Rethinking the “Other Transition”: Towards an Alternative Marxist Explanation

Abstract

After a long hiatus, Marxist historians are once again debating the “other transition”: from ancient society to feudalism. Considerable improvements in empirical knowledge have not, however, been matched by bold advances in historical materialist theory. Prominent contributors now question whether any meaningful transition occurred at all, emphasizing the persistence of feudalism (Wickham) or the maturation of an incipient capitalism (Banaji). In this, they reproduce a central methodological shortcoming of Perry Anderson's pioneering work, which is a reluctance to think beyond the “mode of production” concept itself. The alternative concept of mode of exploitation focuses on the multiple “political” mechanisms by which surplus was extracted from direct producers. In Merovingian and Carolingian Gaul, the manorial exploitation of free and unfree tenants, as well as state (“public”) exploitation of the landowning, arms-bearing peasantry, generated a social logic distinct from both the late Roman Empire and early Frankish feudalism. There was not just one “transition,” but two.