RE: Re: S. Africa/mode of prod. debate
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/20/01 07:23PM I don't see any meaningful sense in which this is true. What 'pre-capitalist' m of p or social formation *effectively* or *meaningfully* EVER confronted capitalist states? I can't think of one. There was no confrontation of historical equals, there was a total world historical process. Your entire conception of the 'emergence' of capitalism into a non-capitalist or precapitalist (precapitalist, in some teleological sense?) is entirely post hoc reasoning. What Louis and I and others are asserting and attempting to prove both in theory and empirically, is that capitalism was a product of a total, pre-existent world system. CB: It would seem that one of capitalism's emergent or qualitatively new characteristics was and is the globalism of its totality. For example , the Romans had almost no contact whatsoever with the Mayans. ( So the fact that its appearance was first of all spatiotemporally localised does not alter the fundamental feature of capitalism, which is that it is an inflection or product of a world system which was already there, and which may have had many contingent forms of appearances, many layers of instantiation, but nevertheless was already a totality. Without this particular totality, capitalism could never haved 'emerged' in the 'English countryside' or anyone else specific. That indeed is exactly what is meant by coevality and by viewing the subjects of the world-historical process as sharing the same historicity. Without the totality which included the specific histories of Eurasian, African, American cultures and civilisations etc, and without the specific geographies and endowments of these regions, and without the specific prior development of commodity production, capitalism would not have appeared. All talk of articulated modes etc, simply misses the point; and this is why we insist on (a) uneven and combiend development as the characteristic dynamic, the key word being *development* and the key descriptor being *imperialist*. Mark
RE: Re: Re: S. Africa/mode of prod. debate
In East Africa, for example, an area of relatively late formal colonization (turn of last century), the Maasai and other pastoralists were often put forward by British 'explorers' etc. as a people frozen from an 'ancient' time, i.e., unaffected by the 'modern' (capitalist) world. In fact, however, global colonial capitalism was affecting the Maasai before they had ever laid eyes on a European (and vice versa). Disease from cattle imported to feed British troops fighting colonial wars in the Sudan spread south, wiped out herds, led to human starvation. The crisis led to a transformation in the role of the Maasai oloibonok (ritual or 'religious' leader) not traditionally a site of central political authority, to one of some (though still very limited) political authority. For some (perhaps many), it is a stretch to cite this as related to capitalism or colonialism. For me it is not. Mat
Re: RE: Re: Re: S. Africa/mode of prod. debate
Almost exactly the same thing happened to indigenous Californians. While I think you could argue that the Spanish/Mexican missions were pre-capitalist (?), Indians in the northern interior had no contact with them, and seem little affected. Unlike in eastern states, for example, the horse did not arrive until Anglos brought them. But about two hundred or so French fur trappers traveled through the area in 1822, causing beaver extinction in many, if not most streams. The following year some epidemic (we don't know what disease it was) killed about 2/3 of the Maidu. Afterwards, their religion also took on a more centralized form, shifting subtly to a priest-oriented form. It was the combination of diminished numbers and a corruptable priesthood that, aside from a handful of examples, all but evaporated military resistance to the 49ers. tim --- Forstater, Mathew [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In East Africa, for example, an area of relatively late formal colonization (turn of last century), the Maasai and other pastoralists were often put forward by British 'explorers' etc. as a people frozen from an 'ancient' time, i.e., unaffected by the 'modern' (capitalist) world. In fact, however, global colonial capitalism was affecting the Maasai before they had ever laid eyes on a European (and vice versa). Disease from cattle imported to feed British troops fighting colonial wars in the Sudan spread south, wiped out herds, led to human starvation. The crisis led to a transformation in the role of the Maasai oloibonok (ritual or 'religious' leader) not traditionally a site of central political authority, to one of some (though still very limited) political authority. For some (perhaps many), it is a stretch to cite this as related to capitalism or colonialism. For me it is not. Mat = Subscribe to ChicoLeft by emailing [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChicoLeft Subscribe to the Chico Examiner for only $30 annually or $20 for six months. Mail cash or check payabe to Tim Bousquet to POBox 4627, Chico CA 95927 __ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: S. Africa/mode of prod. debate
I have no problem with uneven and combined development paradigm, O'Connor's piece in the Race and Class special issue on ecological crisis was convincing to me, but I have never understood the debates between, e.g., world systems on the one hand and dependency theory on the other, or underdevelopment, mode of production debates, etc. I have never understood these as mutually exclusive alternative paradigms, but as complementary tools of analysis, all imperfect, but all helpful in some cases. Imperialism yes, global colonialist capitalism, etc., but also agency for real people who are responding to the ways in which imperialist global capitalism affects their lives, very often fighting tooth and nail against it, and also often using some of what capitalism brought to resist that very capitalism---technologies, etc. mat
Re: Re: S. Africa/mode of prod. debate
It's not a matter of typology but a question of historical transformation. Everyone here agrees that the area that came to be South Africa wasn't always capitalist; again, everyone here agrees that South Africa is now capitalist. Yoshie Not everybody agrees in the same way. I made the point repeatedly that South Africa was capitalist when the workers were conscripted and when political coercion rather than market forces dictated. This is a CRUCIAL distinction in the dependency theory debates and one which now seems all too easily swept under the rug. As I said the reason for this is that it is easy to deem 17th century Peru, Bolivia and Mexico as precapitalist because men rode around on horses, called themselves Don Fernando, used whips on the peons, wasted gold on doorknobs and candlesticks and practically screamed out for intervention by Zorro. On the other hand, South Africa was a joint British-Dutch colony and the men wore sensible coveralls, prayed in modest Protestant churches, believed in soil improvement and pinched pennies. So this was a place where capitalism might have sunk roots despite the fact that the CLASS RELATIONS WERE IDENTICAL TO MEXICO, ETC. In other words, the criterion is not hard and fast and based on strict economic considerations. Therefore, it seems made of mush. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: RE: Re: S. Africa/mode of prod. debate
