The Structure of World History by Kojin Karatani

8/21/2019 The Structure of World History by Kojin Karatani

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KOJIN KARATANITRANSLATED BYMichael K. Bourdaghs

FROM MODES OF PRODUCTION TO MODES OF EXCHANGE

THESTRUCTURE

OFWORLDHISTORY


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THE STRUCTURE OF WORLD HISTORY


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KOJIN KARATANI

THESTRUCTUREOF WORLD

HISTORY

ranslated by Michael K. Bourdaghs

Duke University Press Durham and London 2014


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2014 Duke University Press

All r ights reser ved

Printed in the United States o America on acid-ree paper

Interior designed by Courtney Leigh Baker

ypeset in Arno Pro by Westchester Publishing Services

Library o Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Karatani, Kojin, 1941

Te structure o World history : rom modes o production to modes

o exchange / Kojin Karatani ; translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical reerences and index.

978-0-8223-5665-3 (cloth : alk. paper)

978-0-8223-5676-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. ExchangeSocial aspects. 2. Capital. 3. EconomicsSociologica l

aspects. I. Bourdaghs, Michael K. II. itle.548.k37 2014

330.9dc23 2013041879


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CONTENTS

ranslators Note vii

Authors Preace to the English ranslation ix

Preace xiii

: On Modes of Exchange 1

: 29 1: The Sedentary Revolution 35

2: The Gift and Magic 50

: - 57 3: The State 63

4: World Money 81

5 : World Empires 104

6: Universal Religions 127

: 1577: The Modern State 165

8: Industrial Capital 182

9: Nation 209

10: Associationism 228

: 265 11 : The Stages of Global Capitalism and Repetition 267

12: Toward a World Republic 285

Acknowledgments 309 Notes 311 Bibliography 339 Index 345


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Tis translation is based on the rst edition o Sekaishi no kz, which waspublished by Iwanami Shoten in 2010, but it also incorporates substantialrevisions and additions that the author prepared or a uture revised editiono the book. Japanese personal names are given in the Western orderthatis, given name rst and amily name second, including in the bibliography.Finally, I would like to acknowledge the research assistance that I receivedrom Scott Aalgaard in preparing this translation.

TRANSLATORS NOTE


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Tis book is an attempt to rethink the history o social ormations rom theperspective o modes o exchange. Until now, in Marxism this has been takenup rom the perspective o modes o productionrom, that is, the perspec-tive o who owns the means o production. Modes o production have beenregarded as the economic base, while the political, religious, and culturalhave been considered the ideological superstructure. In the way it splits theeconomic rom the political, this view is grounded in capitalist society.Accordingly, the view runs into diffi culties in trying to explain precapitalistsocieties: in Asiatic or eudal societies, to say nothing o the clan societiesthat preceded these, there is no split between political control and eco-nomic control. Moreover, even in the case o contemporary capitalist soci-eties, viewing the state and nation as simply ideological superstructures hasled to diffi culties, because the state and nation unction as active agents ontheir own. Marxists believed that ideological superstructures such as thestate or nation would naturally wither away when the capitalist economy

was abolished, but reality betrayed their expectation, and they were trippedup in their attempts to deal with the state and nation.

As a result, Mar xists began to stress the relative autonomyo the ideologi-cal superstructure. In concrete terms, this meant supplementing the theoryo economic determinism with knowledge derived rom such elds as psy-choanalysis, sociology, and political science. Tis, however, resulted in atendency to underestimate the importance o the economic base. Many so-cial scientists and historians rejected economic determinism and asserted

the autonomy o other dimensions. Even as it led to increased disciplinaryspecialization, this stance became increasingly widespread and accepted aslegitimate. But it resulted in the loss o any totalizing, systematic perspective

AUTHORS PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION


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x

or comprehending the structures in which politics, religion, philosophy,and other dimensions are interrelated, as well as the abandonment o anyattempt to nd a way to supersede existing conditions.

In this book, I turn anew to the dimension o theeconomic. But I dene theeconomic not in terms o modes o production but rather in terms o modes oexchange. Tere are our types o mode o exchange: mode A, which consistso the reciprocity o the gif; mode B, which consists o ruling and protection;mode C, which consists o commodity exchange; and mode D, which tran-scends the other three. Tese our types coexist in all social ormations. Teydiffer only on which o the modes is dominant. For example, in capitalist soci-ety mode o exchange C is dominant. In Capital, Marx considered the capital-

ist economy not only in terms o modes o production but also in terms ocommodity exchangehe theorized how the ideological superstructurecould be produced rom mode o exchange C. Particularly in volume 3 oCapital, he took on the task o explicating how a capitalist economy is aboveall a system o credit and thereore always harbors the possibility o crisis.

But Marx paid only scant attention to the problems o precapitalist soci-eties. It would be oolish to criticize him on this though. Our time andenergy would be better spent in explaining how ideological superstructuresare produced through modes o exchange A and B, in the same way thatMarx did or mode o exchange C. Tat is what I have attempted in thisbook. One other question I take up is how a society in which mode o ex-change A is dominant emerged in the rst place.

Since Marcel Mauss, it has been generally accepted that mode o ex-change A (the reciprocity o the gif) is the dominant principle governingarchaic societies. But this principle did not exist in the band societies onomadic hunter-gatherers that had existed since the earliest times. In thesesocieties, it was not possible to stockpile goods, and so they were pooled,

distributed equally. Tis was a pure gif, one that did not require a reciprocalcountergif. In addition, the power o the group to regulate individual mem-bers was weak, and marriage ties were not permanent. In sum, it was a soci-ety characterized by an equality that derived rom the ree mobility o itsindividual members. Clan society, grounded in the principle o reciprocity,arose only afer nomadic bands took up xed settlement. Fixed settlementmade possible an increased population; it also gave rise to conict with out-siders. Moreover, because it made the accumulation o wealth possible, it in-

evitably led to disparities in wealth and power. Clan society contained thisdanger by imposing the obligations o gif-countergif. O course, this wasnot something that clan society intentionally planned. Mode o exchange A


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appeared in the orm o a compulsion, as Freuds return o the repressed.Tis, however, led to a shortcoming or clan society: its members were equalbut they were no longer ree (that is, reely mobile). In other words, the con-

straints binding individuals to the collective were strengthened.Accordingly, the distinction between the stage o nomadic peoples and

that o xed settlement is crucial. As is well-known, Marx hypothesized aprimitive communism existing in ancient times and saw the emergence oa uture communist society as that primitive communisms restoration aferthe advancement o capitalism. oday this stance is widely rejected as aquasi-religious historical viewpoint. Moreover, i we rely on anthropologi-cal studies o currently existing primitive societies, we are orced to reject

this idea o primitive communism. We cannot, however, dismiss the ideasimply because it cannot be ound empiricallynor should we. But Marx-ists have largely ducked this question.

Te problem here is, rst o all, that Marx and Engels located their modelo primitive communism in Lewis H. Morgans version o clan society. Inmy view, they should have looked not to clan society but to the nomadicsocieties that preceded it. Why did Marx and Engels overlook the differencebetween nomadic and clan societies? Tis was closely related to their view-ing the history o social ormations in terms o mode o production. In otherwords, when seen rom the perspective o their shared ownership o themeans o production, there is no difference between nomadic and clan soci-eties. When we view them in terms o modes o exchange, however, we see adecisive differencethe difference, or example, between the pure gif andthe gif based on reciprocity.

Second, when seen rom the perspective o modes o exchange, we areable to understand why communism is not simply a matter o economicdevelopment nor o utopianism, but why it should be considered instead the

return o primitive communism. O course, what returns is not the com-munism o clan society but that o nomadic society. I call this mode o ex-change D. It marks the return o repressed mode o exchange A at the stageswhere modes o exchange B and C are dominant. It is important to note,though, that clan society and its governing principle mode o exchange Athemselves already constitute the return o the repressed: in xed settle-ment society, they represented attempts to preserve the equality that ex-isted under nomadism. Naturally, this did not arrive as the result o peoples

desire or intention: it came as a compulsory duty that offered no choice.Mode o exchange D is not simply the restoration o mode Ait is not,that is, the restoration o community. Mode o exchange D, as the restoration


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o A in a higher dimension, is in act only possible with the negation o A.D is, in sum, the restoration o nomadic society. Yet this too does not appearas the result o human desire or intention, but rather emerges as a duty is-

sued by God or heaven or as a regulative idea. In concrete terms, D arrives inthe orm o universal religion, which negates religions grounded in magic orreciprocity.

