Anderson's Passages & Lineages: A Marxist History Review

55
REVIEW ESSAY
ON PERRY ANDERSON’S PASSAGES FROM ANTIQUITY TO FEUDALISM
AND LINEAGES OF THE ABSOLUTIST STATE
Ellen Kay Trimberger
Passages +rcrn
304 ap., $15
Arn&dquo;’-1j¡ty :.0 >:=’uca’is.î1.
by Perry
Lineages of the Absolutist State, oxy Perry Anderson,
London: NLB, 1974, 573 pp., S25
In these ini:ial two books of a projected multivolume work, Perry Anderson offers a path-breaking
Marxist history of modern Europe. Most impressive is
his comparative scope, as he looks at the development of specific European countries, and the evolution of Western and Eastern Europe and contrasts
the structure of ancient regimes in China, Japan, and
the Islamic world with European feudalism and
absolutism. As one of the founders of the British
journal, New Lett Review, Anderson takes previous
Marxist analysis as his point of departure. He criticizes and rejects the way Marxists have analyzed
feudalism, absolutism, and oriental despotism. In his
second (and more theoretical) volume, Lineages of
the Absolutist State, he contributes to the recent
flurry of Marxist literature seeking a theory of the
state. In defending his choice of the state as a central
theme of reflection, Anderson says, &dquo;It is necessary to
recall one of the basic axioms of historical materialism : That secular struggle between classes is ultimately resolved at the political-not the economic
or cultural-level of society. In other words, it is the
construction and destruction of states which seal the
basic shifts in the relations of production so long as
classes subsist.&dquo;
Anderson is more theoretical than most Marxist
historians, who confine their analysis to a short
period in a particular country. But in his inductive
approach to theory through concrete exploration of
historical detail, Anderson seeks to be more empirical than many social theorists who call themselves
&dquo;Marxist.&dquo; Thus, Anderson tries to bridge a major gap
in Marxist analysis. As he says:
On the one hand, ’abstract’ general models are constructed or presupposednot only of the absolutist state, but
equally of the bourgeois revolution or
the capitalist state, without concern for
their effective variations; on the other
hand, ’concrete’ local cases are explored,
without reference to their reciprocal
implications and interconnections.
... The practical consequences of this
division are often to render general concepts-such as the absolutist state, the
bourgeois revolution or the capitalist
state-so remote from historical reality
that they cease to have any explicative
power at all; while particular studiesconfined to delimited areas or periodsfail vice-versa to develop or refine any
global theory.
These books seek to mediate and overcome this
division between theory and history-but not always
successfully. The following pages will focus on some
of the theoretical weaknesses in Lineages of the
Absolutist State, stressing the inadequacies in
Anderson’s theory of the state, his analysis of social
change, and his comparative approach to nonWestern societies. In criticizing Anderson’s approach, I do not mean to imply that there exist other
more developed alternative perspectives. I do hope to
indicate a future direction of work for those of us
interested in combining a Marxist and a comparative
method to study social change in the modern world.
While emphasizing problems raised by the book, I
hope that the richness of the criticism attests to the
brilliance of Andersons analysis.
1. Anderson’s Theory of the State
At first reading, Lineages of the Absolutist State
to avoid both the instrumentalism of American Marxist analysis of the capitalist state and the
seems
ahistoricism and functionalism of the French struc-
turalists. (1) Anderson presents a rich account of the
distinct historical development of the pre-capitalist
state in eight European and four non-Western societies. Yet in those chapters which draw theoretical
conclusions from the case studies, he falls back on
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56
concepts and analyses drawn precisely from Poulantzas and Althusser.
Like the latter, Anderson sees the state as an
apparatus which serves primarily to preserve the
class power of those who control the dominant mode
of production. The state serves the dominant class
even when that class doesn’t directly staff the state.
