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Beyond Capital-Nation-StateKojin Karatani

Online Publication Date: 01 October 2008

To cite this Article Karatani, Kojin(2008)'Beyond Capital-Nation-State',Rethinking Marxism,20:4,569 595To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/08935690802299447URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08935690802299447

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Marx stressed that commodity exchange began between communities. This was an

explicit criticism of Adam Smith, who assumed that commodity exchange began

between individuals. Marx asserted that such a view was a projection of the modern

capitalist economy onto previous social formations, a projection that blinds us to thehistoricity of the capitalist economy. For Marx, concepts of historical origins are

shaped by a projection of the present onto the ancient.

Previous critics of historical materialism have asserted that the notion of the state

as superstructure, which stands over the economic infrastructure, is valid only within

a capitalist society. In previous social structures, there was no clear distinction

between the economic and the political (or, in more general terms, the extra-

economic). In feudal society, for instance, the relation of production between feudal

lords and serfs was both economic and political. Such a distinction between the

economic and the political is even less useful with regard to primitive tribalcommunities. Jean Baudrillard and other critics of historical materialism have

dismissed Marx while it was actually Marx himself who first criticized such a

perspectival inversion as a simple projection of the present onto the past.1 As

Capital shows, Marx was fully aware of the difficulty of dealing with historical

becoming. Observing the origins of money and capital, he never adopted a historicist

method. Rather than empirically trace such origins back to the ancient period, he

transcendentally followed them back to the value form as such.

In addition, the critics of historical materialism claim that the notion of the state as

superstructure is misleading in the case of capitalism since it fails to capture theintegral role that the state plays in the capitalist social formation. Moreover, this lack

of understanding has led to devastating adventures in social transformation.

According to a well-known Marxist dogma, the state will cease to exist when the

economic class antagonism comes to an end. The truth, however, is far from this.

Indeed, this optimistic view on the impending demise of the state has led Marxist

practice to ruinous outcomes. In response, Marxists have come to concede that the

state as a political superstructure has a degree of relative autonomy over the

economic base. Nevertheless, so long as this architectural metaphor persists, so will

the theoretical difficulties. As a result, historical materialism seems to have beenmore or less rejected. The economic base as the last instance is occasionally

invoked simply out of respect for the Marxian tradition.

1. In The Mirror of Production, Baudrillard (1975) criticized Marx for projecting the viewafforded by capitalist society onto primitive society. However, he, too, projects the viewafforded by todays capitalist society, despite his assertion of casting light on capitalist societythrough primitive society. It is not accidental that the phenomenon of focusing on the gift andconsumption in primitive society took place in the 1930s, when the capitalist economy found away out of the Great Depression in Keynesian policies, characterized by creating effective

demand through the gifting of the government. In fact, Georges Bataille (1991) proposed ageneral economy, based on the anthropological data, which values consumption, in the formof sacrifice and potlatch, more than production. Based on this insight he viewed the MarshallPlan (the European Recovery Program), the postwar American policy to reactivate the worldeconomy by aiding Europe gratuitously, as akin to a gift or potlatch (La Part). Similarly, beneathBaudrillards criticism of Marxs notion of production lies the fact that capitalist economyentered the stage of consumer society. General economy ultimately is particular and historical.

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It is not necessarily wrong to abandon the architectural metaphor, but it is wrong to

thereby abandon all that Marx stood for. As he wrote in a preface to Capital, My

standpoint, from which the development of the economic formation of society is

viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individualresponsible for relations whose creature he remains, socially speaking, however much

he may subjectively raise himself above them (1976, xx). This was Marxs position

from his early period onward: history is to be viewed from the vantage point of the

relations between human and nature as well as the relations between humans. This is

tantamount to a natural historical view since humans are also seen as part of nature.

To put it differently, the relation between humans and nature is inseparable from the

relation between humans. When humans relate to nature, it is by way of their mutual

relation. In tribal societies, for instance, work is performed together and products are

shared. In class societies, some have others work for them either by force or for

money.

Now let us consider the relation between humans and nature, which historical

materialism conceived through the notion of production. What is important, however,

is that Marx regarded the relation between humans and nature as Stoffwechsel

(metabolism)*/that is, as material exchange. This is based upon the view that

production necessarily entails waste (entropy, in thermodynamic terms). Nature must

somehow dispose of this waste; hence the recycling relations between humans and

nature. For example, Marx praised Liebig, a German agricultural chemist, for his

discovery of a chemical fertilizer that destroys natural ecosystems, and wrote:

All progress in capitalist agriculture is a progress in the art, not only ofrobbing the working, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing thefertility of the soil for a given time is a progress towards the more long-lasting sources of that fertility. The more a country proceeds from large-scale industry as the background of its development, as in the case of theUnited States, the more rapid is this process of destruction. Capitalistproduction, therefore, only develops the techniques and the degree ofcombination of the social process of production by simultaneously under-mining the original sources of all-wealth*/the soil and the worker. (638)

Robbing the soil entails the destruction of the cyclical exchange between humans and

nature, neglecting the effort to sustain it. Here Marx specifically states that capitalist

agriculture develops by humans robbing nature as well as by humans plundering

humans. But this theft is not unique to large-scale capitalist agriculture. The same

can be witnessed in the ancient Asiatic states, which introduced large-scale

agriculture with irrigation, resulting in the desertification of land and ultimately

the ruin of an entire civilization. This implies that the exploitation of nature by

humans began with the exploitation of humans by humans, which is nothing other

than the emergence of the state. This is the Marxian natural historical viewpoint.Baudrillard has criticized the notion of production in Marxism insofar as it stems

from the tradition of Western philosophy and theology, counterposing symbolic

exchange in order to lay emphasis on consumption. The notion of production

proper to Western metaphysics is based upon a Platonic view that sees it simply in

spiritual terms as poiesis. Plato looked down upon actual production, which either

CAPITAL-NATION-STATE 571

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brings waste or eventually turns into waste. In modern times, it was Hegel who

showed most systematically how spiritual production shapes natural and human

history. Needless to say, this is idealism. Marxists reversed this idealism into

materialism, but idealism remained in the very notion of production as it wasconsidered the driving force behind social change. Consequently, they naively

glorified the progress made in the forces of production. It is easily understood why

ecologists would criticize them. Their criticism, however, does not apply to Marx.

