Re: Which Marxism? (fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 01:52:38 EDT
From: md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu
To: WSF@cfs.colorado.edy
Subject: Re: Which Marxism? (fwd)


>First, let me say I think this is a productive discussion and I regret if
>some of my wording came across too strong.

yeah! let's have a debate without using an imperative language. i prefer
productive discussions like this.

fernando!!! i have not forgatten your question yet. sorry for my late
response. this post may indirectly clarify your question. you were
specifically asking about how capitalism reinforce inequalities and
foster new social relations and so forth. please, see the section on my
description on Marx's Imperialism in India. if you have questions,
objections, let's discuss.

>> >Class, states, relations of production, are all
>> >there in IW!
>> >And the emphasis is not on economy!
>
>> again this is irrelevant to the subject matter of discussion.i am
pretty
>> much aware that class, states and relations of production are in IW.

>Well, perhaps you are and perhaps I misintepreted what you meant when you
>pointing out the neo-Smithian critique of IW.

dear elson, i said in my previous post exactly this:

>World system theorists have been criticized by some  _Marxists_
>belonging to the historical materialist tradition for being:

>1. hegelian.
>2. neo-smithian (for example, some call Wallerstein  a neo-smithian
>marxist)

SO, i was _not_ talking about a neo-smithian a critique of IW. i was
rather mentioning the concerns of some marxists who were calling IW a
neo-smithian marxist. the issue is NOT neo-smithian reading of wallerstein
but a marxist interpretation/reading of wallerstein.


>> debate was about whether capitalism emerged as a world economy  or a
mode
>> of prouduction FIRST. as a Marxist, i buy the argument suggested by
>> Marx in Capital, which he describes in the primitive accumulation
chapter
>> in details. i explained, previously, about why i am convinced by marx's
>> argument, and not by the periodization suggested by Wallerstein,
because
>> britain was definetly capitalist before netherlands emerged as a
>> capitalist state (1650, pp.7). so, the narrative constructed by Marx is
>> still legitimate.

>Perhaps it is to some extent, but the problem with Marx is that he didn't
>explain how Britain or other states became what we now call core
>capitalist
>states as a result of the emergence of a world-system.

i do not see any problems in IW's explanation regarding the emergence of a
world economy. i suggested, however, that Marx's emphasis on capitalism as
a mode of production is suggestive of the dynamics that gave capitalism
its historical charecter. i think that it is misleading to criticize marx
for not having a theory of a world sytem, and draw conclusions from that.
it does unjustice to marx, and does make no good to world system
theory.sure that he had not, so what? does this undermine the theoretical
usefullness of his argument? i do not think so because Marx constructed a
theory of the capitalist _system_ by looking at the origins, historical
development and contradictions of a particular social phenomenon. he
showed how, where and why this system occured, its logic and eventual
demise. the reason why  the empshasis on production is important is
because it is the most concrete activity of human beings. people express
their needs through production and create their own conditions (social,
political, cultural) as they produce materially. marx's historical
materialist model postulates that capitalism is an artifical social system
because it did not exist in the early stages of human development. he
shows why and how human civilization became other than it is, and at which
historical instance, and how, accordingly, it will be different in the
future. it is a very dynamic and a revolutionary model.

marx also wrote about periphery and imperialism. he wrote abuout india
("On Imperialism in India")  and in the final chapters of capital, he
wrote a section entitled as "The Modern theory of colonization" (p.931).
regarding india, he pressed the notion of Oriental despotism and Asiatic
mode of production, as an ancient form of class society based on ruling
bureaucracy and large-irrigation systems. he also gives a long historical
description of the establisment of "English supremacy" in India. the
bottom line of Marx's narrative is important in demonstrating
the assumption that a change in the material organization of soceity is
necessary in order to have further changes in social structures. (like
revolutions,in addition to class struggle and organization of course).
some have misinterpreted this by saying that marx assumed that non-western
societies would follow the path of bourgeois development as seen in
western europe. my reading of him is that this is partially true but
marx's concern was totally different. he , in fact, aimed to show that as
capitalism penetrated to  non-western world as a mode of production,
this would eventually change the pre-existing forms of social and economic
structures there (feudalism). this is soemthing like integration  to the
capitalist world economy although marx had capitalism as a _system of
production_ in his mind, not a world economy in W's sense. marx 
supplements his thesis with historical evidences and logical arguments:

fernando, marx explains here what happens to socio-economic structure in
the periphery when capitalism is introduced. his explanation is very
suggestive of the dynamics underlying the logic of bourgeois development
and its expansion. 

