On 'Feudal' Modes, Models and Methods of Escaping Capitalist Reality

Author(s): Andre Gunder Frank

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jan. 6, 1973), pp. 36-37
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4362226
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Jainuary 6, 1973 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY
lby whoim. Then againi each selec-
tion wouild be an event by itself un-
related to any pattern; some com-
mittee wvould feel five years' expe-
rience was sufficient for such a post,
some would think ten; some com-
mittee would feel three advance in-
crements should be routine along
with promotionis, some that a pro-
motion itself is enough advance. In
short, the entire service would be
in shambles.
5 These proposals need not cause
any alarm. The present practices
in this regard were primarily cle-
vised to facilitate smooth operation
of promotion through a machi-
nery meant for recruitment. Once
promotion is separated from recruit-
ment, the need for rigid identifica-
tion of all posts vill largely vanish.
6 In fact, it can be confidentially
claimed that this one reform vill
bring all the rest in its train. - A
director not shielded by the ephe-
meral 'committee' will be so haras-
sed by sniping (after arbitrary
action) that he would soon, on his
own initiative, institute studies to
formulate rational methods of
selection having the largest mea-
sure of confidence.
7 But this is niot surprising, because
anything, to be effective, must
have a purpose. These coinfiden-
tial reports can have meaning
oinly if they are used as a basis
for decisions concerning staff pro-
motion. When promotion is
through advertisement, the repor ts
cease to have any meaning. So, a
ritual is observe(d just to satisfy the
gods of FR & SR.
8 It is a pity that the very mention
of the phrase 'Confidential Report'
inoNv generates uniiversal repugn-
anice. Only the irresponsibility and
lack of talent of the management
is responsible for this: An idiotic
form being used either for nothing
or merely for brow-beating some-
body is not calculated to generate
affection for the system.
.9 (a) Hiscocks, E S, "Laboratory Ad-
ministration", Macmillan, London
(1956). (b) "Selection of Personnel
for Research", Science Today, 1(2),
31-37 August 1967.
10 Depending primarily on outside
experts and an outside Chairman is
definitely opposed. The basis should
be trust and accountability rather
than mistrust and check-counter-
check.
On 'Feudel'
Modes,
Models and Methods
of Escaping Capitalist Reality
Andre Gunder Frank
"The, important point is that their
incorrectness or otherwise [of ques-
tions and answers] can only be
demonstrated by a much more inten-
sive and rigorous application of the
Marxist method to the concrete and
historically specific experience of India
itself. The incorrectness or othervise
of our ideas cannot be demonstrated
simply by selective quotations lifted
out of context from Marx and Lenin,
when they are discutssing a different
set of historical conditions; or by
vague charges that these ideas are
against 'the spirit of Marxism'. We
would welcome the sharpest criti-
cism, for it helps to clarify ideas;
but let that criticism be based oI)
an application of the Marxist method
to the concrete conditions under discus.
sion . . . All we are arguing is that
wage labour in Indian agriculture
went with the accumulation of colo-
nial super-profits by the bourgeoisie
in Britain... It would show a very
mechanistic understanding of the
proposition 'wage labour and capital
always go together', if we completely
ignored imiperialism (i e, its character
as a world capitalist system) and
hence ignored the specificity of the
colonial situation. Above all we need
to analyse the concrete develop-
ments in colonial hiistory, rather than
take over in an abstract and schema-
tic fashion, the propositions of the
classical model."
AN admirable model indeed, perhaps
in part because Utsa Patnaik (Septem-
ber 30, 1972, pp A-149, A-150) has
taken it over from Mlarx and Lenin.
But the model in entirely belied by the
method of UP (with apologies for use
of initials). So that UP shall not have
used my name entirely in vain, and
since UP calls for the development of
an ongoing debate with Paresh Chatto-
padhyay and Amiya Bagchi (p A-150,
presumably among others, we may per-
haps be permitted to make public here
a personal letter I wrote to these two
on May 29, 1972.