In order to attack the metaphysics of production in Marx, Baudrillard counterposed

the notion of symbolic exchange or consumption, which he obtained from anthro-

pological observations of primitive society. The Marxian standpoint, however, had

nothing to do with such metaphysics of production. Marx viewed the relation between

humans and nature as material exchange. What I propose here is that the relation

between humans should be viewed in terms of exchange in a broader sense. Forinstance, in primitive society, people work together and share the products of their

labor. Their relation can be seen as reciprocal, as a mode of exchange. In class

society, some have others work for them either by force or for money. These

relationships can also be seen as different modes of exchange. In this light, what Marx

called the relations of production can be reconsidered in terms of exchange.

It is not particularly unique for me to use the notion of exchange in such a broad

sense. Marx himself did so after his early period, although he used the term Verkehr

(intercourse/traffic) for exchange. In The German Ideology(Marx and Engels 1970),

Verkehr implied diverse notions of trade and war between family and tribalcommunities, and even communication in general, not to mention traffic in a narrow

sense. Here, Marx was indeed considering exchange in a broad sense.2

Marx widely and diversely used the term Verkehrup until the Communist Manifesto

of 1848. His abandonment of the concept thereafter seems to have been caused by

the fact that he submerged himself in the study of economics, which eventually led

him to write Capital. He finally limited his observation of exchange to a specific

modality: namely, commodity exchange. In other words, he applied himself to the

study of the whole system of capitalist economy by way of commodity exchange, thus

making observation of the state, community, and nation secondary. Therefore, todeal with those matters comprehensively, we should return to the notion of Verkehr.

However, for practical clarity I will use the word exchange in diverse senses instead

of reviving Verkehr.

2. This point becomes even more evident when we take the thesis of Moses Hess, who hadproposed the notion of Verkehr prior to Marx. Today, Hess is essentially known as a precursor of

Zionism, but in his youth he was a Young Hegelian. Though senior to Marx, Hess modestly admiredhim and cooperated with him in the Communist League up until 1848. This does not negate thefact that he had a profound impact on the young Marx. In fact, Hess was the first person whoapplied the Feuerbachian critique of Christianity as self-alienation to other spheres such as thestate and capitalism. Based on the concept of Verkehr, he presented the consistent view ofhistory of nature and human, as is evident in his essay Uber das Geldwesen (On money) (Hess1961).

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The Mode of Exchange

The experience of Stalinism and fascism served as a lesson to those Marxists who hadgiven little attention to the state and the nation by treating them merely as

ideological superstructures and as ultimately determined by the economic base.

Subsequently, more attention has indeed been given to them but, since Marxists have

been deeply bound to the historical materialist framework, they have not gone

further than simply stressing the relative autonomy of the state and the nation.

Sociology and psychoanalysis have been mobilized to prop up Marxist theory, but

despite increasingly sophisticated arguments Marxists have continued to conceive of

the state and the nation as communal fantasies or ideological representations.

Now I propose to consider the state and the nation as derived from the modes ofexchange rather than exclusively from commodity exchange. In Capital, Marx tried to

explain these grandiose and illusive systems from the basic mode of commodity

exchange. By the same token, we can see the state and the nation as historical

derivatives of the basic modes of exchange. Neither is a communal fantasy nor

ideological image; they have firm and necessary grounds. That is precisely why they

cannot be easily dissolved. There are four basic modes of exchange, as shown in

Figure 1. Figure 2a/b show the historical derivations arising from the different modes

of exchange.3

B

plunder-

redistribution

A

reciprocity

(gift-return)

C

commodity

exchange

D

X

Figure 1 Four basic modes of exchange

3. I presented the idea of conceiving of capital, state, nation, association, and so on, asdifferent modes of exchange in Transcritique (Karatani 2003). For the continuation of this work,see Toward the World Republic: Beyond Capital-Nation-State (Karatani 2006). This essay servesas an introduction to that work.


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The first mode of exchange is A: reciprocity. In Capital, Marx emphasized that

commodity exchange begins only between distinct communities, but this is not to say

that exchange within a single community does not exist. The exchange we see there isof a different kind: namely, reciprocation of gift and return. Marcel Mauss (1968)

found that certain principles in primitive society tended to support the formation of a

social structure; these were principles of reciprocity, such as the gifting and returning

of food, wealth, women, labor, and so on. Reciprocity, as a type of exchange, is not

B

(b)

(a)

state

A

community

C

city

D

X

B

state

A

nation

C

capitalist

economy

D

X

Figure 2 Historical derivations from different modes of exchange

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restricted to archaic societies but exists today in various types of communities, even

in societies where capitalism is most developed, ranging from family to an extended

community, from association to nation.

