“…. There is no true understanding without a certain range of comparison; provided, of course, that that comparison is based upon differing and at the same time related realities”.[1]
Once could scarcely deny Marc Bloch’s wisdom in understanding history. It seems equally true for the understanding of the historians and their trade.
Anderson’s study can be viewed by considering its evidence and tracing or doubting its internal consistency. That is already being done by specialists and benefits us all. Let us see what illumination one can derive by taking the tack of comparison. To begin with, to what can one usefully compare and relate it? It should be considered in relation to the society and times in which it was produced. It must also be placed within the history of the Marxist historical thought with which it identifies itself and considered in relation to the dynamics displayed by this. These are tall orders which call for more than a short comment. A slightly more manageable take would be to compare it with a major study, “differ[ing] and at the same time related”.
Wallerstein’s recent volume seems to suit such a purpose excellently. Both works[2] were first published in the same year and this, considering other texts as well, makes the very profusion of “western” books directed at the fundamentals of Marxist analysis worthy of attention. Both Anderson’s and Wallerstein’s books announce and commence publications of a larger scope concerning the history of the contemporary world, while the volume referred to specifically are devoted to its historical origins. Both identify it with the period and specificity of West-European absolutism and the political economy which produced it. Both date it more or less similarly. Anderson concludes that absolutism belongs most definitely with feudalism (later-stage and “redeployed”) and analyses its nature, dynamics and tendencies accordingly. Wallerstein defines absolutism positively as capitalism (early, mercantile and agricultural – admittedly). A variety of contradictory conclusions follow, related as much to the past as to the present. A twist of formal logic could then lead to a conclusion that either the first or the second or both of those approaches must therefore be dismissed right at the “preliminary hearing” stage as non-Marxist and/or wrong. Alternatively, a compromise of eclectic moderation can be made “in the middle”, via terminologies such as “semi-feudalism” or “crypto-capitalism” and without bothering too much what it all means. Such easy escapes out of the harm’s way by writing off conceptual problems instead of tackling them add to mystification (and unnecessary verbiage).
Let us proceed by presenting firstly the gist of the two different logics we encounter. Anderson places Lenin’s famous question “Kakoi Class?” – “which class?” – at the root of his analysis. The fundamental question is – which class rules under absolutism? Landow[ning] nobility is the answer and this defines the social system and the mode of production central to it as feudal. The dynamics determining the coming into being of the absolute state is that of an overhaul and redeployment via de-parcelisation of the apparatus of the feudal domination…
[a line is missing]
Τhis is carried out in the interest of the ruling class, which accepts limitations to its local power for the sake of internal and external security and of the efficiency of surplus-extraction offered by the centralised state. Monetisation and mercenary armies enable all this while the contradictory interdependencies of state and local powers tended to obscure it. The test of this analysis is in the fact that it is the top personnel, consisting of nobility, which controls the new state machinery but even more in the fact that once only in the entire history of absolutism did state reforms challenge the interest of the nobility (under Joseph II of Austria) – and failed completely. Also, the two countries where local absolutism did not appear and perform its role – Poland and Italy – have paid the price by being overrun by the external absolutist powers. The conceptually consequent regional division of the world is into (1) the classical absolutisms of the West, (2) Eastern Europe where absolutism was blunter and coloured by the weakness of the monetary economy and of the towns resulting in immobilisation of the peasantry (the “second serfdom”), (3) the world outside the realm of feudalism and its absolutist political structure, a category of societies of which the despotic Ottoman state was correctly perceived as a typical example already by Machiavelli. The narrative begins from the specific impact of Antiquity, its decline and integration with German Barbarism, in a similar state of structural collapse, unfolding within feudalism. It proceeds through a discussion of the general aspects of absolutism and the history of a dozen of social formations/ societies/states which begins with Spain as “a logical starting point”[3] and seems to reach its conceptually fullest expression in the discussion of France. Τhe refusal to adopt “hyper-intentionality” (by which every step in history would be related to the decisions or plotting of the ruling class) means that specificity of the historical processes is often attributed to “over-determination” of the political economy by external influences, or influences indirectly related to it, ranging from plague to the impact of Roman Law.
The explicit and implicit conclusions concerning historical dynamics are far-reaching and their significance extends to contemporary concerns. History is not simply “the science of the past” but that of “man in times”,[4] not o[nly] in that it is rewritten by each generation but also in that its conclusion bear significantly on each generation anew. To exemplify, Anderson concludes that the Russian October Revolution of 1917 was a proletarian revolt against the last surviving remnant of absolutism in Europe, which means also that i[ts] history was a successful anti-capitalist revolution of the proletariat carried through. The extensive theoretical and political follow-up of such a view [is] obvious enough. I will refrain from being side-tracked into it.
