Chance, Necessity, and Mode of Production:

A Marxist Critique of Cultural Evolutionism

DOMINIQUE LEGROS
Johns Hopkins University
Cultural evolutionism and historical materialism are two fundamentally divergent
theories o f evolution. The nonrecognition by cultural evolutionists of Marx s
distinction between social formation and mode o f production has led them to
interpret his thesis o f the determination o f superstructures by economic base as
techno-economic change begets new levels o f general evolution. In fact, Marxs
actual thesis was aimed at explaining the interrelationships between superstructures
and economy within a previously established mode o f production. As a consequence, Marxs analysis o f how a new mode is given has been consistently
ignored. Marx poses the problem of the origins o f capitalism, not in terms o f
economic determinism, much less technological fatalism, but in terms o f chance
and necessity. In this paper, I attempt to draw the theoretical implications o f such
an approach in respect to general cultural evolution. [Marxism and cultural
evolutionism; mode of production; economic determinism criticized; capitalism,
rise of; cultural evolution, chance in]

La methode, cest precisement le choix des faits.

-Henri PoincarC

THERE HAS BEEN A TENDENCY t o identify the cultural evolutionism of American

anthropologists with Marxism. In fact, their work developed quite independently of Marxist
theory and is often inconsistent with it. The purpose of this paper is to indicate the ways in
which Marxism represents a radically different approach from that of cultural evolutionism.
The major points that I shall make are the following: (1) the two theories differ
fundamentally in how they define and relate the concepts of society and mode of
production; (2) the Marxist thesis of the determination of superstructures by the economic
base, or infrastructure, is aimed not at explaining the historical origin of these
superstructures, but a t explaining their relationship to the economic base within a given
mode of production, a synchronic phenomenon; (3) when one examines Marxs formulation
of the problem of the origins of the capitalist mode of production, it becomes clear that he
does not develop this question in terms of economic determination, and still less as a matter
of technological fatalism. Marxs materialism is historical, not economic, and gives as much
emphasis to chance as to necessity.
SOCIETY AND MODE OF PRODUCTION: THE DIVSRGENT THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORKS OF CULTURAL EVOLUTIONISM AND MARXISM

In order to contrast the theoretical framework of cultural evolutionism with that of

Marx, I have chosen six anthropologists who, taken together, can be seen as a representative
sample of the major trends of cultural evolutionism. These are Leslie A. White, Julian H.
Steward, Robert L. Carneiro, June Helm, Marshall D. Sahlins, and Marvin Harris. The works
of White (1959) and Steward (1955) reopened the study of cultural evolution in America,
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after 50 years of neglect. Their approaches differ, however. Steward set forth and defended a
theory of multilinear evolution against what he believed to be Whites thesis of unilinear
evolution. Helm (1969) and Carneiro (1960) are mentioned as representative sources for
subsequent formulations drawing upon the work of White and Steward. I refer to Sahlins for
his remarkable paper, Evolution: Specific and General (1960a), but it should be noted
that in his latest works (1972, 1974, 1976), Sahlins has developed new theoretical
orientations which constitute a rupture with cultural evolutionism. Nevertheless, though
dated in respect to Sahlins present position, this paper represents one of the best syntheses
of cultural evolutionist approaches.
At the end of this paper, following a brief presentation of the main points of Marxs
analysis of the rise of capitalism, I criticize Harris interpretation of Marxs work as a form of
cultural materialism (1968:230-233) similar to the framework of cultural evolutionism.
Harris interpretation rests on the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy and sets
aside the results of Mams main work, Das Kapital. This procedure is debatable. In my
criticism, I use Harris interpretation to further illustrate the divergences between cultural
evolutionism and Marxs theses on evolution as formulated in Capital. I t should be made
clear a t the outset that my purpose is not to comment o n the relative merits of the different
cultural evolutionisms; rather, it is to attempt to outline the premises basic to all.
Leslie A. Whites theory of culture (1959:6-7, passim) identifies four components: the
ideological, the sociological, the sentimental or attitudinal, and the technological. White
elaborates (1959:19):
The fact that these four cultural categories are interrelated, that each is related to the
other three, does not mean that their respective roles in the culture process are equal, for
they are not. The technological factor is the basic one; all others are dependent upon it.
Furthermore, the technological factor determines, in a general way a t least, the form and
content of the social, philosophic, and sentimental sectors. . . . I t is fairly obvious that the
social organization of a people is not only dependent upon their technology but is
determined t o a great extent, if not wholly, by it, both in form and content.
In The Culture Process-an early paper (1960)-Carneiro differs from White in according
equal priority to technology and economy, but otherwise, he approaches the problem of
cultural evolution in a manner structurally identical to Whites. He writes (153-154):
The technological and economic aspects of culture change more readily and more rapidly
than its social and religious aspects. Inevitably this brings about a disconformity between
the two, which, when it reaches a certain magnitude, results in abrupt readjustive changes
in social and religious institutions.
Stewards position is somewhat elusive in regard to the causal relationships between
technology, economy, social organization, military patterns, esthetic features, and religious
institutions. On the one hand, the research strategy that he sets forth (1955:39-42) clearly
accords a determining role to the interrelationship of exploitative or productive technology
and environment (1955:40). We are invited to ascertain the extent to which the behavior
patterns entailed in exploiting the environment affect other aspects of culture (1955:41).
On the other hand, Steward is unwilling t o take a stand and say what domains of culture are
likely to be affected. Interrelated features, which form what he terms the cultural core
(1955:37) of a society, have to be identified for each case study by empirical observation.
Aspects of a given culture that are not found to be connected with subsistence activities
and economic arrangements are said to be determined t o a greater extent by purely
historical factors, by random innovations o r by diffusion (1955: 37; emphasis added).
Incidentally, i t should be noted that in the case of features which are found in the cultural
core, Steward carefully avoids phrases such as determined by economic arrangements.
Apparently in a quandary, he only clgims that they are related to, connected with, or
involved in the utilisation of environment (1955: 37).

