Modes of production, it seems, all have the same structure and the same relation to society as a whole. They consist of two interacting parts, the forces of production and the relations of production, which together constitute the base or foundation on which rests a superstructure of government, laws, religion, culture and arts, education and ideas, in short, everything that isn’t already included in the base. Modes of production of course are not static structures, but neither do they change in arbitrary or random ways. Fortunately for those who seek to understand what happens in history, they all operate in much the same way. When a mode of production is functioning normally, there is a correspondence between the forces and relations of production in the sense that the relations foster the development of the forces. But in the course of time the forces outgrow the relations that become fetters rather than aids to further development. This ushers in a period of revolution that transforms the relations of production and with them the mode of production itself. With the new base the superstructure is likewise more or less rapidly transformed, and the whole cycle begins again.
Here we have what appears to be a universally valid schema for understanding history. The genesis, direction, and modalities of change are mapped out, and the appropriate points for human intervention to hasten and smooth the process, different for different stages in the development of a given mode of production, are more or less clearly indicated. It is no wonder that this way of thinking has exercised such a fascination for generations of Marxists, and that now, in a time that nearly everyone considers to be a revolutionary epoch par excellence, it should steadily attract new converts.
And yet we have to ask whether it is really a Marxist way of thinking. It has its origin in the writings of Marx and Engels in one place and one place only, the brief Preface to Marx’s Critique of Political Economy (1859). The purpose of this Preface was not to expound a scientific theory but to give readers information that would help them to understand the book and the point of view from which it was written. Most of this information was autobiographical, leading up to an explanation of how the author came to focus his research on political economy, the subject matter of the book. This in turn gave rise to a “general conclusion” which “once reached … served as the guiding thread in my studies.” There then follows an exposition, couched in very general terms, of the schema sketched above—forces and relations of production, base and superstructure, revolutionary transformations. The “general conclusion” then ends with speculations on two themes that were doubtless closely connected in Marx’s mind but for which subsequent history has provided little support: (1) “A social system,” Marx stated, “never perishes before all the productive forces have developed for which it is wide enough; and new, higher productive relations never come into being before the material conditions have been brought to maturity within the womb of the old society.” And (2) “In broad outline, the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the modern bourgeois modes of production can be indicated as progressive epochs in the economic system of society. Bourgeois productive relationships are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production … : but the productive forces developing within the womb of bourgeois society at the same time create the material conditions for the solution of this antagonism. With this social system, therefore, the pre-history of human society comes to a close.”
If one examines this Preface as a whole and in context, rather than simply lifting out a few statements that are formulated in general terms, it is unmistakably clear that what Marx was talking about was capitalism, not history in general. Political economy, of course, meant the political economy of capitalism: Marx always used the term in this sense; it was therefore the study of capitalism and not of any other forms of society that led to his “general conclusion”; the forces of production/relations of production and base/superstructure schema was evidently derived from his study of capitalism, including its origins, its development, and its presumed future; the revolution transforming relations of production that had become incompatible with growing forces of production undoubtedly referred to both the bourgeois revolution and to what Marx was certain was the coming proletarian revolution. The insertion of a single sentence listing Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production as “progressive epochs in the economic system of society” does not contradict this interpretation: it was simply meant to emphasize the status of capitalism as one, and in Marx’s view the last, in a long line of “antagonistic” forms of society. That he had no thought of reading back into those earlier societies the structure and mode of functioning characteristic of capitalism is conclusively proved by the well-known fact that it was precisely during the 1850s, when the Critique of Political Economy was taking shape, that Marx came to adopt the (erroneous) view of Asian society, in the words of the Indian Marxist historian Bipan Chandra, as “a stagnant changeless society which was incapable of change from within.” Such a view obviously could not have been held simultaneously with a belief in the universal applicability of the schema set forth in the Preface to the Critique. Nor did Marx or Engels on any other occasion elaborate on the schema or seek to apply it to the understanding of precapitalist societies. This was the work of later Marxists, undertaken for their own reasons and purposes and not because it was a logical outgrowth of the Marxist interpretation of history.
We shall return to this theme later on when we come to the question of postcapitalist societies. In the meantime I want only to add, in order to avoid possible misunderstanding, that I believe that as applied to capitalism the schema of the Preface can yield useful insights and understanding. The reason is that under capitalism, unlike other forms of society, separating base from superstructure and locating the prime source of change in the base correspond to a deep-seated and palpable reality, namely, the unplanned and uncontrolled character of a predominantly commodity-producing economy. Furthermore, the distinction between forces of production (means of production, technology, and workers) and relations of production (the absolute dominance of capital over the production process, guaranteed by the system of private property) is there for everyone to see. And it does not take a profound knowledge of economic history to understand that underlying the great changes that have characterized the capitalist epoch has been a series of technological revolutions. Nor would anyone want to deny that these changes originating in the economy have more or less rapidly spread to other areas, including government and laws, philosophy and religion, culture and the arts, in short everything that is usually thought of as constituting the superstructure.
The schema of the Preface is thus by no means arbitrary or artificial as applied to the case of capitalism, from which, after all, it was originally derived. But it seems to me a great mistake to treat this schema as embodying “laws” of historical materialism that are universally valid. The essence of historical materialism is simply that every society has to produce what it consumes, and it has to consume in order to reproduce itself, to survive, and to carry on the myriad activities that together define it as a recognizable historical entity. Production is therefore fundamental in a universal and unique sense, and a scientific approach to the understanding of history has to take this as its starting point. Furthermore, it is obvious that the possibilities of production at any given time and place establish narrow, though certainly not rigidly defined, limits and constraints on what a particular society can actually accomplish.*
But when it comes to the processes of change that are always going on in every society (or mode of production if you prefer), even if at times they are so slow as to be practically invisible, there is no a priori reason to assume that they must have their origin or derive their impetus from the realm of production, as prescribed by the schema of the Preface. As Marx and Engels wrote in The German Ideology:
The fact is … that definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into … definite social and political relations. Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production. (3rd revised ed. [Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976], p. 41, emphasis added)
My attention was called to this striking formulation by the recent book Socialist Construction and Marxist Theory, by Philip Corrigan, Harvie Ramsay, and