Pre-capitalist Social Relations Research Articles

Peer Review and Natural-Like Social Relations of Production in Academia

ABSTRACT There is a paucity of studies addressing the nature of the social relations of production prevailing in academia prior to the commodification of academic research. By filling that gap, this paper enables us to better understand the historical presuppositions from which the process of knowledge commodification in academia has evolved. Our theoretically informed analysis will focus on peer review, given that it is one of the few academic practices where traces of that historical past can still be found. On the basis of Marx’s exposition of the main features of pre-capitalist social relations of production in the Grundrisse, it will be concluded that peer review reveals that social relations of production in academia were of a pre-capitalist, or natural-like, nature: peer review is labour of a direct nature; is the practice through which the academic community mediates its own reproduction, determining how – and, sometimes, if – its members enter into contact with the objective conditions of production; finally, in this latter capacity, peer review presupposes that the academic community relates to the conditions of knowledge production as though they were their collective property. These findings are employed to account for the underlying logics of the ongoing ‘functional transformation’ of peer review.

The Marxist Tradition Against the Grain Anna Yegorova. Rethinking the Category of Class: Tempora Multa of the Plural Subject

The author develops the concept of plural temporality as a tool for revising the Marxist tradition. This concept was not explicitly formulated by Marx, but the author maintains that it takes a latent form in those of his works which expose the inadequacy of understanding historical development through a linear model or as unfolding in stages. The author finds traces of plural temporality in the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right where Marx contrasts the modernity of German philosophy with the anachronistic nature of the German state. The article outlines the concept’s growing influence over a series of works from the Manifesto of the Communist Party to The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. However, it is most distinct in two later texts by Marx devoted to the Russian rural commune (obshchina). Marx notes its unprecedented historical character as a product of pre-capitalist social relations that is nevertheless contemporary with capitalism. Therefore, it is not so a hindrance to the development of capitalism in Russia, but more a model of the type of collective labor and collective property that are an alternative to capitalism. Marx thought that the future revolution, if it happens at the “appropriate time,” would necessarily establish the free development of the rural community and the superiority of Russian society over those countries in which capitalism dominates. The author analyzes the works of Marx’s followers who already consciously use the concept and metaphors of plural temporality in their works such as Ernest Bloch, Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser. In conclusion, the concept of plural temporality is not meant to completely refute the idea of a continuous course for history, but instead to elucidate its complex and contingent nature.

Marx’s Inquiry into the Birth of Capitalism: Why Does It Matter?

ABSTRACTDiffering approaches to the issue of the beginnings of capitalism imply different conceptualization of what capitalism is. This paper elaborates on the notion of original accumulation. It utilizes the Marxist notion of the mode of production to provide the concept of the historical figure which Marx describes as the pre-capitalist money-owner. Two notions are introduced: (1) The money-begetting slave mode of production, existing since antiquity and clearly distinguishing itself from the classical slave mode of production; (2) the contractual money-begetting mode of production that emerged in the middle ages in relation to financial schemes based on partnerships or associations. The taskmaster of each of these two pre-capitalist modes of production is a pre-capitalist money-owner. His later “confrontation and contact” with the labourer who has become a proletarian is finally discussed. Original accumulation is not primitive developed or humane capitalist accumulation, but the transformation of pre-capitalist social relations into capitalist social relations. No version of capitalism is the realm of democracy, freedom, or justice. Capitalism is a social system in which direct coercion guaranteeing economic exploitation of the ruled by the rulers is incorporated into the economic relation itself. “Freedom” is the form of appearance of a historically specific system of class domination and exploitation.

Contentions and Prospects of Land Reform in Nepal: A Historical Review

This paper traces how the government policies on land rights have evolved over recent decades in Nepal and analyses the roles of existing power relations and vested interests in shaping their development and implementation. It is shown that historically entrenched power relations existing in the patrimonial political system have led to a highly unequal distribution of land. Ways to reduce inequality in land ownership to provide access to land for real farmers are essential, but due to these same entrenched power relations, they have not been implemented in earnest and land reforms over the last few decades have been unsuccessful. As a result, the same types of pre-capitalist social relations have persisted in rural areas. These relations have not been able to generate an agrarian surplus that can be invested in agriculture or other sectors of the economy. Furthermore, the concept of ‘property rights’ in relation to land has created a new problem in agrarian development in recent years, by fostering an environment in which people invest in land not to increase production but for speculation. As a result, it has become extremely difficult for poor people to purchase land to have a housing lot or for farming. The present democratic politics and institutions in the post 2006 context have still not shown any capacity or the interest to address the issue of land. Accordingly, the prospects for change at the moment seem bleak even though the rhetoric has increased. Moreover, the changed context calls for a new concept of land reform. This would take into account changes in the agrarian structure and an agrarian economy where mobility is high and injection of cash from outside the country has increased. It is finally argued that successful land reform should be led by grassroots political movements, with limited external intervention.

