Amin-Class and Nations

The structure of the book according to the table of contents is as follows:

• Introduction (Page vii)
• Chapter 1: Classes, Nations, and the State in Historical Materialism (Page 1)
• Chapter 2: Communal Formations (Page 36)
• Chapter 3: Tributary Formations (Page 46)
• Chapter 4: Unequal Development in the Capitalist Transition and in the Bourgeois Revolution (Page 71)
• Chapter 5: Unequal Development in the Capitalist Centers (Page 104)
• Chapter 6: Center and Periphery in the Capitalist System: The National Question Today (Page 131)
• Chapter 7: National Liberation and the Socialist Transition: Is the Bourgeoisie Still a Rising Class? (Page 182)
• Chapter 8: The Theory of Imperialism and the Contemporary Crisis (Page 225)
• Conclusion: Revolution or Decadence? Thoughts on the Transition from One Mode of Production to Another (Page 249)
• References (Page 257)
• Index (Page 283)

The book has a total of 293 pages.

The book describes several characteristics of tributary formations:

1. Dominance of Use Value: The tributary mode is based on use value rather than exchange value. This is reflected in the dominance of self-subsistence and the absence of a generalized market in the means of production (land and labor power).

2. Class Struggle: The class struggle in the tributary mode is a significant aspect. The exploited class generally struggles not for the total elimination of exploitation but for its maintenance within the "reasonable" limits necessary for the reproduction of economic life. This struggle can lead to the transcendence of this mode in accord with the objective necessities of the development of the productive forces.

3. Stability and Stagnation: The tributary mode has an appearance of stability and even stagnation, a characteristic common to all tributary formations. This is a false appearance deriving from the contrast with capitalism, which is based on exchange value and has a basic internal law of competition and accumulation.

4. Forms of Property: The forms of property in the tributary mode enable the dominant class to control access to the land and extract tribute from the peasant producers. The extraction of this tribute is controlled by the dominance of ideology, which always takes the form of state religion or quasi-religion.

5. External Policy: The class struggle within the tributary mode also explains, at least in part, the external policy of the tributary class. This class seeks to compensate for what it loses inside the society it exploits by an expansionist policy aimed at subjugating other peoples and replacing their exploiting classes.

6. Feudalism: The book describes feudalism as a primitive, incomplete tributary mode. Feudal property is not radically different from tributary property, but rather a primitive form of tributary property, resulting from the weak and decentralized character of political power.

7. Exchange and Circulation: In tributary formations, exchange generally operates in accordance with neoclassical value theory (comparative advantage) rather than with the law of value which applies to a different form, to capitalism. This reflects the dominance of use values in precapitalist modes.

The book describes several characteristics of communal formations:

1. Dominance of Kinship: In societies in the process of class formation, the dominance of kinship is a significant aspect. The low level of development of the productive forces necessitates forms of cooperation within the village collective and between villages, which are the material key to understanding the function of family, lineage, clan, and tribal organizations.

2. Communal Ownership: The basic common characteristic of these societies is the communal ownership of the primary means of production, the land. Communal ownership is organized in a great variety of specific ways, in which individual, family, lineage, and other uses are combined.

3. Transition to Class Society: Anthropology tends to forget that it is about the transition to class society. The lineage, clan, and tribal organizations are themselves obstacles to the further development of these forces, obstacles which cannot be overcome except through state tributary organization.

4. Settled Agriculture: An initial development of the productive forces is necessary for class formation to begin. This corresponds to the transition to settled agriculture. Agricultural land is a means of labor and not an object of labor.

5. Oppression of Women: The oppression of women is a permanent feature of history. However, this oppression never exists in an isolated manner, which proves that it does not have the status of a mode of production in the true meaning of the term.

6. Variety of Organizations: At this stage of human evolution, ecological, demographic, and other conditions bring into being a great variety of organizations. However, this variety is created not by the level of the productive forces (which is everywhere very low) but by the relations of production and juridical and political relations.

7. Dominance of the Noneconomic Realm: In societies in the process of class formation, the dominance of the noneconomic realm is significant. The dominant ideology is one conveyed and imposed by the major absolute institutions, whether religious or civil.

