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1977 | Buch

Mode of Production and Social Formation

An Auto-Critique of Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production

verfasst von: Barry Hindess, Paul Hirst

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Introduction
Abstract
This text is the product of another, Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production (hereafter PCMP).It is a critique of and a continuation of our earlier work. A critique: certain of the central concepts and problems in PCMP are rejected in this text. A continuation: this rejection is possible only because of the very concepts and problems produced in PCMP. The form of criticism practised here is not a simple rejection, rather it is a working on the unevennesses of the earlier text, it is a means of and a part of new theoretical work. This introduction will review the principal unevennesses at issue and outline our response to them.
Barry Hindess, Paul Hirst
1. Discourse and Objects of Discourse
Abstract
Dominant in the critical comment PCMP has received have been the charges of ‘formalism’ and ‘idealism’.1 These charges have their source in PCMP’s explicit rejection of epistemological forms of conceptualisation of the relation between discourse and its objects. What is at issue in these charges is not primarily the ‘substantive’ concepts elaborated in the text, the concepts of the different modes of production and associated concepts, but rather the manner in which positions elaborated in discourse are held to be related to the object or objects of that discourse. We have argued in PCMP and at greater length elsewhere that epistemological forms of conceptualisation of the relation between discourse and its objects are untenable.2 This chapter has two parts. Firstly, we outline the structure and effects of these forms of conceptualisation and show, in particular, that they entail corresponding forms of misrecognition of the conceptual order of theoretical discourse. Secondly, we examine the implications of a systematic rejection of epistemology for the conceptualisation of the relation between discourse and its objects.
Barry Hindess, Paul Hirst
2. Genesis and Theoretical Limitations of PCMP
Abstract
PCMP stressed that the concepts of modes of production developed in the text were to be regarded as means in a larger process of theoretical work and not as primary objects of theorisation in themselves. These concepts were not produced as ‘tools’ or ‘models’ for application in the practices of economic anthropology or the writing of history. Why they were developed and written as they were can be understood only by reference to prior theoretical problems and, in particular, to the problems generated by and the deficiencies of Reading Capital. It is an attempt to overcome the theoretical impasse created by the failure of Balibar’s project for a general theory of modes of production without retreating into the empiricism and pragmatism so evident in Balibar’s own ‘Self-Criticism’.
Barry Hindess, Paul Hirst
3. Concepts of Mode of Production and Social Formation
Abstract
PCMP is far from being entirely consistent in its conceptualisation of relations between discourse and the objects of discourse, but at many points, most especially in the Introduction, it advances the rationalist position that the theoretical elaboration of certain general concepts, the concepts of modes of production and relations of production, etc., provides the means of analysis of ‘concrete’ social formations and that this is the principal justification for abstract theoretical work in Marxist theory. In effect, it suggests that the concept of social formation is a means of appropriation of ‘concrete’ social formations conceived as existing independently of their appropriation in thought. It is a rationalist position in that it maintains that questions concerning Marxist concepts pertinent to the analysis of ‘concrete’ conditions existing independently of theoretical discourse may nevertheless be settled at the level of abstract theoretical argument. In this respect PCMP does not depart significantly from traditional Marxist modes of conceptualising social formations in relation to other objects of Marxist theory. The classical concept of social formation, developed and elaborated in Reading Capital, has the following crucial features:
(i)
It represents a definite existent combination of structural levels (economic, political, ideological) and modes of production that produces a determinate and distinctive ‘society effect’ and it has a mode of existence that makes it relatively autonomous from other existences.
 
(ii)
Modes of production represent sub-unities of this existence and they contribute to the ‘society effect’ with varying degrees of determination depending on their position of domination or of subordination.
 
(iii)
The ‘society effect’ of the social formation depends on the overall reproduction of its hierarchy of determinacy of modes of production and on the forms of the levels corresponding to that hierarchy. If the hierarchy is displaced it is replaced by a new hierarchy with a new ‘society effect’ and a new form of social formation emerges.
 
(iv)
However, that change of form and of ‘effect’ is not a change in all the elements of the social formation; subordinate modes become dominant or vice versa, ideological forms and state apparatuses persist with varying degrees of relative autonomy. At what point such changes of form and of ‘effect’ involve a change in the nature of the social formation is open to question.
 
Barry Hindess, Paul Hirst
4. Classes and Relations of Production
Abstract
In Chapter 5 of PCMP on the ‘feudal’ mode we extended and developed the concepts of ‘possession of’ and ‘separation from’ the means of production as they applied to this mode, although we did not fully recognise the consequences of our position. Similarly, whilst we distinguished between mode of production and social formation and argued that the concepts of modes of production did not represent sub-unities of being of the greater unity of the formation, we did not attempt any analysis of the conditions of existence of economic class relations other than those represented in the concepts of modes of production themselves. As a result of this limitation we neglected to investigate the problems of conceptualising the conditions of more complex forms of class relations and we concentrated instead on relations between a single class of possessing agents and a single class of non-possessing direct producers. In this chapter, drawing on work in process,17 we attempt to remedy some of the effects of the limitations of our analysis of classes in PCMP.
Barry Hindess, Paul Hirst
Conclusion
Abstract
This short book is an attempt to explain some of the consequences of work in process. It cannot pretend to completeness or finality. Three definite areas for new work emerge from it. The first relates to the order of discourse — the importance in theoretical work of separating questions of the order of connection of concepts from questions of the order of connection of the social relations specified by concepts. The creation of non-rationalist forms of discursive order and non-empiricist forms of analysis of conditions of existence and effectivity are the primary problems engendered by this theoretical condition. An important caution should be offered here: this position on the order of discourse must not itself become a legislative criterion, a substitute for epistemology. The second area relates to the mode in which problems for analysis are generated in Marxist discourses. The political conditions of the appearance of questions and the status of questions as effects of certain types of political position and calculation require theorisation and critical analysis. The third area of work relates to the formation of concepts of definite social formations. It is only at this level that the concepts of relations of production, of classes, etc., acquire political pertinence which justifies their formation in discourse.
Barry Hindess, Paul Hirst
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Mode of Production and Social Formation
verfasst von
Barry Hindess
Paul Hirst
Copyright-Jahr
1977
Verlag
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN
978-1-349-15749-5
Print ISBN
978-0-333-22345-1
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15749-5