Zhao Ruize: A Re-examination of Marx's Concept of "Mode of Production"
The concept of the "mode of production" appears repeatedly in Marx’s works and carries a significant theoretical role. As early as the age of 26, while living in Paris and writing the Paris Manuscripts, Marx was already consciously using this concept, and its frequency in the three volumes of Capital reaches as many as 484 instances. After turning to the critique of political economy, Marx frequently combined the concept of "mode of production" with the category of "capitalism" to form the "capitalist mode of production." In the preface to the first German edition of Volume 1 of Capital, written in July 1867, he explicitly stated: "What I have to examine in this work is the capitalist mode of production, and the relations of production and forms of intercourse [1] corresponding to it." This established the core position of the "mode of production"—and indeed the "capitalist mode of production"—within the theoretical system of Marxism. In this sense, whether one can accurately grasp the "mode of production" and its derivative, the "capitalist mode of production," directly concerns the deepening of research into Capital and, by extension, the construction of the entire Marxist theoretical system. Since Marx's death, the academic community has engaged in several intense debates surrounding this issue, with related insights emerging in an endless stream of diverse opinions. To fundamentally resolve this theoretical difficulty, it is necessary to return to Marx’s original works and conduct a meticulous analysis of the viewpoints proposed by various scholars. Furthermore, as a text relatively neglected by some scholars in their research, the French edition of Volume 1 of Capital and its "independent scientific value" will increasingly come to the fore as this study deepens.
I. A Re-study of Marx's Concept of "Mode of Production"
—An Investigation Based on the French Edition of Capital, Volume 1
A significant number of scholars believe that Marx’s concept of the "mode of production" is polysemous, ambiguous, and complex. They hold this view largely because Marx rarely provided a systematic explanation for this concept, despite its frequent recurrence and vital theoretical role. On the contrary, among relevant formulations, some are basically consistent, some are relatively close, and others are distinct from one another. This has directly led the academic community, since Marx’s death, to propose various different viewpoints regarding the exact meaning of the "mode of production," making it difficult to reach a consensus. At first glance, these viewpoints each have their own theoretical or practical basis, highlighting the flourishing development of Marxist theory as a discipline. In reality, however, once these viewpoints are applied to the interpretation of the classic formulation of the object of study in Capital, one falls into various theoretical dilemmas.
In Marx's works, two formulations are frequently used by scholars to understand the meaning of "mode of production." First, in The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx defines the "mode of production" as a "way of getting a living," placing it between the productive forces and the relations of production and linking the two—namely, "productive forces—mode of production (way of getting a living)—relations of production." In his view: "In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations." Tracing back to the source, the embryonic form of this definition appeared in a letter Marx wrote to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov on December 28, 1846. Second, in the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858 [2], Marx pointed out that the bourgeois mode of production "is the result of a long historical development, the summary of many economic revolutions, and presupposes the decline and fall of other modes of production (social relations of production) and a certain development of the social productive forces of labor." The parentheses in this sentence clearly indicate that Marx here treated "mode of production" and "relations of production" as equivalent. In his view, a certain development of "productive forces" is the basis and prerequisite for the bourgeois "mode of production (relations of production)." However, looking at these two formulations alone, there is a contradiction in the conceptual positioning of "mode of production"—that is, its relative position to "relations of production."