Although this reciprocity brings about solidarity and equality, it should not beseen in terms of goodwill. Gifting is a way of subordinating others to ones will,

which of course has nothing to do with goodwill. The gifted is placed under the

gifting unless able to offer a return. Basing his thoughts on his observations of

Polynesian communities, Mauss assumed that the custom of returning is compelled

by a magical power (hau) that gifts contain. But this magical power can be

explained as a social power that rules over and binds others. Therefore, one who

lavishes gifts on others may receive power. This, however, does not create the king

or the state, for one who becomes a chieftain by lavishly gifting would eventually

run out of wealth, and eventually lose power. This is precisely how attempts to gain

power through gifting unknowingly promote mutual aid and equality. In this sense,

principles of reciprocity prevent both power from being fixed and the state from

coming into existence.

The formation of community is based upon such principles. Conversely, such

reciprocity can exist only within a community, where it renders mutual aid and

equality to individuals. This, at the same time, binds individuals firmly to the

community, whereby individuals feel as if they were gifted from the community and

were obliged to return.

The second type of exchange takes place between communities. Marx repeatedly

emphasized that commodity exchange began between communities, but what

initially occurs is plunder. Plunder is the opposite of exchange. But what makes it a

mode of exchange? The continuous plundering requires some kind of redistribution;

that is to say, the ruler needs to take care of the ruled. This redistribution has, at

least historically, taken the form of public undertakings such as irrigation, welfare,

or security measures. If we take this into consideration, it starts to appear as if

plunder and redistribution can form a type of exchange. Needless to say, it is this

mode of exchange that serves as the prototype for the state. To paraphrase Max

Weber, the essence of the state lies in the monopoly of violence, or rather, in the

designation of the violence of others as illegitimate. The rulers protect the ruledfrom the violence of the others. The state begins to function when the ruled take it

for granted to pay tax in return for the rights secured by the rulers. Furthermore,

the state redistributes wealth to the ruled in one form or another. This is how the

state assumes a public appearance from the beginning. In this sense, it may be said

that the state is based on the mode of exchange B.

In contrast to plunder, the mode of exchange C, commodity exchange, is based on

mutual assent. Despite appearances, however, human relationships formed through

commodity exchange are not necessarily equal. Commodity exchange, strictly

speaking, takes place not as an immediate exchange of products or services, but asan exchange between money and commodity. As Marx put it, money has the right

of pledge to exchange with commodities, while commodities do not. Those who

own money may acquire others products and can make others work without

recourse to violent coercion. This is why those who own money and those who own

commodities are not equal. Capitalists gain surplus value through commodity


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exchange, necessarily resulting in class disparities and oppositions. It may be said

that the mode of exchange C engenders class relationships that are different from

those caused by mode of exchange B.

Finally, I must mention the mode of exchange D, which is characterized byrecovery of the mode of exchange A (or the principles of reciprocity), on a higher

level, and beyond the modes of exchange B and C (namely, the state and

capitalism). Mode of exchange D is at once free and reciprocal. Or, we may call

it the reciprocity of freedom. Societies in which the reciprocity of freedom has

been realized have been given various names: socialist, communist, anarchist,

associationist, and so on. But I will call it X for the time being in order to eschew

the historical connotations of those words. What should be noted is that X does not

exist in reality. It exists only as an idea (Idee). To further interrogate X, or the mode

of exchange D, Kants remarks on the moral imperative are most suggestive: So act

that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other,

always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means (1998, 38 [4:429]).

Kant called the society where such amoral law is realized the republic of ends or

the kingdom of freedom, which is itself, of course, une Idee.

However, this moral law is not abstract or ahistorical, as is usually believed. As

Hermann Cohen, a neo-Kantian philosopher, reminds us, it is important that Kant

here stresses never merely as (Cohen 1984, 112 ff.). He does not negate treating

others as a means. After all, such treatment is inevitable so long as humans depend

on exchanging their labor or products with others. Within a capitalist economy,

Kants emphasis suggests that human beings are treated merely as a means but

never as an end. His moral law implies changing such a society into one where

others are treated also as an end; this is what Kant called the republic of ends.

Furthermore, Kant actually mapped this out in practical terms. His plan was to

form an association of independent producers without the mediation of merchant

capital. This is why Cohen calls him the true originator of German socialism. In

fact, it was Proudhon rather than German socialists who truly inherited the idea of

Kantian socialism. The crucial point here is that X, whatever you may call it, ought

to be both ethical and economic. To borrow from Kants rhetoric, communism

without an economic basis is empty while communism without an ethical basis isblind.

Let us return to the modes of exchange. While the modes A, B, and C have

existed since time immemorial, the mode D emerged historically at a stage where

the state and the market economy had reached a certain degree of development.

The mode D emerged in the form of universal religions, revealing an ethical-

economic dimension in contrast to the community, state, and market economy. It

did not come from peoples wishes or fantasies, but rather in opposition to them: it

appeared as a moral imperative. That is to say, mode D exists not merely as a

Utopian idea but as an act that radically intervenes in the society constituted bymodes A, B, and C.

Universal religion permeated the city, and then the state and the community. But

as it altered the state and the community, it also was altered by them, coming to

serve for their old system. Nevertheless, the universal religion retains some

negativity against the state and the community. For example, it brought the

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universal law; jus canonicum (canon law), sharia (Islamic law), dharma (Buddhist

law), and so on. Thus, the state is never free from the influence of the ideality

derived from mode D. Furthermore, the negativity in universal religion is

reactivated whenever a social movement tries to subvert the ancient regime.This is why social movements often take the form of religious movements like

millenarianism. Indeed, the first bourgeois revolution in Britain took a religious

form: namely, the Puritan revolution. Apparently, socialism has been divorced from

religion since the middle of the nineteenth century. It has subsequently become

scientific socialism and has attempted to convince people that its visions are

realistic and programmatic. Socialism has lost its ethical and Utopian elements. As a

result, it has also lost the splendor and fascination it once carried.4

To repeat, modes A, B, and C exist in actuality, but mode D exists only as an idea.