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Younger scholars like Helm (1969) have expressed similar positions, but more
forthrightly. Helm distinguishes between the exploitative pattern, the settlement pattern,
and the community pattern. The exploitative pattern results from cultural definition of
environmental resources and of the tools and techniques for the utilisation of those
resources (1969: 151, emphasis added). The settlement pattern comprises the societys
forms of human occupations (for example, nucleated versus dispersed groups in their
temporal, spatial, and size dimensions) existing through seasonal or other exploitative
cycles (1969: 151). The relationships and arrangements, based in cultural convention,
among occupants of locales are community pattern (1969:151). For Helm (1969:151-152);
We cannot predict a simple progression of exploitative pattern-shaping settlement pattern
which in turn shapes community pattern. In the long run of human condition there may
be flow in this direction, but in any short run there is certainly interdependence and
feedback. Ideological and social directives can and do affect settlement and exploitation.

This brief survey makes it clear that Helm and Steward together are opposed to White and
Carneiro. The more recent trends of cultural evolutionism represented here by Carneiro and
Helm have not made the controversy between White and Steward outdated-they merely
replicate it. Helms primary concern, like Stewards, is to indicate that technology (or
economy) does not determine everything, and moreover, that the central issue for a theory
of cultural evolution is to ascertain for each concrete society, the precise shapingeffect of its
techno-ecological pattern. On the contrary, Carneiro, like White, uses the shaping-effect
thesis as a law which explains cultural evolution. In a sense, the divergence between these
two trends is comparable t o the gap which would separate two schools of ornithologists, one
claiming that loons fly south in the fall, and the other rejecting this formulation on the
grounds that the scientific issue is t o determine the specific locale where each loon spends
the winter. That a gap of this nature can easily be filled is evident.
As Sahlins (1960a) has pointed out, the misunderstanding between Steward and White
stems from the fact that the phenomenon of cultural evolution may and must be approached
from two points of view. Evolution proceeds through the differentiation of specific societies,
and through this process there emerge increasingly complex levels of social integration.
Thus, on the one hand, it is perfectly legitimate to focus on the different evolutionary
processes by which societies diverge. In order t o ascertain these various developments, one
clearly must take into account more than the level of technology. On the other hand, apart
from their initial causes, improvements in harvesting energy (and consequently in
technology) become chief factors in explaining the different world stages of social
integration, regardless of where and when they appeared. At this level the subject of analysis
is the entire social history of the human species, and not this or that particular culture.
Consequently we cannot say that there exists an actual theoretical rupture between the
two main trends of cultural evolutionism here represented on the one side by White and
Carneiro, and on the other side by Steward and Helm. The thesis of the determination of
noneconomic levels by the techno-economical level performs a different heuristic function in
each case and thus appears under diferent formulations-but the thesis itself is p u t into
question by neither. That it assumes a different theoretical role is only the upshot of a
displacement in the focus of research-displacement which is made necessary by the very
double nature of the object under study-and not an indication of the existence of two
theories in conflict.
While Sahlins argument is essential in showing that the two main trends of cultural
evolutionism both lie within the same theoretical framework, it remains uncritical of cultural
evolutionism as such. As a matter of fact, it gives to cultural evolutionism the very
fundamentals it had been lacking. His argument puts an end t o a false controversy, but in
this early paper Sahlins accepted the set of underlying assumptions shared by White and

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Steward. It is this underlying layer of common categories that I will contrast with the
somewhat different premises of Marx.
Cultural evolutionists regard humanity, past and present, as a series of distinct entities
termed cultures or societies. Each society is divided into ranked components or levels. What
is sometimes called mode of production (Harris 1968:244; Gabel 1967:2), at other times
mode of exploitation or exploitative pattern (Murdock 1969:129; Helm 1969:151), and
more commonly economic structure, techno-economic base, techno-economic conditions
(Harris 1968:231, 233, 240), subsistence pattern or utilization of environment in culturally
prescribed ways, etc. (Steward 1955: 37-38, passim),technological component or technology
(L. A. White 1959:18-28, passim), is the set of techniques, methods, and culturally defined
environmental resources with which society produces the goods and services necessary to
fulfill its members material and social needs. General levels of evolution are viewed in the
same terms as particular societies; these levels are defined merely as classes of sociopolitical
entities or societies of a given order (cf. Sahlins 1960a:33).
The Marxist approach to social evolution is radically different. The empirical entities
defined by cultural evolutionists as societies, cultures, or cultural systems are
conceptualized by Marx as social formations. What is involved here is more than a change
of vocabulary. In contrast to cultural evolutionism, the Marxist approach does not permit
the classification of social formations in terms of levels of general evolution.
The complex corpus of techniques, customs, institutions, rules, etc. is dissected so as to
inventory the modes of production that are present in the social formation. Here lies the
sharp divergence from cultural evolutionism: what is at issue for Marx are the modes of
production of a society and not its mode of production. The premise is that a society may
combine several modes of production. In other words, within a given society, there may
exist (and as a matter of fact do exist) not simply several exploitative techniques (that is
self-evident), but several distinct modes of production with their respective economic bases,
ideological superstructures, and juridical and political superstructures. Consequently there
is little relation between what cultural evolutionists sometimes term the mode of production
of (I society (the sum of its productive techniques) and the Marxist concept of mode of
production. For Marx, a mode of production is a distinct production structure in association
with its superstructures (cf. Althusser and Balibar 1970). It may be found within several
social formations which are quite dissimilar to each other in other respects. In one society, it
may be the structure of production in one economic branch; in another society, the
structure of two different branches. For this reason, Marxs sequence of general evolution
(slavery, feudalism, capitalism) is of an entirely different nature from that of cultural
evolutionism (band, tribe, chiefdom, state). A series of production structures which are
general types (Idealer Durchschnitt or Allgemeiner Typus) abstracted as distinctive
parts from more complex wholes termed social formations, can hardly be equated with the
cultural evolutionist sequence for which the entire structure of social formations is the basis
of classification and of definition of the levels of general evolution. A state cannot be a level
of general evolution in the Marxist perspective; it is a superstructural apparatus, a form of
sociopolitical integration which may be required by different types of mode of production.
Consequently, as a form of integration, the state is to be found at different levels of general
evolution (the modes of production).
Balibar (Althusser and Balibar 1970:225) is inaccurate when he bluntly states that
Marxism is a radically anti-evolutionist theory of the history of societies, but his remark
makes sense if we consider that evolutionism has been equated with the theory of evolution
of cultural evolutionists. Perhaps, is it more correct to say, as Althusser does (1971:96), that
cultural evolutionism is the poor mans hegelianism! Though Althusser is unnecessarily
derogative, he might have a point. Like Hegels, the cultural evolutionist sequence of
evolution ends with the apotheosis of the state. Thus, with cultural evolutionism, the Inca