The Political History of Indagru VDC

This paper traces how the government policies on land rights have evolved over recent decades in Nepal and analyses the roles of existing power relations and vested interests in shaping their development and implementation. It is shown that historically entrenched power relations existing in the patrimonial political system have led to a highly unequal distribution of land. Ways to reduce inequality in land ownership to provide access to land for real farmers are essential, but due to these same entrenched power relations, they have not been implemented in earnest and land reforms over the last few decades have been unsuccessful. As a result, the same types of pre-capitalist social relations have persisted in rural areas. These relations have not been able to generate an agrarian surplus that can be invested in agriculture or other sectors of the economy. Furthermore, the concept of ‘property rights’ in relation to land has created a new problem in agrarian development in recent years, by fostering an environment in which people invest in land not to increase production but for speculation. As a result, it has become extremely difficult for poor people to purchase land to have a housing lot or for farming. The present democratic politics and institutions in the post 2006 context have still not shown any capacity or the interest to address the issue of land. Accordingly, the prospects for change at the moment seem bleak even though the rhetoric has increased. Moreover, the changed context calls for a new concept of land reform. This would take into account changes in the agrarian structure and an agrarian economy where mobility is high and injection of cash from outside the country has increased. It is finally argued that successful land reform should be led by grassroots political movements, with limited external intervention.

Uptown Folk: Blackness and Entertainment in Cabin in the Sky

JAMES NAREMORE Uptown Folk: Blackness and Entertainment in Cabin in the Sky ETWEEN 1927 and 1954, the major Hollywood studios produced 1 only six feature films that took place in an all-black milieu: Hallelujah ! (MGM, 1929), Hearts in Dixie (Fox, 1929), The Green Pastures (Warner Brothers, 1936), Cabin in the Sky (MGM, 1943), Stormy Weather (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1944), and Carmen Jones (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1954).1 The period in question was the heyday of classic cinema, bounded at one end by the introduction of sound and at the other by a shift toward a decentered, "package unit" mode of production ;2 more importantly, 1954 was also the year when the Supreme Court ordered public schools desegregated, paving the way for a civil rights movement that would have a lasting effect on all the media. Until then, any studio film purporting to deal exclusively with black experience was truly exceptional and controversial. The six films just listed are therefore among the most unusual products ofAmerican show business. No proper history of the movies should ignore them, and they deserve far more critical analysis than they have received. ' Viewed from a late twentieth-century perspective, one of the most interesting of the "all Negro" productions was MGM's Cabin in the Sky, starring Ethel Waters, Eddie Anderson, Lena Home, and a host of well-known black performers. This film warrants special attention—not only because of its considerable entertainment value, but also because it appeared at a crucial juncture in the series, when African Americans were increasing their demands for better treatment from the movie Arizona Quarterly Volume 48 Number 4, Winter 1992 Copyright © 1 992 by Arizona Board of Regents ISSN 0004-161 ? ooJames Naremore industry, when black musical performers were receiving a degree of celebrity they had not enjoyed before, and when the federal government was engaged in a semi-official drive to encourage more pictures with black casts. Although Cabin was manufactured in Hollywood's most conservative studio, it was designed to appeal to a variety of audiences , binding them together in the name of wartime solidarity; in certain ways, it can be described as a liberal or historically transitional work, and it tells us important things about the complex, sometimes troubled relations between ethnicity and modernity. Of course, in general terms, Cabin was no different from the other five studio-produced films about blacks. They were all products of a segrgated society; they were all written, produced, and directed by whites; and they were all musicals or melodramatic narratives that made extensive use of song and dance, thus reinforcing the white culture's perception of African Americans as a fun-loving, "rhythmic" people. As a group, the six films also depended upon a vivid binary opposition between city and country that structured both classic Hollywood and many aspects of the the culture at large.4 The social tensions and ideological contradictions expressed by this opposition were always crucial to any art or entertainment that involved blackness; notice, for example , how the country-city polarity functioned in early uses of "jazz," a term that had been appropriated by white songwriters from Tin Pan Alley and turned into an ambiguous, highly flexible signifier. Was jazz a primitive music, a people's music, or an entertainment music? AU three possibilities were suggested by critics, and the term seemed to oscillate between diametrically opposed meanings. On the one hand, jazz was associated with flappers, skyscrapers, and the entire panoply of twentieth-century modernity; on the other hand, because it originated with African Americans who migrated to the northern cities, it connoted agrarian or pre-capitalist social relations, and it could be linked to a pastoral myth. Thus Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat (1927) and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935) —two celebrated "modern" stage musicals—were grounded in folkloric treatments ofblacks. EvenWarner Brothers's The Jazz Singer (1927) evoked both the city and the country. Throughout most of the film, jazz represents a force of modernization that disrupts a conservative Jewish household; but when the protagonist enters show business, he reasserts old-fashioned values by donning blackface and singing "Mammy. " The same contrasts can be observed everywhere in Cabin...

Tin, Time, and Space in the Valley of Heaven

merely intensified the conflict between labour and capital on the mines. This paper pursues a line of questioning about timediscipline in the Third World suggested, but not developed, by Edward Thompson. It does so with particular reference to the small-scale, under-capitalized tin mining industry of colonial Swaziland. It demonstrates that the battle over the allocation and use of time was intensified not simply by the workers' prior obligations to the productive activities of the homestead, but by the perpetuation of strong pre-capitalist social relations and obligations between chiefs and commoners in the Swazi countryside.