Asian production method

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In the theory of historical materialism, the term Asian mode of production denotes a pre-capitalist, widespread mode of production in which irrigated agriculture often played a predominant role in the reproduction of the community. The term was coined by Karl Marx . According to the current state of Marxist research, this method of production occurs on all humanly populated continents with the exception of Australia .

features

Class relationships

In societies with an Asian mode of production, the personally free peasants and an organized bureaucracy or aristocracy face each other as the basic classes. The farmers either live in relatively self-sufficient village communities in which the common land ownership known from primitive society still exists. Often, however, these village communities have disintegrated and the farmers then face the state as individual owners of (smaller) parcels of land.

The aristocracy or bureaucracy in general organizes production and appropriates part of the surplus product of the immediate producers. In most cases there is a despot at the head of society who represents the country itself. If the ruling class is formed on the basis of the criterion of kinship with the despot, it is called an aristocracy. But if family ties do not play a particular role in the recruitment of the ruling class and they are selected through tests or merit, then it is a question of bureaucracy.

The exploitation takes place on the one hand through a kind of general tax , on the other hand through the obligation of the peasants to perform certain labor. The individual peasant producers are not personally dependent on certain individual landowners, but are - often mediated by the village community - pay taxes to the entirety of the ruling class. In addition, there are sometimes slavery , wage labor and other forms of personal dependency. But they do not essentially determine the relations of production . The state is often considered to be the owner or at least the upper owner of the entire land.

The class struggle between the personally free peasants and the "corporate big landowners" is primarily about the amount of the surplus product driven in by the state tax.

As in all other class societies , the rule of the bureaucracy in the Asian mode of production cannot be reduced to exploitation. The basis of their rule was a social official activity, i. that is, it dealt with issues that affected society as a whole. What distinguishes the Asiatic mode of production from all other class societies, however, is that here these functions are carried out directly via the simple division of labor between manual and mental labor , while in other class societies they are mediated via private property . Here the bureaucracy organized in the state acts as the organizer of production and cooperation.

Importance of irrigated agriculture

The view, still held by Karl August Wittfogel , that the Asian mode of production arose from the specific necessity of building irrigation systems, is no longer shared by recent research. In China and the Inca Empire , a despotic state typical of the Asian mode of production emerged, which only organized irrigation work a long time after its creation. The tasks of the state therefore not only include the organization of irrigation, but all areas that go beyond the capabilities of individual village communities (e.g. organization of military units, commercial production, trade and science, also buildings not used for irrigation, etc.).

Nevertheless, irrigated agriculture is of great importance for the development of societies with Asian production methods, which Wittfogel aptly described. Even with relatively poorly developed productive forces, it allows very productive agriculture:

"In the irrigated agricultural zones, arable farming can be carried out using relatively primitive implements - in addition to a simple plow, mainly using a hoe - which, of course, are supplemented by a whole arsenal of often very sophisticated irrigation devices."

On the other hand, in zones with rain-fed crops, even somewhat comparable harvests would require a much higher development of the productive forces. In extensively used and relatively large fields, a further developed plow made of iron and draft animals is necessary to increase the yield. This fact also explains the insignificance of slavery in oriental societies: it is unsuitable for this intensive type of agriculture, in which "the success and failure of production depends to a great extent on the care of the working people".

However, this high productivity of agriculture can only be achieved by building large irrigation systems. These tasks, which require the interaction of many people through great cooperation, very quickly exceed the possibilities of a few individuals or village collectives with a pre-capitalist level of productive forces:

"In this case, the task of water regulation must be carried out socially, either by a state that has emerged elsewhere or by special groups that combine these and other tasks and make them independent and thus gain the economic and political power to constitute themselves as a state."

Another task which requires the employment of specially trained specialists is the "regulation of time". Although the agricultural year is everywhere determined by the rhythm of the seasons, the beginning and end of the rainy season or the rise and fall of rivers are only of vital importance to society in irrigated agriculture. Only then does the need for an exact order of the calendar arise. The class that regulates hydraulic engineering also controls astronomy.