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state, the Roman empire, the United States, the Peoples Republic of China, etc. are lumped
into one category as variants of a single level of general evolution (as if there were no
differences among their respective dominant modes of production).
Marxs sequence of evolution (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) is the sequence in which
these types of economic structure came into existence in Western Europe. However, at any
given moment, any European social formation was more complex, as a whole, than the
structure of its dominant production mode. Certainly, Marx uses expressions like capitalist
society or feudal society, but these are formulas employed to refer to societies in which
either the capitalist or the feudal mode of production is dominant.
Marx, for example, chose England as the main source of data for his analysis of capitalist
production, but he never equated England as a social formation with the capitalist mode of
production. While he stated repeatedly that the structure of capitalist production requires
only the existence of two classes (bourgeoisie and proletariat), he often referred us to other
types of social classes that were present in England at the time of his study and were active
in the framework of noncapitalist production organizations (landlords, independent
craftsmen, and small farmers). Different types of juridical superstructures corresponded to
these different modes of production. Thus Marx noted for 19th century England,
. . . occasionally in rural districts a labourer is condemned to imprisonment for
desecrating the Sabbath, by working in his front garden. The same labourer is punished
for breach of contract if he remains away from his metal, paper, or glass works on the
Sunday, even if it be from a religious whim [Marx 1967:I, 264, n.11.
The coexistence of several modes of production within a single social formation is not a
phenomenon peculiar to industrial societies. Terray (1972: 136-138, passim) has shown that
the traditional Gouro social formation (Ivory Coast) represented a combination and
articulation of two different modes of production. Hunting, but net-hunting only and not
trapping, of big game, is organized according to mode of production I. Agriculture, fishing,
gathering, house building, trapping of big game, and breeding cattle are the economic
branches in which production is structured according to mode of production 11. The
economic basis of mode I is characterized, socially speaking, by collective ownership of
means of production and egalitarian sharing of products and, technically speaking, by
complex cooperative group labor. Because of this structure of the economic base the only
noticeable superstructural institutions that are required are a huntingparty leadership
(technical exigency) who is chosen according to merit (the result of the egalitarian social
aspect of economic base), and a village, loosely structured, which is brought together into a
single unit for hunting purposes and in time of warfare. Simple cooperation is the main
aspect (in terms of technology) of the economic base of mode 11. Socially speaking, this
economic base is differentiated from that of mode I by the fact that, without technological
necessity, the right of usage of means of production is under the control of older men who
are related through kinship to the producers (male and female in this case). This implies, as a
necessary superstructural apparatus, an ideology of social differentiation through age and
sex. With the lineage system, kinship is shaped and structured in order to fit the
socioeconomic dimension of the economic basis and its technical requirements (transfer of
orphans and individuals and integration of captives in order to correct the imbalance of
natural reproduction between units).
Marcel Mauss (1968), in his essay on the Eskimos, gives further evidence that a primitive
society may represent a combination of several modes of production. His conclusion, similar
to that of Terray in the case of the Gouro, is the result of a careful analysis of the
ethnographic data and certainly not of an intention to illustrate a Marxist thesis. Mauss
demonstrated that the mode of production that is prevalent during the winter season and the
mode which dominates the summer activities correspond respectively to two jural systems,
two codes of ethics, and two types of religious life (1968:470). He goes further than any

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Marxist would go in using expressions such as two successive and alternating civilizations
(1968:470) to characterize the two modes of production that can be found within a single
Eskimo society.
In contrast to the cukural evolutionists who regard societies as a single structure of
interrelated levels, Marx, and approaches like Mausss in this instance, conceive of society as
composed of several primary structures of interrelated levels: i.e., the combination/
articulation of several modes of production. It is essential to point out this difference in
order to comprehend the precise content of Marxs theory of determination by the
economic base.
DETERMINATION OF SUPERSTRUCTURES BY ECONOMIC BASE