The book describes several characteristics of unequal development in the capitalist transition and in the bourgeois revolution:

1. Different Capitalist Roads: Marx and Lenin believed that there were different roads of capitalist development and that these were related to class struggles and to hegemonic class blocs. The French road was different from the Prussian road, for instance.

2. Unequal Development in Different Stages: The analysis of unequal development can be enhanced by the method of comparative history. However, it is important not to lose sight of the period in which particular developments take place. Thus, unequal developments in the beginning of capitalism, in the mercantilist era, in the preimperialist period of industrial capitalism, and in the imperialist period have neither the same meaning nor the same perspective.

3. Feudal Europe: Feudal Europe was not a homogeneous entity. Its regional social formations were of qualitatively different kinds and played different, unequal roles in their interrelationship. For these formations interacted and constituted a true whole, which because of its dominant feudal nature we are justified in calling global.

4. Class Struggle: The central pivot of the analysis is the class struggle among the three elements of the society—feudal lords, peasants, and bourgeois— and the interrelation of these struggles with the evolution of the state.

5. National Question: The national question developed gradually in the course of this unequal development out of the capitalist transition and the bourgeois revolution. During this process nations in the modern sense of the term appeared only in the centers that bourgeois revolutions had made complete: England and France. For the rest of Europe, the national question was not yet settled at the dawn of the nineteenth century. It was gradually settled during the particular process of unequal development.

The book describes several characteristics of unequal development in the capitalist centers:

1. Regional Inequalities: Internally (within a national or multinational state) they took the form of regional inequalities, which sometimes coincided with national conflicts. Internationally they took the form of unequal paces in the accumulation of capital from one country to the other within the group of central capitalist formation on a world scale.

2. General Character of Unequal Development: The absolutely general character of unequal development can lead to confusion. If the analysis is too vague, if it equates all manifestations of unequal development regardless of context (inequality between center and periphery, or between centers, or within a center) and reasons by analogy, it will miss the particular features of each case.

3. National Question and Emergence of Central Capitalist Formations: In 1848, there were only three nation-states constituting central capitalist formations. During the following three-quarters of a century and until the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, capitalism was not in jeopardy. Although violent struggles rocked and transformed Europe, they were all national struggles.

4. Break and Emergence of Central Capitalist Nations: The break represented by the emergence of central capitalist nations during the eighteenth century is so important that 1800 marks the decisive turning point of universal history, the birth date of universal history.

5. Unequal Development Prior to the Establishment of the Capitalist System: The nature of unequal development prior to the establishment of the capitalist system— notably in the transition to feudalism, in feudal expansion, in the mercantilist transition, and finally in the bourgeois revolution— is different from the kind of unequal development familiar to us in the imperialist era of capitalism. The universality of unequal development does not mean that we can derive a few simple laws according to which history eternally repeats itself. Center and periphery, complete and incomplete are concepts different in content and plane from one period to another.

The book describes several characteristics of the center and periphery in the capitalist system, particularly in relation to the national question today:

1. Unequal International Division of Labor: The unequal international division of labor forms the material base of the contemporary imperialist system. This division reveals a fundamental difference between the autocentered model of accumulation and that which characterizes the peripheral capitalist system, thereby disproving all linear theories of stages of development.

2. Impossibility of Autonomous Capitalism in the Periphery: Complete, autonomous capitalism is impossible in the periphery. The socialist break is objectively necessary there. In this very specific sense, the national liberation movement is a moment in the socialist transformation of the world and not a stage in the development of capitalism on a world scale.

3. Concepts of Center and Periphery: The concepts of center and periphery, basic to the analysis but rejected by all proimperialist currents within Marxism, were introduced by Lenin in direct relation to his analysis of the imperialist system.

4. Determining Relation in an Autocentered Capitalist System: The determining relation in an autocentered capitalist system is between the sector producing mass consumer goods and the sector producing capital goods. This relation effectively characterized the historical development of capitalism in the center of the system (in Europe, North America, and Japan).

5. Transfer of the National Question: The national question, which in the nineteenth century was primarily that of oppressed European nations, was transferred in the twentieth century to Asia and Africa, where it became the colonial question. This was not only a geographical transfer. As a correlate of the formation of the imperialist system, it implied a change in the very nature of the national question.