For Anderson, the function of the absolutist state was
to defend the class position of the landed feudal
nobility against both its rivals abroad and the peasants at home during the transition to commercial
agriculture and an integrated world market. &dquo;The rule
of the absolutist state was that of the feudal nobility
in the epoch of transition to capitalism.&dquo; Absolutism
was &dquo;a redeployed and recharged apparatus of feudal
domination.&dquo; As such the role of the state was
inherently conservative. This was true, according to
Anderson, despite the fact that the absolutist state
also promoted the interests of the merchant and
mercantile class, and &dquo;accomplished certain partial
functions in the primitive accumulation necessary
for the eventual triumph of the capitalist mode of
production.&dquo; But for Anderson the state was not
crucial for the rise or triumph of capitalism in the
West. Moreover the state served the same conservative function in all Western and Eastern European
states despite their very diverse class structures and
their different timing in capitalist development. In
Western Europe, the absolutist state arose in response to the pressures of external capital.
Anderson’s very concise theory of the relationship
between state structures and class interests contradicts the historical data he presents in his substantive
chapters, in a manner which ultimately undermines
his theory’s validity. Let me elaborate.
For Anderson, the state apparatus is always relatively autonomous from the class forces it protects.
For Poulantzas, the state serves the same function no
matter who staffs it. &dquo;The state had a structural
distance from the class from which it was recruited
and whose interests it defended.&dquo; Yet in his historical
descriptions, Anderson notes the vast differences in
the nature of the landed classes in Europe and in
their relationships to the centralizing state apparati.
The landed class in England was unusually commercial at an early date; in France, the nobility were
absentee landlords of large estates; in Prussia the
landed nobility lived on and managed their modest
manors; in Eastern Europe, they used serf labor. In
England, the landed gentry used their control of local
government and the central parliament to restrict the
rise of a state bureaucracy. French bankers, merchants, and lawyers bought their way into control of
the state bureaucracy, creating serious conflicts between the state and landed nobility. The Prussian
and Russian landed upper classes directly staffed the
central civil and military bureaucracy and &dquo;were
more at one with their state than any in Western
Europe.&dquo; Is the state in all these cases equally
&dquo;relatively autonomous&dquo;? Does it make no difference
whether serf-owners, rentier landlords, capitalist
landlords, or professionals drawn from the urban
bourgeoisie or the lower middle class staff the
state? (2) What does it mean to say a state apparatus
is relatively autonomous when one also says (as
Anderson does of absolutism), &dquo;The very rigidity of
the nexus between state and nobility ultimately
precipitated their common downfall&dquo;?
Anderson thus has no theory about differences in
the development of European states, landed classes,
or capitalism. Differences are uniquely historical and
cannot be linked to theory. In this way, Anderson is
historicist and fails in his claims to link theory and
history. Barrington Moore in The Social Origins of
Dictatorship and Democracy was more successful in
this regard. Moore’s hypotheses are at best inadequate and at worst wrong, but he does at least
attempt to theorize about differences in historical
development. (3) In postulating how different types
of landed classes led to distinct modes of political
development in a) Western Europe, b) Germany and
Japan, and c) Russia and China, Moore did not give
adequate attention to state structures. But he did link
theory to history in a more consistent manner than
does Anderson.
Even as a functionalist theory, Anderson’s analysis
is weak. He notes that the Russian absolutist state
was &dquo;the major engine of rapid industrialization from
above.&dquo; Yet he presents no explanation of why this
absolutist state played the dynamic role of capitalist.
Nor does he indicate that this &dquo;fact&dquo; has any significance for his theory of the conservative functions of
the absolutist state. Thus, Anderson gives no consideration to the idea that different absolutist states
might have performed distinct functions in the transition to capitalism, depending on their position
vis-a-vis other states in the international system and
the timing of their national development.
In stressing the unilateral function of the absolutist
state structure, Anderson fails to create a dialectic
and change-oriented theory. Politics, class struggles,
and conflict are overwhelmingly evident in Anderson’s descriptive histories of particular countries, but
almost completely absent from his theory. A dynamic, materialist theory of the absolutist state would
have to hypothesize about the way that transitional
states depending on the constellation of internal and
international class forces, resolved the contradictory
demands from the landed class and the urban capitalists. Perhaps the depth and analytic thrust of
Anderson’s historical knowledge can help Marxists
bury the ambiguous concept of a &dquo;relatively autonomous state,&dquo; in order that they may begin theorizing on how the relationships between state structures
and class forces influence social change. How do
distinct class formations, class struggles, and international conflicts produce different types of state structures ? How do these state apparati once formed react
back on class formations, class struggles, and international conflict?
