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The Position of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century in
the Eyes of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by Murat YOLUN*
Abstract
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels lived in an era when the Ottoman Empire was dissolving.
They often dealt with the political, economic, and social matters in Europe. Even though Asia and
Ottoman Empire was not a kind of focal point in their study, they had an idea about the orient. In
order to figure out their perception to the Ottoman Empire, we should know concept of Asiatic Mode of Production, Orientalism, and the fundamental differences between West and East in the mind of Engels and Marx. The 19th century was a confused age to Europe. Vienna Congress, 1830 and 1848 Revolutions, Crimean War, and Russo-Turkish War (1877-78) were the outstanding events and these events influenced Marx and Engels. Their writings on the Orient can be called journalistic since they essentially did not carry out a profound analysis on Turkey. Therefore, their approach to Ottoman Empire could be called inconsistent and coherent.
*Adıyaman University, Art and Science Faculty, Faculty Member
Historical analysis shows that the dissolution of AMP, (along with the political destabilization of Asiatic empires, the wars and the emigration of large populations, the development of world capitalist trade etc.), may follow different directions. In the case of the Ottoman Empire (Milios 1988), the increasing autonomy of Christian Southern Balkan communities from the Ottoman state rule, led to the indirect subordination of the peasants to commercial capital, the transformation of common property into private property, the formation of a local commercial, ship-owning and manufacturing bourgeoisie and to the prevailing of capitalist social relations. In other Balkan regions, the increasing power of district state officials, along with destabilization and dissolution of communities, led to the formation of feudal social forms. In all cases, historical development seems to refute the four-stages-scheme of dogmatic Marxism.
The concept of AMP is also connected with political dispute, since it makes clear that the absence of private property in the legal sense does not necessarily mean abolition also of class power and exploitation, or, in other words, that class exploitation of the laborers may attain collective forms. This idea was used by Wittfogel (1957) and Bahro (1977) in a selectivist way; they both abstracted from all structural characteristics of AMP except state despotism, (i.e. they reduced the “complex whole” of the AMP to the authoritarian state and the legal abolishment of private property, forgetting communities and tribute tax), in order to claim that 20th century Centrally Planed Societies were of Asiatic origin.
Mavi Boncuk |
The theory of the Asiatic mode of production (AMP) was devised by Karl Marx around the early 1850s. The essence of the theory has been described as "[the] suggestion ... that Asiatic societies were held in thrall by a despotic ruling clique, residing in central cities and directly expropriating surplus from largely autarkic and generally undifferentiated village communities."
The theory continues to arouse heated discussion among contemporary Marxists and non-Marxists alike. Some have rejected the whole concept on the grounds that the socio-economic formations of pre-capitalist Asia did not differ enough from those of feudal Europe to warrant special designation.
Aside from Marx, Friedrich Engels was also an enthusiastic commentator on the AMP. They both focused on the socio-economic base of AMP society.
Marx's theory focuses on the organisation of labour and depends on his distinction between the following:
The means or forces of production; items such as land, natural resources, tools, human skills and knowledge, that are required for the production of socially useful goods; and
The relations of production, which are the social relationships formed as human beings are united ("verbindung") in the processes of the production of socially useful goods.
Together these compose modes of production and Marx distinguished historical eras in terms of distinct predominant modes of production (Asiatic).
Marx and Engels highlighted and emphasised that the role the state played in Asiatic societies was dominant, which was accounted for by either the state's monopoly of land ownership, its sheer political and military power, or its control over irrigation systems.[5] Marx and Engels attributed this state domination to the communal nature of landholding and the isolation of the inhabitants of different villages from one another.
Criticism
The Asiatic mode of production is a notion that has been the subject of much discussion by both Marxist and non-Marxist commentators. The AMP is the most disputed mode of production outlined in the works of Marx and Engels. Questions regarding the validity of the concept of the AMP were raised in terms of whether or not it corresponds to the reality of certain given societies. Historians have questioned the value of the notion of the AMP as an interpretation of the "facts" of Indian or Chinese history. The AMP is not compatible with archaeological evidence.
