Modes Of Production

A mode of production, it must be emphasised, is determined simultaneously at several levels, as a complex unity. There is all too often a tendency to reduce the complex and dialectical unity of the concept of mode of production to a narrow definition of ‘relations of production’ that focuses

on particular forms of relationships between the labouring direct producer, and the class that

exploits his/her labour power. The concept of mode of production entails determinations as

follows:

Feudal Mode of Production

Capitalist Mode of Production

Colonial Mode of Production

Unfree Labour, rendered not necessarily in the form of labour services but taking a variety of possible forms.

Free Labour, (1) ‘free’ from possession of means of production and also (2) juridically free, to sell labour power to the capitalist

- as in CMP -

Extra-economic coercion in the extraction of the surplus

Extraction of surplus value through the economic process of ‘free’ sale of labour power

- as in CMP -

Fusion of economic and political power at the point of production, in a localised structure of power. (The case of the ‘Absolutist State’ is discussed below).

Formal separation of economic and political power and the emergence of a bourgeois state and its laws.

The creation of a colonial state, as instrument of metropolitan capital.

FMP CMP Col. MP

Mainly self-sufficient village/ manorial economy supplemented by simple commodity circulation and petty commodity production; portion of the surplus goes into trade. Feudalism is compatible with global commerce. But there is no Generalised Commodity Production and labour itself is not yet a commodity.

Generalised Commodity Production, with balanced production of capital goods (Dept. I) and consumer goods (Dept II), the two sectors bearing a relationship as discussed by Marx in Capital Vol. II. Labour power itself is a commodity, freely traded in the labour market.

Circuit of lopsided Generalised Commodity Production is completed via metropolis with production of raw materials etc. for export; manufactured goods, including capital goods being mainly imported. No development of Dept I, i.e. capital goods production).

Simple Reproduction – the surplus is mainly consumed by the exploiting classes, so that the economy basically reproduces itself at the existing technological level.

Extended Reproduction of capital, with the surplus contributing to capital accumulation and rising productivity.

Extended Reproduction of Capital is realised via the metropolis, colonial exploitation contributing to capital accumulation in the metropolis.