If one looks solely at the chronological order of the texts, the formulation of "mode of production (relations of production)" in the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858 would seem more representative of Marx's thought during his theoretical maturity than the formulations in the letter to Annenkov and The Poverty of Philosophy. However, such an understanding obviously elevates the temporal dimension to the sole dimension in the history of a concept's evolution. Especially for a concept as polysemous, ambiguous, and complex as "mode of production," an investigation through a single temporal dimension is far from sufficient. A powerful rebuttal to this understanding is the different theoretical meanings displayed by the "mode of production" concept in the three volumes of Capital published successively since 1867. In Part 1, "Commodities and Money," of Volume 1 of Capital, Marx points out: "A historically specific social mode of production, namely the relations of production of commodity production." This formulation clearly continues the line of thought from the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858, using the concept of "mode of production" in the sense of "relations of production." Yet, in Part 4, "The Production of Relative Surplus Value," of Volume 1 of Capital, Marx notes: "A revolution in the mode of production in one sector of industry involves a revolution in the mode of production in others." From the context, it is clear that Marx here presupposes that different industrial sectors (agriculture, industry, transport, etc.) have different "modes of production." Here, "mode of production" refers to the kinds of tools people use for production and the scale of that production. This understanding is undoubtedly distinct from "mode of production" as "relations of production" and is relatively close to the "way of getting a living" discussed in The Poverty of Philosophy. Clearly, on the one hand, the concept of "mode of production" appears repeatedly and assumes a major theoretical role; on the other hand, Marx never provided a systematic explanation for it. These reasons have directly led the academic community, in the wake of Marx’s death, to propose many different views on the exact meaning of the term, among which mainstream views can be divided into the following four categories.
The first category argues that the "mode of production" includes both productive forces and relations of production, acting as the unity of the two. This understanding originated at the end of the 19th century, appearing initially as Paul Lafargue, Karl Kautsky, Georgi Plekhanov, and others promoted the popularization and mass dissemination of Marxist theory. Later, through Stalin’s definitions and elaborations, it was eventually established as a vital concept in the Soviet system of political economy textbooks. In 1938, Stalin pointed out in Dialectical and Historical Materialism: "Production, the mode of production, embraces both the productive forces of society and men's relations of production, and thus embodies their unity in the process of production of material values." This view aimed to elucidate the law of historical necessity by which socialism replaces capitalism, and it exerted an extremely profound influence worldwide. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, to help the public better study Marxist theory, the People’s Daily began serializing Professor Wang Xuewen’s Introduction to a Course on Political Economy on October 9, 1949. In this work, he wrote: "The combination and unification of productive forces and relations of production is called the mode of production." A series of textbooks and dictionaries published in China at the end of the 20th century also largely followed and adopted this view. The problem is that if the "mode of production" includes both "productive forces" and "relations of production," substituting this into Marx's classic formulation of the object of study in Capital reveals that "the mode of production (including productive forces and relations of production)" and "the relations of production corresponding to the mode of production" are logically repetitive and contradictory. Stalin did not provide a reasonable explanation for this, which led to many later doubts regarding this view.
The second category views the "mode of production" as an "aggregate" [3] concept. As a contemporary of Stalin, David Iokhelevich Rosenberg (Давид Иохелевич Розенберг) sought to resolve the logical dilemma of the first category by introducing the philosophical terms "general form" and "specific form." He argued that when Marx discussed the object of study of Capital, he "distinguished the relations of production that form the most general form of the capitalist mode of production from the relations of production in their specific form—that is, relations of production and relations of exchange." Later, other scholars followed Rosenberg’s logic and proposed a division between "broad" and "narrow" senses. they argued that the "mode of production" mentioned in the classic formulation of the preface to the first German edition of Volume 1 of Capital refers to "relations of production in a broad sense," while the "relations of production corresponding to it" refers to "relations of production in a narrow sense." The logical consistency of this view is evidenced by the fact that the "capitalist mode of production" (German: die kapitalistische Produktionsweise; French: le mode de production capitaliste) used by Marx in this classic formulation is singular, whereas the "relations of production and exchange corresponding to it" (German: die ihr entsprechenden Produktions-und Verkehrsverhältnisse; French: les rapports de production et d’échange qui lui correspondent) is plural. However, while this method of distinguishing "general" from "specific" or "broad" from "narrow" attempts to crack the logical dilemma of the first view, it neglects a crucial point: the concept of "mode of production" appears not just once in the preface, but is found throughout all three volumes of Capital. Therefore, some dissenting views argue that if one must make such a distinction every time the term "mode of production" is mentioned, it undoubtedly makes the concept even more cumbersome and increases the difficulty of understanding.