The acceptance of the AMP concept has varied with changes in the political environment. The theory was rejected in the Soviet Union in the Stalinist period. Wittfogel[1] suggested in his concept of Oriental despotism that this was because of the similarity between the AMP and the reality of Stalin's Russia.
In Marxist ontology, Oriental despotism is the quality of the large cities of the Middle East and Asia, which would not have been truly independent, mainly due to their geographical location.
The premise, according to Marx, is that there existed some forms of state, which were ruled by tribute-collecting despots based on the system of production-property relations, described as "Asiatic mode of production." Oriental despotism is, thus, the political superstructure that was developed in succession. It was explained to have prevented states from progressing, or, as Marx said, "Asia fell asleep in history." Dynasties might have changed, but overall the structure of the state remained the same - until an outside force (i.e. Western powers) artificially enforces "progressive" reforms.
Within such socio-economic formations, the most obvious of which being the agrarian-based empires of Ancient Egypt and China, an absolute ruler farmed out the right to collect tribute from peasant villagers to a hierarchy of provincial petty officials, who also had responsibility for organizing the construction and maintenance of extensive irrigation works, upon which agricultural production was dependent. Extorting tribute from village communities became the universal mode of enrichment by the ruling class of military-priestly nobles.
[1] Karl August Wittfogel (6 September 1896, in Woltersdorf, Germany – 25 May 1988, in New York, USA) was a German-American playwright, historian, and sinologist. Originally a Marxist and an active member of the Communist Party of Germany, after the Second World War Wittfogel was an equally fierce Anticommunist.
Wittfogel is best known for his monumental work Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, first published in 1957. Starting from a Marxist analysis of the ideas of Max Weber on China and India's "hydraulic-bureaucratic official-state" and building on Marx's sceptical view of the Asiatic Mode of Production, Wittfogel came up with an analysis of Oriental despotism which emphasized the role of irrigation works, the bureaucratic structures needed to maintain them and the impact that these had on society, coining the term "hydraulic empire" to describe the system. In his view, many societies, mainly in Asia, relied heavily on the building of large-scale irrigation works. To do this, the state had to organize forced labor from the population at large. As only a centralized administration could organize the building and maintenance of large-scale systems of irrigation, the need for such systems made bureaucratic despotism inevitable in Oriental lands. This structure was uniquely placed to also crush civil society and any other force capable of mobilizing against the state. Such a state would inevitably be despotic, powerful, stable and wealthy. Wittfogel's anticommunism led in "Oriental Despotism" to extend the hydraulic hypothesis to Russia, where it hardly is applicable.
Barrington Moore, George Lichtheim and especially Pierre Vidal-Naquet are among the noted scientists who wrote on Wittfogel. F. Tökei, Gianni Sofri, Maurice Godelier and Wittfogel's estranged pupil Lawrence Krader, then Maoist F. Kramer or Claus Leggewie/Helmut Raich concentrated on the concept. Two Berlin leaders of the SDS student movement, Rudi Dutschke and Bernd Rabehl, have published on these themes. Then East German dissident Rudolf Bahro later said that his Alternative in Eastern Europe was based on ideas of Wittfogel, but because of the latter's later anti-communism, Wittfogel could not be mentioned by name. Bahro's later ecological ideas, recounted in From Red to Green and elsewhere were likewise inspired by Wittfogel's geographical determinism.
The Hydraulic Society thesis was also taken up by ecological anthropologists such as Marvin Harris. Further applications of the thesis included that to Mayan society, when aerial photographs revealed the network of canals in the Mayan areas of Yucatan. Critics have denied that Ceylon or Bali are truly hydraulic in the Wittfogel sense.
The Position of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century in
the Eyes of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by Murat YOLUN*
Abstract
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels lived in an era when the Ottoman Empire was dissolving.
