Asiatic mode of production
Referred to in Marxist texts as a specific mode of production prevalent in pre-capitalist Asia. It was used to explain the difference between the Asiatic and Occidental social relations, in particular the nature and role of the state in the two systems. Two chief characteristics were highlighted by Marx and Engels in 1853. First, there was the absence of private property, which led, according to Marx and Engels, to stagnant social and economic relations. In particular they criticized the self-sufficient nature of the village life in Asiatic societies that was supported by this absence of private property, and did not allow for the transformation of social and economic relations in the countryside. In this context Marx wrote of the ‘regenerative role of imperialism’ which would pierce this shell of self-sufficiency and introduce capitalist relations into these stagnant economies. Second, there was the geographical and climatic feature of Asiatic societies that made them dependent on irrigation and which in turn required centralized planning and administration, thus increasing the role of the central state in these societies, which in turn led to an ‘oriental despotism’. This ethnocentric view assumes that the way forward for Asiatic societies is to tread the well-beaten path of capitalist development that Europe had walked down. The Asiatic mode of production (AMP) became the focus of debate in the 1960s and 1970s among Third World development theorists, who were concerned in particular to understand the role of the state in the post-colonial context. They looked to AMP to understand the traditions of state intervention in Asiatic social and economic relations which might allow the post-colonial states to continue to be involved in developing the economic infrastructure of Asiatic societies.
— Shirin Rai