However, in Kantian terms, it is not a constitutive idea, but a regulative idea:

that is to say, an idea that is never realized but that remains an index for humans

gradually to approximate as closely as possible. The regulative idea is an

appearance or Schein, but it is a transcendental Schein in the sense that human

beings cannot do without it. Therefore, although the mode of exchange D will never

be realized, it will never disappear. So long as the modes of exchange A, B, and C

persist in reality, mode D will also persist as a source of negativity against modes A,

B and C.

The Social Formation

Marx distinguished five historical types of social formation according to the

dominant mode of production: tribal, Asiatic, Greco-Roman, feudal, and capitalist.

However, as I have previously suggested, distinguishing each in terms of the mode of

production is problematic and confusing, so I have proposed reconsidering each in

terms of modes of exchange (Table 1). Any social formation comprises the

combination of various modes of exchange: reciprocity (A), plunder-redistribution

(B), commodity exchange (C) and, most important, the fourth mode (D) should not

be overlooked. Its widespread existence is evident in the form of law, churches,

social movements, and so on. The difference in social formation depends upon

which mode of exchange is predominant and how the modes of exchange are

articulated. In addition, the formation of one society largely depends upon the

formation of adjacent societies.

Baudrillard (1975) came to reject the position that views the economic field as

the last instance. In its stead he placed symbolic exchange, which is reciprocal

and thus differs from commodity exchange. But it would be false to say that

reciprocity in itself is a basic exchange. Other modes of exchange are just as

4. It is not surprising that religious revolutionaries have played a large role in todays socialmovements, as represented, for example, by the Iranian revolution. Religious radicalism has thepower to urge ordinary people to counter the capital and the state, but this should not beoverestimated. So long as radicalism takes a religious form, it will necessarily lead to adictatorship of the clerics, and ultimately reinforce the state.


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fundamental. For instance, in primitive society the principle of reciprocity is

certainly predominant, but trade and war, other modes of exchange, exist as well.

Likewise, the predominance of commodity exchange in capitalist society does notpreclude other modes of exchange. Any social formation is the combination of the

four modes of exchange. The difference lies in how they are combined.

If this is the case, it is impossible to say which mode is the most fundamental. If

we were to say that exchange in general is economic, all basic modes of

exchange may be called economic. Additionally, if we see these modes of exchange

as bases, we can picture how ideational superstructures are constructed upon

them. For example, the state is the ideational structure based upon the mode of

exchange B, and the nation is the ideational structure based upon the mode of

exchange A. The capitalist system, as well, is a grand ideational system interwovenby money and credit.

In Capital, Marx attempted to elucidate the capitalist economy as an ideational

system that grows out of commodity exchange by bracketing all other modes of

exchange. It is true that he did not scrutinize the other spheres of exchange. Rather

than criticize him for this, however, we should consider what systems might be

formed through the bracketing of the different modes of exchange. In fact, based

on their anthropological observations of primitive societies, it may be said that

Mauss, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Pierre Clastres have clarified how the principles of

reciprocity form a society. Meanwhile, Carl Schmitt (1996) sought the nature of thepolitical, as distinct from the economic or the aesthetic, in the friend/enemy

distinction. This only implies, however, that the political is intrinsic to the basic

mode of exchange B. These contributions in no way downgrade Marxs achievements

vis-a-vis the capitalist economy.

We must synthesize these disparate studies of modes of exchange; that is, we must

review the social formation as the nexus of these various modes of exchange. More

specifically, this requires us to reconsider the history of social formations as

presented by Marx from a new point of view.

First, the tribal community is the social formation in which reciprocity ispredominant. This means that other modes (A and B) are coexistent. Here,

historical archaic societies ought to be distinguished from contemporary primitive

societies as observed by anthropologists. The latter are isolated from the outside;

more precisely, they have conditions that make their isolation possible. Archaic

societies were forced to be absorbed by a state or themselves turned into a state

Table 1 Marxs Five Historical Types of Social Formation

Type of Social Formation Dominant Mode of Exchange

1. Tribal Reciprocity, or gift-return2. Asiatic Plunder-redistribution3. Greco-Roman Plunder-redistribution4. Feudal Plunder-redistribution5. Capitalist Commodity exchange

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formation by coming into contact with other societies. However, archaic societies

are not solely based upon the principles of reciprocity. As a matter of fact, they are

quite manifold, ranging from sheer primitive societies to nearly statelike societies.

The difference depends upon the extent to which other modes of exchange arepresent.

Many primitive societies had a chiefdom, which is an embryonic form of the state.

But a chiefdom can resist the state, namely through the principles of reciprocity.

This system prevents anyone from remaining a chieftain forever, which implies that

the king or the state cannot emerge from within a single community.5 Again, Marx

stressed that commodity exchange arose only between distinct communities.

Likewise, it should be noted that the state, as well, can only emerge between

distinct communities. The formation of the state cannot be seen as the outcome of

the internal development of a community. Rather, it appears when a communityrules other communities. This does not mean that all states were formed by

conquest. If one state exists, other adjacent communities must become states in

order to protect themselves from being subjected. It is in this sense that states

exist essentially against other states.

For instance, it is commonly believed that the rise of productivity in agrarian society

engendered class division, which eventually led to formation of the state. This is one

typical way of viewing the state via the community. But the rise of productivity never

occurs within a community. Given the surplus, it would be readily dissipated, as

Bataille (1991) has noted. The rise of productivity or surplus labor in the community isrealized by the coercion of the ruler, the state. The state is a community that imposes

tribute and service on other communities that it dominates. Accordingly, the state

should be observed from two sides: from the ruling community, and the ruled

community.

