaps the most

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complete, synthetic account of underdevelopmeNt yet publishedAny attempt at presenting his voluminous writings in a few pages must be selective and overly terse; thus while the Jonas paper provides seductive glimpses into Amir's formulations, the careful reader will probably have to go directly to Amir's I"www m s m m w m a ED74, 1976, 1977, 1978) for a satisfactory understanding.; is is the case also with the theory of unequal exchange.; But in the latter the problem is that the originaIL worT Ll Ydense, someti confused, mM nearly always confusing. There are alternative formulations Mmin, 1974; .. .. ..... . .

Kay, 1975; Say, 1978) but the truth

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the frost carefully worked out, empirically exemplified element of underdevelopment theory remains carelessly theorized and scarcely demonstrated in practical terms (see Amir, 1974, VOl.l:58 for an example of careless exemplification). Fully developed, however, unequal exchange has the potential to be a, even the, crucial category of the Marxist approach to underdevelopment.

Part V deals with recent changes in the world capitalist system connected mainly with the growth of transnational corporations; in particular it attempts to provide the theoretical basis for comprehending the de-industrialization of the old industrial areas, and growth of the new (see Figure 2). It is, of course, a very popular practice to critically analyse the 'multinational' and its actions: one can appeal

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MARXIST THEORIES

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6 OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT

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INTRODUCTION

to peoples' nationalism and their dislike of the big and the powerful, S CEO sympathetic audience is easily assembled. But, while this kind of institutional in lysine has its uses, it remains deficient in that it treats the transnational corporation as an independent actor, takes a merely morally critical line of attack, and leads to policy conclusions which seldom reach beyond a crude nationalism and which frequently reveal a startling confusion. A good exam such contradictory confusion in 'policy prescription' is provided by smith ($979;

so;

352): The most obvious solution is greater public control of the multinationals. One possibility is that they could be broken up, at least into elements small enough to be within the effective jurisdiction of a single national (or even regional) government. But because these corporations do operate internationally, there is no practical way of achieving this. And within individual nations, the power of big business over government, mass media and so on is such that the multinationals can be made to appear almost as benevolent guardians of the public interest. Another possibility is that these corporations could be taken

into public ownership. Again, their status makes this rather difficult,

Ra-national the process

could at least be startelk! national level. It seems utter folly to leave so much Q? the organization of economic activity to bodies responsible h 1111111-

private shareholders, and often only nominally even to them. Nothing short of full pIulia! ownership and accountability will ensure thats such organizations truly serve the interests of all people.

Or to paraphrase the matter we should, but we cannot, but we should still try, but this try is doomed to failure, but then again we really should try' Such a conclusion stems from its

prior moii o-f analysis, ich starts about half way through a process (with the corporation emergent) and ends two-thirds of the way along. The value of the work by Palloix in particular is that it analyses the general economic forces which condition the actions of even the mightiest transnational. It places the institution within the operation of these forces, and it relates their movement back to the structural analysis

of capitalism provided by the main body of Marxist theory. Again, however, incorporation of the transnational into Marxian theory is critical, analytical process see for example Thrift's Frébei et al. in Paper vc.

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MARXIST THEORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT

Part VI provides the beginning of a theoretical view of the contact between world capitalism and pre-capitalist societies. Thus contact is seen as e dialectic of two societal dynamics, yielding a synthetic dynamic of the particular social formation in the Third World. Articulation

is thus revealed in all its complexity and particularity while co~ordination between the multiple regional outcomes of articulation is retained via the overall theory of mode of production and an emphasis on the world capitalist system. Hence the analysis moves from theoretical extensions of historical materialism, to an historical analysis of the rise of world capitalism, to the dynamics and constituent spatial relations of world capitalism,~ " recent movements of that world system, and finally to the combination of capitalist with non-capita15§@' societies. uite clearly the whole

emphasis of the Marxist perspective lies in relating the particular in e general, the local to the world; moving appearances and manifestations back into essential Causal" structures;l and consequently seeing development in terms not of pragmatic m~ ~difications of ongoing (thus, apparent ever-going) processes, but of revolutionary change to new processes by which surplus generation can be increased, and control of the larger surpluses retained by the very workers who produce them. The 'policy prescription' of Marxist theory is revolutionary praxis' :

... ... ..