But there is no need or mode o exchange D to take religious orm. Tereare cases where mode o exchange D appeared without religious trappingsin, or example, Ionia rom the seventh to the sixth centuries , or Ice-land rom the tenth through the twelfh centuries , or the eastern part oNorth America in the eighteenth century. What these share in common is

that all were poleis ormed by colonialists: covenant communities estab-lished by persons who had become independent rom their original statesor communities. In them, i land became scarce, rather than perorm wagelabor on another persons land, people would move to another town. Forthis reason, disparities in landed property did not arise. Because peoplewere nomadic (ree), they were equal. In Ionia, this was called isonomia.Tis meant not simply ormal political equality but actual economic equal-ity. O course, these communities were all short-lived: they ended whenthey reached the limits o the space available or colonization. Tese exam-ples show that communism depends less on shared ownership o the meanso production than on the return o nomadism.

But in actuality, all around the world socialist movements that aimed tobring about mode o exchange D were generally carried out under the guiseo universal religions. In the latter hal o the nineteenth century, socialismbecame scientic and lost its religious hue. But the key question here isnot whether socialism is religious; it is whether socialism intends mode oexchange D. Socialism in the twentieth century was only able to realize so-

cieties dominated by modes o exchange B and C, and as a result it lost itsappeal. But so long as modes o exchange B and C remain dominant, thedrive to transcend them will never disappear. In some orm or another,mode o exchange D will emerge. Whether or not this takes religious ormis unimportant. Tis drive is undamentally rooted in that which has beenrepressed rom nomadic society. It has persisted throughout world history,and will not disappear in the utureeven i we are unable to predict theorm in which it will appear.

Kojin Karatani

April ,


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Tis book marks an attempt to move beyond the present-day Capital-Nation-State system by rethinking the history o social ormations rom the perspec-tive o modes o exchange. I rst raised this prospect in an earlier book, ran-scritique: On Kant and Marx(2001; English translation, 2003). My goal here isto develop that idea in depth. Accordingly, to explain the project o the presentbook, I would like to start by reviewing the argument I made in ranscritique.

I give the name transcritiqueto the task o reading Marx by way o Kantand Kant by way o Marx. Tis does not mean, o course, a simple compari-son or synthesis o the two. In act, another philosopher stands betweenthese two: Hegel. o read Marx by way o Kant and Kant by way o Marx isalso to read Hegel by way o these two philosophers, who precede and ol-low him. In other words, it means to undertake a new critique o Hegel.

I began to eel the urgent need or such an undertaking around 1990, inthe period that began with the revolutions in Eastern Europe and endedwith the dismantling o the Soviet Union. Around that time the expression

the end o history as used by Frances Fukuyama, an offi cial in the U.S.State Department, achieved wide currency. In act, the origins o this ex-pression can be traced back beyond Fukuyama to the French Hegelian phi-losopher Alexandre Kojve. Kojve provided a variety o interpretations oHegels view o the end o history. But Fukuyama used the concept tosigniy the collapse o the communist order and the ultimate victory oAmerica. He maintained that history had ended because the 1989 East Eu-ropean revolutions signaled the nal victory o liberal democracy, afer

which there could be no subsequent undamental revolutions.Tere were many who ridiculed Fukuyamas views, but in a sense he wascorrect. But i he were claiming that what occurred in 1990 was the nal

PREFACE


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xiv

victory o the United States, he was mistaken. Even i it appeared thatAmerican hegemony was established and that globalization and neoliberal-ism had triumphed, it is clear today, some twenty years later, that these led

to their own breakdown. As a result we see in every country to a greater orlesser extent the adoption o state-capitalistic or social-democratic policies.We see this, or example, in what President Obama cal ls change. Yet thistransormation does not somehow overturn the end o history: rather,the transormation serves as proo o the end o historys arrival.

In ranscritiqueI argued as ollows. What is called the nation-state is thejoining together o two heterogeneous entities, state and nation, by meanso a hyphen. But to understand modern social ormations, we have to add to

this the capitalist economy. In short, we have to see it in terms o Capital-Nation-State. Tis is a mutually complementary apparatus. For example, acapitalist economy allowed to take its own course will inevitably result ineconomic inequality and conict. But the nation, as something that intendscommunality and equality, will seek to resolve the various contradictionsand inequalities introduced by the capitalist system. Te state in turn real-izes this intention through such measures as taxation, redistribution, andvarious regulations. Capital, nation, and state are distinct entities, each op-erating according to its own principles, but like a Borromean knot, they arelinked in such a manner that all will all apart i any o the three is missing. Ihave called this Capital-Nation-State.

In my view, the situation that Fukuyama called the end o historymeans that once this Capital-Nation-State orm is realized, any subsequentundamental revolution is impossible. Te change we see proclaimed re-cently around the world is not evidence that Capital-Nation-State has bro-ken down, but rather that its mechanisms are unctioning only too well. TeCapital-Nation-State circuit is perectly stable. Because people are not even

aware that they are trapped within its circuit, they mistakenly believe thatthey are making historical progress when in act they are simply spinningaround in circles within it. In ranscritiqueI described the situation:

One ofen hears the prediction that, thanks to the globalization o capi-tal, the nation-state will disappear. It is certain that economic policieswithin nation-states do not work as effectively as beore, because o thegrowing network o international economic reliance on oreign trade.

But, no matter how international relations are reorganized and intensi-ed, the state and nation wont disappear. When individual nationaleconomies are threatened by the global market (neoliberalism), they de-


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mand the protection (redistribution) o the state and / or bloc economy,at the same time as appealing to national cultural identity. So it is that anycounteraction to capital must also be one targeted against the state and

nation (community). Te capitalist nation-state is earless because o itstrinity. Te denial o one ends up being reabsorbed in the ring o the trin-ity by the power o the other two. Tis is because each o them, thoughappearing to be illusory, is based upon different principles o exchange.Tereore, when we take capitalism into consideration, we always have toinclude nation and state. And the counteraction against capitalism alsohas to be against nation-state. In this light, social democracy does noth-ing to overcome the capitalist economy but is the last resort or the capi-

talist nation-states survival.

I wrote these words in the 1990s, and they can stand without revision eventoday. Capital-Nation-State is truly an ingenious system. My purpose here,however, is not to praise it but to transcend it. On this point, my thoughtsince 2001 has changed considerably rom what it was in the 1990s when Iwrote ranscritique. I was compelled to undertake a comprehensive recon-sideration o the structure o world history by the situation that has emergedsince 2001.

In the 1990s, I was intrigued by the possibility o a new global movemento resistance toward capital and the state. While I didnt have a clearly de-ned vision, I did have the vague sense that such a movement would natu-rally develop into a transnational al liance. Tis sort o atmosphere could beound everywhere at the time, as symbolized by the 1999 antiglobalizationprotests in Seattle. For example, Jacques Derrida proposed a New Interna-tional, while Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt called or simultaneousglobal rebellion by the multitude. Sharing a similar perspective, I launched

a praxis-oriented political movement.Tat sort o optimism, however, was crushed by the situation that

emerged afer 9/11 in 2001right around the time I published ranscri-tique. In the events o that time, what might appear to be a conict betweenreligions was in reality a baring o the deep ssures that existed be-tween North and South. Moreover, what emerged was not simply conictbetween various states but rather ssures within movements o resistance tocapital and the state. At the time I became even more acutely aware that state

and nation were not merely elements o the superstructure but instead unc-tioned as active agents on their own. Countermovements against capitaland the state inevitably splinter once they reach a certain level. Tat has


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been the case until now, and it will remain the case or the oreseeableuture. I realized that I needed to rethink and expand the argument I hadmade in ranscritique .

Tat is when I came upon the idea o a comprehensive rethinking o thehistory o social ormations rom the perspective o modes o exchange.Tis idea was originally proposed by Marx. But to carry it out ully requireda rejection o conventional Marxist ormulas. Nor would it be suffi cient, Irealized, to simply reinterpret Marxs texts. Until 2001, I was at heart a liter-ary critic and theorist, so my readings o Marx or Kant took the orm otextual criticism. In other words, even when I was presenting my own views,I presented them only in the orm o meanings that could be derived rom

the given texts. But this sort o textual reading was inherently limited. Myown views ofen conicted with theirs, and there were many domains andproblems that they never considered. Accordingly, in taking up the problemo the structure o world history, I elt the need to construct my own theo-retical system. I have always disliked systematic undertakings and wasnever particularly good at them. Nonetheless, I am now or the rst timein my lie venturing to construct a theoretical system. Tis is because theproblem I am wrestling with here can only be explicated systematically.