The third category advocates for understanding the "mode of production" or "capitalist mode of production" in a single sense, and is divided into two diametrically opposed schools. One school believes Marx used "mode of production" in the sense of "productive forces"; the other believes he used it in the sense of "relations of production." Some argue that "the development of productive forces is the development of the mode of production, and vice versa." Consequently, on the question of the object of study in Capital, this view posits that "productive forces" are a major object of study, as the law of value and the law of surplus value revealed in Capital are inseparable from "productive forces." Furthermore, using the "mode of production" in the sense of "productive forces" is "consistent with the principle of historical materialism—that productive forces determine relations of production—which serves as the methodological principle of Capital." However, other scholars hold the opposite view, arguing that "Capital is a work specifically dedicated to the study of the capitalist economic system, and the economic system refers to the system of relations of production or the totality of relations of production." They contend that understanding "mode of production"—and thus the object of study of Capital—in the sense of "productive forces" is a view grafted onto Marx and lacks direct evidence. Evidently, unlike the internal "patchwork" approach of the second category, the third category is to some extent a result of reflecting on the entire Soviet political economy textbook system from the outside. Yet this view also faces logical dilemmas. For instance, some scholars have questioned: if Marx used the "mode of production" merely to mean "productive forces" or "relations of production," why did he not use those terms directly instead of bestowing the separate title "mode of production"? Moreover, if one insists on the sense of "relations of production," one still inevitably falls into a logical dilemma similar to that of the first category.
The fourth category of perspectives advocates for a return to Karl Marx's original texts to explore the primary meaning of the concept of "productive forces." This viewpoint is directed squarely at the state of interpretive chaos within the academic community regarding "productive forces." It argues that some scholars have been overly preoccupied with "defining" the concept while relatively neglecting its original meaning within Marx's own works and contexts. Adherents of this view oppose the practice of cherry-picking quotes from Marx's corpus to suit personal interpretations; instead, they advocate for "understanding and grasping their thoughts according to the original character of Marx's and Engels's own expositions." This method of returning to the texts and philology [4] is conducive to clarifying the source [5] and clearing away various past misunderstandings on this issue, possessing a certain positive significance.
However, because the term "mode of production" appears with high frequency in Marx’s works, some scholars have drifted toward extremes after repeated unsuccessful inquiries, concluding that the concept’s meanings are too numerous and indeterminate. In essence, the theoretical difficulty in understanding the "mode of production" lies not in how many different meanings it possesses, but in the extent to which these meanings can achieve unity. If one thoughtlessly assumes that "mode of production" refers now to "productive forces," now to "relations of production," now as a unity of the two, and now as something spanning between them, it creates difficulties not only for understanding the object of study in Capital but also causes disorder in the construction of the entire system of Marxist theory. Therefore, when conducting a genealogical investigation of the "mode of production" based on texts and philology, one should consciously refute those views that sink into the quagmire of "agnosticism" and thereby dissolve the problem itself. Instead, one must grasp the internal unity behind the diverse meanings through an investigation of the actual historical and logical process of the concept's evolution.
II. The Revision of the Concept of "Mode of Production" in the French Edition of Capital, Volume I
To better understand the concepts of "mode of production" and the "capitalist mode of production," as well as the object of study of Capital, it is of particularly important significance to examine the French edition of Volume I. The French edition of Capital, Volume I, was published in 44 installments from September 1872 to November 1875 and was bound into a single volume at the end of 1875. This was the final version personally revised and translated by Marx during his lifetime, based on the second German edition. Marx once considered this translation to "possess a scientific value independent of the original and even provide a reference for readers who understand German." The reason for repeatedly emphasizing the "value" of this translation is that Marx devoted a great deal of effort to it. Marx paid great attention to the quality of the French translation; "although the French text (translated by Mr. Roy, the translator of Feuerbach's works) was translated by a great master of both languages," Joseph Roy [6] nevertheless translated too literally, to the point that Marx "had to rewrite entire paragraphs of the French translation to make it understandable to French readers." In the French edition of Capital, Volume I, Marx made over 60 revisions centered on the concept of "mode of production." These revisions serve as an important reference for clarifying the meaning of the concept and the object of study in Capital, thereby deepening research on the work.