6. Anti-Imperialist Character of the New National Question: The principal axis of the new national question is thus defined by its anti-imperialist character. The goal of what follows is not to take up those general controversies concerning the nature of imperialism, the meaning and perspectives of the national liberation movement, and so on, and to restate theses I have already put forward in these areas. I am only going to define the nature of the nations oppressed by imperialism, their particular characteristics.

The book describes several characteristics of national liberation and the socialist transition, and whether the bourgeoisie is still a rising class:

1. Fundamental Question: The fundamental question of our time is whether the bourgeoisie is still a rising class. The determining manifestations of this could be the continued development of the productive forces in the hegemonic imperialist centers and its leading role on the world scale in shaping societies in all their aspects.

2. Emergence of Capitalist Forms: The extraordinary development of capitalism in the regions of Latin America, Asia, and Africa that up to the present have only barely been touched by it, or the emergence (or reemergence) of neocapitalist (or simply capitalist) forms in regions which had broken with capitalism to begin a socialist transition.

3. Crisis of Capitalism: If the bourgeoisie is no longer a rising class, the determining manifestations of the crisis of capitalism could be the reevaluation of the civilization of the advanced centers, together with a crisis of values and the emergence of a new consciousness of self-management.

4. National Liberation Struggle: The national liberation struggle has been the motive force of contemporary history. This resistance and these struggles have developed not in a linear fashion but through a process of victories and defeats, whether led by the proletariat or the bourgeoisie.

5. Ambivalent and Contradictory Nature: The ambivalent and contradictory nature of the national liberation movement, and of the socialist transition. The continued existence of the state during the transition testifies to the continued existence of classes, based on the continued existence of commodity relations.

6. Continued Existence of the State: The continued existence of the state during the transition testifies to the continued existence of classes, based on the continued existence of commodity relations. This deals not with vestiges of old classes but above all with the new, rising class—whether we call it a bourgeoisie or something else.

The book describes several characteristics of the theory of imperialism and the contemporary crisis:

1. Synonymous with Capital Accumulation: The theory of imperialism is synonymous with the theory of capital accumulation on a world scale, the articulation of various modes of extortion of surplus labor based on the specific modalities of unequal development in our era.

2. Law of Value: The fundamental law that governs accumulation on a world scale is the expression of the law of value operating on the scale of the imperialist system as a whole. To get to the root of the problem of imperialism, we must go back to the law of value.

3. Exhaustion of Accumulation Potential: The current crisis reveals the decisive nature of the contradictions at this level. The primary obstacle to the reestablishment of the global circulation of capital lies in the exhaustion of the potential for accumulation based on the division of labor which undergirded industrialization based on import substitution.

4. Contradiction between State and Monopolies: The analysis starts from the contradiction between the state and the monopolies, as reflecting class contradictions within national societies both in the center and on the periphery.

5. Significance of Contemporary Hierarchy of Imperialisms: The definition of the evolving relation between the state and capital provides the appropriate framework for an analysis of the significance of the contemporary hierarchy of imperialisms and of the current question of Europe.

6. Underestimation of Imperialist Dimension: The systematic underestimation, when it is not pure and simple omission, of the imperialist dimension of capitalism is rendering the workers' and socialist movement impotent. This impotence is verbally compensated for by the ouvrierist position.

7. Inability to Grasp Nature of Conflicts: The impotence of the ouvrierist position is manifest in its inability to grasp the nature of conflicts on a world scale. Because it reduces the confrontation between capitalism and socialism to a direct class conflict between capital and labor in the center of the system, it cannot grasp the significance and nature of the national liberation movement in the periphery and the significance and nature of the East-West contradiction and of its effects on Western society.

The conclusion of the book, titled "Revolution or Decadence? Thoughts on the Transition from One Mode of Production to Another", discusses the nature of transitions between different modes of production, particularly focusing on the transition to socialism. Here are the main points:

1. Workers' and Socialist Movement: The workers' and socialist movement has traditionally envisioned a series of revolutions beginning in the advanced capitalist countries. However, in the past seventy-five years, the transformation of the world has taken different paths, with socialist revolutions being limited to the periphery of the system.

2. Decadence or Revolution: The author proposes to distinguish between two qualitatively different types of transition from one mode to another. When the transition is made unconsciously or by an alienated consciousness, it appears to be operating like a natural change, for which the term “model of decadence” is applied. On the other hand, if the ideology expresses the total and real dimension of the desired change, it can be termed as revolution.