Mark: nevertheless was already a totality. Without this particular totality, capitalism could never haved 'emerged' in the 'English countryside' or anyone else specific. You know, the other night I saw a film that I reviewed here. It was called Life and Death. I didn't want to give away the ending, but it seems that nobody here will ever see it. So I am going to give it away now, since it helps to illustrate a point about this whole English countryside business. At the end of the film, the tough cop and the gang boss square off in an open field near a factory. The cop has just lost an arm, but continues to fight. After shooting each other multiple times, the two men glare at each other. Who will go down first? Then then resort to their secret weapons. The cop has an atomic rocket launcher in a backpack. Meanwhile, the gangster reaches into his chest and plucks out his heart which has turned into a radioactive, pulsating blue ball, which he hurls at the cop. The cop returns fire. The moment the two projectiles reach each antagonist, a nuclear blast not only sweeps across Japan but the world. Very powerful. Irresistible in fact. So coming home on the subway, it occurred to me that this whole English countryside deal might have been included in the climax of the film. Somebody reaches into his shirt and pulls out a copy of the Enclosures Acts or something. But imagine the power of that change in English farming. Without it, you never would have had capitalist colonialism, imperialist war, socialist revolution, fascism, prosperity after WWII, computers, MTV, microwave ovens, the Internet and everything else. Rather awe-inspiring when you think about it. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: RE: Re: S. Africa/mode of prod. debate
From: Mark Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] All talk of articulated modes etc, simply misses the point; and this is why we insist on (a) uneven and combiend development as the characteristic dynamic, the key word being *development* and the key descriptor being *imperialist*. I think that's exactly right. I finished the piece posted yesterday with this reference to Neil Smith, whose PhD under David Harvey is still, I think, the main theoretical work on unevenness. ...while uneven development dates to the time of primitive accumulation and the opposition of capital against pre-capitalist societies, modern- day global capitalism retains a dichotomous form. But today it is less an issue of the `articulation of different modes of production,' more an issue of development at one pole and development of underdevelopment at the other (Smith, 1990, Uneven Development, Oxford, Basil Blackwell). More in the same spirit. Uneven Development in P.O'Hara (Ed) (1999), The Encyclopaedia of Political Economy, London, Routledge. A useful summary of the process of uneven development, as a necessary aspect of capitalism, comes from volume one of Marx's Capital (ch 27, paragraph 15). Here he states that a major contradiction of capitalism is the simultaneous emergence of concentrations of wealth and capital (for capitalists), on the one hand, and poverty and oppression (for workers), on the other. This general law of capitalist accumulation, as Marx termed it, highlights capital-labor conflict, and is one way to ground a theory of uneven development. But thinking about uneven and combined development dates further back, at least to Marx's Grundrisse (1857-58), where unevenness represents the condition for a transition from one declining mode of production to another rising, more progressive mode. In general terms, then, uneven development can relate to differential growth of sectors, geographical processes, classes and regions at the global, regional, national, sub- national and local level. The differing conceptual emphases are paralleled by debate surrounding the origins and socioeconomic mechanisms of unevenness. Neil Smith (1990:ch 3) rooted the equalization and differentiation of capital -- the fundamental motions of uneven development -- in the widespread emergence of the division of labor. Ernest Mandel (1968:210) searched even further back, to private production among different producers within the same community; insisting that differences of aptitude between individuals, the differences of fertility between animals or soils, innumerable accidents of human life or the cycle of nature, were responsible for uneven development in production. Political Implications. Ultimately, it is less the definitional roots of the concept, and more its political implications and contemporary intellectual applications, for which uneven development is known. Leon Trotsky's theory of combined and uneven development -- established in his book Results and Prospects (1905) -- served as an analytical foundation for permanent revolution. Given the backward state of Russian society in the early twentieth century, due to structured unevenness, both bourgeois (plus nationalist or anti- colonial) and proletarian revolutions could and must be telescoped into a seamless process, led by the working class. (See Howard and King 1989.) In more measured, less immediately political terms, the debate was revived when Marxist social science regenerated during the 1970s. Here the phenomenon of uneven and combined development in specific (peripheral or semi-peripheral) settings was explained as a process of articulations of modes of production. In these debates, the capitalist mode of production depends upon earlier modes of production for an additional superexploitative subsidy by virtue of reducing the costs of labor power reproduction (Wolpe 1980), even if this did not represent a revolutionary or even transitional moment. Smith (1990:156.141) insists, however, that it is the logic of uneven development which structures the context for this articulation, rather than the reverse. That logic entails not only the differential (or disarticulated) production and consumption of durable goods along class lines (de Janvry 1981). It also embraces the disproportionalities (Hilferding 1910) that emerge between departments of production _ especially between capital goods and consumer goods, and between circuits and fractions of capital (see CIRCUIT OF SOCIAL CAPITAL). For example, the rise of financial markets during periods of capitalist overproduction crisis amplify unevenness (Bond 1997:ch 1). Or as Aglietta (1976:359) remarks: Uneven development creates artificial differences in the apparent financial results of firms, which are realized only on credit. These differences favour speculative gains on the financial market. Tendencies towards sectoral
