1. MODES OF PRODUCTION
The concept of “mode of production” is an abstract one, implying no historical order of sequence with respect to the entire period of the history of civilizations that stretches from the first differentiated formations right down to capitalism.
I propose to distinguish between five modes of production: (1) the “primitive-communal" mode, which is anterior to all the others; (2) the “tribute-paying” mode, which adds to a still-existing village community a social and political apparatus for the exploitation of this community through the exaction of tribute; this tribute-paying mode of production is the most widespread form of precapitalist classes, and I distinguish between (a) its early and (b) its developed forms, such as the “feudal" mode of production, in which the village community loses its dominium eminens over the soil to the feudal lords, and this community continues as a community of families; (3) the "slaveowning” mode of production, which constitutes a less frequently encountered form, though it is found in a number of places; (4) the "simple petty-commodity” mode of production, which though a frequently found form practically never constitutes thedominant mode of any social formation; and (5) the “capitalist” mode of production.
The communal modes of production constitute the first modes of production that provide a basis for an embryonic class distinction. They insure the transition from primitive communism to full-fledged class societies. This primitive communism is marked by “primitive negation,” as Guy Dhoquois puts it, of the division of labor and of the surplus product. Because this transition from negative (absence of classes) to positive (class society) is slow and gradual, the communal modes of production are many and various, being determined by natural conditions.
But the modes of production of the primitive community are all characterized by: (1) organization of labor partly on an individual basis (that of the “nuclear family”) and partly on a collective basis (that of the “extended family,” the clan, or the village), with the principal means of labor, the land, being collectively owned by the clan and its use freely granted to all the clan’s members, but in accordance with precise rules (utilization of holdings distributed to families, etc.); (2) absence of commodity exchange; and, Correlatively, (3) distribution of the product within the collectivity in accordance with rules that are closely bound up with kinship organization.Access to the land is not necessarily on an equal basis for everyone in these communities. It is so in the most primitive of them, but in the others this access is hierarchical, with some families or clans having the right to better holdings — more conveniently situated, for example, or larger. It is at that stage that an embryonic distinction between classes is observed. Such privilege is, as a rule, closely connected with a hierarchy of political and religious authority. Black Africa offers a wide spectrum of modes of production of this kind — some, especially in the Bantu part, having only a slight element of hierarchy, while others are extremely unegalitarian, such as those found among the ToucouIeurs in the Senegal valley, the Ashanti in Ghana, the Hausa in northern Nigeria, etc. In all of them, however, the peasant enjoys access to the land: by the mere fact of belonging to a clan he is entitled to a part of this clan’s territory. Consequently, proletarianization, that is, the separation of the producer from the means of production, cannot take place, js- The tribute-paying mode of production is marked by the separation of society into two main classes: the peasantry, organized in communities, and the ruling class, which monopolizes the functions of the given society’s political organization and exacts a tribute (not in commodity form) from the rural communities. This mode of production, when it assumes an advanced form, almost always tends to become feudal — that is, the ruling class ousts the community from dominium eminens of the soil.
The feudal mode of production implies: (1) organization of society into two classes, that of the lords of the land (whose property is inalienable) and that of the serf-tenants; (2) appropriation of the surplus by the lords of the land, as a matter of right (“dues”) and. not through commodity relations; (3) absence of commodity exchange inside the “domain,” which constitutes the primary cell of this kind of society. This mode of production is threatened with disintegration if for any reason the feudal lord should rid himself of some of his tenants, “freeing” his serfs — in other words, ρroletarianizing them. The fundamental right of access to use of the land that is possessed by every peasant who belongs to the community under the tribute-paying mode of production renders this disintegration impossible.
The slaveowning mode of production turns the worker, as a slave, into the essential means of production. The product of this slave labor may enter into the circuit of noncommodity transfers specific to the community (patriarchal slavery) or into commodity circuits (Greco-Roman slavery).
The simple commodity mode of production is marked, in its pure state, by equality between free petty producers and the or-1 ganization of commodity exchange between them. No society has J ever been based on the predominance of this mode of production, j Frequently, however, there has been a sphere governed by simple *. commodity relations — in particular, the sphere of handicraft ∣ production, when this has been sufficiently dissociated from agricultural production.
The tribute-paying mode of production is the form that most normally succeeds the communal mode; it is the rule. Characteristic of this mode is the contradiction between the continued existence of the community and the negation of the community by the state; and also, as a result of this, the confusion of the higher class that appropriates the surplus with the class that is dominant politically.
This circumstance makes is impossible to reduce production relations to legal property relations, and compels us to see pro- (Tuction relations in their full, origin al s ignifιcan ce as social relations ariΓι∏g from the organizatibh~bΓproduction. This mode of production, sometimes inaccurately called the “Asiatic0 mode, has existed in four continents: in Asia, of course (China, India, Indochina, Mesopotamia, and the Asia of Classical times), and in Africa (Egypt and Black Africa), in Europe (in the ρreclassical societies of Crete and Etruria), and in pre-Columbian America (Incas, Aztecs, etc.).The feudal mode of production appears as a “borderline” case of the tributary mode, in which the community is especially degraded, since it loses the dominium eminens of the land. This !borderline character entitles us to describe the feudal formations ’as “peripheral” in relation to the “central0 tributary formations. The slaveowning mode of production is similarly situated on the borders of the tributary formations, appearing only by way of exception, in a sequence that is not central but peripheral, as is also the case with the simple ρetty-commodity mode of production.