My task was in one sense a revisiting o Marxs critique o Hegel. Tis is be-cause it was Hegel, in his Philosophy o Right, who rst explicated capital,nation, and state as a mutually interrelated system. He grasped Capital-Nation-State dialectically as a triplex system, a totality in which the presence o eachwas a necessity. It was also the unity ormed by the three mottos o the FrenchRevolution: liberty, equality, raternity. Marx launched his own work rom acritique o HegelsPhilosophy o Right. But in doing so Marx regarded the capi-talist economy as constituting the base structure, while he took nation andstate to be part o the ideological superstructure. Because o this, he was never

able to grasp the complex social ormation that is Capital-Nation-State. Tisled him to the view that state and nation would naturally wither away oncethe capitalist system was abolished. As a result, Marxist movements have al-ways stumbled badly in the ace o problems o the state and nation.

Te reasons or this lie in Marxs ailure to see that state and nation, likecapital, have their own real bases and hence cannot be dissolved simplythrough acts o enlightenment, as well as in his ailure to see that they existin a structure o interrelationship. I we want to sublate capital, state, nation,

and religion, we must rst understand what they are. Simply rejecting themwill get us nowhere: in the end, we would be orced to acknowledge theiractuality and ultimately would reach the stage o cynically sneering at any


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ide that promised to transcend them. Tis is precisely the condition opostmodernism.

Accordingly, to revisit Marxs critique o Hegel requires us to take up the

modern social ormation and the world history that led to ita world his-tory that Hegel grasped, albeit in the mode o idealismand to turn themon their head the way Marx did via a materialist approach, while not losingsight o Hegels Capital-Nation-State trinity. o achieve this, it is crucialthat we view world history not rom the perspective o modes o productionbut rather o modes o exchange. Historically, all social ormations exist ascombinations o multiple modes o exchange. Social ormations differ onlyin the question o which mode o exchange is dominant. A capitalist social

ormation is one in which commodity exchange is the dominant mode, asituation that also leads to modications in the other modes o exchange.Te result is the ormation o Capital-Nation-State.

aking this position does not require us to abandon Marx. As I dis-cussed in ranscritique, Mar x provided a brilliant explication in Capitalothe world ormed by the mode o exchange known as commodity exchange.o do so, he had to bracket off the questions o nation and state, so that in-evitably his consideration o those questions was inadequate. I wrote thenthat, rather than merely criticize him or this, it made more sense to takeup the methods Marx adopted in Capitaland extend them to the state andnation. Te present book represents my attempt to carry this out.

But simply to demonstrate the historical necessity o Capital-Nation-State would be to stop where Hegel stopped. My task here is to clariy thenecessity o its being transcended. o explore this requires us to returnonce more to Marxs critique o Hegel. Marxs critique o Hegel was a mate-rialist inverting or turning on its head o Hegels idealist speculations,which is commonly imagined as an up-down inversion (between the sensi-

ble or material and the ideal). But it is most important to see how it was aninversion between beore and afer.

According to Hegel, the essence o something only becomes apparent inits effects. Tat is, he viewed things ex post acto, afer the act. Kant, onthe other hand, viewed things ex ante acto, beore the act. With regard tothe uture, we can only make predictions, not draw positive conclusions.For this reason, Kant held that ideas are illusions. But they are transcen-dental illusions. Tis means that, unlike illusions that arise rom our sense

perception, we cannot eliminate them by way o reason, because they areillusions that are necessary to reason itsel. In plain language, without theseillusions we would lapse into schizophrenia.

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For example, with regard to world history, Kant says that looking atdevelopments up until now, we can regard them as gradually progressingtoward the kingdom o ends (a world in which moral law is realized). He

calls this sort o idea a regulative idea. Tis is distinct rom a constructiveidea in that, while it can never be realized, it perseveres as an indicator thatwe strive to approach. By contrast, or Hegel, ideas were not, la Kant,something oriented toward uture realization but that would never gobeyond the stage o illusion. For Hegel, ideas were not illusions; they werereal: reality itsel was ideal. For Hegel, history by denition was over.

When he turned Hegel on his head, Mar x saw history not as somethingthat had ended, but as something that must be realized in the uture. Tis

represents a switch rom an afer-the-act to a beore-the-act standpoint.Yet the sort o necessity that can be elucidated rom an afer-the-act stand-point cannot be assumed beore the act. Here necessity can exist only as anillusion (idea). In sum, to adopt a beore-the-act standpoint means in asense to return to Kants position. Tough he largely ignored Kant, Marxwas unable to avoid the problems that necessarily arise whenever oneadopts a beore-the-act standpoint. For example, it becomes impossible toassert the historical necessity o communism.

I would like to cite the case o another post-Hegelian philosopher,Kierkegaard. He critiqued Hegel, arguing that while speculation is by itsnature backward looking, ethics were orward looking. Backward lookinghere means the afer-the-act standpoint, whereas orward looking meansto adopt a beore-the-act standpoint. Te latter requires a salto mortale(atal leap). Like Marx, Kierkegaard largely ignored Kant. Nonetheless,Kierkegaard also clearly returned to a beore-the-act standpoint, just ashad Marx. In sum, the key issue here is not a choice between Hegel or Kant.Anyone who adopts a beore-the-act standpoint will be conronted with

the same problems.Ernst Bloch called Marxs philosophy the Philosophy o the Future. It

attempts to see the Not-Yet-Conscious; it is orward dreaming.Tis iscorrect, yet we must also note that Marx consistently reused to make anyconclusive statements about the uture. For example, in the German Ideol-ogy, Marx writes, Communism is or us not a state o affairs which is to beestablished, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itsel. We callcommunism the real movement which abolishes the present state o things.

Te conditions o this movement result rom the now existing premise.

Here Marx reuses to dene the end (or ending) o history. In this, he is notonly negating Hegel but also rejecting Kant.


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In act, what Marx called communism hardly differs rom what Kantcalled the kingdom o ends. It is, in other words, a society in which youtreat any other always at the same time as an end and never merely as a

means to an end.Kants morality was not a question o good and evil buto reedom (spontaneous sel-determination). o treat the other as an end isto treat the other as a ree being. In the absence o this kind o morality,there can be no communism. Yet Marx reused to take up morality directly.Insoar as one begins rom morality, communism will end up as an idealtowhich reality [will] have to adjust itsel. In contrast, Marx argued that realmaterial processes in themselves contain the premises that necessarilylead to communism.

Te problem is, insoar as you look at material processes or economicsubstructures rom the perspective o modes o production, you will nevernd the moral moment. For this reason, the moral moment must be soughtnot in economic structure but in the idealistic dimension. In act, KantianMarxists, Sartre, and others have attempted to supplement the econom-ically deterministic orms o Marxism by introducing an existential, moralmoment. But in my view this is unnecessary. I we rethink the economicbase rom the perspective o exchange, broadly dened, then there is noneed to posit a moral dimension exterior to economy. Te moral momentis included within the modes o exchange. For example, seen rom theperspective o mode o exchange, communism consists precisely o the real-ization o mode o exchange D. Tis is surely a process that is in equal mea-sures economic and moral. Moreover, mode o exchange D is the return in ahigher dimension o the primal mode o exchange A (reciprocity). Tiscomes about not as a result o peoples desires or ideas, but rather is inevita-ble, like Freuds returned o the repressed.

What becomes clear rom the perspective o the structure o world his-

tory is that Capital-Nation-State is a product o the world system, not oany one nation. Accordingly, its sublation cannot occur within a single na-tion. For example, i a socialist revolution occurs in one country, othercountries will immediately interere or otherwise take advantage o the sit-uation. Marx o course already took this into account: Empirically, com-munism is only possible as the act o the dominant peoples all at once andsimultaneously, which presupposes the universal development o produc-tive orces and the world intercourse bound up with them.It was or this

reason that Marx was opposed to the outbreak o the Paris Communeeven i once the uprising got under way, he became a passionate supporter.Tis was because the Paris Commune was limited to a single city, or at most

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to one nation, France. Accordingly, the Paris Commune would inevitablyend in ailure, and even i it were able to sustain itsel, it would all into areign o terror, just as had the French Revolution. Proo o this was subse-

quently provided by the Russian Revolution.Since then the slogan simultaneous world revolution has been continu-

ously bandied about, but it has remained little more than a slogan. No onehas directly conronted Marxs position that a socialist revolution is possi-ble only as a simultaneous world revolution. Te mythic vision o a simul-taneous world revolution remains todaythe image o a global revolt bythe multitude is one example. But the end result that this will lead to isalready obvious. What I want to propose here, however, is not the aban-

donment o the concept. I want instead to think o simultaneous worldrevolution in a different orm. In this lies the only real possibility or sub-lating Capital-Nation-State.