Marxs thesis of the determination of the superstructures by the economic base is a

theory of how certain elements of production, ideology, law, political system, education,
etc., are interrelated, and constitute a given mode of production. Necessarily, in a given
society there are institutions which are external, or inconsistent with what is identified as
one of its modes of production. For instance, as in Marxs example mentioned above, in
19th century England it was illegal to work in ones own garden (noncapitalist production)
on the Sabbath, while a capitalist employer had the legal right to compel his employees to
work on Sunday. Thus we can see that desecrating the Sabbath is not a superstructural
element of the capitalist mode of production. Yet, it belonged to the general corpus of laws
of the British social formation of that period.
The concept of determination is used in order to define the articulated hierarchy
(Gliederung) of the levels within a given mode of production (Mam 1970:213; in the
English translation Gliederung is rendered by position). As Marx puts it, the problem is
not to explain a social whole in which all relations of production coexist simultaneously
and support one another by the single logical formula of movements, of sequence of
time (Marx 1963:llO-111). Within a mode of production as a system of levels, Marx
accords a determining power to the economic base. However, this is nothing more than to
state that: (1) from mode to mode the economic bases represent different systems of
relations of production; (2) that superstructural apparatus are required in order to replicate
through time the system of relations of production of each economic base; (3) that the
nature of what has to be replicated for each base (its specific system of relations of
production) determines what type of superstructural apparatus is to be dominant in each
mode (devices to prevent the development of inequalities if an economic base is egalitarian
or means to protect inequalities if what has to be replicated is a class system). In other
words, according to its nature, the economic base determines the dominance of this or that
level for its own replication process.
For example, a sector of agriculture implemented by free peasants and another sector
worked by slaves could coexist in a single society. The tools and techniques used might be
roughly identical in both sectors. But it should be clear that, for instance, chattel slavery
requires special apparatus in order to endure as a system or economic base. For free
peasantry, kinship might be the dominant structuring apparatus, while chattel slavery
supposes the existence of a paramilitary arm controlled by the ruling class. This, however,
does not necessarily prevent kinship from also being one structuring component in the slave
organization of production.
Servile labor in native American cultures, in Asia, or in some African societies, tends to be
readily labeled as slavery; perhaps a name that palliates other deeds of folly and of shame!
Yet, in most cases, it is quite different from that which is habitually implied by the word
slavery-as divergent as feudal servile relationships of production are from the chattel slavery
of Athens or of the ante bellum United States (for bondage in Africa cf. Meillassoux, 1975).

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Those different forms of servile labor, subsumed under the category of slavery, may each
require the dominance of very dissimilar apparatus.
The point is that, servile or not, servile in this way and not in that way, relationships of
production are part of the economic base and thus, that the base determines what type of
component or apparatus is crucial to the replication process of the system of production (cf.
Althusser 1969). According to its characteristics, the economic base entrusts, if one may say
so, this or that apparatus with much greater confidence; the very survival of the base
depends primarily upon the existence of that dominant component. In Das Kapital Marx
gives an enlightening note on his position.
In the estimation o f . . . [a German paper in America that published a review of Marxs
work Zur Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie] my view that each special mode of
production and the social relations corresponding to it, in short, that the economic
structure of society, is the real basis on which the juridical and political superstructure is
raised, and to which definite social forms of thought correspond; that the mode of
production determines the character of the social, political, and intellectual life generally,
all this is very true for our own times, in which material interests preponderate, but not
for the middle ages, in which Catholicism, nor for Athens and Rome, where politics,
reigned supreme. In the first place it strikes one as an odd thing f o r anyone to suppose
that these well-worn phrases about the middle ages and the ancient world are unknown to
anyone else. This much, however, is clear, that the middle ages could not live o n
Catholicism, nor the ancient world on politics. On the contrary, it is the mode in which
they gained a livelihood that explains why here politics, and there Catholicism, played the
chiefpart [Marx1967:I,81, n.1, emphasis added].

In the same footnote, Marx adds that it requires but a slight acquaintance with the history
of the Roman Republic, for example, to be aware that its secret history is the history of its
landed property. Thus the system of relations of production-in this case, the system of
land property-is readily defined by Marx as an integral aspect of the economic base.
When an economic base rests on a relation of exploitation, it is mandatory to arrange for
apparatus that, ultimately, will permit society to resort to organized violence in order to
enforce the reproduction of relations of exploitation; these are what Marxist tradition calls
state apparatus (S.A.). However, violence, with its disrupting effects, is always a last resort.
Parallel t o state apparatus must exist what Althusser (1971: 142) calls ideological state
apparatus (I.S.A.): educational I.S.A., religious I.S.A., communications I.S.A. (T.V., radio,
press, etc.), cultural I.S.A. (leisure, sports, arts, etc.). Each distinct I.S.A. functions
independently of the others. Meanwhile, in their respective autonomy, and at their
respective level and form of intercession, they all aim to educate differentially the diverse
types of agents required for the relation of exploitation (workers, foremen, engineers,
technicians, theoreticians of labor management, etc., in the case of capitalism).
The main function of the ideological state apparatus is to justify the relations of
production, however unjust or unnatural they may be. They educate in such a way
that the outcome is the production of the very types of agents who, depending on each
others specialized knowledge, must work together and thus reproduce the structure of the
economic basis. Yet it must be said that this whole process of differential education is not
without contradiction and discrepancies. In contrast, state apparatus (government, administration, army, police, courts, prisons) operate in more coherent manner. By inducement and
by coercion they reinforce the reproduction of the economic structure when ideological
apparatus have failed in their educational mission.
The above-mentioned I.S.A. are, as a whole, particular to the capitalist mode of
production. In the feudal system, for example, religion, education, and most of literature
and theater, etc., were integrated into a single ideological state apparatus, the Church. The
other ideological state apparatus-the family (which played a far more important role than
within capitalism), the estates general, the parliament, the leagues, the system of free
communes, the merchants and bankers guilds, and the journeymens association-were in

