Jerry
-----
When and where and as part of what mode of production did PCP exist as
"dominant"?
Paul
----
PCP is itself a mode of production. On relatively impressionistic
grounds, I would say that it dominated for example the Irish Republic
in 1925.
Jerry
-----
Why don't modes of production go through "sequential development"?
Paul
----
Because they are abstract categories which we use to categorise
some of the activities going on in real concrete social formations.
It is only matter in motion that undergoes development. The
material entities are the social formations.
Jerry
-----
No one, I think, would say that historical studies were not
a part of the process of enquiry. Are they a necessary part of the form
of presentation? If so, why?
Paul
----
A theory is just speculation, whatever its apparent internal consistency,
until it is confronted with the real world. As a materialist one has to
cite evidence that ones theory applies to some actually, or previously
existing reality. Scientific presentation must include the evidence.
Look at the painstaking trouble that Marx's contemprary Darwin took to
present the evidence for evolution through natural selection.
In the absence of evidence, there is no compelling reason to accept
that what is described actually exists or has existed.
Paul Cockshott
wpc@cs.strath.ac.uk
http://www.cs.strath.ac.uk/CS/Biog/wpc/index.html