From the perspective of the various published versions of Capital, Volume I, the French edition not only has "independent scientific value" compared to the original (the second German edition), but also possesses such value compared to the current standard version (the fourth German edition). According to research, in 1877, Marx wrote an "Editorial Note for the American Edition of Capital, Volume I" specifically for the planned American translation. This note listed 119 specific points on how to modify the expositions in the second German edition and how to incorporate content from the French edition. However, for various reasons, the American edition was not published during Marx's lifetime, and this editorial note eventually passed into the hands of Engels. Engels's work was exceptionally cautious; in the process of revising and publishing the third German edition (1885), the English edition (1887), and the fourth German edition (1894), he did not fully utilize this editorial note. He explained: "This manuscript was written several years before Marx gave his final instructions for the third edition, so I did not dare to utilize it freely, except in individual cases, and mainly when it helped us solve certain difficult problems." In this sense, the French edition of Capital, Volume I, still possesses "independent scientific value" relative to the fourth German edition. Comparing the two versions, this "value" is mainly reflected in two aspects: first, editorial additions of an evaluative nature, such as historical materials, statistical data, and evaluations of French social trends (the Physiocrats, Utopian Socialism, Proudhonism); second, revisions and refinements of an adjustment nature, such as the reorganization of the original seven parts and twenty-five chapters into eight parts and thirty-three chapters (with nearly half the chapter titles modified), as well as the refinement of terminology such as "mode of production" and "capitalist mode of production," "exchange value" and "value," "necessary labor in future society," the relationship between "intensity of labor" and "relative surplus value," and the relationship between "simple labor (complex labor)" and "unskilled labor (skilled labor)." Among these, the revisions surrounding the concept of "mode of production" are closely related to the theme of this study.
In the process of revising and proofreading the French edition of Capital, Volume I, Marx provided a relatively clear definition of the concept of "mode of production" (French: mode de production). This definition appears in Part 12, "The Production of Relative Surplus Value" (corresponding to Chapter 10 of the German edition). Discussing the relationship between the productivity of labor and the production of relative surplus value, Marx points out: "Once it is a matter of obtaining surplus value by converting necessary labor into surplus labor, capital cannot satisfy itself with merely extending the duration of labor without touching the traditional labor process. On the contrary, it then needs to transform the technical and social conditions, namely, the mode of production." Marx uses "namely" (c’est-à-dire) here, explicitly equating the concept of "mode of production" with the "technical and social conditions" (les conditions techniques et sociales) of the labor process. This is a further refinement and specification of the corresponding expression in the German edition: "It must revolutionize the technological and social conditions of the labor process, and thus the mode of production itself." Furthermore, this definition can be used to analyze the concept of the "capitalist mode of production" (mode de production capitaliste) and serves as an important reference for clarifying the object of study in Capital.
Analyzing the concept of the "capitalist mode of production" based on Marx’s definition of "mode of production" in the French edition is an inherent requirement for clarifying Capital’s object of study. In the preface to the first German edition of Capital, Volume I, Marx stated: "What I have to examine in this work is the capitalist mode of production, and the relations of production and forms of intercourse [exchange] that correspond to it." This statement provides two important pieces of information. First, Marx combines the concept of "mode of production" with the category of "capitalist" to form the concept of "capitalist mode of production," which is a specific and refined expression of the object of study in Capital. As Louis Althusser pointed out, "any concrete social formation arises from a dominant mode of production"; in the specific social formation of "capitalism," the dominant "mode of production" is the "capitalist mode of production." Second, the "capitalist mode of production" is the most important component of the object of study in Capital. The "relations of production" and "relations of exchange" discussed in Capital correspond to the "capitalist mode of production"—that is, "capitalist relations of production" and "capitalist relations of exchange"—while the "capitalist mode of production" holds a more foundational status compared to both. Synthesizing the above analysis with Marx's definition in the French edition, we can understand the "capitalist mode of production" as the technical and social conditions of the labor process under the capitalist social formation, which distinguishes it from other social formations. Or, more colloquially, the "capitalist mode of production" is the way laborers utilize the means of production and their social combination during the labor process within the capitalist social formation.