...... ..

. .. .. . .

PART la HISTORICAL MATERIALISM AND MODE OF PRODUCTION:

A NOTE ON MARX'S PERSPECTIVE AND METHOD

RICHARD PEET

Idealism and materialism Marx's conception of dialectical-historical materialism transcends Hegelian idealism. that is, Hegelian philosophy is negated and maintained at the same time (Jakubowski, 1976:17). For Hegel, social being was merely a manifestation, a realisation, of pre-existing, ever-existing consciousness. This conception, profoundly religious in origin, prevented the achievement of a dialectical unity between consciousness and being as Feuerbach put it: 'One can only deduce being from thought by first tearing apart the true unity of the two, by first abstracting the soul and the essence from being and then (after the event) rediscovering in this essence, abstracted from being, the sense and the principle of being emptied of itself' (Jakubowski, 1977:l6-17). In the materialist conception, consciousness and being are distinct, yet also in dialectical unity with, (human) being as subject and consciousness (thought) as predicate that is, thought proceeds from being.

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What marx did take from Hegelian philosophy was the revolutionary idea of unending historical development* as Engels (1950:l8) said 'dialectical philosophy dissolves all conceptions of final, absolute truth and of absolute states of humanity corresponding to it.

For it [dialectical philo-

sophy] nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and in everything; nothing can endure before it except the uninterrupted process of becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendency from the lower to the higher'. But whereas Hegel saw history as the process of the Absolute Spirit's self-knowledge, as the working out of the 'cunning of Reason', Marx saw history as the real history of the thinking, acting human being, with human consciousness as the accumulated result of experience in social life. 'To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e. the process of thinking, which, under the name of "the Idea", he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurges of the real world, and the real world is only the

external, phenomenal form of "the Idea". with me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world

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MARXIST THEORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT

reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought' (Marx, 1967, Vol.l:l9). Thus Marx saw himself as stripping Hegel's dialectic* of its mystical form and applying it to the dynamic of the development of actual societies. Hence, we find the Hegelian category of 'totality' ('the absolute whole perpetually renewing itself') translated into the Marxian notion of 'active totality' and applied to understanding the social system as a whole, whose various aspects can only be understood as moments of the whole. This whole moves, or develops, as the result of unequal oppositional interaction between its conflicting constituent elements, with change building from quantitative to qualitative change. Societies succeed each other in determinate order, with the new society incorporating elemalluuWlw o? the w.,jin new forms. Consciousness is essential to this dialectical process, and especially to its qualitative (revolutionary) component. For Hegel 'when something...reali5 own deeper nature is involved in some systematic WHHMIH which extends further than its own limits, then those limits become 'fetters'. They impede self-development and growth. They must be burst' (Hook, 1962:'70). W. ranslates this into material format, making consciousness an integral part of the social process. As Hook (1962:7l) nnnunain t, for Marx: 4 1

re

,

1

Spirit is not the source of matter but rather its highest product. And since the social is primary mum individual psyche, the dialectical relation is primarily g y m ,,ial relation. Its synthesis 3221 consequently always be effected by human activity, EmauunmwWnll human will is part of the social whole.; Within this whole the moments of opposition are objective conditions (thesis) which are independent of immediate consciousness (but not of history) and the human needs and desires (antithesis

* Sydney Hook summarizes the essential character of the dialectic when he points out that 'The least significant aspect of the dialectical method is its division into triadic phases ...It is not so much the number of phases a situation has which makes it dialectical but a specific pelatvlorz of opposition between those phases which generates a succession of other phases. The necessary condition,l £!tn, of a dialectical situation is at lead two phases, distinct but not ate. The sufficient condition of a dialectical situation a -given when those two phases present a relation QE opposition end nr

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interaction such that the result (1) exhibits something quali-

tatively new, W) preserves some of the structural elements of interacting phases, and (3) eliminates others'. (Hook, 1962:6l.) m

