Asiatic mode of production

Principles

Marx's theory focuses on the organization of labour. He distinguishes:

• means or forces of productionitems such as land, natural resources, tools, human skills and knowledgethat are required for the production of socially useful goods; and
• relations of production, which are the social relationships formed as human beings are bound together in the processes of production of socially useful goods.

Together these compose a mode of production. Marx then distinguishes historical eras in terms of distinct predominant modes of production.{{citation

Marx and Engels emphasize that the role the state played in Asiatic societies was dominant, which was accounted for by the state's monopoly of land ownership, its sheer political and military power, or its control over irrigation systems.{{citation | access-date = 22 August 2010

Criticism

The Asiatic mode of production has been the subject of much discussion by both Marxist and non-Marxist commentators. The AMP is the most disputed mode of production outlined in the works of Marx and Engels. Questions regarding the validity of the concept of the AMP were raised in terms of whether or not it corresponds to the reality of certain given societies.{{citation Historians have questioned the value of the notion of the AMP as an interpretation of the "facts" of Indian or Chinese history.{{citation | doi-access = free }}, p.38. The theory was rejected in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

Karl August Wittfogel suggested in his 1957 book, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, that his concept of Oriental despotism showed that this was because of the similarity between the AMP and the reality of Stalin's Russia; he saw the authoritarian nature of communism as an extension of the need of totalitarian rule to control water in "the Orient".

Marxist historians such as John Haldon and Chris Wickham have argued that societies interpreted by Marx as examples of the AMP are better understood as Tributary Modes of Production (TMP). The TMP is characterized as having a "state class" as its specific form of ruling class, which has exclusive or almost exclusive rights to extract surplus from peasants over whom, however, it does not exercise tenurial control.

Footnotes

References

1. Husain, Iqbal. (2008). "Karl Marx On India". [[Tulika Books]].
2. "The British Rule in India by Karl Marx".
3. Krader, Lawrence. (1975). "The Asiatic mode of production: sources, development and critique in the writings of Karl Marx". Van Gorcum.
4. "Brian Pearce: Marxism and the Asiatic Mode of Production (2002)".
5. (1979). "The politics of historiography: Russian socialism and the question of the Asiatic mode of production 1906–1931". Critique.
6. "Economic Manuscripts: Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy".
7. Rahman, Taimur. (2012). "Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1853". Oxford University Press.
8. "Karl Marx: Grundrisse".
9. "Economic Manuscripts: Capital: Volume One".
10. (1975). "Pre-capitalist Modes of Production". Routledge & Kegan Paul.
11. Wittfogel, Karl. (1957). "Oriental Despotism; A Comparative Study of Total Power". Yale University Press.
12. Haldon, John. (1994). "The State and the Tributary Mode of Production". Verso.
13. Wickham, Chris. (2005). "Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400–800". Oxford University Press.