From the series of revisions in the French edition of Capital, Volume I, it is clear that Marx understood the concept of "capitalist mode of production" in the sense of "capitalist production." To avoid ambiguous expressions and make the object of the "capitalist mode of production" more certain, Marx made further meticulous revisions in the French edition. Research shows that the concept of "mode of production" appears only 67 times in the French edition, nearly half as many as the 135 times in the first German edition, and most of these revisions occur where "mode of production" is used in combination with the "capitalist" category. On one hand, "capitalist mode of production" was further revised, refined, and perfected in the French edition into terms such as "capitalist production" (production capitaliste), "capitalist society" (société capitaliste), and "capitalist system" (régime capitaliste). On the other hand, a few related expressions, such as "commodity production" (production marchande), were revised into "mode of production." It should be noted that Marx's revisions around these concepts in the French edition do not imply that the previous German expressions were problematic; rather, with the continuous deepening of his research, Marx believed there might be better ways of expression. Therefore, there is absolutely no question of right or wrong between the two versions. These revisions largely reflect Marx's tendency to narrow and clarify the meaning and usage of the "mode of production" concept, which is key to cracking the problem of Capital's object of study and grasping the trajectory of Marx's thought. After discussing the object of study in the preface to the first German edition, Marx immediately emphasized: "Up to the present time, their classic ground [for this mode of production] is England." The corresponding expression in the French edition was translated as: "Up to the present time, England is the classic ground of this production." The shift from "this mode of production" in the German edition to "this production" in the French edition again provides an important basis for our understanding of the "capitalist mode of production." Clearly, Marx is discussing the concept here in the sense of "capitalist production," which in turn concerns the object of study in Capital. Furthermore, Marx's revision of the general title in the French edition of Volume I serves as important supporting evidence for this view. The general title Marx used in the German edition was "The Production Process of Capital" (Der Produktionsprozeß des Kapitals), while in the French edition, he revised it to "The Development of Capitalist Production" (Développement de la production capitaliste). Accordingly, understanding the "capitalist mode of production" in the sense of "capitalist production" and extending this to the investigation of Capital’s object of study is consistent with the main views and logical threads of all three volumes of Capital, and aligns with the basic principles of historical materialism.
Based on the revisions discussed above, it is evident that Marx interpreted the concept of the "capitalist mode of production" in the sense of "capitalist production" as the production of surplus value—using machinery and large-scale industrial production as the technical conditions, and capital’s employment of labor as the social conditions. In Chapter Seven of the French edition of Capital, Volume I, Marx explored two aspects of the capitalist production process respectively: the "production of use-values" (production de valeurs d’usage) and the "production of surplus value" (production de la plus-value). These two aspects correspond to the "labor process" (Arbeitsprozeß) and the "valorization process" (Verwertungsprozeß) in Chapter Five of the German edition. Marx’s revision of the chapter titles here was intended to reveal more clearly the theoretical theme of this section—and indeed the entire book—namely, that capitalist production "is essentially the production of surplus value, the sucking of surplus labor." "Capitalist production" differs from "production" in all previous social formations [7]; the purpose of this specific type of production is to create surplus value (attaining valorization), and the technical and social conditions of the labor process under the capitalist social formation are fundamentally subordinate to and serve this purpose.