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57
Anderson’s history could produce such an analysis,
but his theory sees the polity primarily as a reactive
superstructure which adjusts to change in the economic sphere. The absolutist state, he says, did not play
a dynamic role in economic change. Marx stressed
the importance of political force in the primitive
accumulation of capital, but Anderson downplays it.
Anderson characterizes absolutist states as &dquo;machines built overwhelmingly for the battlefield.&dquo; But
he links this militarism to the state’s feudal origins
and not to its contribution to capital accumulation.
For Anderson, changes in the state which precede
internal economic development (as in Eastern Europe are a reaction to international economic pressure. Anderson’s economic determinism also leads
him to the conclusion that economy and polity are
always in harmony. Anderson’s theory cannot conceive of an absolutist state surviving into a capitalist
society, with all the contradictions and conflicts that
that might entail. Rather he concludes that, by 1870,
&dquo;The German state was not a capitalist apparatus
overdetermined by its feudal ancestry, but fundamentally homologous with a social formation which
by the early twentieth century was massively dominated by the capitalist mode of production.&dquo; Anderson attributes no theoretical importance to the fact
that the Junker landed class controlled the military
and civilian bureaucracy in imperial Germany as
they had in Prussia one hundred years earlier.
tl. Anderson’s Theory of Social Change
introduction, Anderson proclaims that a
understanding of the absolutist state is
&dquo;essential for understanding the passage from feudalism to capitalism in Europe.&dquo; We have seen, howIn his
correct
ever, that his dissection of absolutism is not concern-
ed with social change. It is only in his first volume,
Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, and in the
concluding chapters of Lineages that Anderson
develops a theory of social change-a theory to
attack the classic problem of why capitalism developed in the West. The state plays no role in Anderson’s answer to this question. Perhaps in his future
book on the bourgeois revolutions, Anderson will
link the absolutist state to change. But his present
work presents no theoretical clue as to how that
analysis will proceed. Instead, Anderson develops an
economist explanation for the rise of Western feudalism and an idealist explanation for capitalism.
Anderson is probably right to stress the economic
vitality of, and capital accumulation under, Western
feudalism. But what does it mean to say that feudalism was created by a synthesis of the slave mode of
production with the primitive mode of Germanic
tribes? What are the mechanisms of economic synthesis for two distinct modes ot production? Anderson gives us a little idea. Anderson is probably
correct to stress that it was &dquo;the transformation of
one form of private property-conditional-into
another form of private property-absolute-within
the landowning nobility that was the indispensible
preparation for the advent of capitalism.&dquo; But do
Marxists wish to accept Anderson’s idealist notion
that &dquo;the legal order born of the revival of Roman law
created the juridical conditions&dquo; for private property,
and hence, &dquo;for a succussful passage to the capitalist
mode of production&dquo;? In stressing the concatenation
of antiquity and feudalism to produce capitalism,
Anderson drops both class conflict and political
struggle out of his analysis.
Ultimately, Anderson’s theory of social change
fails not because it is economist or idealist, but
because it hinges on a questionable analysis of
Japanese feudalism. Anderson characterizes Japan
from the fourteenth century to 1868 as a feudal
society basically analogous to European feudalism.
This proposition is central to Anderson’s theory of
social change, for feudalism in Japan did not produce indigenous capitalism. In Anderson’s reasoning
it was only the antique legacy in European feudalism,
particularly Roman law and autonomous city culture, that led to capitalist development.
This hypothesis is then imposed on Chinese history. Anderson notes the existence of private property and most of the purely technical preconditions
for capitalist industrialization in imperial China after
the eleventh century. But he attributes the lack of
capitalist development to the failure of Chinese
urban sector subordinate to state control to generate
industrialization.
Let us turn to a consideration of Anderson’s comparative sociology of Japan and Turkey.