As I noted, in the situation that has unolded since 2001, I have elt anurgent need to rethink the problems harbored in countermovementsagainst global capital and the state. During this time I ound mysel return-ing to Kant and Hegel. In a very interesting way, the Iraq War abruptly res-urrected the classical philosophical problems o Kant and Hegel, normallyo concern only to specialists in philosophy, within the context o contem-porary politics. For example, while France and Germany supported theUnited Nations, ideologues o U.S. neoconservatism derided it as a Kantiandelusion. In doing so, they were taking up the position o Hegel, thoughthey did not specically invoke his name. On the other hand, European so-cial democrats, such as Jrgen Habermas, who opposed the U.S. war in Iraq,countered with Kant. I opposed the ormer, naturally, but I was also un-able to support the latter.

In the midst o this process, I began to reconsider Kant, in particular

what he called the problem o perpetual peace. One reason or this wasthe radical situation that emerged with the Japanese states decision to sendtroops to Iraq despite the postwar constitutions explicit renunciation o theright to make war. Te Kantian origins o that constitution are clear. Myrereading o Kant, however, is not simply concerned with peace but alsowith the sublation o state and capital. What Kant calls perpetual peace isnot simply the absence o war, but rather the abolition o all antagonismbetween statesmeaning, that is, the abolition o the state itsel.

Instead o rereading Kants notion o a world ederation o nations romthe perspective o pacism, I tried to reread rom that o the sublation ostate and capital. I realized then that Kant too had been thinking about


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simultaneous world revolution. He supported a Rousseau-style bourgeoisrevolution, but he also saw that it could not succeed i it took place in onlyone countryother countries would inevitably interere or invade. Tis is

why Kant conceptualized a world ederation o nations even beore theFrench Revolution. Tis was not or the sake o abolishing war; it was ormaking the bourgeois revolution into a simultaneous world revolution.

Just as Kant eared, when a bourgeois revolution did take place in thesingle nation o France, the surrounding absolutist monarchies immedi-ately intervened, and the ear provoked by this external terror resulted in aninternal (reign o) terror. Additionally, the war to deend the revolutionrom the exterior transormed into Napoleons European war o conquest.

In the midst o this Kant published Perpetual Peace: A PhilosophicalSketch (1795), calling or the establishment o a ederation o nations. Con-sequently, the proposal has always been considered an instance o pacism.What Kant aimed at was not peace as the simple absence o war, however,but rather the simultaneous global realization o a bourgeois revolution thatwould sublate state and capital. Te ederation o nations was to be the rststep toward this. On this point, we nd an utterly unexpected encounterbetween Kants and Marxs thoughts.

Kant did not believe that the ederation o nations would be realizedthrough humanitys good will; instead it would be realized through warthat is, by means o irresistible orce. In act, his idea was realized only afertwo world wars: the League o Nations and the United Nations. Tese were,o course, inadequate in orm. Tat the sole pathway toward overcomingCapital-Nation-State lies in this direction, however, is something beyonddoubt.

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Marxs Critique o Hegel

odays advanced capitalist nations are characterized by a triplexsystem, the Capital-Nation-State trinity. In its structure, there isrst o all a capitalist market economy. I lef to its own devices,however, this will inevitably result in economic disparities and classconict. o counter this, the nation, which is characterized by anintention toward communality and equality, seeks to resolve thevarious contradictions brought about by the capitalist economy.Te state then ullls this task through such measures as taxationand redistribution or regulations. Capital, nation, and state all di-er rom one another, with each being grounded in its own distinctset o principles, but here they are joined together in a mutuallysupplementary manner. Tey are linked in the manner o a Borro-mean knot, in which the whole system will ail i one o the three ismissing.

No one has yet adequately comprehended this structure. But ina sense, we can say that G. W. F. Hegel in hisPhilosophy o Rightat-tempted to grasp it. But Hegel regarded Capital-Nation-State as theultimate social orm and never considered the possibility o itsbeing transcended. Having said that, i we wish to transcend Capital-Nation-State, we must rst be able to see it. Accordingly, we mustbegin with a thorough crit ique (investigation) o HegelsPhiloso-phy o Right.

In his youth, Karl Marx launched his intellectual career with acritique o Hegels philosophy o right. At that time, in contrast toHegels system that posited the nation-state in the nal position,

ON MODES OF EXCHANGE


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Marx maintained that state and nation were part o the ideological super-structure and that it was really bourgeois society (the capitalist economy)that ormed the undamental base structure. Moreover, he applied this view

to the totality o world history. For example, Marx writes:

Te general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, be-came the guiding principle o my studies can be summarised as ollows.In the social production o their existence, men inevitably enter into de-nite relations, which are independent o their will, namely relations oproduction appropriate to a given stage in the development o their ma-terial orces o production. Te totality o these relations o productionconstitutes the economic structure o society, the real oundation, on

which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which corre-spond denite orms o social consciousness. Te mode o production omaterial lie conditions the general process o social, political and intel-lectual lie. It is not the consciousness o men that determines their exis-tence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. . . .Te changes in the economic oundation lead sooner or later to the trans-ormation o the whole immense superstructure. In studying suchtransormations it is always necessary to distinguish between the mate-

rial transormation o the economic conditions o production, which canbe determined with the precision o natural science, and the legal, politi-cal, religious, artistic or philosophicin short, ideological orms inwhich men become conscious o this conict and ght it out. . . . In broadoutline, the Asiatic, ancient, eudal and modern bourgeois modes o pro-duction may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economicdevelopment o society. Te bourgeois relations o production are thelast antagonistic orm o the social process o productionantagonistic

not in the sense o individual antagonism but o an antagonism that ema-nates rom the individuals social conditions o existencebut the pro-ductive orces developing within bourgeois society create also the mate-rial conditions or a solution o this antagonism. Te prehistory o humansociety accordingly closes with this social ormation.

Frederick Engels and later Marxists would subsequently call this view his-torical materialism. Te problem here is that this view takes the state andnation to be part o the ideological superstructure, on par with art or phi-

losophy. Tis represents a criticism o Hegel, who regarded the state as anactive agent (subject), since this Marxist view regards the state as a mere


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ideological phenomenon that is determined by bourgeois society. Tis ledin turn to the conclusion that i the economic structure were transormed,the state and nation would automatically disappear. Tis neglect o the ac-

tive agency o state and nation would lead to various missteps by Marxistmovements. On the one hand, among Marxists it brought about state so-cialism (Stalinism); on the other hand, it helped lead to the victory o thosewho opposed Marxism in the name o National Socialism (ascism). In otherwords, ar rom dissolving the state or nation, movements to transcend capi-talism ended up strengthening them to an unprecedented degree.

Tis experience became an important lesson or Marxists. In response,they began to stress the relative autonomyo the superstructure. For example,

some Marxistsincluding, or example, the Frankurt Schoolbeganintroducing elements rom Max Webers sociology or Sigmund Freuds psy-choanalysis. O course, in doing so they were not abandoning the concepto determination by the economic base. Yet in reality they tended to shelvethe question o the economic base without giving it serious consideration.Moreover, this tendency led to assertions o the autonomy o other domainssuch as literature or philosophy, as well as o the ultimate indeterminacyotextual interpretation, and it hence became one o the sources or postmod-ernism. But such claims or the relative autonomy o the superstructureled tothe belie that state and nation were simply representations that had beencreated historically and that they could be dissolved through enlightenment.Tis view overlooks the act that state and nation have their own roots in thebase structure and thereore possess active agency.

Previously, historical materialism has aced critical questioning rom thosebranches o scholarship that explore precapitalist orms o society. Marxs di-vision o economic base rom political superstructure is a view grounded inmodern capitalist society. For this reason, it doesnt work as well when

applied to the case o precapitalist societies. o begin with, in primitive soci-eties (tribal communities) there is no state, nor any distinction between eco-nomic and political structure. As Marcel Mauss pointed out, these societiesare characterized by reciprocal exchanges. Tis cannot be explained in termso a mode o production. Te anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, who persistedin using the concept o mode o production, devised the concept o a do-mestic mode o production, one characterized by underproduction. Butthis underproduction can be better explained through reciprocal exchange:

because surplus products are not allowed to accumulate and are insteadgiven away to others, production necessarily remains underproduction.