This is typical of the Asiatic social formation, which is usually considered an early

and primitive stage of history. But this is only valid if we focus on the ruled

community. The characteristics of the Asiatic social formation should also be seen

on the level of the ruling community, in which the principles of community

(reciprocity) were denied and replaced by a centralized government, a bureaucracy,and a standing army. Meanwhile, by contrast, the principle of community stayed

intact in the ruled agrarian communities. We fail to recognize the nature of

5. In primitive societies, decisions were made by an assembly or a council. Anthropologist DavidGraeber wrote, After having lived in Madagascar for two years, I was startled, the first time Istarted attending the meetings of the Direct Action Network in New York, by how familiar it allseemed*/the main difference was that the DAN process was so much more formalized andexplicit (2004, 86). This remark reminds me of what Hanna Arendt remarked in her book OnRevolution regarding the council, a widespread institution in the New Left movement around

1968. The council (Soviet in Russian, Rate in German) is often associated with Marxism, but wasoriginally an anarchist idea. However, Arendt emphasizes that the institution of the councilderives from lived political experience and action, and arises spontaneously as if it weresomething entirely new. That is, the council is actually no ones idea, either Marxist or anarchist.Rather, anarchism (as a principle of reciprocity) consists in embracing spontaneously occurringanticentralization movements. If the state and capital come from human nature,countermovements can also be said to come from human nature.


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the Asiatic social formation if we restrict our focus to the so-called mode of

production.6

Such centralization, however, was not readily realized. Let us consider examples of

Asiatic states, such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus, and China. They all began withcity-states. Centralization occurred only through incessant struggle among these

small city-states. The process is clearly shown in Chinese history up until the first

Chinese Empire of Shih-huang-ti. In this process of centralization, the principles of

reciprocity that remained in the city-states were erased. Consequently, the despotic

state emerged with its bureaucrats and a standing army. This is what Weber called the

patrimonial-bureaucratic state. These states facilitated the creation of technol-

ogies necessary to control the environment, as in the case of large-scale irrigation,

which greatly developed agricultural production. What is no less significant is that

they also created technologies for controlling people, such as bureaucracy, letters,media, religion, and so on. The Asiatic states are not elementary. In Europe, it was

not until the period of absolute monarchy that patrimonial bureaucratic states were

created, emerging out of decentralized feudal states through the suppression of the

many feudal lords who were vying for power. The Asiatic state, then, is not embryonic

but is an essentially complete form of the state.

In the Asiatic social formation, the exchange mode B is prevalent. This is a form

that usurps the agrarian communities by way of tribute and compulsory service. The

Asiatic social formation, of course, contains modes B and C as well. For instance,

trade and merchant capital were highly developed. Nevertheless, trade and the citywere subordinate to the state. Likewise, the agrarian community had autonomy and

maintained the principle of reciprocity while at the same time being subordinate to

the state (the ruling class).

The Greco-Roman social formation also includes the mode B as a necessary

factor, but it differs from the Asiatic social formation on the levels of both the

ruling and the ruled. On the level of the ruled, in Asiatic society, the agrarian

communities were dominated as they were. That is why they largely retained the

vestige of a tribal community. But in Greco-Roman society, the ruled did not form

communities as they were primarily slaves that had been uprooted from variouscommunities.

6. The notion of the Asiatic mode of production was entirely negated by Stalin in the 1930s. Allpremodern societies came to be called feudal, without the distinction between the Asian and thefeudal. Needless to say, this brought about fatal errors both in theory and practice. RussianMarxists denied the notion of the Asiatic mode of production, partly because they did not liketheir own bureaucratic system to be linked to the czarist Russia, the Asiatic state. In addition,this denial of the distinction was induced by the very idea of attaching importance to modes of

production. It naturally led to a focus upon the extortion-based relationship between thefarmers and the rulers. If seen from the perspective of this relationship, the difference betweenthe Asiatic and the feudal is negligibly small. However, the difference appears striking when seenfrom the perspective of the form of the state, or the ruling class. The patrimonial bureaucraticstate was formed in the Asiatic social formation, whereas it was hampered and delayed in thefeudal social formation. Negating the distinction between the Asiatic and the feudal is actuallytantamount to neutralizing and justifying despotic bureaucratic rule in Russian socialism.

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The difference is more striking on the level of the rulers. While the rulers

constituted the bureaucratic system in Asiatic society, they did not in Greco-Roman

society. Greek ruling communities descended from warrior-farmer communities. As

their mode of production was based on slavery, they had to constantly wage war inorder to acquire their slave workers. Even still, it was such a warrior-farmer

community that ultimately brought about democracy in the Greek polis. The

principles of reciprocity remained there and were reconfirmed when the polis was

established. The development of trade and a market economy greatly contributed to

the creation of their democracy. In brief, on the level of the ruling community,

elements of modes A and C were strong, curbing the element of mode B.

It is undeniable that original, epoch-making thoughts emerged in ancient Greece,

especially in Athens. But we should not view this situation as unique to Greece. For

instance, almost at the same time as the flourishing of thought in ancient Athens, there

was a period in China when a variety of thinkers such as Confucius, Lao-tzu, Mo-tzu,

Sun Tzu, and others, were emerging. There were so many important figures that they

are referred to collectively as the Hundred Schools. They rose to prominence at a time

when many city-states were struggling against one another. The abundance of new and

great thinkers ended when these cities were unified by the first Chinese Empire of Shih-

huang-ti. Such flourishing of intellectual activity took place only where the principles

of reciprocity and commodity exchange throve. These activities failed to continue

after the emergence of the despotic state in China, and the same is true of Athens.