According to Wittfogel, it is these new types of social productive forces (hydraulic engineering and calendar) which assign tasks to the state in societies with irrigated agriculture that it does not have to fulfill in other agricultural societies. Here the ruling class grouped together in the state controls all of agriculture.

Development and crises in companies with Asian production methods

In the more recent Marxist discussion it is assumed that societies with an Asian mode of production have developed directly from the original society. They are universal. In contrast, slave-holding societies and feudal societies have only developed in a few regions of the world and under very specific conditions. The ancient high cultures in Egypt , the Middle East , India and China , as well as the empire of the Inca, can be seen as societies with Asian production methods. But it also occurred in Mycenae , Crete and the ancient African empires of Ghana , Mali and Songhai .

More recent research has shown that the frequently held thesis that the development of the productive forces is stagnating in societies with an Asian mode of production is not tenable. These are evolving significantly and come in several different forms:

In the simple form of a society with an Asian mode of production, the peasantry, organized in clan communities, is reproduced by means of collectively regulated agriculture. The village community known from primitive society still exists here, the fields are cultivated collectively. The surplus product and labor go to the state. In addition to maintaining the material state machinery, they serve to maintain the court and the bureaucracy (administrative officials, priests, military). The sovereign and his bureaucracy materially dispose of the entirety of the cultivated land. The upper class and the state bureaucracy with court are identical here. Here the situation is given, as described by Marx, in which rent and tax coincide or there is no tax different from the basic rent. "There is a primitive class order of classical transparency." An example of this simple form of the Asiatic mode of production is the empire of the Inca.

In the developed form of a society with Asian production methods, the fields are no longer owned by the village community, but are privately owned by individual farmers and are cultivated individually. The village commune, on the other hand, has disintegrated. New classes have appeared. These are large private landowners of bureaucratic origin as well as trade, usury and manufacturing capitalists. They also frequently acquire land ownership.

The main cause of this development is the growth of the productive forces. In agriculture, metal devices - v. a. made of iron - as well as used plowed animals. The irrigation technology is expanded and improved. This will increase agricultural yields and individual cultivation will be more advantageous than the old forms of collective cultivation. At the same time, the importance of handicrafts is increasing as agriculture now needs more of its products. This stimulates the simple production of goods and the importance of the merchants increases. Finally, land ownership itself becomes a commodity. With the saleability of the land, usury capitalists appear and, to a small extent, even manufacturing capital is formed. These classes attract part of the tax / pension in the form of profit. Now there is also the possibility of forming large estates. Part of the land falls into the hands of the commercial or usury capitalists. Members of the bureaucracy can become large landowners through land gifts from the despot, in addition to buying them. Examples of the developed form of the Asian mode of production are China from the spring and autumn period and the Empire of Islam or the Ottoman Empire . In the 17th century, China was still the most highly developed region on earth. The fact that a transition to capitalism did not take place on its own was due to the specific class constellations of a society with an Asian mode of production and the necessities of irrigated agriculture. Because in periods in which large estates and concentration increased, the entire society got into a crisis which generally led to the overthrow of the respective imperial dynasty in China and which Kössler therefore calls the dynastic cycle. Wittfogel gives the following description of such a dynastic cycle:

  1. At the beginning of a new era, the public sector formed by free farmers is large compared to the private sector of large landowners and tenants. Land, seeds and tools are given out to newly settled farmers free of charge. Taxes are relatively low.
  2. “The peasantry is growing. The harvest grows. The tax mass is growing. The power of the state is growing and it is increasing its initial efforts to build canals and dykes. "
  3. “However, with the increasing prosperity of the villages and the state, the profit of the merchants and the income of the civil servants grow. The accumulated mobile wealth urges to transform into an immobile form, in land. "
  4. "The private sector is expanding, and with it that part of the peasantry that, in the shadow of private landlords, is withdrawn from direct tax pressure." Because the powerful landowners pay less or no taxes.
  5. “As the size of the private sector increases, public incomes decrease. The state's ability to perform its economic functions is diminishing. He gives the farmers less, but takes more from them. The tax rises and with it - vicious circle - the tendency of the free farmers to flee from the public to the private sector, i. H. To transfer their land to a private landowner ... and thus escape the arbitrariness of the tax collectors. ”Or the farmers have to go into debt with usurers due to the high tax demands and later lose their land, which they then eventually lose. U. continue to work as a tenant.
  6. With the decline of the socially conditioned productive forces, v. a. hydraulic engineering, the pressure on taxes in the private sector is also increasing. “The early local peasant unrest is getting bigger and bigger. The internally weakened regime, whose centrifugal elements (above all the local representatives of the bureaucracy) form a destructive block of interests with the merchants-landowners and possibly pure landowners, is becoming more and more insecure in its attitude, more and more cynical in its morality, more and more cruel in its tax practice. "
  7. An insurrection, led by uncompromised elements of the bureaucracy, or a nomadic burglary bring about the overthrow of the old dynasty. The new dynasty itself then forms a bureaucracy, which initially acts in the interests of the peasants (see 1.). The cycle starts all over again.

A side effect of the cyclical expropriation of the large landowners is that, due to the periodically increasing power of the central authority, the urban trade and manufacturing capitalists are also expropriated. That is why capitalism could not assert itself on its own, instead it was introduced from outside in the 19th century as part of the imperialist conquest.

Irrigated agriculture was therefore not the cause of the emergence of societies with an Asian mode of production, but it did lead to a high level of stability and constant reproduction despite all the crises. Here a transition to other class societies could not be determined by one's own strength. In areas where irrigated agriculture did not play a significant role, other forms of society emerged after the collapse of the village community and as a result of technical progress ( iron processing ), such as in Crete and Mycenae , or the empires were unstable (Old Africa).

Research history

Karl Marx

Karl Marx first dealt with the differences between oriental and western societies in 1853 as part of the newspaper article “British rule in India”. In this context he writes: “The absolute necessity of an economical and communal use of water, which in the Occident, for example in Flanders and Italy, led to the voluntary amalgamation of private companies, makes in the Orient, where civilization is too low and territorial expansion is closed large, in order to set up voluntary associations, the intervention of a centralizing state authority was required. "

He worked out these thoughts in more detail in the 1857 manuscript “ Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy ”. In the chapter "Progressive Epochs of Economic Social Formations " he dealt with questions of pre-capitalist societies. The comments on this represent a self-understanding of the forms from which u. U. could develop capitalism. There he named three forms of pre-capitalist communities, namely the Asiatic form, the ancient form and the Germanic form. It depends on the “various external, climatic, geographical etc.” conditions how this original community is modified. With regard to the Asian form, it already describes many features of the later so-called Asian production method.

A prerequisite for appropriating the products of work is here collaborative work (water pipes, means of communication etc.). These cannot be done by individuals or small communities. Hence the existence of a summarizing unit is necessary. This summarizing unit then appears as the actual owner of the land, the individual communities as hereditary owners. In general, the despot represents this unified entity. In fact, however, communal property remains as a natural prerequisite for production and reproduction, despite the apparent general lack of property, and also forms the basis of this form. Part of the surplus work belongs to the higher community, which in most cases is represented in the person of the despot. The forms of surplus work are tribute and joint work to glorify unity, "part of the real despot, part of the imaginary tribal being, of God."

Regarding the cities in the Asiatic form, Marx writes: “The real cities are formed next to these villages only where there are favorable points for external trade; or where the head of state and his satraps exchange their Revenu (surplus product) for work, they spend them as labor funds. "

Friedrich Engels

In “ Anti-Dühring ” (1878), Friedrich Engels names two forms of state formation. In the first case, states emerge from the independence of official social activity. The forms of large cooperation such as the construction of irrigation canals or warfare make central management of these activities necessary. Later on, these “officials”, who were initially elected by the society, succeeded in making themselves masters of this society. Even now, this rule cannot be reduced to pure exploitation: “The only thing that matters here is to establish that political rule was everywhere based on social official activity; and political rule only existed in the long term if it carried out its official social activity. ”As an example of this form of rule, he cites the“ despotisms in Persia or India ”. However, it is not necessarily limited to Asian societies. Because he also counts the “Greek tribal prince” or the “Celtic clan chief” among the manifestations of this form of rule. In the second case, domination relationships arise through the introduction of slavery, predominantly to prisoners of war.