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their functioning more or less dominated by the Church I.S.A. Hence, apparatus such as law,
courts, religion, and educational systems, may very well appear undifferentiated in the
superstructures of other modes of production, and in each case, it is indispensible to break
down the superstructural order into its particular concrete institutions.
In fact, Marx may have been the first social scientist to be aware of this problem. As he
explained at length (1970:205-214), categories like labor, law, production, etc. are fully
valid only within the most modern societies where they express recognized relations. The
fact that these categories apply analytically in societies in which they are not so recognized
leaves the historian and anthropologist with the task of explaining why they are not to be
found as recognized concepts in these other societies.
HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF A MODE OF PRODUCTION: CHANCE AND NECESSITY
Marxs thesis of the determination of the superstructures by the economic base bears only
on the internal relationships between the components of a mode already constituted; it
remains to be outlined how Marx conceives the historical formation of a mode of
production. This can best be done by examining how he analysed the rise of the capitalist
mode of production.
In Das Kapital and the Grundrisse Marx criticizes classical economy which presents
capitalism as the result of savings made before capitalism ever existed. According to the
myth of bourgeois economy some groups are said to have accumulated, through their
personal industry and their personal productivity, enough money to be advanced in the form
of wages and means of production. Once this process was started, accumulation snowballed.
Marx regarded this interpretation as an a posteriori justification. As he insists
(1973:498499, 506-510), the capitalist mode of production requires two main conditions:
monetary capital and, more important, the possibility of hiring workers for wages and,
therefore, the availability of labor to be exploited in this form. If merchants capital had
been the only condition for the development of capitalism, Rome and Byzantium would
have become capitalist (cf. Marx 1973:506, passim). Capitalism was the result of two
independent historical processes that delivered simultaneously the two requisites of capitalist
production to Western Europe and that marked the end of its feudal period. The
presence of a number of free workers was mainly the result of agrarian transformations
from within the feudal mode of production (cf. Marx 1967:I, 717-733). It produced
a mass which was free in a double sense, free from relations o f clientship, bondage and
servitude, and secondly free of all belongings and possessions. . . ; dependent on the sale
of its labor capacity or on begging, vagabondage and robbery as its only source of income
[Marx 1973:507;emphasis added].
On the other hand, accumulated money was the product of activities external to the feudal
mode of production (cf. Marx, 1967:I, 713-716, 742-744, 750-760, 765-774; 1967:III,
323-337, 593-613, 782-813). One has to remember the Churchs opposition to usury and the
fact that the Church was the dominant ideological apparatus within the feudal mode of
production. Usury, merchants capital, developed at the fringe of feudalism. Usury, like
commerce, exploits a given mode of production. It does not create it, but is related to it
outuardly (Marx 1967:III, 609-610, emphasis added).
Merchants capital found an element, dispossessed peasants, given by an external mode of
production (feudalism) which permitted it to form the base of a new mode of production.
As soon as, and wherever, merchants capital found this element, no matter how limited the
scale, at once and wholly, their combination constituted a capitalist mode of production.
However, (and this is not contradictory), for two or three centuries, capitalism did not bring
any significant innovation within the technological level. Capitalists left the producers to
work with the same tools (cf. Marx 1967:III, 332-337, 1973:508-509).

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The original historical forms in which capital appears a t first sporadically or locally,
alongside the old modes [note the plural] of production, while exploding them little by
little everywhere is on one side manufacture proper (not yet the factory). . . . (Marx
1973: 5 10).
Even with manufacture, the process of labor remained skilled labor. Use-values were the
results of assembled serial products, but each serial product itself was the product of a
craftsman. I t was only when machines were introduced (19th century industrial revolution)
that the function of labor power was displaced and that individuals were in a technological
sense dispossessed of the means of labor of society (cf. Althusser and Balibar 1970).
Independent craftsmens production could n o longer compete with most industrial products.
Producers, as individuals, were then separated from socialized production in two ways:
technically and socially (in the capitalist system the major means of production of society is
the property of the capitalist class). This implies that, a t the beginning, the subordination of
labor power to capital was only formal and had to be directly enforced by law and the state.
With his wages, the dispossessed peasant o r craftsman still could have accumulated enough t o
start independent production. Necessary tools were as yet very simple, and his production
would still have been socially worthwhile.
Thus, a t the very dawn of capitalism, there was a need f o r a forceful intervention from
the superstructural level. The capitalist class a t its emergence needed and used the power
of the state to regulate wages and to keep the laborer himself in the normal degree of
dependency. Peasants, who in the 15th century were dragged from their accustomed mode
of life, could not instantly adapt themselves to the discipline and rate of exploitation of
capitalist production. They chose first to become beggars and vagabonds. . . . [they] were
drawn off this road by gallows, stocks and whippings, o n t o the narrow path to the labour
market. . . . (Marx 1973:507).
Hence, at the end of the 15th century and during the whole of the 16th century, the
bloody legislation against vagabondage (Marx 1967:I, 264-277, 734-741)! Under Edward VI,
according to a statute of 1547, all persons had the right to take away the children of
vagabonds and to keep them as apprentices. If they ran away, these children were to become
the slaves of their masters, who could put them in irons. The parents fate was not any
better. From the same statutes, it follows that if any beggar o r vagabond
refuses to work, he shall be condemned as a slave to the person who has denounced him
as an idler. The master shall feed his slave on bread and water, weak broth and such refuse
meat as he thinks fit. He has the right to force him t o do any work, no matter how
disgusting, with whip and chains. If the slave is absent a fortnight, he is condemned to
slavery for life and is to be branded o n forehead o r back with the letter S; if he runs away
thrice, he is to be executed as a felon. The master can sell him, bequeath him, let him out
o n hire as a slave, just as any other personal chattel or cattle. If the slaves attempt
anything against the masters, they are also to be executed. Justices of the peace, on
information, are to hunt the rascals down.. . . Thus were the agricultural people first
forceably expropriated from the soil, driven from their homes, turned into vagabonds,
and then whipped, branded, tortured by law grotesquely terrible, into the discipline
necessary to the wage system [Marx 1967:I,7351.
Yet this is only one extract of one statute. In England, as one example, this legislation was
perfected many times under Elizabeth and James I. Some of these statutes remained legally
binding until the beginning of the 18th century (cf. Marx 1967:734-741, 264-277). Capital
and free workers were not brought together by a natural evolution. They were united
by legislative means.
These methods depend in part o n brute force, e.g., the colonial system. But they all
employ the power of the State, the concentrated and organised force of society, to
hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of
production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force is the midwife
of every society pregnant with a new one. I t is itself an economic power [Marx 1967:1,
7511.