"the devestating effects of English industry, when comtamplated with
regard to India, a country as vast as Europe, and containing 150 millions
of acres, are palbable and confounding. but we must not  forget that they
are only the organic results of the whole system of production as it is
now constituted. that production rests on the supreme rule of capital. the
centralization of capital is essential to the existence of capital as an
independet power. the destructive influence of that centralizaiton upon
the markets of the world does not but reveal, in the most gigantic
dimensions, the inherent organic laws of political economy now at work in
every civilized town. the bourgeois period of history has to create the
material basis of the new world--on the one hand the universal intercourse
founded upon the mutual dependency of mankind development and the means of
that intercourse; on the other hand the development of the productive
powers of man and the trasformation of material production into
scientific domination of natural agencies. bourgeois industry and commerce
create these material conditions of a new world in the same way as
geological revolutions have created the surface of the world. when a great
socail revolution  shall have mastered  the results of the bourgeois
epoch, the market of the world and  the modern powers of prodcution, and
subjected them to the coomon control of the most advanced peoples, then
only will human progress cease to resemble that hideous pagan idol, who
would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain".


>He merely
>mentions
>the emergence of a world market (which we know isn't the same thing as a
>world-economy) and early forms of merchant capital.  His immediate focus
>was
>on the factory system, not capitalism as a social system.

capitalism is by definition a social system, including the
factory system, capital owner and labor relationship. capitalism as a
social system can not be abstracted from a factory system where
capitalism's source of profit originates from. "let's have capitalism
without wage labor". this is historically and conceptually incorrect. no
marxist would argue otherwise, even IW. there are different capitalisms
with different wage systems dependent on context and level of
development. we can discuss that. but, ideally speaking capitalism
requires wage labor. that  is why it is from serfdom and other ancient
class systems.

>He didn't
>explain
>the tripartite division of labor (core, sp, p) or unequal exchange, and
>how
>changes in one area, like the second serfdom in Poland and the
>encomenderos
>in New Spain, were related to the decline of Southern Europe and the rise
>of
>Western Europe.  I think Marx's ideas are key, but he isn't so great that
>he
>could do it all.

because the ideal model of capitalist development did not fully take place
(wage labor, factory system) in those areas despite their eventual
peripherilization. when and how it took place is a historically spefic
question, which is beyond the subject matter of discussion now. marx
constructed the british model of capitalist development, from where we can
draw generalizable economic principles and universal laws to understand
particular development models. so i refuse the argument that his model is
necassarily British centric. as a first step, his attempt offers a
guideline for understanding what happens to mode of production when a
country is integrated into world economy or what sort of structural
transformation it undergoes as a result of peripherilization
(capitalism? neo-feudalism? or somewhere between the two? or mixture?) 
my concern is to understand _what happens to production_ in the periphery,
its nature, dissolution, transformation, persistence or what ever..

>> wallerstein is definetly influenced by Braudel.

>Yes.  From Braudel he discoved the empirical entity "world-economy" and
>also
>received encouragement from Braudel on MWS 1 (not to mention naming the
>research center at Binghamton U. after Braudel).

oki...

>> you argued that
> >states do not play a role or do not matter so much in the world economy
> >,referring to wallerstein and suggesting that there is one single
economy
> >not a nation state system. i agree with this argument FULLY.

>On the contrary, I wrote that states do play a major role in IW's scheme,
>and the citations from IW that you supplied substantiate the point.

yes, they are the hegemons...

>> if you have any
>> criticisms of IW's theory, different from the ws perspective, i would
be
>> crucious to see. may be, you have some concrete references.


> > > on the other hand,wallerstein suggests that
>> capitalism would
>> be > impossible in a closed economy.  it needed commercial relations
among
>> > >states in order to survive. according to his argument, the
capitalist
>> > >world economy came into being in the 17th century, in a fully
developed
> >> >form, when the United Provinces emerged as a first hegemonic
capitalist
>< > >state in pursuit of expansion and colonial domination.

>Well, I'd word this a bit differently.  Capitalism is a division of labor
>not commercial relations (I keep harping on this because it doesn't seem
>to
>be sinking in) that spans multiple states.  IW argues that other
>world-economies turned into empires (that is an economy with one state,
>like
>Rome and I'd add Tokugawa Japan) wherein the states could control
>capitalists preventing capitalISM as a social system from emerging.
(>Others, including AG Frank, have a different view.)

yes. to put it differently, social system was not yet capitalist in a 
system of world empires (because of slavery, from a production
perspective. plus, the marine commerce in the roman empire was controlled
by the aristocracy--the ruling class). my recollection of wallertein is
that the kind of multiple state system did not emerge at those times for
capitalism to exist.

in the above, i meant commerce as part of the division of labor.

