Wolf chapter 3 Flashcards
Why does Wolf value Marx’ modes of production?
He uses it as an analytical tool to understand the social systems and cultural understandings that Europe encounters
What wereMarx’ two axioms of homo sapiens?
- Homo sapiens are a part of nature
- Individual members are linked to each other through relationships (culture)
He emphasizes that humans have acquired the ability to transform nature through use (technology, organization and ideas)
Labor
General condition for metabolism between men and nature. A social phenomenon carried on through human bonds.
Work
Activities of individuals expending energy to produce energy
Labor-in-general
When the common denominator (money) was paid for work - after capitalism began
Production
The complex set of mutually dependent relations between nature, work, social labor, and social organization. Use of HAND and HEAD.
Developed to contrast Hegel’s idealist conception of spirit/mind as a model of and for reality (Marx claims that material matters shape the ideological)
Mode of production
“A specific, historically occurring set of social relations through which labor is deployed to wrest energy from nature by means of tools, skills, organization and knowledge.”
The three significant modes for Wolf
1) The capitalist mode
2) The tributary mode
3) The kin-ordered mode
The capitalist mode I (basics)
- Came into existence along the 18th century
- When monetary wealth was enabled to buy labor
- Holders of wealth acquire/have the means of production and deny access to others who want to operate them
- The ones who are denied access must bargain with them for permission to operate them and receive wages in return
- Production determines distribution, and holders of wealth can detain produced commodities such that laborers must pay for them back
The capitalist mode II (surplus)
- Laborers produce more than the cost of wages, leading to surplus/profit
- surplus belongs to the holders of wealth and can be increased through two factors
1) keep wages as low as possible
2) increase productivity of the worker through technological advancement and innovation which changes the methods of production (diplom-is)
The capitalist mode III (classes)
There is division of classes in capitalist society (proletariat vs bourgeoisie) but also internal class differentiation
- bourgeoisie:
1) winners (profiters)
2) losers (non-profiters)
- proletariat
1) employed
2) underemployed
3) unemployed
these are linked to each other.
The dual character of capitalism
Develops internally by branching out across the globe and enters into relations with other modes of production to co-exist or eventually compete and replace.
The tributary mode I (basics)
-Major agricultural areas were held by states based on the extraction of surplus from the primary producers by political and/or military rulers
- laborer possess means of production
- tributary relationship between lordship and servitude
- exercise of power and domination through political processes
- extracted surplus is re-distributed
The tributary mode II(two polar outcomes)
1) A ruling elite of surplus takers (Asiatic mode of production)
2) strong local overlords (feudal mode of production)
Asiatic mode of production
Focused on Eastern despotism (tyrannical leader), where a centralised state dominated over village communities of peasants (wrongly reified). Often claiming supernatural origin and validation.
Mercantile wealth
- Long before the 1400s and European intrusion, there were commercial relationships covering long distances.
- tributary relationships and mercantile wealth go hand in hand
- merchants can hold a lot of power, f.ex. if an elite family becomes dependent on trade
- hence, merchants have been subjected to political supervision and strained
- the European periphery was politically unstable/fragmented and hence the merchants more free and independent
- they also had a geographical and technological upper hand
- Weber, Wallerstein and Frank see these European merchants as direct ancestors of capitalism, growing linearly from tributary mode
- Marx see capitalism as a “major alteration in determinate processes” hence something different entirely
How merchants obtained surplus through exchange
1) merchants buying surplus from tributary overlords in return for goods
2) got into exchange of goods with primary gatherers or producers - made them dependent on their services, kinda forced
3) expanding slavery (a classic European tactic - common since classic antiquity in order to maximize labor)
Ultimately, mercantile wealth stemmed from merchants ability to buy cheap and sell pricy, have monopolitic control over sales and have military power.
Three different perspectives on kinship
1) Outgrowth of human biology
2) Cultural definition of marriage bonds and cultural constructs like adoption
3) An “idiom” (metaphor) in which economic, social, political and ritual relations are discussed
Kin-ordered mode
- the periphery areas of the areas with agricultural prod (tributary)
- “primitives” in anthro (misleading - cannot describe a people as an evolutionary phase, implying that they are in the “beginning” of something better (civilisation)
- bound together by kinship
Kinship and labor
Kinship is a way to commit social labour to the transformation of nature through appeals to filiation and marriage.
Labor thus becomes locked up in kin relations between people.
Kin relations and labor II
a) kin relations are symbolic constructs that
b) place actors (born or recruited)
c) into social relations with one another
d) allow call on shared labor to
e) transform nature
how easily accessible resources are to use nature defines the tightness of kin group
1) not access to many resources = using nature as an object, eg herding or gathering (tightness of kin)
2) access to many resources = using nature as an instrument or a means of production (kin less tight)
The problem of chiefdom
Chief is a colonial description of a person who can forward or hinder their interests
chiefdom is wrongly conceptualised as a type of society intermediate between kin-ordered tribe and class-divided states - does not point to differential access to means of production.