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In the case o the Asiatic mode o production, the state apparatuses (themilitary, bureaucracy, policing mechanisms, and so on) do not somehowstand above economic relations o production. Rather, political relations be-

tween emperors or kings and the layers o bureaucracy that support themand the ruled classes are in themselves already economic relations. No dis-tinction exists between economic and political structures here. It is the samein classical antiquity. Te unique political systems o Greece and Rome,distinct rom those o the Asiatic states, cannot be adequately explainedthrough the slave-system mode o production. Slaves were simply indis-pensable in securing the reedom and equality o citizens.

Accordingly, i we posit that economic base equals mode o production,

we are unable to explain precapitalist societies. Worse, we remain unable tounderstand even capitalist economies. Te capitalist economy is itsel de-pendent on its ideological superstructure: to wit, its vast system based onmoney and credit. In order to explain this, in CapitalMarx began his in-quiry not rom mode o production but rather rom the dimension o com-modity exchange. Te capitalist mode o productionin other words, therelation between capital and laboris organized through the relations be-tween money and commodity (mode o exchange). But Marxists who advo-cated historical materialism ailed to read Capitalwith suffi cient care andended up trumpeting only the concept o mode o production time and timeagain.

For these reasons, we should abandon the belie that mode o productionequals economic base. Tis does not in any way mean, however, that weshould abandon the concept o economic base in general.We simply needto launch our investigation rom the mode o exchange rather than rom themode o production. I exchange is an economic concept, then all modes oexchange must be economic in nature. In short, i we take the term economic

in a broad sense, then nothing prevents us rom saying that the social or-mation is determined by its economic base. For example, the state and na-tion originate in their own distinct modes o exchange (economic bases). Itwould be oolish to distinguish these rom the economic base and regardthem as ideological superstructure. Te inability to dissolve state and na-tion through enlightenment is due to their being rooted in specic modes oexchange. Tey also, it is true, take on idealistic orms. But we can say thesame thing about the capitalist economy, with its base in commodity ex-

change. Far rom being materialistic, the capitalist system is an idealisticworld based on credit. It is or precisely this reason that it always harborsthe possibility o crisis.


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Te ypes o Mode o Exchange

When we speak about exchange, we automatically think o commodity ex-

change. Insoar as we live in a capitalist society in which commodity ex-change is the dominant mode, this is only natural . But there are also othertypes o exchange, beginning with gif-countergif reciprocity. Mauss lo-cated the principles or the social ormation in archaic societies in thegif-countergif reciprocal system, under which various items are givenand reciprocated, including ood, property, women, land, service, labor,and rituals. Tis is not something limited to archaic societies; it exists ingeneral in many kinds o communities. Strictly speaking, however, this

mode o exchange A is not a principle that arises rom within the interioro a community.Marx repeatedly stresses that commodity exchange (mode o exchange

C) begins with exchanges between two communities: Te exchange o com-modities begins where communities have their boundaries, at their points ocontact with other communities, or with members o the latter.Even i itappears that these exchanges take place between individuals, in act thoseindividuals are acting as representatives o amilies or tribes. Marx empha-sized this point in order to criticize the views o Adam Smith, who believedthat the origins o exchange lay in exchanges between individuals, a view thatMarx thought was simply a projection o the contemporary market economyonto the past. But we must not orget that the other types o exchange alsoarose in exchanges between communities. In other words, reciprocity issomething that arose between communities.

In this sense, reciprocity has to be distinguished rom the pooling thatoccurs within a household. For example, in a hunting-and-gathering bandormed by several households, captured spoils are pooled and equally redis-

tributed. Tis pooling or redistribution derives rom a principle that existsonly within the interior o a household or within a band ormed by severalhouseholds. In contrast, reciprocity arises when one household or band es-tablishes lasting amicable relations with another household or band. In otherwords, it is through reciprocity that a higher-order collective that transcendsthe individual household takes orm. Accordingly, reciprocity is not somuch a principle o community as it is a principle or orming larger, strati-ed communities.

Mode o exchange B also arises between communities. It begins whenone community plunders another. Plunder in itsel is not a kind o ex-change. How, then, does plunder get transormed into a mode o exchange?


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I a community wants to engage in continuous plunder, the dominant com-munity cannot simply carry out acts o plunder but must also give some-thing to its targets: it must protect the dominated community rom other

aggressors, as well as oster it through public works, such as irrigation sys-tems. Herein lies the prototype or the state. Weber argued that the essenceo the state was its monopoly on violence. Tis does not simply mean thatthe state is ounded on violence. Te state protects its constituent peoplesby prohibiting nonstate actors rom engaging in violence. In other words,the establishment o the state represents a kind o exchange in that the ruledare granted peace and order in return or their obedience. Tis is mode oexchange B.

Tere is one other point I should note here. When the economic anthro-pologist Karl Polanyi lists the crucial uniying orms o human economy ingeneral, in addition to reciprocity and exchange, he includes redistribution.He regards redistribution as something that has always existed, rom ar-chaic societies to the contemporary welare state. But the redistributionoccurring in archaic societies was o a different nature rom that occurringunder a state. For example, in a chiedom society, it appears as i eachhousehold is subjected to taxes by the chie. But this is always a orm o pool-ing carried out according to a compulsory reciprocity. In other words, thechie does not hold absolute power. In a state, on the other hand, plunderprecedes redistribution. It is precisely in order to be able to plunder contin-uously that redistribution is instituted. Redistribution by the state histori-cally takes place in the orm o public policiesirrigation systems, socialwelare, or public order. As a result, the state takes on the appearance o anauthority acting on behal o the public. Te state (monarchy) is not simplyan extension o tribal societys chiedom. It instead originates in mode oexchange Bthat is, in plunder and redistribution. o nd redistribution

in an identical orm in all societies as Polanyi does is to overlook the uniquedimension that distinguishes the state.

Next we have mode o exchange C, or commodity exchange, which isgrounded in mutual consent. Tis arises when exchange is neither con-strained by the obligations inherent in gif giving, as in mode o exchangeA, nor imposed through violence, as in the pillaging o mode o exchange B.In sum, commodity exchange is established only when the participants mu-tually recognize each other as ree beings. Accordingly, when commodity

exchange develops, it tends to ree individuals rom the primary communalconstraints that arise rom the principle o gif exchange. Te city takes ormthrough this sort o ree association between individuals. O course, as a


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secondary community the city also unctions as a kind o constraint on itsmembers, but this is o a different nature rom the primary community.

What is crucial in the case o commodity exchange is that its premise o

mutual reedom does not mean mutual equality. When we speak o com-modity exchange, it may appear that products or services are being directlyexchanged, but in act this takes place as an exchange between money andcommodity. In this case, money and commodity and their respective bear-ers occupy different positions. As Marx wrote, money possesses the powero universal exchangeability. A person who has money can acquire the prod-ucts or employ the labor o another without resorting to violent coercion.For this reason, the person who has money and the person who has a com-

modityin other words, the creditor and the debtorare not in positionso equality. Te person who possesses money attempts to accumulate moremoney by engaging in commodity exchange. Tis is the activity o capital inthe orm o the movement o sel-valorization o money. Te accumulationo capital takes place not through physical coercion o the other but throughexchanges grounded in mutual consent. Tis is possible through the differ-ence (surplus value) that is realized through exchanges across different sys-tems o value. Tis is not to say that such exchanges do not generate differ-ences between rich and poor; o course they do. In this way, mode o exchangeC (commodity exchange) brings about relations o class, which are o a differ-ent nature rom the relations o status that are generated by mode o ex-change B, even though these two are ofen connected.

In addition to these, I must also describe mode o exchange D. Tis rep-resents not only the rejection o the state that was generated through modeo exchange B but also a transcending o the class divisions produced in modeo exchange C; we might think o mode o exchange D as representing thereturn o mode o exchange A in a higher dimension. It is a mode o ex-

change that is simultaneously ree and mutual. Unlike the other three modes,mode o exchange D does not exist in actuality. It is the imaginary returno the moment o reciprocity that has been repressed under modes o ex-change B and C. Accordingly, it originally appeared in the orm o reli-gious movements.

Tere is one more point I should add here with regard to the distinctionsbetween modes o exchange. In trying to nd in the political a relativelyautonomous, unique domain, Carl Schmitt writes: Let us assume that

in the realm o morality the nal distinctions are between good and evil, inaesthetics beautiul and ugly, in economics protable and unprotable.Inthe same way, Schmitt argues, the nal distinction unique to the political is


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that between riend and enemy. But, in my view, this is a characteristic omode o exchange B. Accordingly, the unique domain o the political mustoriginate in the economic base, broadly dened.