>In contrast,
>because
>the multiple state structure of the modern world-economy has remained,
>the
>logic has been inverted such that states need to help their respective
>capitalists grow vis-a-vis all other states, capitalists, and workers.

i do not exactly remember now, but does wallerstein specifically use
"Multiple state structure"?

>> nation state in the 16th century(in the capitalist sense). it was still
>> feudal ruled by barons. in fact, wallerstein quotes Kula several times
in
>> the second volume (look at the index, p 131-135, 137-38,140, 236).
>> Kula explains why Poland did not experience the kind of structural
>> trasformation to capitalism, as it happened in Europe, till the 18th
>> century, and why  the mode of production remained essentially feudal.
he
>> looks at the internal as well as external dynamics of backwardness,
>> underdevelopment and agricultural economy. he is a respectable marxist
>> writing about the periphery.

>He doesn't write about the "periphery" but about the Third World, and
>there
>is a major conceptual difference in terms of the unit of analysis.

i see your distinction, but Kula specifically writes about Poland's
peripherilization and feudalism from 15th to 18th century. he says that
in the book.

>IW
>doesn't quote Kula to demonstrate that Poland was feudal.

this is Kula's argument not Wallerstein.


>For IW, Poland
>was as much part of the capitalist world-economy as Britain.  Poland did
>not
>have a feudal mode of production and was a capitalist state in IW's view.

elson. there is a miscommunication going on. Poland was definetly feudal
from 16th to 18th century. there was not even a price mechanism let alone
capitalist production. it was a peasent economy. kula provides a lot of
_empirical_ data on that looking at the functioning of _demesne
production_ which charecterizes one kind of feudal production. he explains
how barons prevented peasents from establishing a relationship with local
markets,by buying the exports of WEstern Europe for their own
consumption/luxury purposes.peripherilization was imposed by the rise of
second serfdom preventing the system from turning into capitalism of the
kind we see in Western Europe (enormous gaps between classes. highly
assymetrical). IW quotes Kula for illustrating this fact. he is not in
essential disagreement with Kula. sure that Britian and Poland belonged to
the same system but there were essential differences betweem the two in
terms of socio-economic dynamics and mode of production. Poland was not
Britian, Britain was not Poland. for example, IW argues that periphery was
charecterized by slow growth.

IW says, p. 129 volume 2: (Peripheries in the era of slow growth):

"For the peripheries,therefore, a downturn in the world eocnomy occcasions
both involution and evolution;both a seeming decline in the
moneterization of economic activity and the emergence of new
enterprises;both abondenment and restructuring or relocation; both a
decline in theie specialized role in the world economy and a deeping  of
it. to eveluate this paradox. we must start at the begining. what causes a
secular reversal of trends in the world economy? a capitalist system
involves the market mechanism. the market is not free-far from it- since
the market is affected by political adjustments and cultural slowness and
preferences. of, however, there is no market response, whatsoever, it is
difficult to talk of a capitalist system"


 >You and Kula may disagree, but I was merely pointing out IW's view.

i agree with kula, and i do not think that IW disagrees with him on the
main thrust of his argument. what i am showing is that peripherilization
of Poland created a different form of development there, a different
dynamic which we do not see in western europe. otherwise, it would not be
periphery. 

>> on profit and surplus expropriation from the worker, and also a market
>> mechanism. (by definition). it is a system in which the ownerswhip and
>> instruments of production is not in the hands of the state, but in the
>> dominant classes.

>Well, not exactly in IW's view, in which the concept of "the mode of
>production" is irrelevant.

that was my point. that is why i am suspecting IW's marxism.

>Capitalism has a variety of forms of
>production,
>wage-labor still being a fraction of all forms of labor even in core
>states.
>The system is capitalist because regardless of the form, most production
>is
>for the market for profit and is part of a single division of labor.

wage labor is the hard core of capitalism and the global division of
labor.


>Well, modern slavery which supplied British factories with cotton, as
>Marx
>points out, is capitalist slavery.

yes, but it is a historically "distinct" form of slavery. if nothing has
changed from roman empire up to now, we are left with a static and an
ahistorical vision of history. let's look at the struggle of
wage laborers in modern times. we do not seem them in slave
societies, at least, not as much frequently as now.

>Still, as Tomich argues in his
>Slavery
>in the Circuit of Sugar (which I think is a brilliant  though subtle
>critique of IW -- read the facinating introduction), modern slavery in
>the
>Carribean does have a certain logic of transformation that is distinct
>from
>factory wage-labor, though both are interrelated within the evolving
>world-economy.  Wage-labor, in other words, is just one form of many that
>make up capitalism as a social system underpinned by their interrelation
>in/as the division of labor.

yes....


regards,

Mine Doyran
phd candidate
SUNY/Albany
dept of pol scie