In his work " The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State " from 1884, Engels no longer mentions the first form of state formation. This was then a starting point for Stalin to "forbid" the Asian mode of production.

The discussion in the Soviet Union in the 1920s

In the context of the Second International before 1914, this strand of Marxian theory was hardly taken up or discussed. This only happened after the October Revolution in the Soviet Union and in the Comintern . The background to the strong interest in the Asian mode of production was the escalating class struggles in the East, especially in China. An occupation with the Asian production method could u. U. help to clarify the constellation of the different classes in China and thus enable the Comintern to work out a successful strategy for the Chinese revolution. In addition, the Soviet Union in the 1920s offered the first opportunity to conduct research on a relatively broad basis in the social sciences from a Marxist perspective. Now the Marxist intellectuals could also turn to questions that did not arise exclusively from the party's current day-to-day needs.

However, in the second half of the 1920s, the theory of the Asian mode of production got caught up in the clashes between supporters of the left opposition over Trotsky and the Stalinists . It was particularly rejected by the latter and later bitterly opposed. Because at that time there was an intense discussion in the Comintern about the strategy of the CPC . According to the supporters of Stalin, the Chinese Communist Party should submit to the bourgeois-led Kuomintang . For it is necessary that the working class, together with the national bourgeoisie, carry out a bourgeois-democratic revolution, which is directed primarily against the feudal lords and the comprador bourgeoisie. A proletarian revolution is not currently on the agenda.

In contrast, the left opposition in the Soviet Union took the view that the working class, along with the peasantry, must turn against the bourgeoisie. This is because in China the latter is incapable of carrying out a bourgeois revolution and expropriating the large agricultural estates. For in contrast to the time of the European bourgeois revolutions, the agricultural large estates in China are much more closely linked to urban capital. There is also no class of feudal lords who turn against the bourgeoisie.

Even if there was no full overlap between the left opposition and supporters of the conception of the Asian mode of production, this theory was able to provide arguments mainly to the left opposition, which refused to simply transfer the category of feudalism to China. In contrast, the strategy of the CPSU (B) majority presupposes the existence of feudalism in China.

Another reason the Stalinists distrusted the theory of the Asian mode of production was the fear that it might facilitate criticism of the bureaucratism of the USSR. Because it shows that class rule and exploitation do not occur exclusively on the basis of private property.

In 1938 the " History of the CPSU (B), short course " was published. In the chapter written by Stalin “On dialectical and historical materialism” it says: “History knows five basic types of production relations: the production relations of the primitive community, slavery, feudalism, capitalism and socialism”. The Asiatic mode of production was not mentioned by Stalin. It was thus de facto forbidden and was no longer discussed in the Eastern Bloc during his lifetime. Instead, historians tried to identify forms of slave-holding society and feudalism everywhere.

Recent discussion after World War II

This “ban” also affected the young Marxist sinologist Karl August Wittfogel , who carried out intensive research on the economy and society of China in the 1930s and confirmed the theory of the Asian mode of production. In 1938 he was called an opposition and Trotskyist because of this . He later became an anti-communist . In the book “ Die orientalische Despotie ” published in 1959, he depicts the danger of this form of government, which includes societies with an Asian mode of production as well as the Soviet Union and the real socialist states.

In France, the Asian mode of production was rediscovered by Ernest Mandel and the Marxist ethnologist Maurice Godelier and used to explain pre-capitalist class societies. In Eastern Europe, too, the Asian mode of production has been recognized with restrictions since the 1960s as an early and first class society. However, it is said to have been replaced by feudalism relatively early worldwide. In addition to the de-Stalinization, the fact that the agricultural history of many countries, v. a. China became better known. There, however, the CCP holds on to the feudal interpretation of Chinese history to this day.