It is just as true that there is no unique domain o the moral separaterom the mode o exchange. Usually, the domain o morality is thought o asbeing separate rom the economic realm, but morality is in act not unre-lated to modes o exchange. For example, Friedrich Nietzsche argues thatthe consciousness o guilt originates in a sense o debt. Tis suggests howdeeply the moral or religious is connected to modes o exchange. Accord-ingly, i we see economic base in terms not o modes o production but omodes o exchange, we can understand morality in terms o economic base.

Let us take the example o mode o exchange A (reciprocity). In a tribalsociety this is the dominant mode o exchange. Here no one is permitted tomonopolize wealth or power. Once a state societyin other words, a classsocietyemerges, mode o exchange A is subordinated, and mode o ex-change B becomes dominant. Mode o exchange C develops under it, butremains in a subordinate role. It is with capitalist society that mode o ex-change C becomes dominant. In this process, mode o exchange A is re-pressed but never eliminated. It is nally restored as the return o therepressed, to borrow Freuds expression. Tis is mode o exchange D.Mode o exchange D represents the return o mode o exchange A in ahigher dimension.

Mode o exchange D was rst discovered at the stage o the ancient em-pires as something that would transcend the domination o modes o ex-change B and C. Mode o exchange D was also something that would tran-scend the religious constraints o the traditional community that was theoundation o the ancient empires. For this reason, mode o exchange D wasnot a simple return to mode o exchange A but rather a negation o it that

restored it in a higher dimension. Te most direct instances o mode o ex-change D are ound in the communistic groups that existed in the earlieststages o universal religions such as Christianity and Buddhism. In subse-quent periods, too, socialist movements have taken a religious orm.

Since the latter hal o the nineteenth century, socialism has lost its reli-gious hue. But the crucial point here is that socialism at its root marks thereturn in a higher dimension o mode o exchange A. For example, HannahArendt points out that in cases o council communism, the councils (soviets

or R

te) appear not as the end result o revolutionary tradition or theory:What is more, they never came into being as a result o a conscious revolu-tionary tradition or theory, but entirely spontaneously, each time as though


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there had never been anything o the sort beore.Tis suggests that thespontaneously arising council communism represents the return o modeo exchange A in a higher dimension.

Mode o exchange D and the social ormation that originates in it can becalled by many namesor example, socialism, communism, anarchism,council communism, associationism. But because historically a variety omeanings have been attached to these concepts, we are likely to invite mis-understanding and conusion no matter which one we use. For this reason,here I will simply call it X. Te name doesnt matter; what is important hereis to understand the phase to which it belongs.

o sum up, modes o exchange can be broadly divided into our types:reciprocity, plunder and redistribution, commodity exchange, and X. Teseare shown in the matrix given in table 1, where the horizontal rows indicatedegree o equality or inequality and the vertical columns indicate degree o

coercion or reedom. able 2 situates the orms that historically have de-rived rom these: capital, nation, state, and X.

Te next important point to make is that actual social ormations consisto complex combinations o these modes o exchange. o jump to my con-clusion, historical social ormations have included all o these modes. Teormations differ simply in terms o which mode takes the leading role. Intribal societies reciprocal mode o exchange A is dominant. Tis does notmean the modes B or C are nonexistentthey exist, or example, in wars or

in trading. But because the moments or B and C are here subordinated tothe principle o reciprocity, the kind o society in which B is dominantastate societydoes not develop. On the other hand, in a society in which

1 Modes-o-Exchange Matrix

B: Plunder and redistribution

(Domination and protection)

A: Reciprocity

(Gif and countergif)C:Commodity Exchange

(Money and commodities)

D: X

2 Te Modern-Social-Formation Matrix

B: State A: Nation

C: Capital D: X


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mode B is dominant, mode A continues to existor example, in armingcommunities. We also nd the development o mode Cor example, incities. In precapitalist social ormations, however, these elements are admin-

istered or coopted rom above by the state. Tis is what we mean when wesay that mode o exchange B is dominant.

When mode o exchange C is dominant, we have a capitalist society. InMarxs thought, a capitalist social ormation is a society dened by the capi-talist mode o production. But what is it that distinguishes capitalist pro-duction? We will not nd it in such orms as the division and combinationo labor, or again in the employment o machinery. Afer al l, these can all beound in slavery systems as well. Nor can we simply equate capitalist pro-

duction with the production o commodities in general: both slavery andserdom systems developed as orms o commodity production. Capitalistproduction is different rom slavery or serdom production in that it is com-modity production that relies on the labor power commodity. In a slaverysystem, human beings become commodities. Accordingly, only in a societywhere it is not human beings themselves but rather human labor power thatis commodied can we say there is capitalist production. Moreover, it existsonly when commodity exchange permeates the entire society, including thecommodication o land. For these reasons, capitalist production can onlybe understood i we look at it in terms o mode o exchangenot in terms omode o production.

In a capitalist society, commodity exchange is the dominant mode o ex-change. Tis does not mean, however, that the other modes o exchange andtheir derivatives completely vanish. Tose other elements continue to existbut in altered orm: the state becomes a modern state and the communitybecomes a nation. In other words, as commodity exchange becomes the dom-inant mode, precapitalist social ormations are transormed into the Capital-

Nation-State complex. Only in this way can we materialistically rethink thetrinity system that Hegel grasped in hisPhilosophy o Rightas well as howit might be sublated.

Marxists regarded state and nation as parts o the ideological superstruc-ture. But the autonomy o state and nation, an autonomy that cannot be ex-plained in terms o the capitalist economic base, does not arise because othe so-called relative autonomy o the ideological superstructure. Te au-tonomy o state and nation arises instead because each is rooted in its own

distinct economic baseits own distinct mode o exchange. Te worldthat Mar x himsel tried to explicate was that ormed by the mode o com-modity exchange. Tis is the world we nd in his Capital. But this brack-


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eted off the worlds ormed by the other modes o exchange, namely thestate and nation. Here I want to try to think about the different worldsormed by the different modes o exchange, to examine the historical vicis-

situdes o the social ormations that arose as complex combinations othese, and nally to ascertain the possibilities that exist or sublating thoseormations.

ypes o Power

I would like next to consider the various types o power produced by thedifferent modes o exchange. Power is the ability to compel others to obey

through given communal norms. Tere are roughly speaking three kinds ocommunal norms. First, there are the laws o the community. We can callthese rules. Tey are almost never explicitly stipulated, nor are they enorcedthrough penal codes. Nonetheless, violation o these rules leads to ostra-cism or expulsion, and so violations are rare. Second, we have the laws o thestate. We can think o these as laws that exist between communities orwithin societies that include multiple communities. In spaces in which com-munal rules no longer hold sway, laws o the state arise as shared norms.

Tird, we have international law: laws that govern relations between states.In other words, these laws are shared norms that apply in spaces where lawso the state do not hold sway.

Te relevant types o power differ depending on which o these sharednorms is at issue. Te important point here is that these shared norms donot bring about power. o the contrary, these shared norms cannot unc-tion in the absence o some power. Ordinarily, power is thought to be basedin violence. In reality, however, this is true only in the case o the sharednorms (laws) o the state. For example, within the interior o a community

in which rules are effective, there is no need to resort to violence to ensurethe unctioning o shared norms. Tis is because another coercive orce, oneo a different nature rom violence, is operational. Lets call this the power othe gif. Mauss describes the sel-destructive gif giving known as potlatchin the ollowing terms:

But the reason or these gifs and renetic acts o wealth consumption isin no way disinterested, particularly in societies that practice the potlatch.

Between chies and their vassals, between vassals and their tenants,through such gifs a hierarchy is established. o give is to show ones supe-riority, to be more, to be higher in rank, magister. o accept without


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giving in return, or without giving more back, is to become client andservant, to become small, to all lower (minister).

o make a gif is to gain sway over the recipient, because the ailure to makea return gif means alling into the status o a dependent. Tis occurs with-out the use o violence. I anything, it appears at rst glance to be an utterlygratuitous act o benevolence. Nonetheless, it results in the exertion o acontrol over the other that is even more effective than violent coercion. Maussbelieved that the things exchanged . . . a lso possess a special intrinsicpower, which causes them to be given and above all to be reciprocated.Te aboriginal Maori people o New Zealand called this power hau . I will

discuss this again, but what is important to note or present purposes isthat the reciprocal mode o exchange is accompanied by its own type opower.

For example, in a potlatch ceremony the recipients attempt to overpowertheir rivals by giving back even more than they have received. Potlatch isnot itsel warare, but resembles warare in that the motive behind it is togain supremacy over ones rivals. Tere are also cases o gif giving that seemnot to ollow this tendency. For example, membership in a community issomething bestowed as a gif as soon as one is born. Each member bears anobligation to reciprocate or this. Te orce by which the community con-strains each o its members is the orce o this sort o reciprocity. For thisreason, within the community there is no particular need to impose penal-ties in cases where a member violates the norms (rules). Once it is known tothe community at large that a member has violated the norms, that is theend: to be abandoned by the community is equivalent to death.

