The Historical Foundations of a Feudal Mode of Production

Abstract

In one   sense at least the very concept of a Feudal Mode of Production is entirely   fictive. For Marx the Feudal Mode of production was interesting and worthy of   study primarily as a dialectical antithesis to the consuming passion of his   life: the Capitalist Mode of Production. Marx himself never anywhere   attempted a systematic exploration of either the philosophical logic or the   historical foundations of the Feudal Mode of Production. Marxist scholars   interested in pre-capitalist modes of production writing during the last   hundred years or so have attempted to elucidate the characteristics of the   Feudal Mode of Production as sketchily outlined by Marx, but in most cases,   at least in the European context, the result has been a barren exercise in   philosophy or epistemology rather than an examination of the empirical   foundations of a Feudal Mode of Production in historical phenomena. The same   is true, I believe, of all other pre-capitalist or non-capitalist modes of   production. The Feudal Mode of Production cannot be studied in Marx's works   except as the antithesis of capitalism. To isolate what he wrote about the   Feudal Mode of Production from its context within his discussions of   capitalism is to derive a concept of the former which is barren and lifeless.