In Volume III of Capital, Marx summarized three primary facts of "capitalist production": "1. Concentration of the means of production in a few hands, whereby they cease to appear as the property of the immediate laborers and are transformed into social capacities of production"; "2. Organization of labor itself as social labor: through cooperation, division of labor, and the uniting of labor with the natural sciences"; "3. Creation of the world market." First, the capitalist social formation differs from any previous social formation in that the capitalist, as the "employer," is no longer a concrete individual but "merely capital personified." This contains the acute contradiction between private ownership of the means of production and the socialization of production, constituting the social conditions of the labor process under the capitalist social formation. Second, the reason the level of productive forces under the capitalist social formation could rapidly surpass all previous generations is due, on one hand, to scientific management systems such as cooperation and the division of labor, and on the other, to the development and application of natural science. This allowed human capacity to utilize and transform nature to advance by leaps and bounds in a short period, forming machinery and large-scale industrial production distinct from domestic labor or crystalline manufacture, and constituting the technical conditions of the labor process under the capitalist social formation. Finally, these technical and social conditions are fundamentally subordinate to the production of surplus value; following the expansion of capital, they continuously break through original boundaries to construct a vast market on a global scale. It is clear that the three primary facts of capitalist production are inseparable from the relations between people arising from these facts. Discussing the relations between people apart from the facts of capitalist production is hollow and thin; discussing the facts of capitalist production apart from the relations between people is superficial and narrow. This profoundly addresses why Marx, when discussing the object of study in Capital, did not stop at emphasizing the "capitalist mode of production" but also attached high importance to the "relations of production" and "relations of exchange" that correspond to it.
III. Marx’s Concept of the "Mode of Production" from the Perspective of Historical Materialism
Taking a comprehensive view of Marx’s use and revision of the "mode of production" concept, the term exhibits a high degree of internal consistency. Within the perspective of historical materialism, Marx examined the internal structure and evolutionary transformation of society from a dual dimension—both "horizontal" and "vertical"—causing the concept of "mode of production" to manifest two major characteristics: "synchrony" and "diachrony." Marx’s exploration of the "mode of production" was coherent and consistent, deepening as his research into historical materialism intensified. The evolution of this concept is a profound embodiment of the continuous refinement of Marx’s theoretical logic. It is precisely through the intersecting lenses of "synchrony" and "diachrony" that Marx synthetically grasped the development and transformation of the "mode of production," thereby pointing toward the future direction of progress.
"Synchrony" focuses on grasping the internal structure of society based on the system of specific socio-economic movements and the interrelationships between elements within that system. From the perspective of Marx’s usage and revisions, the concept first appeared in "Notebook III" of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. However, Marx clearly established this concept as the core category of his theoretical analysis during the writing of The German Ideology and The Poverty of Philosophy. Initially, it was the concept of "productive forces" that drove Marx’s elucidation of the "mode of production." Based on the phrasing in The Poverty of Philosophy mentioned earlier, Marx explicitly regarded "productive forces" as the "basis of all history," believing that the development of "productive forces" inevitably triggers changes in the "relations of production." The "mode of gaining a living" [8], as the intermediary link between "productive forces" and "relations of production," was Marx’s highly condensed expression of the "mode of production" during this period. The problem is: what exactly does the "mode of gaining a living" used to explain the "mode of production" refer to? Marx similarly offered no explanatory clarification, with the result that later scholars, when encountering the concept of "mode of production," often found it difficult to tear away its vague and blurry "veil of mystery" to discern the internal depth behind it.