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This is not a recapitulation of Diihrings theses. Engles (1972:176-203) insisted that neither Marx nor himself were treating the role of violence in history as a matter of individual
will. To be socially effective collective violence must rest on an economic base. In France,
the capitalist class had t o resort t o the means of the feudal state through the monarchical
apparatus. As a result of its alliance with the bourgeoisie, from an initial status of primus
inter pares in the Middle Ages, crowned lineages acquired the status of absolute monarchy.
The monarchy provided the bourgeoisie with all the superstructural apparatus it needed in
order t o establish a new way of producing. The monarchy articulated the expropriation of
the peasants by the nobility to the needs of the bourgeois class (for the role of the monarchy
in England, see Marx 1973:506-507). This does not a t all imply that capitalism ineluctably
had t o follow feudalism. There is n o fate in history, only constraints. This, a t least, is Marxs
conclusion of his case study of capitalism (cf. also his Letters to Vera Zassoulitch, March 8,
1881, Marx and Engels 1970:III, 152-161). Marx conceived of the appearance of the
capitalist mode of producing as a find, an historical discovery. The conditions capitalism
required were given by the feudal social formation, but the feudal mode of production alone
could not have led t o capitalism. Once the required elements for the new structure were
found, they were put together by force. We make our history ourselves, but, in the first
place, under very definite assumptions and conditions (Engels to Bloch, September 21,
1890, Marx and Engels 1970:III, 487, emphasis added).
A new mode of production can be organized as soon as the social preconditions it
requires exist, and then new developments may occur in the technology of production on
the basis of what the new social order renders feasible (cf. Mam 1967:I, 761-764). It is not
Marx who is wedded t o the thesis that evolutionary changes are essentially responses to
initial changes in the mode of exploitation or the subsistence activities, but cultural
evolutionists. Marvin Harris presentation (1968:217-249) of Marxs work as a contribution
to cultural evolutionism is quite revealing. It is an unfortunate paradox because Harris is one
of the few American cultural evolutionists, if not the only one, who has explicitly defended
the relevance of Marxs work, and this, in a hostile political and cultural environment.
Harris regards as confusing the fact that in Marxs analysis the transition t o capitalism is
supposed to occur as a result of the organisation of the craft and merchant guilds, and the
transformation of feudalism into capitalism is not related t o changes in the technology of
production (1968:232-233). This leads him, then, to express a disinterest in the attempt t o
find out precisely what Marx and Engels intended by the phrase mode of production
(1968: 233). Consequently, Harris recommends that for theoretical purposes Marxs peculiar
analysis of capitalism be set aside and that we focus on the Preface t o the Critique of
Political Economy which is not committed to the explanation of any sociocultural type, but
sets forth general Marxist principles. From this text he summarizes Marxs position as
follows:
The major ingredients in . . . [Marx and Engels law of cultural evolution] in retrospect
may be seen as: (1) the trisection of sociocultural systems into techno-economic base,
social organization, and ideology; ( 2 ) the explanation of ideology and social organization
as adaptive responses to techno-economic conditions; (3) the formulation of a
functionalist model providing for interactive effects between all parts of the system; ( 4 )
the provision for analysis of both system-maintaining the system-destroying variables;
and, (5) the pre-eminence of culture over race [Harris 1968:240].
Though this is a secondary point, it must be stated that Harris is not correct in writing
that for Marx the transition to capitalism is supposed to occur as a result of the organization
of craft and merchants guilds. For Marx,
Manufacture seized hold initially not of the so-called urban trades, but of the rural
secondary occupations, spinning and weaving, the two which least requires guild-level
skills, technical training. [Manufacture] takes u p its first residence not in the cities, b u t
on the land, in villages lacking guilds, etc. The rural subsidiary occupations have the broad

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basis (characteristic) of manufactures, while the urban trades demand great progress in
production before they can be conducted in factory style [Marx 1973:511].
A most crucial problem is Harris summary of Marxs law of cultural evolution. This
law provides for only two possible types of explanation of evolutionary processes: (1)
from within, transformation of a system into another as a result of the system-destroying
variables; (2) adaptation of ideology and social organization in response to techno-economic
changes. The system-destroying variables explanation is the familiar interpretation of
evolutionary change according to which the techno-economic base of culture changes more
rapidly than its social organization and ideology. This brings about a disconformity between
the two, leading to a violent collapse of the whole system and t o the constitution of a new
system by readjustive functional changes. Although this is only implicit in Harris formula, it
is made clear in his section on Marxist diachronic causal functionalism (Harris
1968:235-236), and is rendered evident by his distress a t Marxs failure to relate the rise of
capitalism to changes in the technology of production (1968: 232-233).
For Marx, however, we have seen that cultural evolution cannot be viewed in terms of a
self-transformation of one mode of production into another one. The internally destructive
contradictions of a mode o f production cannot transform the mode into another one. They
can only lead t o its disintegration. Marx is very clear on this question, in the preparatory
texts t o Das Kopital and in Capital. After a description of the process of the dispossession of
the peasants during the feudal period, he concludes:
These are, now, o n one side, historic presuppositions needed before the worker can be
found as a free worker, as objectless, purely subjective labour capacity confronting the
objective conditions of production as his not-property, as alien property, as value for
itself, as capital. But the question arises, on the other side, which conditions are required
so that he finds himself u p against a capital [Marx 1973:493]?
[On the other hand Merchants capital] is incapable by itself of promoting and explaining
the transition from one mode of production to another (Marx 1967:III, 327).
Under Asian forms, usury can continue a long time, without producing anything more
than economic decay and political corruption. Only where and when the other
prerequisites of capitalist production are present does usury become one of the means
assisting in the establishment of a new mode of production.. . . [Marx 1967:III, 597;
emphasis added].
The same point is made over and over (cf. Marx 1973:506-507, 1967:I, 713-716, 742-743,
1967:III, 325-327).
I t is perfectly true that the Preface to the Critique o f Political Economy supports
Harris formula. But this holds only if the rest of Marxs work is brushed aside-a fact of
which Harris is aware, and about which he is fully explicit (Harris 1968:241). His procedure
is debatable, however. The Critique o f Political Economy and its Preface were a mere
curtain-raiser to Marxs main work, Das Kapital: Kritik der Politischen Oeconomie. The
Critique of Political Economy, published in 1859, was presented by Marx as the first section
of the first book of a larger study. But this first section was published unfinished. At the
end, Marx announced a third chapter that would conclude it (1970:187, n. 1). The project
was never achieved under this planned form. Instead, Marx wrote Das Kapital in which
Kritik der Politischen Oeconornie became a mere subtitle and was even deleted from the
French translation, entirely revised by him (1872-75).
The Critique was entirely rewritten and most of its content embodied in Das Kapital in
the first ~ h a p t e r .The
~ famous 1859 Preface, where Marx had defined the dialectic of
the correspondence and non-correspondence between the productive forces and the
relations of production, had been explicitly presented by him as the results of his critical
re-examination of Hegels Philosophy o f Low (Marx 1970: 20). This profoundly Hegelianevolutionist Preface did not reappear in Capital, neither in form nor in content, despite