/11. Anderson’s Comparative Analysis of Non-Western
Societies
Like both Marx and Weber, Anderson recognizes
that an adequate explanation for the rise of capitalism in the West has to be based on a comparative
analysis of non-Western development. He says,
&dquo;Asian development cannot in any way by reduced
to a uniform residual category, left over after the
canons of European evolution have been established.
Any serious theoretical exploration of the historical
field outside feudal Europe will have to supersede
traditional and generic contrasts with it, and proceed
to a concrete and accurate typology of social formations and state systems in their own right, which
respects their very great differences of structure and
development.&dquo; But like Marx, and more than Weber,
Anderson’s understanding of non-Western economic,
social, and political structures is often superficial,
residual, or polluted by concepts drawn from
Western history.
Anderson begins an exploration of non-Western
social formations and state systems by rejecting the
Marxist use of the &dquo;Asiatic mode of production.&dquo; In a
long appendix, Anderson presents a descriptive contrast of the Chinese and Islamic empires to show that
these two types of Asian societies were quite distinct
in their structure and development. They do not fit
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58
into any of the contradictory ways Marxists have
defined the Asiatic mode of production. Anderson is
at his best in criticizing the bias and simplicity with
which Europeans have approached the Middle East
and Asia. But in his own analysis of the Ottoman
Empire and pre-capitalist Japan, Anderson exhibits
many of the same Eurocentric biases. The following
discussion of Anderson’s treatment of the Ottoman
Empire and Tokugawa Japan is based on my own
study of these two societies using many of the same
historical accounts as Anderson. (4) I will not try to
provide the detail necessary to support my interpretation, but only indicate that another prespective is
possible.
Was Japan really feudal from 1300 to 1868? Ander-
rightfully contends that feudalism cannot be
defined independent of the juridical and political
superstructures accompanying the mode of production. Hence his definition:
Feudalism typically involves the juridical
serfdom and military protection of the
peasantry by a social class of nobles,
enjoying individual authority and property, and exercising an exclusive monopoly of law an private rights of justice
within a political framework of fragmented sovereignty and subordinate fiscality,
and an aristocratic ideology exalting
rural life.
son
Japan may have fit this definition of feudalism during
the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, but Anderson
himself notes significant differences from Europe. No
estates developed in Japan, there was no ecclesiastical independence, no transition from conditional to
absolute private property, and no urban autonomy.
Given these qualifications, I question the analogy
with Europe, without a much more complete description of pre-Tokugawa Japan than Anderson provides.
More explicitly, however, I completey reject Anderson’s definition of Tokugawa Japan (1600-1868) as a
&dquo;unitary feudal system.&dquo; My research leads me to
assert that the Tokugawa state was more centralized,
more bureaucratic, and certainly more autonomous
from control by a landed class, than any absolutist
state in Europe, let alone any feudal one.
Long ago Max Weber concluded that neither Tokugawa Japan or the Ottoman Empire were &dquo;feudal.&dquo;
Weber made a clear distinction between a partimonial and feudal state. Feudalism, according to
Weber, triumphed when the landed benefices granted officials became not only hereditary fiefs but
personal property over which the ruler had no control. In contrast, land under patrimonialsim always
remained a prebend, a non-hereditary trom ot support officials which could be removed at the discretion of the ruler. Land and other benefices (fees, or
payments in kind for services) remained attached to
the office and not to the incumbent. (5) Feudalism
and patrimonialism also produced different kinds of
social stratification. Feudal lords used their control
over the land as a power base to win contractual
rights from the king. In the struggle, the vassals
developed organization independent of the state;
thev become an estate-a corporate aristocracywith collective consciousness of their status interests.
Patrimonial officials became a status group with
honor and privileges vis-a-vis the general population,
but their prestige remained to office, and hence they
were personally dependent on the sovereign. Without a base of power on the land, they failed to
develop independent organization. (6) Weber noted
that the great lords in Tokugawa Japan (diamyo)
could be transferred from one district to another;
hence their territory was a prebend and not a fief.