Athenians, not being content with a small city-state, were constantly trying to

expand their land and become a large state like Persia and Egypt. But they could not

overcome the resistance from other poleis and ultimately failed. Athenian principles

of the polis could not be fostered outside their own borders. The Athenian

expansionist dream was actually realized by Alexander of Macedonia, who conquered

the Asian empires. But this was achieved through the demolition of the Greek polis.

Alexander became virtually an Asiatic despot.

As for Rome, the course taken was akin to that of Greece, but Romans held a

principle that went beyond that of the polis and greatly aided the expansion of empire:

the law of nations (jus gentium). Rome was successful in building a tremendous empire

that covered the entirety of previous west Asian empires. Nonetheless, Rome was notfree from conflict with the principles of the city-state. The emperor of the Roman

Empire had to pretend to be a mere representative of the Roman citizens when he was

actually an Asiatic despot. The emperor was required to treat all peoples equally and

to satisfy the Roman citizens who upheld the principles of reciprocity.

These observations lead us to consider the Asiatic and the Greco-Roman as stages in

a temporal development, but also as societies that were synchronically related within

space. For example, the Greco-Roman societies were formed on the margins of Asiatic

empires and in direct relation to them. To make sense of this relation, Karl Wittfogels

(1957) theory of core, margin, and submargin is helpful. In his opinion, the Asiaticempire is the core. People on the margins are liable to be subordinated or assimilated

by this core. However, this did not happen to people in the submargin, who managed to

carve out a certain distance from the core that allowed them to choose what elements

to take from it; they accepted the letters and technology, but refused the hierarchical

state system. This, for example, was the case with Greece and Rome.


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The same can be said of the feudal social formation. Feudalism was cultivated

within Germanic society, located on the submargins of the Roman Empire. Previously,

the Germanic societies were warrior-farmer communities, upholding principles that

were resistant to the hierarchical order. They came to be divided into the ruling classand the ruled (serfs), but to a certain extent the principle of reciprocity was

sustained. First, among the ruling class, the lord/vassal relationship was reciprocal

and prevented the formation of a centralized system. Despite his authority, the king

was unable to place himself in an absolutely superior position; thus, he was similar to

a chieftain among the lords. This king, in collusion with the urban bourgeoisie, held

power over the lords and was ultimately able to form the state by way of bureaucracy

and a standing army.

Second, because serfs were originally warriors, they were not entirely subject to

the lords. Unlike the Asiatic community, they created an association of individuals

after being detached from the primary community. In cities such tendencies were

even clearer, as in the autonomous commune. Large cities were developed in the

Asiatic societies, but they, too, were subordinate to the state. The reason an

autonomous city and trade market developed in Europe was that the centralized state

(patrimonial bureaucratic state) had not formed there.

The autonomy of the city was facilitated by the complex power games played

between lords and churches. Later, such city-communes developed and then

declined. In collusion with the king, they managed to topple the feudal regime. In

turn, they ended up becoming subordinate to the absolute state.

What is crucial here is that a social formation should not be considered by itself, inisolation from other social formations. For instance, feudalism in Europe cannot be

explained from within Europe alone. Generally feudalism is peculiar to the

submargins of the core Asiatic state (empire). This accounts for feudalism in Japan;

while Korea and Vietnam lay on the margin, Japan was on the submargin.

Subsequently, the Chinese political and cultural system was adopted in its entirety

in Korea and Vietnam, while Japan only partially accepted it. In Japan, the Chinese

system and ideas were only superficially adopted and did not take effect in any real

sense, as the Japanese culture of warriors despised the Mandarin.

Capitalist Social Formation

So far I have dealt with social formations prior to capitalist society. The capitalist

social formation is the one in which the commodity exchange or the mode of

exchange C prevails. It should be noted that the capitalist social formation first

emerged as the sovereign state. It is irrelevant, however, to claim that such a political

superstructure was determined by the economic base, for the separation of the

political and the economic was the very product of the capitalist social formation.Furthermore, the sovereign state promoted capitalist production in its own right.

The transition from the feudal to the capitalist social formation should be seen as

the process of reorganizing the modes of exchange. In feudal societies, mode B was

prevalent. That is to say, the feudal system consisted of the king and feudal lords

imposing levies and services on farmers, merchants, and manufacturers. At the same

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time, the mode of exchange C (the monetary economy) was growing. Meanwhile, the

absolute monarch suppressed other feudal lords and monopolized violence, making

others violence illegal. In addition, the monarch monopolized the feudal levy

system, turning it into a national form of taxation. In other words, feudalistic extra-economic coercion was prohibited and began to base itself on the principles of

commodity exchange. This brought about the separation of the political and

economic. By the same token, the mutually dependent relationship between capital

and the state was established; the absolute monarch followed the policy of

mercantilism and began promoting trade and commodity production.

As I have explained, centralization or monopolizing of powers is impossible within a

single state for other feudal lords or the church are bound to resist it, particularly in

collusion with other kings. Thus, on the one hand, sovereign states are made possible

by mutual assent. On the other hand, a sovereign state necessarily produces othersovereign states, since a sovereign state tacitly implies its right to reign over the area

not belonging to itself. In fact, the states of the world were colonized by sovereign

states in Europe, and the movements of resistance and independence created

sovereign states globally.

Social formations prior to capitalism, whether Asiatic or feudal, remained local,

since they were based upon the principles of mode B. They formed world empires

here and there, shaping the cultural spheres that share letters, religion, or currency,

but their worlds were still limited and disconnected from one another. It was not

until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that those worlds came to be connected bythe world market based upon the principles of commodity exchange. No area in the

world has been exempt from the pressure of the world market since that time.