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MARX'S METHOD

which project possibilities on the basis of those conditions. At a certain point, as a result of the pressure of objective conditions on -an will and thought of a definite class, action s h y n e s s ) results. An attempt is made to actualise `ective possibilities generated by the interaction of the social environment and human needs., in means of class action the "moments of opposition" are transformed into "phases of development" I: Hence in the Marxian dialectic, the class conscious of itself and its condition, and acting in a transformative Iay on the basis of that consciousness, is the subject of` du. historical process, and the social environment is the object transformed. In changing the object, the subject also changes itself. 'By ...acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway' (Marx, 1967, vol. l°l77}. History therefore becomes the progressive modification of 'human nature'. Hence, for Marx and Engels (l976a:3l, 37) as materialist dialecticians who opposed idealist dialectics:

The premises from which we begin are Iot arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises EO m which abstraction can only be snail in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their Intivity and the material conditions of their life,» both those which they find already existing lull ihuse produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way... This manner of approach is not devoid of premises.

It starts out from the real premises H Ioes not abandon them for a moment. Its premises Ire men,

not in any fantastic isolatein and fixity but in their actua empirically Perceptible process of development under definite conditions. As soon as this active life-process s described, history ceases to be a collection of dead facts, as it is with the empiricists (themselves still abstract) f or an imagined activity of imagined subjects, as with the idealists. Where speculation ends, where real life starts, there consequently begins real, positive science, the expounding of the practical activity, of the practical

process of development of men. Empty phrases about consciousness end, and real knowledge has to take

their place.

II

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MARXIST THEORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT

The first premise of human history, is thus the existence of living human individuals and their consequent H~ ~mation to the rest of nature. The physical nature_ of humans _no the natural conditions in which they find themselves,; are the natural bases of human life, modified in the course of history through human action. Humans begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, i.e. by consciously producing the material basis of their life. The way in which they do so at first depends on the nature of the means of subsistence they actually find in existence and have to reproduce. Production, however, is not the reproduction of merely the physical existence of individuals, but a definite form of activity, a definite form of expressing life, a definite mode of life. As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with the most fundamental way of expressing life, their production what and how they produce (Marx and Engels, »

1976a:31-2).

The. structure of socie.ty_..and its transformation The basis of society is therefore to be found in the material production of human life. Humans are not free to choose the productive forces which they apply to this task , 'for every productive force is an acquired force, the product of former activity...Because of this simple fact that every succeeding generation finds itself in possession of the productive forces acquired by the previous generation, which serve it as the raw material for new production, a coherence arises in human history, a history of humanity takes shape But for the productive ...' (Marx, l972b~5l8) forces to be set in motion, humans must have certain relations with each other. In production, humans not only act on nature,

_

but also on each other

--

they produce by co-operating and

mutually exchanging activities. 'In order to produce they enter into definite connections and relations with one another and only within these social connections and relations does their action on nature, does production, take place. These social relations...will naturally vary according to the character of the means of production' §;Haarx, l972c:E'>l)

Individuals productively active in a definite way thus that is, enter into definite social and political relations the 'social structure and the state are continually evolving out of the life process of definite individuals...as they act, produce materially, and hence as they work under definite

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material limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their WilT (Marx and Engels, 1976a:35-6). The social structure and the state in this conception are not separate

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MARX'S METHOD

entities (a superstructure divorced from the economic base of society) but are joined in dialectical process to the material reproduction of life; likewise with ideas 'Upon the different forms of property, upon the social conditions of existence, rises a~ entire superstructure of distinct and peculiarly formed sentiments, ':fUl1um .I ions, modes of thought and views of life' (Wwe I l972d:42l). Generally, the political and legal superstructure has close links to the economic base: class conflict, between those who own the means of the production of life and those who do not, makes the state necessary to protect the economically dominant class. The state, however, has a tendency towards concerning itself with the society as a whole and towards a relative autonomy of movement. The legal superstructure, on the other hand, has a closer, more direct relationship to the economic base, with legal relations often being no more than express ions of economic relations. In terms of the ideational component of superstructure, some ideas form parts of the

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political and legal superstructures thus the state rarely uses force to achieve its aims, but rather every form of state creates corresponding ideologies as an essential part of its existence. But other ideas, for example scientific and religious notions, have a far greater independence of both the economic base and the political and legal~ institutions 'iL£e superstructure. Base and superstructure 1 interact as s complex unity, with the various elements interacting indivi dually, and as components of more general aspects of the F

whole, and with change taking place at different speeds and in different ways in the various moments of the whole. The key to this complex whole, however, is its economic basis, especially the social relations which condition the production of existence. Hence in Marx's view the anatomy of what Hegel had called 'civil society' is to be understood

essentially in terms of political economy:

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This conception of history thus relies on expounding

the real process of production starting from the material production of life itself and comprehend-

ing the form of relations of production connected with and created by this mode of production, i.e. r civil society in its various stages, as the basis of all history: describing it in its action as the state, and also explaining how all the different theoretical products and forms of consciousness, religion, philosophy, morality, etc., etc. r arise from it, and tracing the process of their formation from that basis; thus the whole thing can, of course,

be depicted in its totality (and therefore, too, the reciprocal action of these various sides on one

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MARXIST THEORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT another)... [This conception] shows that history does not and by being resolved into "self-consciousness" as "spirit of the spirit", but that each stage contains a material result, a sum of productive forces, a historically created relation to nature and of individuals to one another, which is handed down to each generation from its predecessor: a mass of productive forces, capital funds and circumstances, which on the one hand is indeed modified by the new

generation, but on the other also prescribes for it its conditions of life and gives it a definite develop»

rent, a special character. It shows that circumstances make men just as much ans men make circumstances (Marx and Engels, 1976a:53-4). Change in HMM structure comes, in the most general ;e, change in Hts productive basis: #uphe social relations of

production...are transforned with the m afigy and development the material means of' production, the productive forces' (Marx, l972c:8l) 4 Revolution ~ tradiction betweMMuuln W

W

»q,

of

www ought about by a con'f and the form of the

social relations of production.

agent of change is the revolutionary class, in class societies. Thus, for example, in the development of productive forces there comes a stage when the productive forces inflict particular damage on a certain classy which is teed 'to bear all the burdens of society without enjoying its advantages' bringing it into the sharpest contradiction other classes. The physical and spiritual misery o this Qgbss becomes conscious misery, and the class in becoming conscious of its inhuman condition, succeeds in abolishing it (Marx and Engels, 1976b:36). But as the general context in which revolution Mum ccur, for the oppressed class to be able to emancipate itself, it is necessary that the productive powers already acquired and the existing social relations s h o W N

.

longer be capable of

existing side by side. For this to happen, all the productive forces which could be engendered in the old society must have been developed. So it is that the:

conditions of life which different generations find in existence, determine also whether or not the revolutionary convulsion periodically recurring in history will be strong enough to overthrow the basis

of everything that exists. And if these material

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elements of a complete revolution are not present namely, on the one hand the existing productive forces, and the other the formation of a revolutionary mass, which revolts not only against separate conditions of the existing society, but against the existing

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MARX v S I*/EITHOD

"production of life" itself, the "total activity" on which it is based then it is absolutely immaterial for practical development whether the idea of this revolution has been expressed a hundred times already as the history of communism proves (Marx and Engels, 1976a:54).

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The above argument on materialism, structure of society, and the sources of societal change was developed by Marx largely between 1845 and 1849 as part of his reaction against Hegel and then Feuerbach. During the early 1850s, Marx's thinking shifted to considering the reasons the defeat of the 1848 revolutions, while in the middle 1850s he was beset by financial and family problems. economic crisis of 1857, however, moved him to a new enthusiasm" including the first attempts to synthesize the economic studies he had been carrying out in the previous fifteen years. The results were A

Contriteunion to the Critique OJ' Political Economy and Outlines Critique of'Political Economy (or The Grundrisse). In

co' the

the Preface to the Contribution... (Marx, 1972a:503-4) summarizes his counter-position to Hegel's idealism as follows: In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable independent of their will, relations o?` production which correspond to a definite st of development of their material productive forces. . . sum total __._

of these relations of production constitutes the

economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure 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 determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or with what is buts legal expression for the same thing the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. with the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. Q~ considering such transformations a dis-

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tinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production,

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MARXIST THEORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT

which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, on the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production. No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the task itself arises only when the material conditions fOrWMHM Hblution already exist or are at least in the n'F formation- Jin broad outlines Asiatic, ancient. Dal, and modern bourgeois modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs in economic lion of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individuals; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism. This social formation brings,

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mm

1

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therefore, the prehistory of human society to a close.

