Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 30)

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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 30)

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The third characteristic of ‘Asiatic' societies, according to the
AMP model, is the "self-sufficient village/commune". Rights of land
ownership in ‘Asiatic’ societies are vested in the village/commune as
a whole. Individual members of the village/commune can hold land only
by virtue of their membership in the village/commune. The individual,
according to Marx, is not an owner in separation from the community,
he is only the possessor of a particular part of it, hereditary or
not. What exists is only "communal property" and "private
possession." (Marx, 1965: 72,75 in Hobsbowm (ed.))
Marx uses the expression "Lower Commune" to describe the
village/commune. These viilages, he maintains, are always subjugated
to, and live under the direct control of, the state. In fact, in one
place Marx refers to these communities as the "...general slavery of
the Orient..." (Marx, 1965: 95). Characteristic of these villages
is their isolation from each other and from the society as a whole.
Each of these villages, according to Marx, is self-sufficient and
forms a little world in itself (Marx and Engels, 1972:102).
The AMP model distinguishes between the forms of exploitation in
western feudalism and those in ‘Asiatic’ societies. Unlike feudal
relations of exploitation which are class. based, relations of
exploitation in ‘Asiatic’ societies are located between the state,
Gescribed as a class, and the peasantry, which is seen as_ one
homogeneous entity. Rent and taxes, in the “Asiatic mode of
production,” it is maintained, coincide and are not extracted as_ two
separate forms of surplus. The absence of a feudal class or a class of
private land owners makes the state the only appropriator of surplus
from the direct agricultural producers. In Capital III, Marx
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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation

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Nahla Abdo-Zubi

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