3. Parasitical Character of Central Society: The parasitical character of the central society intensifies. In Rome, imperial tribute corrupted the plebeians and paralyzed their revolt. In the societies of the imperialist center, a growing portion of the population benefits from unproductive employment and from privileged positions, both concentrated there by the effects of the unequal international division of labor.

4. Introduction of New Relations of Production: The introduction of new relations of production seems easier in the periphery than in the center of the system. In the Roman Empire, feudal relations took hold rapidly in Gaul and Germany, but only slowly in Italy and the East.

5. Mechanistic Reduction of Social Change: The vulgar Marxist tradition has effected a mechanistic reduction of the dialectic of social change. The revolution, the objective content of which is the abolition of old relations of production and the introduction of new ones, is not a purely economic process. If it were, society would always be alienated and liberation would be impossible.

6. Socialist Revolution: The socialist revolution in which our era is engaged could be of the decadent or the revolutionary type. The Paris Commune, the revolutions in Russia and China (and particularly the cultural revolution) have been moments of intense de-alienated social consciousness. However, the difficulties which make the disengagement of the imperialist countries nearly inconceivable today and the negative impact of this on the peripheral countries following the socialist road call into question the old Bolshevik model.

Sure, here are the titles of the characteristics for each part we discussed:

1. Characteristics of Tributary Formations
2. Characteristics of Communal Formations
3. Characteristics of Unequal Development in the Capitalist Transition and in the Bourgeois Revolution
4. Characteristics of Unequal Development in the Capitalist Centers
5. Characteristics of Center and Periphery in the Capitalist System: The National Question Today
6. Characteristics of National Liberation and the Socialist Transition: Is the Bourgeoisie Still a Rising Class?
7. Characteristics of The Theory of Imperialism and the Contemporary Crisis
8. Conclusion: Revolution or Decadence? Thoughts on the Transition from One Mode of Production to Another

Sure, here are the titles of the characteristics for each part we discussed:

1. Tributary Formations

   • Dominance of Use Value
   • Class Struggle
   • Stability and Stagnation
   • Forms of Property
   • External Policy
   • Feudalism
   • Exchange and Circulation

2. Communal Formations

   • Dominance of Kinship
   • Communal Ownership
   • Transition to Class Society
   • Settled Agriculture
   • Oppression of Women
   • Variety of Organizations
   • Dominance of the Noneconomic Realm

3. Unequal Development in the Capitalist Transition and in the Bourgeois Revolution

   • Different Capitalist Roads
   • Unequal Development in Different Stages
   • Feudal Europe
   • Class Struggle
   • National Question

4. Unequal Development in the Capitalist Centers

   • Regional Inequalities
   • General Character of Unequal Development
   • National Question and Emergence of Central Capitalist Formations
   • Break and Emergence of Central Capitalist Nations
   • Unequal Development Prior to the Establishment of the Capitalist System

5. Center and Periphery in the Capitalist System: The National Question Today

   • Unequal International Division of Labor
   • Impossibility of Autonomous Capitalism in the Periphery
   • Concepts of Center and Periphery
   • Determining Relation in an Autocentered Capitalist System
   • Transfer of the National Question
   • Anti-Imperialist Character of the New National Question

6. National Liberation and the Socialist Transition: Is the Bourgeoisie Still a Rising Class?

   • Fundamental Question
   • Emergence of Capitalist Forms
   • Crisis of Capitalism
   • National Liberation Struggle
   • Ambivalent and Contradictory Nature
   • Continued Existence of the State

7. The Theory of Imperialism and the Contemporary Crisis

   • Synonymous with Capital Accumulation
   • Law of Value
   • Exhaustion of Accumulation Potential
   • Contradiction between State and Monopolies
   • Significance of Contemporary Hierarchy of Imperialisms
   • Underestimation of Imperialist Dimension
   • Inability to Grasp Nature of Conflicts

8. Conclusion: Revolution or Decadence? Thoughts on the Transition from One Mode of Production to Another

   • Workers' and Socialist Movement
   • Decadence or Revolution
   • Parasitical Character of Central Society
   • Introduction of New Relations of Production
   • Mechanistic Reduction of Social Change
   • Socialist Revolution