The dialectics of state formation in Mesopotamia, Iran, and central Asia

A reappraisal of Marx's thinking on certain aspects of state formation, in the light of recent archaeological discoveries, yields signifi? cant results. Marx wrote the Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen ?konomie, the most pertinent work in this context, in 1857?1858 as a collection of preparatory texts and notes for Das Kapital, and not, it seems, for publica? tion. Although it was the fruit of mature Marxian thought, the Grundrisse has been the last work by Marx to be studied by scholars, partly because it was not available until 1939? 1941, when the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute in Moscow published it, using the original manu? scripts which had been brought to the USSR by N.I. Bucharin some years earlier,1 and partly because it only began to be known widely in 1953, when it was published in the German Democratic Republic.2 The Grundrisse is critical for the study of the formative process of capitalist society as it is set out in the sec? tion entitled "Pre-capitalist economic forma? tions." The studies by Hobsbawn and Godelier, among others,3 which followed German publica? tion, have further reflected the Marxian models of the development of human society. (The most remarkable Soviet contribution is by L.V. Danilova.4) In the scheme referring to the Orient, Marx anticipates the conclusion of archaeologists in concisely dividing the dynamics of the Asiatic mode of production into three successive stages:5 1. The nomadic community of gatherers, characterized by complex kinship structures and dependent on limited resources. The exploitation of these resources took place in temporary settlements and through collective use of the land. 2. The tribal community, in which territory was permanently appropriated by continually expanding farming settlements. Holding property in common persists, despite the loosening of ties of kinship. This tribal property "contains in Itself all the conditions of repro? duction and surplus production." Artisanship and agriculture are combined inside this small self-supporting community. 3. Despotic centralized government attaining ideal unity, which is later personified in the figure of the king. The king dominates the small communities that gradually coalesce into towns. Towns are coordinating centers, organiz? ing collective labor and commanding the surplus; both the products of external trade and local surpluses must flow toward it. As Marx conceived it, social evolution is dependent on a quantitative increase in the surplus, which is capitalized and reinvested in the name of collective property; this is the consistent and peculiar aspect of Asiatic society. For Marx, Asiatic society thus paves the way for the most complete despotism, where both the products and the means of production ? human beings included among the latter ? belong to the king (the transformation of the Maurizio Tosi is Professor of Archaeology, Istituto del Mezzo e d'Estremo Oriente, Rome.