In the second instance, occurring outside the domain o a community orin situations in which more than one community exists, the rules o a single

community do not apply. Accordingly, the need arises or shared norms (laws)that transcend the community. In order or these to unction, however,there must be some orce o compulsion. Tis is actual orce (violence).Weber argues that state power is rooted in the monopolization o violence.But not all violence is capable o becoming a orce that polices communalnorms. In actual practice, the state is established when one community comesto dominate another community through violence. In order to transormthis rom a single act o plunder into a permanent situation, this domination

must be grounded in a set o shared norms that transcends any onecommunityone that, in other words, must be equally obeyed by the rulersor ruling communities. Te state comes into existence at such times. W hile


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the power o the state is backed up by violence, that power is always medi-ated by laws.

Just as the orce that imposes the rules o a community is rooted in the

reciprocal mode o exchange, so too is the orce that imposes laws o staterooted in a specic orm o exchange. Tomas Hobbes was the rst to dis-cover this. He saw the basis or the state in a covenant entered into by ear,a contract, wherein one receiveth the benet o lie or money or ser-vice.Tis means that the power o the state is something established notsolely through violent coercion, but more importantly also through (ree)consent. I it were only based on violent coercion, its power could not sur-vive or any extended period. Accordingly, what is important here is that the

power o the state is rooted in a specic mode o exchange.Tird, we have the question o how there come to be laws between statesthat is, shared norms existing in realms beyond the reach o state law.Hobbes argues that relations between states exist in a Natural Condition,a state o nature over which no law can exist. Yet in reality trade is carriedout between communities, and laws are born o the actual practice o thistrade. Tese are so-called natural laws. Tey are not merely abstract con-cepts: any state that needs to conduct trade cannot afford to ignore them.Tese are sustained not by the power o the community or state but ratherby a power that is born o commodity exchanges: in concrete terms, thepower o money.

As Marx stresses, commodity exchange is something that arises betweentwo communities. What took orm in this were exchanges carried out througha universal equivalent orm (money). Tis was the result o what Marx callsthe joint contribution o the whole world o commodities.We might alsocall it the social contract between commodities. Te state has no hand inthis. In reality, i there were no laws o the state, commodity exchange could

not take place. In other words, this contract could not be implemented. Butthe state is unable to produce the sort o power that is generated by money.Money is minted by the state, but its currency is not dependent on thestates authority. Moneys currency depends instead on a power that takesorm within the world o commodities (and their possessors). Te role othe state or empire (supranational state) extends only to guaranteeing themetallic content o the currency. But the power o money extends beyondthe domain o any single empire.

Commodity exchange is a orm o exchange that takes place by ree mu-tual consent. On this point, commodity exchange differs rom the situa-tion o the community or state. But this is also how it produces a orm o


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domination that differs rom the state. Te power o money is a right thatmoney (and its owner) holds vis--vis a commodity (and its owner). Moneyis a privileged pledge than can be exchanged at any time or any commod-

ity. As a result, unlike commodities themselves, money can be accumu-lated. Te accumulation o wealth begins not in the storing up o productsbut in the accumulation o money. By contrast, a commodity that is neverexchanged or money in many cases ceases to be a commodity: it is dis-carded. Because a commodity has no guarantee that it will enter into anexchange, the owner o money enjoys an overwhelmingly superior position.Herein lies the reason or the desire to accumulate money, as well as or itsactive implementationthat is, or the birth o capital. Te power o money

is different rom the power that is based in gif exchanges or violence. With-out having to resort to physical or mental coercion o the other, this poweris exercised through exchanges based on mutual consent. Hence, or exam-ple, orcing a slave to work is different rom making a laborer work throughwages. But this power o money also brings about a kind o class dominationthat differs rom the class (status) domination that was grounded in violence.

It should be clear now that every mode o exchange produces its ownunique orm o power, and moreover that types o power differ in accor-dance with differences in modes o exchange. Te three types o power dis-cussed exist in various combinations in every social ormation just as allsocial ormations are combinations o the three modes o exchange. Finally,we must add a ourth power in addition to the three already mentioned.Tis would be the orm o power that corresponds to mode o exchange D.In my view, this type was rst maniested in universal religions in the ormo the power o God. Modes o exchange A, B, and C, as well as the typeso power that derive rom them, will stubbornly continue to survive. It isimpossible to resist them. It is or this reason that mode o exchange D

appearsnot so much as something deriving rom human desires or reewill, but in the orm o a categorical imperative that transcends them.

Te Concept o Intercourse

My rethinking o history rom the perspective o modes o exchange ratherthan modes o production clearly represents a departure rom the commonwisdom o Marxism. However, it is not necessarily a departure rom Marx.

I am taking exchangein a broad sensejust as the early Marx used the con-cept o intercourse (Verkher) in a broad sense. For example, in Te GermanIdeologywe nd the word intercourseused in the ollowing our passages:


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With money every orm o intercourse, and intercourse itsel, becomesortuitous or the individuals. Tus money implies that all intercourse uptill now was only intercourse o individuals under particular conditions,

not o individuals as individuals.

Te next extension o the division o labour was the separation o pro-duction and intercourse, the ormation o a special class o merchants.

Te orm o intercourse determined by the existing productive orces atall previous historical stages, and in its turn determining these, is civilsociety. Te latter, as is clear rom what we have said above, has as its prem-ise and basis the simple amily and the multiple, called the tribe, and the

more precise denition o this society is given in our remarks above.With the conquering barbarian people war itsel is stil l, as indicatedabove, a regular orm o intercourse.

As these examples show, the concept o intercourse here includes occurrenceswithin a given community, such as a amily or tribe, as well as trade takingplace between communities, and even war. Tis is what it means to take ex-change in a broad sense.

Moses Hess was the rst to put orward this concept o intercourse.Slightly older than Marx, he was a philosopher o the Young Hegelian school(the Lef Hegelians); Hess was the rst to transorm and expand LudwigFeuerbachs critique o religion (theory o sel-alienation) into a critique ostate and capital. In Hesss book On the Essence o Money(1845), he proposedthe concept o intercourse, using it to grasp the relations between man andnature and between man and man. Hess rst argues that lie is the ex-change o productive lie-activities. He continues:

Te intercourse o men is the human workshop wherein individual menare able to realise and maniest their lie or powers. Te more vigoroustheir intercourse the stronger also their productive power and so ar astheir intercourse is restricted their productive power is restricted like-wise. Without their lie-medium, without the exchange o their particu-lar powers, individuals do not live. Te intercourse o men does not origi-nate rom their essence; it istheir real essence.

In Hesss view, the relation o man and nature is intercourse. More concretely,

it is metabolism (Stoffwechsel), or material exchange. In German, Wechselliterally means exchange, so that the relation o humans to nature is one ointercourse or exchange. Tis is an important point when we consider


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Marxs natural history perspectiveas well as when we consider environ-mental problems.

Hess next points out that this sort o relation between man and nature

necessarily takes place by way o a certain kind o social relation betweenpeople. Tis too consists o a kind o intercourse. In this case, Hess citesas modes o intercourse plunder (murder-or-gain), slavery, and the traffi cin commodities.In his view, as traffi c in commodities expands, this modereplaces plunder and slavery (that is, the use o violence to steal the prod-ucts o others or to orce them to labor), yet in the end this amounts to carry-ing them out in another orm, through the means o money. Tis is becausea person who possesses money is able to coerce others. In this, the various

capabilities o people are alienated rom them in the orm o money. More-over, the division and coordination o peoples labor come to be organizedby capital, regardless o their intention.

Hess believed that a truly communal orm o intercourse would becomepossible only afer the passing o the capitalist economy. Since in a capitalistsystem people carry out cooperative enterprises under the sway o capital,they need to abolish the capital that is their own sel-alienation and managetheir cooperative production according to their own wills in order to see therealization o an organic community. Tis is another name or what Pierre-Joseph Proudhon proposed as Associations, or cooperative production. Ina sense, Marx too held to this view throughout his lie.