They often dealt with the political, economic, and social matters in Europe. Even though Asia and
Ottoman Empire was not a kind of focal point in their study, they had an idea about the orient. In
order to figure out their perception to the Ottoman Empire, we should know concept of Asiatic Mode of Production, Orientalism, and the fundamental differences between West and East in the mind of Engels and Marx. The 19th century was a confused age to Europe. Vienna Congress, 1830 and 1848 Revolutions, Crimean War, and Russo-Turkish War (1877-78) were the outstanding events and these events influenced Marx and Engels. Their writings on the Orient can be called journalistic since they essentially did not carry out a profound analysis on Turkey. Therefore, their approach to Ottoman Empire could be called inconsistent and coherent.
*Adıyaman University, Art and Science Faculty, Faculty Member
Historical analysis shows that the dissolution of AMP, (along with the political destabilization of Asiatic empires, the wars and the emigration of large populations, the development of world capitalist trade etc.), may follow different directions. In the case of the Ottoman Empire (Milios 1988), the increasing autonomy of Christian Southern Balkan communities from the Ottoman state rule, led to the indirect subordination of the peasants to commercial capital, the transformation of common property into private property, the formation of a local commercial, ship-owning and manufacturing bourgeoisie and to the prevailing of capitalist social relations. In other Balkan regions, the increasing power of district state officials, along with destabilization and dissolution of communities, led to the formation of feudal social forms. In all cases, historical development seems to refute the four-stages-scheme of dogmatic Marxism.
The concept of AMP is also connected with political dispute, since it makes clear that the absence of private property in the legal sense does not necessarily mean abolition also of class power and exploitation, or, in other words, that class exploitation of the laborers may attain collective forms. This idea was used by Wittfogel (1957) and Bahro (1977) in a selectivist way; they both abstracted from all structural characteristics of AMP except state despotism, (i.e. they reduced the “complex whole” of the AMP to the authoritarian state and the legal abolishment of private property, forgetting communities and tribute tax), in order to claim that 20th century Centrally Planed Societies were of Asiatic origin.
Mavi Boncuk |
The theory of the Asiatic mode of production (AMP) was devised by Karl Marx around the early 1850s. The essence of the theory has been described as "[the] suggestion ... that Asiatic societies were held in thrall by a despotic ruling clique, residing in central cities and directly expropriating surplus from largely autarkic and generally undifferentiated village communities."
The theory continues to arouse heated discussion among contemporary Marxists and non-Marxists alike. Some have rejected the whole concept on the grounds that the socio-economic formations of pre-capitalist Asia did not differ enough from those of feudal Europe to warrant special designation.
Aside from Marx, Friedrich Engels was also an enthusiastic commentator on the AMP. They both focused on the socio-economic base of AMP society.
Marx's theory focuses on the organisation of labour and depends on his distinction between the following:
The means or forces of production; items such as land, natural resources, tools, human skills and knowledge, that are required for the production of socially useful goods; and
The relations of production, which are the social relationships formed as human beings are united ("verbindung") in the processes of the production of socially useful goods.
Together these compose modes of production and Marx distinguished historical eras in terms of distinct predominant modes of production (Asiatic).
Marx and Engels highlighted and emphasised that the role the state played in Asiatic societies was dominant, which was accounted for by either the state's monopoly of land ownership, its sheer political and military power, or its control over irrigation systems.[5] Marx and Engels attributed this state domination to the communal nature of landholding and the isolation of the inhabitants of different villages from one another.
Criticism
The Asiatic mode of production is a notion that has been the subject of much discussion by both Marxist and non-Marxist commentators. The AMP is the most disputed mode of production outlined in the works of Marx and Engels. Questions regarding the validity of the concept of the AMP were raised in terms of whether or not it corresponds to the reality of certain given societies. Historians have questioned the value of the notion of the AMP as an interpretation of the "facts" of Indian or Chinese history. The AMP is not compatible with archaeological evidence.