Moreover, &dquo;these diamyo were forbidden to establish
alliances, to enter into relations of vassalage with
one another, to conclude treaties with foreign
powers, to carry out feuds, or to build fortresses.&dquo;
Likewise, the lords’ vassals (samurai) were not granted land in return for military and civil service, but
rice stipends. (7)
Based on Weber’s concepts, my research leads me
to conclude that what was distinctive of both Toku-
gawa Japan and Ottoman Turkey was that there was
a separation of political from economic power. Aristocratic status was attached to office and not to landownership. Aristocratic officials never consolidated
control over the land, while commoner landlords and
merchants who came to have great economic power
never gained control of the Tokugawa or Ottoman
state apparatus.
Anderson’s designation of Tokugawa Japan as
&dquo;feudal&dquo; leads him to conclude that the Tokugawa
state at the beginning of the nineteenth century was
&dquo;an antiquted medieval machinery of government
in a dynamic early modern economy.&dquo; I see it as a
modernizing and dynamic political apparatus in a
backward economy. Because of it autonomy from
those with direct control over the agrarian economy,
the Tokugawa state generated first reforming and
later revolutionary officials able to dismantle from
above the archaic aspects of the Japanese economy,
society, and polity in response to the threat of
Western penetration. Anderson believes that the
passage from feudalism to capitalism in Japan &dquo;was
effected to a unique extent without political interlude.&dquo; I believe that the transition was uniquely
political, with the Meiji Restoration as a key event.
Anderson’s failure to develop concepts to characterize non-European state structures is seen as clearly
in his description of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish state survived from the fifteenth century to 1923
through centuries of increasing military defeat and
economic penetration by Western capitalism. It is
my belief that the survival of this &dquo;strong&dquo; state was
only possible because of continuous attempts at
reform by state bureaucrats who did not have vested
interests in the land. Yet Anderson sees the Ottoman
state in the nineteenth century as a &dquo;sodden morass,
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59
artificially sustained by the rivalry of European
powers.&dquo; Anderson refers to the Ottoman state and
society in only residual terms. The Ottoman state
the &dquo;Turkish socioabsolutist,
political order was radically distinct from that which
characterized Europe as a whole.&dquo; But how do we
conceive Ottoman state and society? How do we
conceptualize the distinctions? Anderson never tells
was
not
and
us.
Anderson was on the right track, I believe, when
he proclaimed that correct understanding of the
absolutist state is essential for understanding the
passage from feudalism to capitalism in Europe.
Anderson’s failure to achieve this understanding
sharpens the questions for future scholars. A new and
perhaps more persuasive answer to the classic question of why capitalism arose in the West awaits more
adequate analysis of non-Western social structure
and development. Comparative sociology, whether
Marxist or non-Marxist, will begin to make a lasting
contribution when study of Asian and other non-
Western societies provides
reinterpret ~urf)!1P&dquo;n <.oc’etv
insights which help us
(1) For a critique of Marxist analyses of the capitalist state see David
Gold, Clarence Lo, and Erik Wright, "Recent Developments in Marxist
Theories of the Capitalist State," Monthly Reveiw 27: 5, Oct, 1975.
(2) The German historian Otto Hintze does link differences in class
structures to distinctions in the development of European states. He
postulated that two factors conditioned the organization of European
states: a) the structure of social classes; and b) the external ordering
of states relative to each other and their over-all position in the world.
"Military Organization and the Organization of the State," in The
Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (New York: Oxford University Press,
1975), p. 183.
(3) See Theda Skocpol, "A Critical Review of Barrington Moore’s Social
Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," Politics and Society 4:1, Fall
1973.
(4) My analysis will be available in a recently completed book to be
published by Trans-action Books in 1976: Revolution From Above:
Military Bureaucrats and Development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt, and
Peru.
(5) Max Weber discusses these two types of traditional society in
Chapters 7 and 8 of Economy and Society, edited by Guenther Roth
and Claus Wittich (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968).
(6) Max Weber, Economy and Society, edited by Guenther Roth and
Claus Wittich (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968), p. 1081.
(7) Ibid., p. 1075.
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