Nama
: Akhmad Ali
Pascasarana
UI
Subect
: Mengkritisi Ethnoghraphy 28, Maret 2013
Five
years ago, I somewhat aggressively concluded a critical study of Claude
Meillassaoux’s economique des Gaouro (1964) with the following statment:
Marxist researchers now free the
task...of bringing the firld so far reserved for social antropologi within the
ambit of historical materialism and thus demostrating the universal validity of
the concept and methods developed by letter. By doing this they should ensure
that social antropologi becomes a particular section of historical materilism
developed to socio economic formations in which the capitalist mode of
production is absent and in which ethnologists and historians collaborate.
It seems to me that this programme
was consonant with Marx’s avowed intentions and with the idea he had of the
scope of his discoveries. Marx actually protested against interpertations of
historical materialism which would restrict its aplication solely to societies
domainted by capitalist production. If he greeted the 1877 publication of
Morgan’s Ancient society so eanthusiastically, it was surely because for him.
This book demonstrated in practice the universal vocation of the new science
and historical. Its capacity for
explaining the whole of humanity social and historical evolutions( Engel’s)
But the eyes of disbelivers , mere
reference to the will of the founding fathers has never constituted proof. Here
as elsewhere movement cannot be proved expect by moving forward. In other
words, we have only one de jure means of convincing our ambistions of
historical materialism are ligitimate effectively to put it to the test in
conrete cases which until now have been contened to the serutiny of social
antropologhy and enthno-history. Have been taken along this line, notably in
the recent works of Claude Meilassoux and Pierre Philip Rey. For my part I
would like to a small contribution to this endeavour using the research I have
under taken on the History of the Abron Kingdoom Of Gyaman to this end. I shall offer a broad outline of what a
Marxist analysis of this social formation could be it is for the reader to
judge the results of this attempts and the efficacy of the tools it employs.
A rapid inventory of these tools
should be drawn up. At this intial stage of the journey , I do not intend to
embark on a general prsentation of the fundamental catagories of historical
materialsm. It will be sufficient to indicate the meaning I am giving to
certain terms” Class mode of production,”reproducton, social formation,
domination of a mode of production wthin a social formation which will
confitnually appear in this article and I only ask for the provisional
acceptance of these definitions until be the account is completed.
Subject to this proviso I should
like to answer an initial question my project is to outline a marxis
explanation f this the Abron social formation. Why have I chosen the theory of
social classes for this project? Because the councept of classes is what one
could a totalizing concept. One must refer to all aspects of social reallity in
oreder to define it. When marx wrote on the first page of the communist
Manifesto, The History of all hitherto existing society is the history of class
struggles ( Marx and Angelss , 1969). He also give us an indication of an
epistomological nature, If all a history
may be regarded ass the history of class confrontation, it is vecause class is
as it were, the place were the various dimensions of social life, economic ,
political, ideological, intersect. In other words within the field of social
realations. Class is the product of the conjoined action of diffirent
structures economic, political, ideological the combination of which
constitutes a determintae mode of production and social formation (Poulantzas,
1972). In this respect class plays within marxist theory a role similiar to that which Mauss attributed to” the social fact” in an entirely diffirent
context . all the determination that characther a given social formation at a
given period are concentrated . this is why the view point of class is a
privilaged perspective for the marxist researcher. Why the study classes
represents the royal road to a marxist analysis of society and history.
What
in fact , is social class? Lenin Tells us:
Classes are large groups of people
differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined
system of social production, by their relation in most cases fixed and formulated
in a law. To the means of production , by their role in the social organization
of labour and consenquantly by the dimensions of the share of social wealt of
which they dispose and the mode
acquiring it. Classes are groups of people one which can appropriate the labour
another owing to the diffirent places they occupy in a definitive system of
social economy.
Three aspects of this passage should
be noted
a)
First of all, a
class never exist on its own . what one always encounters is by definition a plurality
of classes . I shall not emphasize this
point. Since it is obivious and can be decuded from the general meaning of the
term class, in botany as in logic a
class is always a subdivision within a larger set. A set in which only one
class existed would in fact be a classes set. Similiarly in this context a
social class is an internal part of a whole an element internal to a system. It
is defined by the role that it plays within this whole. By the function that it takes on within this system. One must
therefore start from the whole or the system in order to understand the part or
element.
b)
What is this
whole or system? Lennin replies, a historically defined systen of social
production . determinate mode of producrion in other words, the diffirent
places which classes occupy within a given mode of productin define them and
distinguish them from one another. A
extremely important , but often ignored consequence follows from this. Beyond
the very general, abstract indication given by lennin. It is not possible to
give class a universal defination, valid for all modes of production. is
characterized in a diffirential manner b mody its position within a
determinatie mode of production, it conversely follow that a specific
defination of class corresponds to each particualar mode of production, in other words, the questionds to each
particular wether the concept of class is useful in studies other than those
bearing on the capitalist mode of production is divested of meaning. If by “ class” is understood classes such as
they exist in the capitalist mode of production, then the this mode of
production obviously . but this does not mean that there are classes in theis mode
of production alone. Classes may be found in other modes of production. Only
then their reciproal relations and indeed their very nature will be defined by
the stucture of the mode of production . for each mode of production the
concept of class that is approarite to it must be contructed.
c)
Lennin states that the position of class
within a mode of production should be understood as the relationship it has to
the eans of production. This relationship it has to means of production. This
relationship is manifested on two levels
at the level of the productive forces, a class formed by producers or
non –roducers can or cannot set to work the means of production. At the level
of the relations of productin , a class
can either control and dispose of the means of production or else be
separated from them. Depending on the circumstances this ralation may be
translated as a relation of property o non property at the level of the legal
superstructure.