In fact, regarding the construction of Marx’s theoretical system, even if he did not provide a detailed explanation when first using the term, he successfully fulfilled the theoretical task that required urgent resolution during that period. This task was to focus the center of gravity of theoretical research on "reality"—a "reality" strictly distinguished from Hegel’s conceptual reality, referring instead to real individuals and their activities. "Synchrony" analyzes the internal structure of society based on the relative stability of a social formation. The "synchronic" characteristic of the "mode of production" refers to a blurred yet macro-level "stratum of reality" or "real domain of production." Marx emphasized the existence of such a "real domain of production" because he hoped to distinguish it from the "stratum of ideas"—that is, the "speculative philosophical stratum" that belongs to the realm of the superstructure in historical materialist research. When Marx truly succeeded in pulling the focus of research back from the "stratum of ideas" to the "stratum of reality" in the sense of historical materialism, he completed his critique of German ideology. Consequently, Marx did not continue to explore the structure and laws of the "stratum of reality" in his works of that period; this new theoretical task was left for the critique of political economy to address and resolve.
"Diachrony" focuses on grasping the evolutionary transformation of social formations based on the process of socio-economic movements and the laws governing the developmental movement of contradictions within that process. From the perspective of Marx’s usage and revisions, the definition of the "mode of production" in the French edition of Capital, Volume I—as the technical and social conditions of the labor process—accords with the intermediary connotation of the "mode of production" (the mode of gaining a living; the kind of tools people use for production, and the scale of production) used in The Poverty of Philosophy and Part Four of the German edition of Capital Volume I when discussing the "production of relative surplus value."
Furthermore, when Marx discussed "commodities and money" in Part One of the German edition of Capital, Volume I, he used an expression different from the views above—one that understood the "mode of production" in the sense of "relations of production": "the historically determined social mode of production, i.e., the relations of production of commodity production." In the French edition, this was revised to: "but these relations only belong to that specific historical period where commodity production becomes the social mode of production." Looking at this revision in the French edition, the logical relationship between "relations of production of commodity production (actual social relations)" and the "social mode of production" was revised from "identity" to "subordination." This not only conforms to Marx’s more recent definition of the "mode of production" but also highlights the "diachronic" characteristic of the concept itself within the perspective of historical materialism. It provides a highly persuasive response to the cognitive misunderstanding that the concept’s meaning is pluralistic and indeterminate within Capital and Marx’s wider oeuvre.
Examining this revision from a theoretical perspective, because it emphasizes that the "social mode of production" is based on a "specific historical period," it echoes the concepts Marx used since the mid-to-late 1840s when examining the history of capitalist formation, such as "(old) modes of production" (including the "Asiatic mode of production," the "ancient mode of production," the "slave and serf modes of production," and the "feudal mode of production") and "new modes of production" (including the "improved mode of production," the "modern mode of production," the "bourgeois mode of production," and the "capitalist mode of production"). It is evident that Marx consistently attached great importance to the "mode of production," believing that it manifests relative stability within the same social form while exhibiting significant differences across different social forms. The combination of the "mode of production" concept with the aforementioned series of categories demonstrates its inherent "diachronic" character and constitutes a key to our deep understanding and grasping of historical materialism.
Marx’s exploration of the "mode of production" was coherent and consistent, deepening as his research into historical materialism intensified. The evolution of this concept is a profound embodiment of the continuous refinement of Marx’s theoretical logic. In the mid-1840s, Marx began using the concept and established it as a core category of historical materialism in the sense of a "stratum of reality" distinct from the "stratum of ideas." In 1848, Marx and Engels used "mode of production" in the Manifesto of the Communist Party as a "keyword" for conducting critiques of actual society and analyzing proletarian revolutionary strategy. The reason "the downfall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable" is precisely because the "synchronic" and "diachronic" characteristics of the "mode of production" dictate that in the process of the bourgeoisie transforming the whole world, it will itself undergo a series of transformations.
