V
To return to the Grundrisse. A little later, Marx significantly extends the argument I have traced thus far, telling us that slavery and serfdom are . . . only further developments of the form of property resting on the clan system' (1858a: 493). The analysis of property developed here, then, would seem to apply to all the non-capitalist ‘epochs in the economic formation of society’ - Asiatic, ancient, feudal - delineated in the 1859 Preface: a very wide historical compass indeed. With that in mind, we may turn to the second substantive analysis of property/production relations in Marx I wish to discuss, that of feudalism. His fullest treatment of the topic is in Capital III, where he raises it in the context of an inquiry into the origins of capitalist ground-rent.
As with the section of the Grundrisse we have just been examining, Marx's underlying concern in this text is with what distinguishes capitalist forms of landed property, so he focuses on feudal forms mainly for their contrasts with capitalism rather than for their own sake. The major contrast he draws is this. Unlike in capitalism, where labourers are separated from the means of production, in feudal society the direct producer . . . is to be found . . . in possession of his own means of production, the necessary material labour conditions required for the realisation of his labour and the production of his means of subsistence' (1865a: 790). This difference has an important implication for the mechanism of exploitation - the transfer of surplus labour or its products to the ruling class – in the two societies. We should remember, in discussing this, that this mechanism is absolutely crucial to Marx in characterizing a mode of production:
The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby simultaneousiy its specific political form. It is always the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers ... which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure. (ibid.: 791)10
In capitalism, economic' pressure11 alone suffices to ensure that the worker produces surplus for the capitalist. Given the labourer's lack of means of production, the only conditions under which he can produce his subsistence at all – selling his labour-power for a wage - are ones which entail the performance of unpaid surplus-labour. But in feudalism, things are different. From a purely economic' viewpoint the peasant can produce his subsistence, on the land, and with the animals, tools, and so on, which he possesses, without having in the very process to produce surplus for his lord. Since feudal lords none the less manifestly do extract surplus-labour, and feudal society would not be what it was if they did not, Marx is led to draw the following conclusion:
70
RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION
RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION
71