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Aakar Books Theory As History Essays On Modes Of Production And Exploitation (Historical Materialism Series) by Jairus Banaji
The essays collected here straddle four decades of work in both historiography and Marxist theory, combining source-based historical work in a wide range of languages with sophisticated discussion of Marx’s categories. Key themes include the distinctions that are crucial to restoring complexity to the Marxist notion of a mode of production, the emergence of medieval relations of production, the origins of capitalism, the dichotomy between free and unfree labor and essays in agrarian history that range widely from Byzantine Egypt to 19th-century colonialism. The essays demonstrate the importance of reintegrating theory with history and of bringing history back into historical materialism. An introductory chapter ties the collection together and shows how historical materialists can develop an alternative to Marx's Asiatic mode of production.Table of Contents:ForewordAcknowledgementIntroduction: Themes in Historical MaterialismQuestions of TheoryA Marxist characterization of Asiatic regimesFrom the Asiatic to the Tributary Mode: Marx, Haldon and BeyondRuler and Ruling Class: Configurations of the Tributary ModeSome General ConclusionsModes of Production in a Materialist Conception of HistoryThe Retreat into Historical FormalismProductions wise as Labor-Process and Epoch of ProductionLevels of Abstraction in Historical MaterialismWage-Labor as Abstract Determination and Determinate AbstractionSelf-Owning CapitalThe Defining Role of the Laws of MotionThe Failure of Abstraction in Vulgar MarxismReading History BackwardsSlavery and the World-MarketSlaveryThe Nascent World-MarketFeudal ProductionThe EstatePeculiarities of the Second SerfdomCommodity-Feudalism as the pure formModes of Production as objects of long durationTwo Brief ConclusionsSimple-Commodity Production: A determination of formThe Peasant mode of productionThe Simple-Commodity producer as Wage-SlaveHistorical Arguments for a Logic of Deployment in Precapitalist AgricultureWorkers before CapitalismThe Fictions of Free Labor: Contract, Coercion and so-called Unfree LaborPremises: The elusive reality of consentA Marxism of Liberal MystificationsForms of exploitation based on Wage-LaborFree Contract’ in Sartre’s CritiqueSummaryAgrarian History and the Labor-Organization of Byzantine Large EstatesIntroductionA Historiography of AbstractionsRural Stratifications: Geouchountes, Ktetores and ErgataiThe case for permanent laborRestructuring in the later empireThe New EstatesThe Labor-Organization of sixth-century estatesConclusionLate Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages: What Kind of Transition?Introduction: Marxist UncertaintiesBackground to the Late EmpireUnresolved IssuesThe reshaping of relations of productionThe Legacy of the ColonateSlavery and the Post-Roman Labor-ForceThe Legacy of Direct ManagementWhat happened to the aristocracy?Final Comments: Wickham and Modes of ProductionAristocracies, Peasantries and the Framing of the Early Middle AgesIntroductionAristocraciesThe Agrarian Watershed of the Seventh CenturyCritique of WickhamThe East: VulnerabilityIslam, the Mediterranean and the Rise of CapitalismHistoriographies of CapitalTowards a Marxist theory of Ccial CapitalismFrom Corporate Capitalism to the earliest Capitalist forms of AssociationThe Arab Trade-EmpireFrom Genoa to PortugalCompany-Capitalism and the advance systemConcluding note: Merchant-Capitalism and LaborCapitalist Domination and the Small PeasantryThe Deccan Districts in the Late Nineteenth CenturyThe subordination of labor to capitalCommodity-expansion in the Deccan districts, 1850-90Structure of capital in the DeccanInterest as surplus-value: Increasing formal subsumption of labor into capitalThe big peasantry of the DeccanPeasant-DifferentiationThe Stage of evolution of capitalism in the nineteenth-century DeccanTrajectories of Accumulation or Transitions’ to Capitalism?Modes of Production: A SynthesisMarxists and feudalismThe Tributary ModePeriodising capitalismArticulation?Publications of Jairus BanajiReferencesGeneral Index