Jairus Banaji's own findings prove the tributary mode is flawed

 

Jairus Banaji is a proponent of the tributary mode. He also follows Perry Anderson’s criticism of the asiatic mode of production. As you may remember, Perry Anderson finds documents in ancient Chinese archives, where accounting documents show the word “private property” or “propietors”. From this, Anderson concludes that private property existed in pre-capitalist China, and that the asiatic mode of production is flawed. But Marx knew that the words “private property” appeared in ancient hindu accounting documents and books in India (this mentioned in his Ethnological Notebooks). Anderson, in reality, confirms the opposite of what he looks for: he mentions that the private property he found, was familiar instead of individual. And this is the crux of the subject: if property was familiar and based on ethnic and extended family forms of property, then this is a first confirmation of the asiatic mode of production; secondly: it means property cannot be alienated, nor sold nor bought, unless there’s permission by the state, or his village and tribal representatives on terrain. This confirms the difference made by Marx and Engels when discussing the asiatic mode of production: there’s private property, yes, just like Marx in his Ethnological Notebooks knew very well that there were private property in ancient India documents. But their difference is between private property and modern, individual and capitalistic property. Anderson confirms all of this, unknowingly. Third and finally: this means this property is actually the tension between possession and property, and that the land is owned by the crown, since alienation of land is regulated by the king, and of course, because he exploits land-rent, not “tributes”. This is falling for the worst of bachofenian analysis: just the appearance of the category or word in the documents, is taken for the real relationship on the ground. And Banaji does the same: his Theory as history details how land property in the Bizantine Empire is held collectively by the extended family, without permission to alienate if not granted by the royal state (as royal land), etc. There is a serious methodological issue here: a whole mode of production is being dismissed on the grounds of a word on a document, even though the first, second and third characteristics we just mentioned, all describe with perfection the asiatic mode of production and Godelier’s reading (not Wittfogels’). This is serious because there’s no analysis of modes of production nor accumulation in Anderson’s criticism of the asiatic mode of production, nor why is it that all the characteristics found on the ground when you investigate economic history and the likes, all point to characteristics which are part of the asiatic mode of production. There’s no investigation of the economic history of Africa or Asia, nor there’s any proposal to substitute the asiatic mode of production for any other mode of production analysis, etc.  There’s only the finding of one single term on a document. This is really weak, in terms of establishing positively: what mode of production existed instead of the asiatic mode of production? Anderson wouldn’t be able to respond, since he doesn’t analyses modes of production, he just finds “evidence” which, in fact, confirms the opposite. And on top of that: why is it that one single word should substitute the fact that both Anderson’s and Banaji’s work all present the traits already mentioned, which are part of the asiatic mode.