To Wallerstein, the basic identifying question relates to the characteristic [of] the analysed social system rooted in the political economy, which in the 16th century (with the “stage set already in 1450”) is that of “world economy [which] is and only can be, a capitalist economy”. He therefore rejects “the appelation of ‘feudalism’ for the various forms of capitalist agriculture on coerced labour”.[5] The crucial dynamics which produced the new system [were] firstly that of a new international division/control of labour taking root in the service of forced saving, an increasingly unequal distribution of wealth and capitalist accumulation in “the core”. Secondly, it is the supremacy in the […] of the networks of “small” and “national” states (dynastic or non-dynastic as it may be) over the empires encompassing the socio-economic systems of the past, which is specific for the period. The consequently suggested fundamental regionalization of the world is into (1) the core countries of flourishing towns and merchants, high specialization of production and “free” wage labour, (2) the “periphery” with the economy based on mining and a tendency towards agrarian cash mono-cultures and (extra-economically) “coerced cash crop labour” within serfdom, slavery, colonial oppression, etc. (3) the semi-periphery “in-between” – usually a declining ex-“core-area”, where share-cropping prevails (4) the world outside “the systems”. The crucial direction of development is that of extension of “the system” into the areas not yet structured into it, i.e. towards the creation of a global capitalist economy. Τhe “logical starting point” of this historical narrative is, consequently, Portugal (not even singled out for full discussion by Anderson), with its edge over other countries as regards “geography”, “mercantile strengths” and “strength of state machinery” operative already in 15th century.[6] Spain’s attempt to stop the rot by re-establishing an empire was defeated by 1556 and paid for by decline of Spain into “semi-periphery”. It was in Tudor England that absolutism reaches its fullest structural expression underlying the world supremacy of England to come. Finally, the issue of classes is part of, and subordinated to, that of the world system. The power and impact of the bourgeoisie is greater that Anderson would assume, with a consequent stress on its place in the state machinery. So is the relative autonomy and strength of the state as against different “social groups”.[7] But the crux of the conceptual difference between these studies is stated in the following manner: “To insist that France is primarily involved in a capitalist world economy at this time does not necessarily entail arguing, however, that the bourgeoisie wielded “substantial political power”.[8]
Once again, the acceptance of such modes of analysis leads to far-reaching conclusions. For example, it is the difference between the development of Poland (on the periphery of the “system”) and Russia (outside the “system”) and not the ability of its ruling classes to accept or establish absolutism which would account for the decline and disappearance of the first and rise of the second in the 17th century and 18th centuries. More importantly, and more relevant currently, it puts in doubt, from the outset, “the claim that there exists in the twentieth century socialist national economies within the framework of the world economy (as opposed to socialist movements controlling certain state machineries within the world system)”.[9]
To place it all – to begin with – within the sequence of the ongoing historians’ debate, one can relate it directly to “The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism” and the related debate of the 1940s and 1950s about the emergence of capitalism.[10] Within it, Sweezy has claimed urbanities and trade as the destroyers of feudalism and pre-capitalist commodity production plus the absolutist state as the defining structural characteristic of the period commencing “the transition” in West European society. The view was rejected by a group of Marxist social scientists as non-Marxist, mainly because it centred on the “relations of exchange” and “external prime-mover” of change rather than relations “of production” and “forms of labour”.
They stressed the generic nature of feudalism and the “internal” and generic mechanism of its self-destruction.[11] The gradual build-up of the understanding of the multi-linearity of capitalist development, both inside and outside the Marxist traditions, via Baran’s study of specific political economy of the developing societies and Myrdal’s ‘vicious circles,[12] towards the contemporary theories of dependency[13] and Barrington Moore’s historiography of Origins[14] produced a major shift of perspective and approach, without which the works of Anderson and Wallerstein cannot be quite understood. It has also produced – central to Wallerstein’s theoretical stand and to the analysis of the contemporary “developing societies” – a Marxist approach which does not equate international trade with circulation or exchange of equivalents and places the issue of unequal international exchange within the realm of world-wide relations of production, enforced division of labour and exploitation, i.e. at the core of Marxist political economy.[15]
This intellectual background accepted, the achievement of Anderson and Wallerstein is formidable enough. It consists not only of the remarkably rich data marshalled, the consistency and clarity of analysis and the militant disrespect of authorities per se – even the most deified. To begin with the major area of similarity, both authors carried out a splendid job of demolishing crude philosophising-instead-of-analysing base-superstructure concerning: the character and the impact of the state apparatus (especially Wallerstein) or of the Catholic Church (especially Anderson) and the dialectics of their relationship with the political economy are among the most interesting aspects of the books. Secondly, little is left to crude monolinear explanations after the authors are done – the understanding of the specific dynamics of different major regions is greatly improved. In both cases, a global perspective is established in all its centrality (looming much larger in Wallerstein’s work, to be sure). The historical specificity of Western Europe and of absolutism as its immediate origin in brought into focus. Moreover, there is no naive belief in the self-explanatory quality of uncovering origins either, no “confusing ancestry with explanation”. The explanations are manifest, explicit, open to debate, challenging for one.