In the late 1850s, following the basic establishment of historical materialism, Marx delved into the "stratum of reality," turning toward the critique of political economy. In the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858, he used the "method of post-festum reflection" [9] to meticulously examine various "modes of production" prior to the "bourgeois mode of production," "aiming to coordinate with the study of 'primitive accumulation of capital' and 'circulation of capital' to explore the historical mystery of the origins of capitalist production." Upon the publication of the first German edition of Capital, Volume I in 1867, the concept of the "capitalist mode of production" replaced the "bourgeois mode of production" as an essential component of the object of study in Capital, appearing in the writing plan for the "three volumes and four books." This change was not a negation of Marx’s earlier views. "The shift from the 'bourgeois mode of production' to the 'capitalist mode of production' was a further advancement of the method of critiquing actual socio-history based on the materialist conception of history, and simultaneously a further deepening of the concept of mode of production itself." Similarly, between 1872 and 1875, while publishing the French edition of Capital, Volume I in installments, Marx made over sixty revisions regarding the concept of "mode of production." These refinements and revisions also represent the further deepening of the concept itself. Judging from the revisions from the Capital manuscripts to Capital, and from the German edition of Capital, Volume I to the French edition, Marx’s exploration of the "mode of production" was coherent and consistent. Once proposed, the concept occupied the "production stratum (stratum of reality)" as opposed to the "stratum of ideas," serving as the theoretical product of the internal combination of the two major characteristics: "synchrony" and "diachrony."
The development and transformation of the "mode of production" must be comprehensively grasped through the interactive lens of "synchrony" and "diachrony." In Marx's view, the labor process is "common to all social forms of human life," but under the capitalist social form, all universal human labor must submit to and serve the particularity of capital valorization. According to the revisions in the French edition of Volume I of Capital, "capitalist mode of production" [10] should be understood, in the sense of "capitalist production," as the production of surplus value using machinery and large-scale industrial production as its technical conditions and capital’s employment of labor as its social conditions. On the one hand, within the synchronic structure of capitalist society, "all the powers of labor manifest themselves as the powers of capital." Capital continuously drives the technical and social conditions of the labor process to better coordinate with the valorization of capital itself. On the other hand, changes in the development of the technical and social conditions of the labor process promote the improvement of the level of social productive forces and the deepening of social intercourse [11], thereby laying the foundation for the diachronic transformation of the "mode of production." However, under the close coordination of machinery, large-scale industry, and the employment of labor by capital, the existential situation of free laborers has not effectively improved alongside capital valorization; they are not only "free as birds" in owning nothing, but have even been reduced to abstract "detail laborers" [12] on the capitalist production chain. At this point, the developmental limits of the "capitalist mode of production" are thoroughly exposed through the interactive lens of "synchrony" and "diachrony," and the "socialist mode of production," which transcends the "capitalist mode of production," thus enters into view.
The "capitalist mode of production" and the "relations of production" and "relations of exchange" compatible with it not only constitute the object of study in Capital, but to a certain extent have also constituted the research themes of Marxist theory since the second half of the 19th century. With the vigorous development of the socialist cause, the necessity and urgency of exploring the "socialist mode of production" that transcends the "capitalist mode of production," as well as its compatible "relations of production" and "relations of exchange," have gradually become prominent.
To examine the concept of "mode of production" and its derivative, the "capitalist mode of production," based on Marx's revisions in the French edition of Volume I of Capital does not mean one-sidedly exaggerating the "independent scientific value" [13] of this translation, nor does it mean using the nested understanding of the technical and social conditions of the labor process to interpret Marx’s use of the "mode of production" concept in other works. Rather, it suggests that this translation has been relatively neglected by the academic community for a long time, and many of its definitions and descriptions can serve as important references for clarifying the conceptual meaning of "mode of production" and the object of study in Capital. Re-examining the meticulous revisions Marx made around the concept of "mode of production" in the French edition of Volume I of Capital from the perspective of historical materialism, and further comprehensively grasping the development and transformation of the "mode of production" through the interactive lens of "synchrony" and "diachrony," provides us with a new perspective for deepening research on Capital and constructing a Marxist theoretical system.
(Author Profile: Zhao Ruize, School of Marxism, Renmin University of China) Online Editor: Tong Xin Source: Foreign Theoretical Trends, Issue 5, 2023