>... but anyways, saying that history is the history of antagonisms, class
>struggle is not the same thing as saying that the content, form, essence
>of these struggles was the same.
Well, what about the theory of the Asiatic mode of production as an attempt to demonstrate the cross cultural variability in the content, form and essence of class relations and struggle after the emergence from barbarism?
(Important works include Mandel's essay in *The Formation of Marxist Economic Thought*, Perry Anderson, *Lineages of the Absolutist State*, Hindess and Hirst *Pre capitalist Modes of Production*, Lawrence Krader, *The Asiatic Mode of Production*, Samir Amin, *Class and Nation*, Anne Bailey, ed. *The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics*, Diptendra Banerjee, ed. *Marxian Theory and the Third World*, Brendan O'Leary, *The Asiatic Mode of Production*, Harbans Mukhia, *THe Mughals*; much of this work is simply not discussed in the analytical marxist reconstruction of the theory of history!)
By specifying the uniqueness of the West in terms of having achieved the "purest form of class struggle", Godelier here puts forth the thesis that has been subjected to criticism by Amin, Abu Lughod, Gunder Frank and Blaut:
"Industrial capitalism has appeared only in the line of evolution set in motion by the Greeks. The decisive character of this line of evolution is that has ensured the maximum development of the productive forces, thus providing immense possibilities for the exploitation of man by man. This development cannot be explaiied by the appearance of private property alone. It existed in China, Vietnam, etc. In adition, it is necessary for private proerty and commodity production to be combined. Only this combination created the most favorable conditions for technical progress, while revealing itself to be incompatible with the funcitoning of the former solidarities of communal life; it substituted the search for private profit for the submission to the common interest, by breaking off the often sacred collective link of the individual with the land of his ancestors. It seesm the combination appeared for the first time in a pure form among the Greeks...The Romans took it up and geranlized it, giving it its universal juridical expression with the theory of the 'jus utendi et abutendie' which the legal model in the commodity societies based on private property. The uniqueness of the line of development of the Graeco Roman socieiteis is becoming clearer. It cosnists not in having done it maybe earlier than other peoples, but in having overcome them in movign twoards a mode of production based on teh combination of private property with commodity production. Simarily what makes Western feudalism unique, beyond its similarities of form with whar are claled the feudalisms of Turkish, Chinese, African, Japanese, etc. what prvents its confusion with them and the basis for their essential difference, is that it alone created the conditiosn for teh appearance of industrial production and world trade. It alone has allowed the forms of natural economy to be surpassed. Finally by allowing and imposing the creation of a world market, industrial capitalism has made a universal history possible by subsuming all the less developed countries under its development, which is that of the Western capitalist societies. Moreover industrial capitalism alone has opened up the possibility of socialism, first in theory, then in practice. Thus, the Western line of development is typical becaus eit sunique in developing the gratest progress of the productive forces and THE PUREST FORMS OF CLASS STRUGGLES and also becaus eit alone has created the preconditions for Western and all other socieities to pass beyond the class organization of society. So it is typical because in its particular development it has obtaied a unversal result. It has provided the practical base (industrial economy) and the theoretical conception (socialism) to extricate itself and all societies from the older and newer forms of exploitation of man by man. It provides the whole of humanity with the conditions for the solving of a universal problem posed since the appearance of classes: how to ensure the maximum development of the productive forces without the exploitation o fman by man? it is typical because it has value as a model or norm because it provides possbilities which no other single history has offered and gives other societies the possbility of saving themselves the intermediary stages."
Quoted in Anne Bailey, ed. Asiatic Mode of Production. Routledge 1981
There seems to be a research agenda for the study of class societies in history if Solow is actually looking for one.
yours, rakesh