Rudi Dutschke and Rudolf Bahro tried to describe and criticize the "real socialist" countries with the theory of the Asian mode of production.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Rigobert Günther: Critical remarks on arguments for a uniform social formation of the pre-capitalist class societies. In: Ethnographisch-Archäologische Zeitschrift 1973, p. 265.
  2. ↑ Maurice Godelier: Economic Anthropology. Reinbek 1973, p. 284 ff.
  3. ^ Günter Lewin: For the discussion of the "Asian mode of production" in the Marxist literature of France. In: Ethnographisch-Archäologische Zeitschrift 13 (1972), p. 619.
  4. ^ A b Karl August Wittfogel: The theory of the oriental society. In: Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 1938, p. 96.
  5. ↑ Karl August Wittfogel: The theory of the oriental society. In: Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 1938, pp. 90–122.
  6. ↑ Heinz Kreissig among others: Greek history. Berlin 1985, p. 43 ff.
  7. ^ Günter Lewin: For the discussion of the "Asian mode of production" in the Marxist literature of France. In: Ethnographisch-Archäologische Zeitschrift 13 (1972), p. 618.
  8. ↑ Irmgard Sellnow among others: World history up to the development of feudalism. Berlin 1978.
  9. ↑ All quotations: Karl August Wittfogel: The theory of the oriental society. In: Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 1938, pp. 90–122.
  10. ↑ Karl Marx: British rule in India. In: Marx-Engels-Werke , Vol. 9, Berlin 1960, p. 127.
  11. ^ Karl Marx: Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy (rough draft). Berlin 1974, p. 376.
  12. ^ A b Karl Marx: Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy (rough draft). Berlin 1974, p. 377.
  13. ↑ Friedrich Engels: Mr. Eugen Dühring's revolution in science. In: Marx-Engels-Werke , Volume 20, Berlin 1960, p. 167.
  14. ^ Reinhard Kössler: Third International and Peasant Revolution. Frankfurt am Main 1982, p. 127 ff.
  15. ↑ cf. Günter Lewin: From the “Asian production method” to the “hydraulic society”. The career of a renegade. In: Yearbook for Economic History 1967.

literature

  • Author collective under the direction of Irmgard Sellnow: World history up to the formation of feudalism (= publications of the Central Institute for Ancient History and Archeology of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR . Vol. 5). Academy, Berlin 1978.
  • Rudolf Bahro : The alternative. Frankfurt am Main 1977.
  • Friedrich Engels : Mr. Eugen Dühring's upheaval in science (" Anti-Dühring "). In: Marx-Engels-Werke , Vol. 20, Berlin 1990.
  • Friedrich Engels: The origin of the family, private property and the state . In: Marx-Engels-Werke, Vol. 21, Berlin 1972.
  • Maurice Godelier: Economic Anthropology. Reinbek 1973.
  • Reinhard Kössler : On the criticism of the myth of "Asian" Russia . In: Prokla, Heft 35, Berlin 1979, pp. 105-131.
  • Reinhard Kössler: Third International and Peasant Revolution. Frankfurt am Main 1982.
  • Ernest Mandel : Origin and Development of the Economic Doctrine of Karl Marx. Reinbek 1982.
  • Karl Marx : British rule in India. In: Marx-Engels-Werke, Vol. 9, Berlin 1960, pp. 127-133.
  • Karl Marx: Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy (rough draft). Berlin 1974.
  • Gianni Sofri: About Asian production methods. On the history of a contentious category of criticism of political economy. Frankfurt am Main 1972.
  • Leon Trotsky : The Third International after Lenin. Essen 1993.
  • Karl August Wittfogel: The theory of the oriental society. In: Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 1938, pp. 90–122.
  • Karl August Wittfogel: The oriental despotism. Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Vienna 1977.
  • Ferenc Tökei: On the question of the Asian production method . Luchterhand, Neuwied / Berlin 1969.