"Another curiosity: Of the critiques
you [P C] make of Utsa Patnaik's
article - which latter caught my atten-
tion because of its far out definition
of 'capitalism' in agriculture - I find,
inless I misread you, that you did not
make the
critiqule
that struck me and
a colleaguie of minie to whom I read
part of the UP article as the mos
t
obvious: to say that extended reproduc-
tion an(d accumulation is a criterion of
capitalismI is one thinig and to say that
because the surplus is not invested in
agriculture itself, or not in agriculture
in the saimie geographical area, but is
instead siphoned off for investment in
indlis'Lry, not to say industry in Great
Britain, is another thing altogether. The
fact that the British indusrialised with
the help of the drain - which was of
course drained out of agriculture in
India in large part - does not seem
to me to be useable proof as UP seeks
to do that Indian agriculture is feudal
(or was)." P C's answer on Juily 3, 1972
(with fturtlher apologies for quoting
private correspondence) was: "About U
Patnaik's paper what you say is very
true. My point was however somewhat
different. I tried to show that what she
thouglht to be the conditions of capital-
ism were really not so much conditions
as consequences of capitalism, once the
latter is established. This followed from
my contention, that Lenin's definition
of capitalism -on the basis of product-
ive relation is a complete definition,
containing the necessary as vell as the
sufficient conditions of capitalism." (In
this connection, incidentally, one may'
find particularly unsatisfactory UP's
straw man method of setting PC up
as someone who "appears to be" an
Althusserian and then expressing "sur-
prise" at his analyses and conclusions
- as any of us might after reading
his various concrete analyses of con-
crete conditions.) But our points are
different, or at least point to different
aspect of UP's argument. However,
although after UPs earlier presenta-
tion of her argument it seemed suffici-
ent to make the point privately, now
that in her reply UP has herself carried
the argument (or carried herself) "to
its logical extreme conclusion" (sic! p
A-149), it seems necessary to make the
obvious point publicly.
UP repeats her allusion to the Marx-
ist model: "The criterion of accumu-
lation and reinvestment must be speci-
fied as well" (p A-148). And her me-
thod? Her concrete analysis of con-
crete reality? What reality? What eco-
nomic formation? UP answers con-
cretely: "I submit that if we wish to
retain 'capitalist production relation' as
an analytical category, as it has been
used so far in Marxist theory,
a cate-
gory which implies something about the
laws of movement or dynamics
of the
economic formation concerned, then
we cannot take wage-labour to be suffi-
cient condition for identifying the
capitalist FARM, under the specific
hiistorical conditions we have outlined"
(p A-148 italics in the original, capitals
spplied). 'So nlOW UP has sep-ified the
36
ElCONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY January 6, 1973
economic formation with which she is
concerned: the FARM! And not acci-
dentally so: "Of course, if we are inte-
rested in using the term 'capitalist
production
relation' or
'capitalist
farm'
as . . . a 'capitalist' enterprise . . . (p A-
148) we may as well, as UP evidently
does not in the selection of her title
but
-as
appears from the whole context
of her argument, make these terms --
and the concrete economic formation
to which they refer - equivalent also
to the "mode of production". UP looks
for the criterion of the mode of produc-
tion on the individual farm! That is a
point of view far more extreme (we
may leave the question of logic in abe-
yance) than that which I had dared
attribute to her in my letter to PC and
AB in which I innocently supposed
that the perview of UP extended as
far as "agriculture itself, or . . . agri-
culture in the same geographical area'
in India. No wonder, if the UP method
is to "extend" the criterion of extended
reproduction, accumulation and re-in-
vestment of them each of the inmpover-
ished farms in India, that she is hard
put to recognise the capitalist mode of
production when she sees it. And she
does see it: "We find that generalised
commodity production was imposed
from the outside in the process of im-
perialist exploitation itself: India was
forced to enter the network of world
capitalist exchange relations" (pp A-148-
49). (Didn't we just say that capitalist
relations are b)y definition produictive
relations, and indeed reproductive ones?)
But UP cannot believe what she sees
- and we cannot believe what she
writes. All we are arguing is that "wage
labour in Indian agricuilture [including
the UP farm - with apologies to the
state that shares the initials, though its
farms may be included as well] went
with the accumulation of colonial super-
profits by the bourgeoisie in Britain (as
a result of the complex exploitative
relationship . . . )" and that there is mad-
ness (i e, divorce from concrete reali-
ty) in the method of UP that seeks
accumulation and reproduction only
within the confines of the individual
farm. "If this is the argument we would
reject it emphatically. At worst such
anl argument would completely ignore
imperialism, at best it would represent
a highly unrigorous application of
Marxist concepts to Indian conditions"
(p A-149). Amen !*
O
UP righltly also draws or points
to some political conclusions: "The
Andre Gunder Frank type of posi-
tion. . . Therefore all these countries
are 'capitalist'. Therefore the only
possible immediate programme of a
revolutionary political party in each
of these countries, must be a socialist
revolution ..... I am sure P C will
not choose to draw the extreme con-
clusion which Gunder Frank has done
... believe the fallacy in this chain
of reasoning lies at its starting point."
Well, what conclusions will UP choose
to draw from her other extreme me-
thod? That socialist revolution will
not become the programmatic order
of the day until capitalism by her
criterion reinvestment of surplus value
produced by farm labourer on the
same farm itself - has penetrated
each and every one of her individual
farms? If this is the argument we
should reject it emphatically. The
fallacy of this chain of reasoning lies
at its starting point.
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