To proceed to the central theoretical issues opened up, where does the root of the major difference between the two analyses lie and what conclusions can one draw from this? In his introduction to Pre-Capitalist Formations, Eric Hobsbawm has pointed out that Marx, in his Preface to the Criticism of Political Economy, defined “the general machinery of all social changes: the formation of social relations of production while the word “class” is not even mentioned”.[16] Hobsbawm explains it by the level of abstraction of the analysis concerned. Quite. Marxism is rich in its levels of generalisation and dimensions of analysis to a much greater extent than most of its adherents and enemies perceive. Out of those riches, two major approaches/modes of analysis/levels of generalisation, seem central to Marxist thought and particularly relevant here: a more generalised or “systemic” and the less general, more “political” ones. A recent review of Marxist theory related to the contemporary capitalist state referred to it in terms of fairly similar categories: structural as against instrumental.[17] With all the relativity of such divisions, the significance of this conceptual taxonomy is central to the question posed. In a most preliminary way, let us lay out the problem which Wallerstein accepts and leaves at that while Anderson seems to refuse as such. Marxist “systemic” analysis focuses on the work and working out of specific political economies, modes of production and societal structures. It centres on the non-voluntaristic, “deep”, structural aspects of human interaction, in the sense of abstracting from the relative autonomy and intervention of consciousness as well as from the immediate flow of typical historian’s evidence. It is impregnated with scientific methodology and claims its tools with a necessary corrective for this non-laboratory, non-experimental realm.[18] Marxist class analysis directs its main attention to political economy, the objective conflict of group interests as expressed in historical group confrontations and the dynamics of group consciousness. Both modes of analysis are one in the assumption of centrality of political economy – the control of labour and surplus extraction within class societies. They also share the assumptions of the specificity of the rules of the game within each mode of production as well as the necessity and future-generating qualities of the internal contradictions within them. They differ in levels of abstraction, units of analysis, types of evidence and typical patterns of questioning it. Moreover, no simple division into “base” and “superstructure” does justice to it, since class analysis looks at dialectical interplay of the relations and systems of production with political consciousness.
Two conceptual problems follow: the issue of different Marxist analytical perspectives and the issue of possible contradictions between them. This first is simpler, at least its setting. While thinking systematically, social scientists, even historians, deal in models and typifications highly selective of reality (“absolutism” as a “period” is indeed one of them). Lenin’s comment about reality being richer than any dogmas is directly transferable into a statement that no dogma or generalisation or model or type expresses the whole of reality. A brilliant sociologist has once described true intellectual craftsmanship as “the capacity to shift from one perspective to another, and, in the process, to build up an adequate view of total society and of its components. It is this imagination… that sets off the social scientist from the mere technicians”.[19] Even if few humans are fully capable of it (Marx was clearly one of them, which is a reason why it is often so difficult to follow him), a school of thought, an intellectual camp must show a collective ability to do just that to achieve maximum illumination of the problem. The studies of Anderson and Wallerstein do not exclude each other in any simple fashion because of the different type of analysis involved, nor can (or should) any simple “compromise” be struck between them. While looking at “the same” absolutism, Anderson and Wallerstein look at different things for they look for different things. Nor is this a call for militant eclecticism, for different questions would be answered with a different measure of proficiency within different conceptual structures of questioning and enquiry. (These need pin-pointing… For example, Anderson’s difficulties with explaining the transfer from one mode of production to another when the class revolution has been secured may be related to that). What is said is that causal hierarchies and levels of generalisation are not pre-given or finite but differ, move and must be moved, which is what imaginative social inquiry is all about. But what does one do with contradictory conclusions resulting from a “systemic” versus class analysis applied to the investigation of the basic characteristics of the same clearly delineated category of societies? Only a few such contradictions could possibly be rejected on logical grounds, e.g. the claim of capitalist mode of production without wage labour and a working class. Otherwise, can it be that when these conceptual contradictions surface as in the analysis of absolutism, they signal a very real contradiction of a deep societal crisis/revolutionary potentials which necessarily underlies successful revolutions?[20] Could analysis of these contradictions be used systematically as a way of looking at aspects of revolutionary situations, e.g. structural degeneration and ineffectiveness of a ruling class in such a context? More specifically, it may turn the contradiction between the conclusions of Anderson and those of Wallerstein from a “logical inconsistency” to be eliminated, into a possible source of illumination and an issue for further exploration in depth. For that is required still – the few sentences above are no more than a suggestion of its possibility.