Tat Marx at the stage o the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts(1844) was inuenced by Hesss theory o intercourse is obvious, and as thequoted passages show, this carried over into Te German Ideologyas well.But afer this, as Marx plunged deeply into the specialized study o econom-ics, he began to limit his use o the word intercourseto its ordinary meaning.Tis cannot be detached rom the act that in Capitalhe ocused exclusively

on research into one orm o intercourse, that o the capitalist economy thatwas established with the expansion o trade (commodity exchanges) be-tween communities. Most likely, this is what led him to give only secondaryconsideration to the domains o state, community, and nation. But ratherthan criticize Marx or this, we should devote ourselves to the task o ex-tending the work Marx carried out in Capitalinto the domains o state andnation.

Beginning rom its oundational mode o exchange, commodity exchange,

Marx explicated the totality o the complexities o the capitalist economicsystem. Far rom being the material base, this capitalist economic system,woven out o money and credit, is something more akin to a religious world


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whose existence is based on aithin other words, credit. It is not some-thing that can be explained solely through the capitalistic mode o produc-tion. Te same is true or state and nation. Tey may appear to be merely

ideological or abstract, but they are rooted in undamental modes o ex-change, just as is the capitalist systemthe state in mode o exchange Band the nation in mode o exchange A. Tese are not simply ideological orrepresentations. Te modern capitalist economy, state, and nation histori-cally took shape through the combination and subsequent modication othe undamental modes o exchange.

Exchange between Man and Nature

In order to deal with state, nation, and capital comprehensively, we mustrethink them, starting rom exchange, broadly denedthat is, rom the con-cept o intercourse. Moreover, replacing the concept o production withthat o exchange has special signicance today. As I noted, Marxs emphasison the concept o production arose because his undamental understandingo humanity situated it within its relation to nature. Tis is something helearned rom Hess, seeing it as metabolismin other words, as exchange.Why is this o importance? For example, when we produce something, wemodiy raw materials, but at the same time we also generate unnecessarywaste products and waste heat. Seen rom the perspective o metabolism,these sorts o waste products must be reprocessed. When microorganismsin the soil reprocess waste products and make them reusable, or example,we have the sort o ecosystem ound in the natural world.

More undamentally, the earths environment is a cyclical system thatcirculates air and water and nally exports entropy into outer space in theorm o waste heat. I this circulation were blocked, there would be an ac-

cumulation o waste products or o entropy. Te material exchanges (Stoff-wechsel) between man and nature are one link within the material exchangesthat orm the total earth system. Human activity is sustainable when it relieson this sort o natural circulation to obtain its resources and recycle itswaste products. Until the beginning o capitalist industrial production,human production did not result in any major disruption o the natural eco-system. Waste products generated by people were processed by nature, asystem o material exchanges (metabolism) between man and nature.

In general, however, when we consider production, we tend to orget aboutits waste products.Only its creativity is considered. Te production wend in the work o philosophers such as Hegel ollows this pattern. Even


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Marxists who attacked this sort o Hegelian thought as idealism ailed tosee production in materialist terms. Tey ailed to think o production assomething inevitably accompanied by the generation o waste products and

waste heat. As a result, they could only think o production as somethingpositive and believed that any evil in it must be the result o human exploi-tation or o class domination.

As a result, Marxists in general have been naively positive in their view oprogress in productive power and scientic technology. Accordingly, criti-cisms o Marxists made by ecologists are not off the mark. But we cannotsay the same or Marx himsel. In Capitalhe points out that capitalist agri-culture disturbs the metabolic interaction between man and the earth, i.e.

it prevents the return to the soil o its constituent elements consumed byman in the orm o ood and clothing; hence it hinders the operation o theeternal natural condition or the lasting ertility o the soil.His sourcehere was the German chemist Justus von Liebig, the originator o chemicalertilizer agriculture as well as its rst critic: he was the rst to advocate areturn to a circulation-based system o agriculture. Marx writes,

Moreover, all progress in capitalist agriculture is a progress in the art,not only o robbing the worker, but o robbing the soil; all progress in in-

creasing the ertility o the soil or a given time is progress towards ruin-ing the more long-lasting sources o that ertility. Te more a countryproceeds rom large-scale industry as the background o its development,as in the case o the United States, the more rapid is this process o de-struction. Capitalist production, thereore, only develops the techniquesand the degree o combination o the social process o production by si-multaneously undermining the original sources o all wealththe soiland the worker.

Here Marx criticized not only capitalisms exploitation o workers but also itsexploitation o nature, which destroys the natural balance o soil and humans.He moreover argues that the moral o the tale, which can also be extractedrom other discussions o agriculture, is that the capitalist system runs coun-ter to a rational agriculture, or that a rational agriculture is incompatiblewith the capitalist system (even i the latter promotes technical developmentin agriculture) and needs either small armers working or themselves or thecontrol o the associated producers.What he has in mind here is neither

large-scale capitalist superarms nor large state-run collective arms. Marx isarguing that the management o agriculture should be carried out by associ-ations (ederations) o small-scale producers.


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Seen rom this perspective, Marxs thesis in Critique o the Gotha Pro-gram should be clear. Te Gotha Program was adopted as party platormupon the inauguration o the German Social Democratic Party, with the

support o both the Marx and Lassalle actions. Upon reading it though,Marx privately mounted a biting critique. One o the platorms key pointslay in the assertion, based on Ferdinand Lassalles thought, that labor wasthe source o all wealth and civilization. Marx rebuts this: Labour is not thesourceo all wealth.Natureis just as much the source o use values (and it issurely o such that material wealth consists!) as labour, which itsel is onlythe maniestation o a orce o nature, human labour power.Identiyinghuman labor as the ultimate source o value is precisely the view o indus-

trial capitalism. Marx is critical here o the view that puts industrial produc-tion at the center (a view shared not only by Lassalle but also by most mem-bers o the Marx action at the time). In this we see the continuing relevanceo the natural history perspective that sees man and nature in terms ometabolism, which had been part o Marxs thought since the beginning. Inaddition, Marx rejects the Lassalle actions proposal to have the state pro-mote producer cooperatives. In Marxs view, the point was not to have thestate oster associations but rather to have the development o associationslead to the disappearance o the state. In reality though, when Marxists haveseized power they have generally organized producer cooperatives throughthe state, whether in the orm o collective arms or o peoples communes.

Widespread awareness o the signicance o this metabolism and ma-terial exchange arose only afer the adoption o ossil uels, especially oil.Te use o these uels meant that metabolism was no longer a problemlimited to the realms o agriculture and land. Oil is the raw material or de-tergents, ertilizers, and other chemical products, in addition to being anenergy source. Te industria l waste products generated in these uses have

unleashed global (worldwide) environmental problems. As I noted, the globalenvironment is a kind o heat engine. A cyclical system is maintained byusing the processes o atmospheric and water circulation, with entropy -nally exported to outer space in the orm o waste heat. Disruptions in thiscycle will unavoidably lead to environmental crises such as climate changeand desertication, and, ultimately, accumulated entropy will lead the globalenvironment to heat death.

Tis situation is brought about by mans exploitation o nature. But to see

this solely as a relation o man and nature, that is, as a problem o technologyor civilization, is deceptive. Such a view conceals the relations o exchangebetween people that lie behind the exchange relationship between people


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and nature. In act, the rst environmental crisis in world history was pro-duced by Mesopotamian irrigation agriculture, which resulted in deserti-cation. Te same phenomenon was seen in the Indus and Yellow River

civilizations. Tese were the earliest examples o institutions (states) thatsimultaneously exploited people and nature (the soil). In our industrialcapitalist society, we now see this being carried out on a global scale. I weail to grasp the problems o the exchange relations between people and theCapital-Nation-State orm that these bring about, we will never be able torespond to these environmental problems.

Te History o Social Formations

I have said that I will rethink the history o social ormations rom the per-spective o modes o exchange. Te historical stages o development o so-cial ormations discussed in Marxs Forms Preceding Capitalist Formations(Grundrisse)the primitive clan, Asiatic, ancient classical slave system, Ger-manic, and capitalist modes o productionare my point o departure orthis.With some additional qualications, this classication system is stillvalid today.

Te rst qualication is to remove Marxs geographical specications.For example, what Marx calls the Asiatic social ormation is not limitedto Asia in any strict sense. It can also be ound in Russia, the A mericas (theIncas, Mayans, Aztecs), and Arica (Ghana, Mali, Dahomey). Similarly,the eudal mode is not limited to Germaniawe see a similar phenomenonin Japan, afer all. For these reasons, we must remove the geographical spec-ications in order to see social ormations structurally.

Te second qualication is that we should not regard these ormations asmarking the successive stages o a linear historical development. Originally,

Marxs historical stages came about as a materialist rephrasing o Hegels TePhilosophy o History. Hegel regarded world history as the process o realiza-tion o universal reedom

Documents

The Structure of World History by Kojin Karatani