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the initial importance that Marx had attached to it in 1859. This reminder is necessary in
order to delineate where the Preface stands in Marxs work.
The trouble with Harris procedure is not that he decided in favor of a text which is
Hegelian. The problem is simpler: should the glitter, the rapid formula, and the bold strokes
of a 68-line text on evolution prevail over the results of an exhaustive analysis of data (Dus
Kapitul and its preparatory manuscripts)?
CONCLUSION

Marxs analysis indicates that in the case of capitalism, the constitution of a new mode of
production-or world stage of evolution-was the result of two unrelated phenomena
(todays Marxist historians would say: of at least two unrelated phenomena; cf. Vidal
1956): monetary capital and expropriation of peasants. Their synthesis, which was the
basis of the new mode, was achieved thanks to the most brutal violence. There was no
technological imperative. It does indicate that there may be no technological necessity in
cultural evolution. Technological or population growth may have been as much the upshot
of innovation in the social order as the result of unconscious or natural processes (cf.
Cowgill 1975; Legros 1976). For instance, in the early Middle Ages low population, low
production, and low consumption were a vicious cycle. Not without reason, monks tended
to postulate a dense rural population as a prime mover (cf. Lopez 1971: 27, 30).
At the same time, Marxs analysis provides the concepts that render possible the
formulation of why, and in what respect, each society has to be treated as an irreducible
specificity (a rediscovery of Boas cultural relativism; relativism for which Boas
unfortunately provided no theory). From the Marxist point of view, one can explain, for
example, why France, Germany, and England are each unique social formations despite the
fact that all three are dominated by the capitalist mode of production. One identical mode
can be present and dominant in different social formations but in each case may be
respectively articulated with other modes, or may be placed in a different type of
relationship to them. In this example the three social formations must be considered with
their particular zones of influence, colonies, neocolonies, and internal underdeveloped
or backward provinces.
As a result, a given mode of production can never appear in a pure form. In its concrete
actuality, it is always altered, adapted to the exigencies or constraints of the social
environment where it functions. From society to society the same mode of production-the
same from the standpoint of its basic structure-may show numerous variations in
appearance which can be ascertained solely by analysis of the empirically given circumstances (cf. Marx 1967:III, 791-792). Hence, it is essential to realize that the mode of
production is, in itself, an abstract object. An understanding of it, as such, is nevertheless
necessary in order to analyze its concrete effects in a given social formation.
To unravel the nodal structure of an empirically distinct type of organization, which
appears under various altered forms, is to construct the theory of a given mode of
production. For example, the presence of a potlatch complex in several societies may
indicate the existence of one particular mode which crosscuts these societies. A contrasted
analysis of the variations in appearance can be made in order to ascertain what is essential
and what is secondary to the structure; what is the general type (Idealer Durchschnitt or
Allgemeiner Typus) and what is local coloration. The same variations in appearance
may also be analyzed in terms of what causes them. Thus, they can serve as guides in the
elucidation of what are the modes of production which, in each society, modify in a specific
form the mode of production under study. (Of course, this does not deal with every aspect
of Marxs methodology.)
Our knowledge of the modes of production that marked human history is indeed small.