The acceptance of the AMP concept has varied with changes in the political environment. The theory was rejected in the Soviet Union in the Stalinist period. Wittfogel[1] suggested in his concept of Oriental despotism that this was because of the similarity between the AMP and the reality of Stalin's Russia.
The AMP became a subject of controversy among Marxists and Communists, both for theoretical and for political reasons. In the 1930s it was doomed as a non-scientific and non-Marxist concept by official USSR Marxism (Mandel 1971; 116-139, Brook 1989, Krader 1994).
In Marxist ontology, Oriental despotism is the quality of the large cities of the Middle East and Asia, which would not have been truly independent, mainly due to their geographical location.
The premise, according to Marx, is that there existed some forms of state, which were ruled by tribute-collecting despots based on the system of production-property relations, described as "Asiatic mode of production." Oriental despotism is, thus, the political superstructure that was developed in succession. It was explained to have prevented states from progressing, or, as Marx said, "Asia fell asleep in history." Dynasties might have changed, but overall the structure of the state remained the same - until an outside force (i.e. Western powers) artificially enforces "progressive" reforms.
Within such socio-economic formations, the most obvious of which being the agrarian-based empires of Ancient Egypt and China, an absolute ruler farmed out the right to collect tribute from peasant villagers to a hierarchy of provincial petty officials, who also had responsibility for organizing the construction and maintenance of extensive irrigation works, upon which agricultural production was dependent. Extorting tribute from village communities became the universal mode of enrichment by the ruling class of military-priestly nobles.
[1] Karl August Wittfogel (6 September 1896, in Woltersdorf, Germany – 25 May 1988, in New York, USA) was a German-American playwright, historian, and sinologist. Originally a Marxist and an active member of the Communist Party of Germany, after the Second World War Wittfogel was an equally fierce Anticommunist.
Wittfogel is best known for his monumental work Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, first published in 1957. Starting from a Marxist analysis of the ideas of Max Weber on China and India's "hydraulic-bureaucratic official-state" and building on Marx's sceptical view of the Asiatic Mode of Production, Wittfogel came up with an analysis of Oriental despotism which emphasized the role of irrigation works, the bureaucratic structures needed to maintain them and the impact that these had on society, coining the term "hydraulic empire" to describe the system. In his view, many societies, mainly in Asia, relied heavily on the building of large-scale irrigation works. To do this, the state had to organize forced labor from the population at large. As only a centralized administration could organize the building and maintenance of large-scale systems of irrigation, the need for such systems made bureaucratic despotism inevitable in Oriental lands. This structure was uniquely placed to also crush civil society and any other force capable of mobilizing against the state. Such a state would inevitably be despotic, powerful, stable and wealthy. Wittfogel's anticommunism led in "Oriental Despotism" to extend the hydraulic hypothesis to Russia, where it hardly is applicable.
Barrington Moore, George Lichtheim and especially Pierre Vidal-Naquet are among the noted scientists who wrote on Wittfogel. F. Tökei, Gianni Sofri, Maurice Godelier and Wittfogel's estranged pupil Lawrence Krader, then Maoist F. Kramer or Claus Leggewie/Helmut Raich concentrated on the concept. Two Berlin leaders of the SDS student movement, Rudi Dutschke and Bernd Rabehl, have published on these themes. Then East German dissident Rudolf Bahro later said that his Alternative in Eastern Europe was based on ideas of Wittfogel, but because of the latter's later anti-communism, Wittfogel could not be mentioned by name. Bahro's later ecological ideas, recounted in From Red to Green and elsewhere were likewise inspired by Wittfogel's geographical determinism.
The Hydraulic Society thesis was also taken up by ecological anthropologists such as Marvin Harris. Further applications of the thesis included that to Mayan society, when aerial photographs revealed the network of canals in the Mayan areas of Yucatan. Critics have denied that Ceylon or Bali are truly hydraulic in the Wittfogel sense.