Joanna
----- Original Message ----- Let's try it this way. Amin, I think, coined the label, "tributary." It covers most or all societies grounded in direct extraction of the surplus from a peasantry. Every 'event' n such a society is complete in itself; it has no necessary relationship to any other event. Another way of putting it is that in such a society there can _never_ be the 'problem' of Too Much. The product of one peasant (or the activity which produces that product) has no relation to the product (or productive activity) of any other peasant. Only external events can shake these social relations. Even a successful peasant revolt does not shake the stability of the basic 'system.' It took over 2 centuries for capitalist relations to become firmly established in the land of their birth, and about two centuries more for those relations to spread globally. Perhaps another way of putting it is that in a tributary society all labor is concrete; the labor of one peasant (or even of one independent artisan) does not enter into the 'meaning' of the labor of another peasant. No product has Value; no labor is alienated.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Michael Smith Sent: Saturday, October 12, 2013 8:18 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Doug, on Salon
On Sat, 12 Oct 2013 19:45:29 -0500 "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> Japanese Feudalism was pretty stable.
I don't know the first thing about 'Japanese Feudalism', but as a general principle -- I daresay Carrol would agree -- taxonomy in itself tends to obscure variation, and distance still more.
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