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On 'Feudal' Modes, Models and Methods of Escaping Capitalist Reality Author(s): Andre Gunder Frank Source: Economic and

Political Weekly, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jan. 6, 1973), pp. 36-37 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4362226 Accessed: 21/10/2008 23:39
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Jainuary 6, 1973

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY in the saimiegeographical area, but is instead siphoned off for investment in not to say industry in Great indlis'Lry, Britain, is another thing altogether. The fact that the British indusrialised with the help of the drain - which was of course drained out of agriculture in India in large part - does not seem to me to be useable proof as UP seeks to do that Indian agriculture is feudal (or was)." P C's answer on Juily3, 1972 (with fturtlher apologies for quoting private correspondence) was: "About U Patnaik's paper what you say is very true. My point was however somewhat different. I tried to show that what she thouglht to be the conditions of capitalism were really not so much conditions as consequences of capitalism, once the latter is established. This followed from my contention, that Lenin's definition of capitalism -on the basis of productive relation is a complete definition, containing the necessary as vell as the sufficient conditions of capitalism." (In this connection, incidentally, one may' find particularly unsatisfactory UP's straw man method of setting PC up as someone who "appears to be" an Althusserian and then expressing "surprise" at his analyses and conclusions as any of us might after reading his various concrete analyses of concrete conditions.) But our points are different, or at least point to different aspect of UP's argument. However, although after UPs earlier presentation of her argument it seemed sufficient to make the point privately, now that in her reply UP has herself carried the argument (or carried herself) "to its logical extreme conclusion" (sic! p A-149), it seems necessary to make the obvious point publicly. UP repeats her allusion to the Marxist model: "The criterion of accumulation and reinvestment must be specified as well" (p A-148). And her method? Her concrete analysis of concrete reality? What reality? What economic formation? UP answers concretely: "I submit that if we wish to retain 'capitalist production relation' as an analytical category, as it has been used so far in Marxist theory, a category which implies something about the laws of movement or dynamics of the economic formation concerned, then we cannot take wage-labour to be sufficient condition for identifying the capitalist FARM, under the specific hiistorical conditions we have outlined" (p A-148 italics in the original, capitals spplied). 'So nlOW UP has sep-ified the

7 But this is niot surprising, because lby whoim. Then againi each selecto be effective, must anything, tion wouildbe an event by itself unThese coinfidenhave a purpose. related to any pattern; some comtial reports can have meaning mittee wvouldfeel five years' expeoinly if they are used as a basis rience was sufficient for such a post, for decisions concerning staff prosome would think ten; some comis promotion When motion. mittee would feel three advance inthrough advertisement, the repor ts crements should be routine along cease to have any meaning. So, a with promotionis,some that a proritual is observe(d just to satisfy the motion itself is enough advance. In gods of FR & SR. short, the entire service would be 8 It is a pity that the very mention in shambles. of the phrase 'Confidential Report' 5 These proposals need not cause inoNv generates uniiversal repugnany alarm. The present practices Only the irresponsibility and anice. in this regard were primarily clelack of talent of the management vised to facilitate smooth operation is responsible for this: An idiotic of promotion through a machiform being used either for nothing nery meant for recruitment. Once or merely for brow-beating somepromotion is separated from recruitbody is not calculated to generate ment, the need for rigid identificaaffection for the system. tion of all posts vill largely vanish. .9 (a) Hiscocks, E S, "Laboratory Ad6 In fact, it can be confidentially ministration", Macmillan, London claimed that this one reform vill (1956). (b) "Selection of Personnel - A bring all the rest in its train. for Research", Science Today, 1(2), director not shielded by the ephe31-37 August 1967. meral 'committee' will be so harassed by sniping (after arbitrary 10 Depending primarily on outside action) that he would soon, on his experts and an outside Chairman is definitely opposed. The basis should own initiative, institute studies to be trust and accountability rather formulate rational methods of and check-counterthan mistrust selection having the largest meacheck. sure of confidence.