Finally, a word about the recent flourishing of Marxist theory in the “West” which both studies represent. Its historical context lies in the social world we live in and the severity of the current crises of society and consciousness under capitalism and socialism alike. It was “de-colonisation” and Vietnam, more than anything else, which have made us “globalist” just as it was Budapest and Prague which broke the hold of the simplistic Marxism of total devotion. One can date intellectual advances still more specifically. There is a time of rationale of intellectual maturation and digestion of new experiences. How much does it take for even the best to climb out of Stalinist bigoted dogmatism and its counterparts? A generation? Less? How much time does it take to think through the experiences of 1968 and come up with the first results of serious research work? A decade? Half a decade? Well, 1974 is 23 years since Stalin’s death and 6 years from 1968. It is the inheritance of both.
But why “the West”? Not in the “developing societies”, where Marxism represents the banner of struggle, not in the “socialist societies” where its functions as the major official ideology, but on the campuses of the “West” where it is “spoken about”? One can point to the size of resources available, the number of academic theorists, the pressures “to produce” writings. A period of open contradictions and running debate between intellectual “poles” rubbing shoulders in the same community would possibly contribute to sophistication. But there is something else, probably more important. A century ago, Marx and Engels remarked on the fact that it was the very political weakness and impotence of the German radicals which produced the flourishing of German philosophy – the one field in which radicalism could be expressed. The recollection of that should provide even the most outspoken among the western academic Marxists with due humility facing those who have the courage and good luck of exchanging the historian’s proficiency for the political deeds which historically matter.[21]
Chester 1976
[1] M. Bloch, The Historians Craft, Manchester, 1967, p. 42.
[2] i.e. I. Wallerstein, The Modern World System, New York, 1974 as against the related. P. Anderson, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, London, 1974; P. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, London, 1974.
[3] Anderson, Lineages etc., op. cit. p. 61
[4] Bloch, op. cit., pp. 22,27.
[5] Wallerstein, op. cit., pp. 63, 550, for the quotations in the above two sentences.
[6] Ibid., p.50.
[7] Ibid., p. 355.
[8]Ibid., p. 289
[9] Ibid., p. 351.
[10] M. Dobb (ed.), The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, New York, 1954 (?), A new extended edition has recently appeared under R. Hilton editorship in the New Left Books (1976).
[11] Ibid., the contribution of M. Dobb, R. Hilton, H. K. Takahashi and C. Hill.
[12] G. Myrdal, Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions, London, 1957; P. Baran, The Political Economy of Growth, New York, 1960.
[13] E.g. the works of F.H. Cardoso, A.G. Frank, etc.
[14] Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, New York, 1966.
[15] See A. Emmanuel, Unequal Exchange, New York, 1972 (first published in French, Paris 1969), etc.
[16] K. Marx, Pre-capitalist Economic Forms, London, 1964, introduced and edited by E. Hobsbawm, p. 11. The very publication of this text as well as Hobsbawm’s introduction, from which the quotation is taken, forms an important stepping-stone in the discussion of Marx’s historiography and the origins of capitalism.
[17] D.A. Gold, C.Y.H. Lo and E.O. Wright, “Recent development in Marxist theories of the capitalist state”, Monthly Review, Vol. 27, 1975, no. 5, pp. 29-43; no. 6 pp. 36-51. Adds a third Hegelian-Marxist perspective.
[18] See the discussion to Marx’s Capital, vol. I. For the relevant discussion see also M. Barratt Brown, “Marx’s Economics as a Newtonian Model”, in T. Shanin (ed.), The Rules of the Game, London, 1972, pp. 122-47. This book also includes a further discussion of the issue of models in scholarship, especially in the essay by G. Loff.
[19] C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, New York 1956, p. 211.
[20] For an elaboration (somewhat dated) of others view of such structural context see “Class of Revolution”, Journal of Contemporary Asia, v. 1.
[21] An article different in scope and purpose but with a number of naturally overlapping conclusions and components is to be published in Journal of Contemporary Asia, vol. 6, no. (1976). The responsibility for any similarities spotted lies with the intellectual genetics of fatherhood.