The combination of these rwo distinctions produces four
types of possible classes;
1.
Producers
disposing of the means of production self subsistent communitu production ,
petty commodity production
2.
Producers
seoaarated from the means of production (slave, serf, worker)
3.
Non –producers
disposing of the means of production (slave owner , feudal. Lord, capitalist)
4.
Non –producers
separated from the means of production (social classes and catagories that are
said to be unproductice).
This last type provides a precise definition of what
might be called secondary classes . even if secondary classes of a specific
nature are found in each mode of production, their specifity is but a derivate
effect of the specifity of the fundamental classes . the classes haven an
actual relation on the means of production at one or the other level.
As the three other types, they actually refer to two
distinct situations:
In the first , one and the same social group uses and
controls the means of production . in this case the mode of production
comprises only one fundamental class, which is of the first type.
In the second , the control and use of the means of
production are the function of two diffirent social groups. Here the mode of
production commparies two fundamental classes, one of which belongs to the
second type the others to the third
type.
In both sitations the setting apart of proption of the
surplus provided vy the producers ensures the livehood of the non-producers.
But in the first case, the producers are the ones who decide what proportion of
the surplus should be set aside. The non-producers have no means of compelling
the to devide the surplus into definete proportions. Consequently the non producers are entirely depent upon
producers. On the other hand, in this second case the control of the means
production gives to those non-producers who exercise it the means of
determining the amount of surplus alloted to themselves . this control renders
producers subordinate to the non –producers.
The last situation represent exatly what one would call a
relationship of exploitation. For one class to exploit another, not only must
its subsistance be secured from the surplus labour of the other, which is true
for all non-producers. But furthermore, the exploiting class has to be in a
position to dicate its conditions to exploiting class has to determine the a
mount of surplus which it appropriates.
The first case where there is only the fundamental class
we would normally speak of a classes society . in the second where there are
two fundamental classes, direct producers and owners of the means of production
we would on other hand speak of a class society. The term class obvisouly
acquire a new meaning in such expressions, hence forth it denotes the two
opposing poles in arelationship of exploitation.
In the light of the preciding remarks, we are now in a
potition to return to the concept of mode prodyction which as we have seen is
extremely important from an exact understanding of what classes are . the way
in which I previsouly expressed this
concept, where in last
analysis should wee look for the specific distinguishing mark
of a given mode of production. For that which distinguishes it from other modes
of production and lies at the foundation of its particular economic, political,
and ideological character? For reasons that were otherwise valid but that were linked to the
particularities of the case under analysis I had been led to see evidence for
the identification of the mode or modes of production realized in the
socioeconimic formation in the forms of cooperation between the producers. In
so far as this was true I might have
given the impression despite my denials, that for me the origin of the diffirentiation of modes of
production lay within the domain of the productive forces. Morever, as I also
refused to admit the existence of relations of exploitation in the society in
question , this impression could only have been confirmed by the reminder on
the study.
Now would
obviously be wrong to attribute a role to the productive forces which Marx
expressly indicated belonged to the relations of production . marx wrote a
passage which today seems to me decisive for a correct definition of the
concept of mode of production.
The specific economi form, in which unpaid surplus labour
is pumped out of dircet producers determines the relationship of rulers and
ruled , as it grows directly out of production it self and in turn reacts upon
its as a determining element. Upon this however is founded the entire formation
of the economic community which grows up out of the production relations
themselves . thereby simultaneously its specific political form. It is always
the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of productions to the
direct producers a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite stage
in the development of the methods of labour and thereby its social productifity
which reveals the innermost secret the
hidden basis of the entire social sturcture and with it the political form of
the relation of sovereignty and dependence ( Marx 1967)
The specific form in which unpaid surplus labour is
extrorted from the direct producers is exaclty what I have called a relation of
exploitation in my preeding remarks. For marx. This relation constitutes the
heart or nucleus of the mode of production . it is at the very foundation of the
set of determinations that characterize the mode of production at its various levels , economic, political,
and ideological. Consequently the siting of the various modes of production in
a social formation will necessarily proceed by a preliminary inventory of the
diffirent forms taken by the relation of exploitation in this social formation
since a particular mode of production would corespond to each of these forms.
The superstructures appear then as the political and
ideological conditions of the orderly reproduction of the relations of
production . in fact , this reproduction is liable to interruption for various
reasons some of which at least are of political or ideological nature,
institutions operating at these two leveles may therefore be regarded as so
many means open to the society or in the case of a society divided into classes
to the domaint class for coping with these threats . each specific mode of
extraction of the surplus presupposes a determinate superstructure as a
condition of its own reproduction . and as Luis Althusser “ this superstructure
is necessarily specific since it is a function of the specific relations of
production that call for it( Althusher).
But a mode of production does not itself exist in
isolation . the development of the productive forces which inciudes not only
what we would normally think of as technical progress but also the improvement
of all manner of means abailable for the concentration of producers and
bringing them into large scale cooperation leads to wearing a way of certain
modes of production and the simultaneous advent of other more productive modes.
Or rather modes that are nore caoable of producing a surplus.
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