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Barry
Hindess and Paul Hirst – (sociologists) Pre-capitalist
Modes of Production (1975) |
These two were influential Marxist sociologists in
the 1970s. They tried to defend, in theoretical terms, the insights of Marx in
an anti-empiricist, anti-teleological, anti-functionalist Althusserian vein.
This project gradually fell in on itself, and by the publication of ‘Marx’s
Capital and Capitalism today, which looked at the extent of the Hegelian
influence on Marx, the project had subsided.
Authors begin this work by explaining it is a work
within Marxist theory. This is counterpoised to empiricism which takes facts as
given. Hindess and Hirst argue that facts are the product of scientific
practice. This is argued to pre-empt charges that their arguments go against
historical knowledge and empirical realities. The “Marxist analysis of a
concrete situation is always a work of theoretical abstraction…concrete
conditions are not ‘given’ to theory in order to validate or to refute its
general concepts. On the contrary, it is the general concepts that make
possible the analysis of the concrete.” (pp 4). Yet the attempt to provide
a general theory of modes of production is deemed idealist and teleological. As
such Balibar is criticised for structuralism, which inadvertently replaces
Hegelian teleology with a different essence. (pp 7) It is the general notion of
causation, not the idealist variant like ‘spirit’ or ‘reason’ that matters
here. “The ‘structural’ causality of Reading Capital is no less
expressive because the essence in question is called a structure.” (pp 8) The
authors insist upon the specificity of determinate instances of different modes
of production, determined at anytime by specific class struggles.
H&H understand mode of production as an “articulated
combination of relations of production and forces of production structured by
the dominance of the relations of production.” They always exist in combination
but H&H, contra Mao for instance, argue for the primacy of productive
relations. “Forces of production ‘correspond’ to relations of production as the
indispensable conditions of the functioning of a determiate mechanism of
extraction of surplus-labour” (22)
H&H insist that surplus labour in one form or
another is a persistent feature, more a “necessary condition” of all societies.
However the means by which it is produced and appropriated vary widely. A
theoretical problem of the ilk that H&H aim to address is how to
distinguish between these different forms. How, for example, does primitive
communism differ from advanced communism, wherein both the surplus is consumed
socially and is not privately appropriated. A division of labour that posits a
class of non-labourers is characterised by the existence of the political form
of a state.
“Where there is communal appropriation of
surplus-labour there are no classes, no state, and no politics” (23)
H&H insist that the different forms of
appropriation of surplus labour must be historicized. The conception is
internal to the mode of production. Yet they are also adamant that surplus
labour is necessary for the reproduction of any economy. Yet the mode of
appropriation assists in locating different features of differing societies,
and avoids the pitfalls of functionalist sociology such as that of Talcott
Parsons. The latter reproduces the political level as a universal function.
Despite structural differentiation, this process is teleological through its
progressive rationalisation. (30-31)
H&H also engage with Poulantzas, they want to demonstrate the relative autonomy of the political, but also that its function is specific to the developed form of the mode of production. It is the means of political practice (the exercise of state power) that are crucial, not simply its effects. Poulantzas though sophisticated, ends up with a formalist Marxism. “Political practice is defined by its objective with no reference to its instruments” (38). As such, though a proletarian party might occupy state power, its effects might very well be the reproduction of bourgeois relations. H&H invoke Lenin at this point to demonstrate problems with Bourgeois representation (39).
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Pre-capitalist
Modes of Production (1975) Marx’s
Capital and Capitalism Today |
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