From: Paul C (clyder@GN.APC.ORG)
Date: Tue Sep 28 2004 - 16:07:11 EDT
glevy@PRATT.EDU wrote: >Hi Paul C. > > > >> >>I know that Lynn White, argued that some technologies - iron smelting >>the stirrup and the uses of legumes in the agricultural >>cycle, did advance in the immediate transition to feudalism, >>but it is clear that the general division of labour, trade >>and commodity production experienced a profound retrogression. >>I do not hold that real history is one of monotonic progress. >>There are retrogressions caused by the internal contradictions >>of modes of production which are not necessarily superseded >>right away by a more developed mode. >> >> > >Then, in what sense, could feudalism be said to be a more advanced >mode of production than the slave mode of production? This >raises a number of interesting questions .... > > > Paul Yes I agree this is an interesting question. I like to think of it in terms either of graph theory or Markov transition theory. Each mode of production is a node in the graph and the transitions between modes are arcs. Associated with each arc is a transition flux which is the probability of transition per unit time. A system of this sort can have a preferential path of development and it is this 'most likely' path of development that gives us a historical order. The existence of this ordering appears retrospectively as progress. However there may be other arcs on the graph, for example ones going from slavery direct to capitalism which have lower, but non-zero probabilities of occurence. What the history of the last 20 years should have taught us is that there was a non-zero probability of transition from socialism to capitalism for example. If one views the modes of production as a graph with probability flux lableled arcs then one has a somewhat richer structure than a unique linear ordering.
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