This passage effectively summarizes the whole discussion of materialism and the social structure presented so far with two important exceptions which both involve the role of human action in the dynamics of societal change. First, the above passage makes no mention of class struggle in revolutionary change, giving the impression of a mechanistic process in which disembodied 'productive forces' burst through the context of property relations to automatically transform the entire structure of society. While Marx and Engels may not yet have successfully placed the working class in the structure of capitalism(e.g.§ Mandel, 197l:23) , discussions in several of Marx7E early works, in The Gentian Ideolqqy and the Communist Manifesto clearly indicate that the agent of

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MARX I S METHOD

revolutionary change is not some mechanical force but the revolutionary class, a class included in the term 'productive forces'. 'Of all the instruments of production, the greatest productive power is the revolutionary class itself' (Marx, 1976-I46). Second, in the above passage, the development of productive forces seems to occur in an autonomous way, as the 'self development' of a material force replicating Hegel's 'self development of the Idea'. Again, however, Marx is giving an abbreviated version of a prior discussion. "~W , built into even his initial discourse on Ana simultaneous moments of primary human relations, is the realization

Ea

the first act of production to satisfy needs creates new needs; to satisfy these the forces of production must be changed by humans who have established, then altered, their consciousness during the act of production. Production alters needs in several ways: immediately, changes take place in the instruments and materials of production (for example, they are used up during production) leading to the need to replace and possibly to improve them; and the producers themselves change, for example, in their material needs and wants; in the longer term, the division of labour and the social organization of production change, both quantitatively and eventually qualitatively; external nature and the relation to it, is changed during the production process; spatial relations between localities are changed. Hence the act of production itself generates new social needs and abilities which direct change in the forces of Qproduction.

The history of modes of production In the materialist view, therefore, the most fundamental act which any society must perform is the production and reproduction of life itself. The production of life necessitates a mode of social organization composed at base of certain class relations, arranged most significantly around ownership and control of the means of the production of the material basis of life. These social relations of production which control the direction of development and the speg.i§_i.g. operation of the means of production, are the basis on which the superstructure of society is raised. Forms of consciousness and culture, systems of ideology, types

o? politics

states, correspond to the level of development of the productive forces and the nature of the social relations which contain these productive forces. However, despite this profound influence the relation between the economic basis of society, and its superstructural elements, is not mechanical determination, but dialectical determination, allowing the

superstructure and its constituent elements a history which

I

18

MARXIST THEORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT

is in part their own. Complexes of all these elements, in certain general forms of relation, are conceived as 'modes of production' (Figure l). Modes of production change quantitatively under the influence of intmum interactions between their constituent elements. These quantitative changes build through crimnMuWunn revolutionary change as one mode of production succeeds anotherni Q history of any society is, therefore, theorized in terms W Q succession of modes of production: the particular mixture of modes, remnants of the past, major elements of the present, portents of the future, making up a particular society being termed the 'social formation' (Figure 2). The world system is made up of a number of such formations in interaction, with one type of formation (structured dominantly by a mode of production) usually pre-eminent over the rest. World history is composed of an uneven historical interaction of structured social formations. m m ,

The succession of modes of production, or schema of historical developme theoretically represents the actual :].. progress of historical reality.I own discussion of pre-capitalist modes of production a s in The Grwzdwlsse (Marx, 1973:459-514) while Capital is his analysis of the capitalist mode. In the section from the Preface to A Contribution quoted earlier, Marx speaks of the 'Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production... as progressive epochs in the economic formation of society' but this over-simplifies Marx's schema. Two rival concept lions of this schema have subsequently developed: the traditional, unilinear schema and the multilinear schema. a

Unilinear schema. According to this perspective, the historical succession of modes looks like the left side of Figure w i h controversy over whether there is such a thing

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as an Asiatic

and if so, where to place it.

This

progression is based essentially on the experience of Western Europe which is then elevated to the status of a universal model.

(ii) Multilinear schema. This schema starts with the primitive community's various modifications (because of different physical environments etc.) and sees this as dissolving in a number of possible ways, leading to interaeting multiple lines of historical development (right side, Figure 3). The main pre-capitalist modes of production may be described as follows (see Menotti, 1977): Ka)

The primitive commune: The primeval natural group was

19

MARX 1 s METHOD

SUPERSTRUCTURE

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