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Marx produced the theory of the capitalist mode of production, but his concept of an
Asiatic mode of production seems to have been a scientific faux pas (cf. Godelier 1973;
Silverberg and Silverberg 1975). Brunners papers on the feudal mode of production (1894)
and Blochs two volumes (1960) still offer the best constructs for this mode.
Incidentally, it is interesting to note that technology did not play a seminal role in the
rise of feudalism-no more than it did with capitalism! Certainly, historians have insisted
upon the importance of the discovery of the stirrup (cf. Lynn White 1964); but it is not a
disconformity between this technological innovation and the old social order which
produced an abrupt transformation of part of the society into a feudal structure. Put simply,
for some historians, what led to this social innovation were politico-military decisions of
Martel, Carloman, and Pepin to put the stirrup into use and to transform their armies into
armies of mounted fighters. As the expenses of maintaining large number of war-horses were
great, the ancient custom of swearing allegiance to a leader (vassalage) was fused with the
granting of an estate (benefice), and the result was feudalism (Lynn White 1964:5). In
order to endow their cavalry, Martel and his immediate successors simply distributed vast
tracts of land forcefully seized from the Church. In truth, the rise of feudalism has been far
more complex than what one may summarize in a few lines. But once again, we should note,
violence came from authorities in power making history themselves under very definite
conditions. Without these political decisions, the stirrup would be classed for what it is: a
minor discovery which renders horseback riding more stable by giving lateral support in
addition t o the front and back support offered by pommel and cantle. While the stirrup has
been discovered or rediscovered by other peoples, feudalism has been essentially a European
find.
In addition t o capitalism and feudalism, our knowledge includes only partial elements of
theory: Terray (1972), Rey (1971, 1973), Meillassoux (1964), and Sahlins (1960b) on a
lineage mode; Mauss (1968) on two unnamed modes among the Eskimos; Sahlins (1972) on
one domestic mode of production, etc. Many economic types of organization have been
empirically discerned by anthropologists, but our work by and large has remained at the
stage of monographic description and classification. None of the societies of which we know
can be regarded as primitive in the sense of being the primeval type of human society.
Rather, they are products of long processes of transformations and we may anticipate that
vestiges of past stages stain their respective cores.
Thus, t o provide the abstract construct of each type of organization that has been
discerned may prove to be as complicated an endeavor as Marxs analysis of capitalism. No
doubt some of our present categories will reveal themselves as having been mere mirages, as
Fried (1975) suggested for the so-called tribal mode of production. A critical examination of
our vague empirical categories (foraging economy, redistributive system, tribe, etc.) is a
necessary step toward defining the different preindustrial modes of production. General
evolution can be elucidated only if the fundamental requisites of each mode of production
have been ascertained; for t o find the origins of a mode of production X is to discover or
to reconstruct the historical occurrences in which the requisites of X appeared together a t
the same time.
The concept of mode of production, in the theoretical framework in which Marx uses it,
constitutes a discriminating criterion for a science of history. It allows us t o construct an
evolutionary sequence in terms of a succession of modes of production, but renders
purposeless the classification of societies in terms of general evolution. With Marxism, what
is a t stake is not a classification of societies, but an understanding of the specificity of each
actual concrete society as a unique synthesis of heterogeneous modes of production. In one
social formation, certain modes would necessarily have to be classified into one level of
evolution and others into another. This constitutes a reversal of cultural evolutionism.
Marxism certainly offers fewer definitive answers than cultural evolutionism does. It is, in

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MARXISM AND CULTURAL EVOLUTIONISM

39

fact, closer to the modern conception of biological evolution in which the concept of chance
has become as crucial as the concept of necessity (cf. Monod 1971).
I use the word chance deliberately for its connotation, although its ideological weight
is certainly not sufficient to counterbalance the mechanist interpretation to which Marxs
work has been subjected. Yet, as Piaget pointed out (1971:30-31)in relation to Monods
work, chance as such is not explanatory. Using Waddingtons models and those for which
Monod received his Nobel prize, Piaget indicates how Monod could have elaborated further
on the content and the signification of chance in biological evolution. My point is that with
Marxism, we are far from having means of this nature to substantiate what is chance in
history. Nonetheless, one of the interests of M a d s work as compared to the theoretical
framework of cultural evolutionism, is that it provides the concepts that allow one to
delineate and to set forward the very problem of an historical chance.
NOTES

Acknowledgments. This is a revised version of a paper presented in the symposium, The

Mode of Production: Method and Theory, a t the 141st Annual Meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, New York, 26-31 January, 1975.
I wish t o express my gratitude to those who have encouraged me, criticised me, and
advised me in the course of this work: David F. Aberle, David Feingold, Marvin Harris,
Edmund R. Leach, Michael D. Lieber, Margaret MacKenzie, Judith R. Shapiro, James
Silverberg, Paul M. Sweezy, and Eric R. Wolf. Also my thanks go t o Cheryl Leif and Betsy
Traube, who were more than patient in convincing me that my English was merely awful
rather than idiosyncratic. Marvin Harris strong criticisms stimulated me to formulate my
disagreements more clearly in those areas where our positions diverge. For example, his
objections to my use of a category such as chance (which can or could have been interpreted
as a bourgeois historical relativism) prompted me t o clarify the actual issues involved in
the last paragraph of the present version of the paper.
Readers familiar with Marxist epistemology will recognize my indebtedness to the
pioneering work of Louis Althusser and his students.
In this paper my intention is only to delineate the place and function of the concept of
mode of production in Marxs theory of society and evolution. I d o not attempt at all to
offer a formal definition of the concept. This definition can be found in Althusser and
Balibar (1970); Terray (1972) and Rey (1971) give examples of how this concept may be
used in the context of noncapitalist production structures.
To premise that different modes may coexist in one society together with their
respective superstructures entails neither that it must always be so, nor that a t one given
time a social formation might not be made of only elements of several modes of production.
At times of transition, some modes may remain more or less intact while others may be
represented solely by one or a few of their components. Modes of production often exist
only in altered forms. This being so a cross-societal comparative work is almost always
deemed necessary in order to produce the abstract concept of a given mode. In one society,
the ideological component of the mode may have been conserved and in another it may
survive only in the form of its economic features (for further details cf. Legros and Copans
1976).

Later, in 1873, in the Afterword to the second edition of Capital, Marx admitted that
this chapter was not entirely clear, recognizing that he had coquetted with the modes of
expression peculiar t o [Hegel]. His intention had been t o have openly avowed [himself]
the pupil of that mighty thinker who was treated as a dead dog by cultured Germany
at the period Marx was writing (Marx 1967:I, 12, 19-20).
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Submitted 22 July 1975
Revision submitted 1 7 December 1975
Accepted 9 July 1976
Final revisions received 8 October 1976