Wallerstein has designated the world prior to the world market the world empire

and the world after it the world economy. In the world economy, the world empires

that used to be the core were pushed to the margin. Societies outside Europe were

compelled to transform themselves, under invasion and infiltration by capitalism.

Their reactions varied, depending on the nature of their previous social formations.

Generally speaking, precapitalist modes of exchange still linger heavily in these

societies.7

7. The world empires prior to the world market, which were the core in Wittfogels terminology,constituted their own worlds involving the surrounding nations and tribes as the margin and thesubmargin. The world market or the world economy nullified such geopolitical configurations,altering the center-margin structure on a world scale. Wallerstein has described this structure interms of center, semiperiphery, and periphery; Andre Gunder Frank has used metropolis andsatellite; and Samir Amin has used center and periphery. But what is most important is that afterthe world economy pushed the old empires to the margin, differences between core and

periphery in the premodern empires lingered. In general, the old empires were colonized by theWestern states and capitalism, but the former core, margin and submargin responded to Westerncolonialism quite differently. While the former periphery was readily colonized, the former coreresisted and continually aimed to restore their geopolitical hegemony, by attempting to reversethe center-periphery order imposed by the Western states and capitalism. Socialist revolutions inRussia and China are two prominent examples. Marxism has functioned as an ideology forsustaining these empires against the threat of dissolving into multiple nation-states.


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The absolute monarch is considered an early stage of the capitalist social

formation, but the nature of the formation was already fully evident. From the

eighteenth to the nineteenth century, this nature was concealed by the bourgeois

revolution and the development of industrial capitalism. Let us examine the capitalistformation from the perspective of the capitalist economy. According to classical

economists such as Smith and Ricardo, industrial capital is based on fair trade, unlike

merchant capital, which buys cheap and sells high. Meanwhile, Ricardian leftists

insisted that industrial capital was stealing surplus labor from workers, the wage-

slaves. Marx criticized both of these accounts. He agreed that capitals accumulation

depends on the exploitation of surplus labor, but distinguished this accumulation from

feudalistic extraeconomic plunder. He observed the nature of industrial capital by

tracing it back to merchant capital. In other words, he attempted to grasp capital

from the general formula of accumulation M-C-M, which itself is obtained from

merchant capital.

It is possible to gain surplus value from fair trade if conducted between different

value systems. Buying a commodity at a place where it is cheap and selling it at a

place where it is expensive brings profit, though each exchange is a fair trade.

Industrial capital is, in this sense, the same as merchant capital insofar as it gains

surplus from exchange between different value systems. What is unique to industrial

capital, however, is that it has a special commodity: labor power. Capital obtains

differentials by raising productivity of labor power through technological innovation

and consequently lowering the value of labor power. While merchant capitals

accumulation is based on a spatial difference due to natural and historical conditions,

industrial capital is based on the incessant differentiation of value systems due to

technological innovation. This accounts for the development of technology to an

unprecedented level during the period of industrial capitalism.

Capitalism is a system in which surplus value can be obtained from exchange

through mutual consent*/that is, without extraeconomic coercion. Marx demon-

strated that the system of the capitalist economy is based exclusively on the

principles of commodity exchange. However, this observation alone does not

elucidate the whole of the capitalist social formation. For example, Ricardos

economic theory was really that of the polis, as can be observed in his book Principlesof Political Economy and Taxation. Marxs Capital, with its subtitle Critique of

Political Economy, left out the matter of taxation completely. Taxation is not

negligible to capital and is indispensable to economists such as Keynes, for instance,

who attached importance to state intervention by means of taxation and redistribu-

tion.

The reason Marx did not take notice of taxation was not because he completely

ignored the issue of the state, but because he tried to examine the capitalist economy

as it specifically arose from commodity exchange. To make this thoroughgoing

examination possible, he bracketed the state and other modes of exchange. But inorder for us to deal with the capitalist social formation, we need to take into account

modes A and B of exchange, which Marx bracketed.

Let us begin with mode B, or the state derived from it. The bourgeois revolution

abolished the absolute monarchy and formed the state, where sovereignty rests with

the people. This sovereignty, which was visible in the absolute monarch, is made

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invisible in the modern democratic state. The state comes to be identified with the

government chosen by the people, and bureaucrats are regarded as public servants.

However, the state as the sovereign remains even after the absolute monarch is gone,

occasionally emerging at exceptional occasions*

/namely, during war (Schmitt 1996).As Hegel remarked, the sovereign exists first and foremost against other states.

At critical moments of the modern state the sovereign makes itself visible, no

longer as the absolute monarch but as a charismatic political leader who wins

overwhelming support from the masses. This is parallel to what Freud called the

return of the repressed. Of course, underneath this return lies the strong demand

of the state apparatus and capital. In The Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx (1977)

brilliantly analyzed how Bonaparte became emperor through the universal suffrage

realized by the revolution in 1848. From this text, written within the context of a

concrete social struggle, it is evident that Marx did not simply explain the political by

reducing it to the economic base. Rather, the nature of the state emerges at its point

of crisis just as the nature of capitalism emerges at its point of crisis. This fact has not

changed.

Second, concerning the mode of exchange A, it should be noted that even after the

capitalist economy becomes dominant, various kinds of communities endure: the

agrarian community, the municipal community, craft associations, kinship structures,

religious sects, ethnic groups, and so on. The sovereign state, either the absolute

monarch or the bourgeois state, strove to dissolve such multiple, independent groups.