On 'Feudel' Modes, Models and Methods of Escaping Capitalist Reality


Andre Gunder Frank
"The, important point is that their incorrectness or otherwise [of questions and answers] can only be demonstrated by a much more intensive and rigorous application of the Marxist method to the concrete and historically specific experience of India itself. The incorrectness or othervise of our ideas cannot be demonstrated simply by selective quotations lifted out of context from Marx and Lenin, when they are discutssing a different set of historical conditions; or by vague charges that these ideas are against 'the spirit of Marxism'. We would welcome the sharpest criticism, for it helps to clarify ideas; but let that criticism be based oI) an application of the Marxist method to the concrete conditions under discus. sion . . . All we are arguing is that wage labour in Indian agriculture went with the accumulation of colonial super-profits by the bourgeoisie in Britain... It would show a very mechanistic understanding of the proposition 'wage labour and capital always go together', if we completely ignored imiperialism(i e, its character as a world capitalist system) and hence ignored the specificity of the colonial situation. Above all we need to analyse the concrete developments in colonial hiistory, rather than take over in an abstract and schematic fashion, the propositions of the
classical 36 model."

AN admirable model indeed, perhaps in part because Utsa Patnaik (September 30, 1972, pp A-149, A-150) has taken it over from Mlarx and Lenin. But the model in entirely belied by the method of UP (with apologies for use of initials). So that UP shall not have used my name entirely in vain, and since UP calls for the development of an ongoing debate with Paresh Chattopadhyay and Amiya Bagchi (p A-150, presumably among others, we may perhaps be permitted to make public here a personal letter I wrote to these two on May 29, 1972. "Another curiosity: Of the critiques you [P C] make of Utsa Patnaik's article - which latter caught my attention because of its far out definition of 'capitalism' in agriculture - I find, inless I misread you, that you did not
make the critiqule that struck me and

a colleaguie of minie to whom I read part of the UP article as the most obvious: to say that extended reproduction an(d accumulation is a criterion of capitalismIis one thinig and to say that because the surplus is not invested in agriculture itself, or not in agriculture

ElCONOMICAND POLITICAL WEEKLY economic formation with which she is concerned: the FARM! And not accidentally so: "Of course, if we are interested in using the term 'capitalist production relation' or 'capitalist farm' as . . . a 'capitalist' enterprise . . . (p A148) we may as well, as UP evidently does not in the selection of her title but -as appears from the whole context of her argument, make these terms -and the concrete economic formation to which they refer - equivalent also to the "mode of production". UP looks for the criterion of the mode of production on the individual farm! That is a point of view far more extreme (we may leave the question of logic in abeyance) than that which I had dared attribute to her in my letter to PC and AB in which I innocently supposed that the perview of UP extended as put to recognise the capitalist mode of production when she sees it. And she does see it: "We find that generalised commodity production was imposed from the outside in the process of imperialist exploitation itself: India was forced to enter the network of world capitalist exchange relations" (pp A-14849). (Didn't we just say that capitalist relations are b)y definition produictive relations, and indeed reproductive ones?) But UP cannot believe what she sees and we cannot believe what she writes. All we are arguing is that "wage labour in Indian agricuilture [including the UP farm - with apologies to the state that shares the initials, though its farms may be included as well] went with the accumulation of colonial superprofits by the bourgeoisie in Britain (as a result of the complex exploitative relationship. . . )" and that there is madfar as "agriculture itself, or . . . agriculture in the same geographical area' ness (i e, divorce from concrete realiin India. No wonder, if the UP method ty) in the method of UP that seeks is to "extend" the criterion of extended accumulation and reproduction only reproduction, accumulation and re-in- within the confines of the individual vestment of them each of the inmpover- farm. "If this is the argument we would ished farms in India, that she is hard reject it emphatically. At worst such

January 6, 1973 anl argument would completely ignore imperialism, at best it would represent a highly unrigorous application of Marxist concepts to Indian conditions" (p A-149). Amen !* O UP righltly also draws or points to some political conclusions: "The Andre Gunder Frank type of position. . . Therefore all these countries are 'capitalist'. Therefore the only possible immediate programme of a revolutionary political party in each of these countries, must be a socialist revolution ..... I am sure P C will not choose to draw the extreme conclusion which Gunder Frank has done
...

believe

the fallacy in this chain

of reasoning lies at its starting point." Well, what conclusions will UP choose to draw from her other extreme method? That socialist revolution will not become the programmatic order of the day until capitalism by her criterion reinvestment of surplus value produced by farm labourer on the same farm itself - has penetrated each and every one of her individual farms? If this is the argument we should reject it emphatically. The fallacy of this chain of reasoning lies at its starting point.

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