The state as sovereign was only established after these disparate groups were more or

less dissolved. The people as sovereign are formed only after these various groups

come to be subjected to the absolute monarch. However, this condition is still

insufficient for the making of a nation. The nation does not appear until the peoples

resistance to the sovereigns destruction of various communities occurs.

Various communities were decomposed by the modern state and capitalism. They

did not simply vanish, but were imaginatively recovered as nations. It is literally the

imagined community, as Benedict Anderson (1991) has written. What the nation

recovers are the principles of mutuality and reciprocity. Fraternity, one of the three

slogans of the French Revolution, points in this direction. Meanwhile, the formation

of the nation is hampered or retarded where strong communal ties remain, such asreligion, kinship, and ethnicity.

Generally, the capitalist social formation appears through a combination of all

three modes of exchange: capital, state, and nation. These three are at once

contradictory and complementary to one another. For instance, when the capitalist

economy leads to class disparity and struggle, which is inevitable, the nation demands

equality and the state alleviates class opposition by means of taxation and

redistribution. These three elements thus compose a Borromean ring. It is impossible

to overthrow one of them alone. If we try to overcome capitalism by means of either

the state or nation, we will end up reinforcing the state or nation; Stalinism is theformer case while Nazism is the latter. Given the numerous failures to overcome

capitalism, nation, and state, most socialists have come to abandon the idea of ever

overcoming them. Capital, nation, and state are now conceived as necessary evils,

and all that can be done is gradual regulation and alteration. This is, in many

respects, a return to the idea presented by Bernstein toward the end of the


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nineteenth century. We have been entrapped in the Borromean ring of capital-nation-

state, and have abandoned the idea of X, the mode of exchange D. Our current task is

to find out how we can get out of this Borromean ring, while being fully aware of its

difficulties.

The Question of State

If we neglected the role of the state we could easily say that the capitalist economy is

coming to an end, given that the source of surplus value, difference, is diminishing.

To quote Marx again: Capitalist production . . . only develops the techniques and the

degree of combination of the social process of production by simultaneously

undermining the original sources of all-wealth*/the soil and the worker (Marx

1976, 638). This implies that the soil and the worker are the limits to industrial

capitalism. In other words, industrial capitalism is limited by two natures, the soil and

the worker, which capital cannot produce and which cannot become commodities

unless fictionalized as such, to borrow from Karl Polanyis (1944) terminology.

As for labor power as commodity, the reason for its significance is not that capital

makes individuals work for wages. If it were simply about the workforce, slavery

should be good enough. In fact, in some places the distinction between wage work

and slavery is difficult to discern. What is indispensable to the capitalist economy is

that workers buy back their own products while at the same time working for wages.

Slaves never purchase. Farmers in the community do not purchase. The development

of the capitalist economy is made possible by turning the reciprocal, autarchic,

economy-bound farmers into proletarians who are consumers as well as workers.

The capitalist economy completes itself when this autopoietic system is formed,

where commodities continue to make and buy commodities.

This system cannot be sustained unless the commodity (worker/consumers)

continues to be replenished. Industrial capital can obtain enough surplus value for

accumulation when there are plenty of new proletarians being released from rural

communities. The growth of industrial capitalism goes hand in hand with deruraliza-

tion. Nonetheless, this eventually reaches a saturation point. As a result, the rate ofprofit falls as wages rise, and consumption falls as goods proliferate.

In order to secure the rate of profit, capital has to seek out new proletarians

(workers/consumers) abroad: that is, turn a great number of farmers in under-

developed areas into proletarians and throw them into the world market. Today this

process is called globalization. Rapid economic growth is currently taking place in the

most heavily populated areas of the world such as China, India, and Brazil. This

prolongs world capitalism, but this, too, will soon reach a saturation point. What,

then, will happen? Capital will no longer be able to find further exteriors.

Furthermore, such a process would destroy another nature, the naturalenvironment. Capitalist production has been able to continue unabated because it

has had an exterior to which it was able to throw away the waste. Industrial capital

(corporations) had no need to think of the cost of disposing of waste. In terms of

metabolism (or material exchange), their treatment of the waste is the exploitation

of nature, which necessarily results in environmental destruction. Capital should pay

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back to nature; they have to pay the cost necessary for sustaining the environment or,

more precisely, pay the tax for it. This would obviously lower capitals rate of profit.

For these two reasons, Wallerstein (2003) predicts that the end of capitalism is

near.

8

But, even after facing these obstacles, the capitalist social formation will notautomatically come to an end. Certainly the capitalist economy will face a tendency

of the rate of profit to fall. This was pointed out by Adam Smith and Ricardo even

prior to Marx. Nevertheless, capitalism did not end with the fall in the rate of profit

because at the time the state supported its endurance. The capital-based state tries

to perpetuate capital at any cost. For example, the state and capital initiated

imperialist policies, or the exportation of capital, in order to remove themselves from

longstanding chronic depression in the 1870s. The same may be said of the process of

globalization that began in the 1990s.

Hardt and Negri (2000) have asserted that the situation in the 1990s should be

labeled not imperialism but empire, which is the empire of capital. They seem to

believe that nation-states are virtually insignificant during the time of empire (or,

global capital), and that the multitude will counteract empire. By multitude they

mean various human groups such as minorities, immigrants, and indigenous people.

Although the multitude is not confined to the working class, their vision is similar to

that of Marx and Proudhon around 1848. In fact, Hardt and Negri themselves note that

what Marx called the proletariat should not be confined to the working class in the

narrow sense, but should be taken to be very close to what they call the multitude. In

that sense, Hardt and Negri advocate a world revolution by the multitude, if not by

the proletariat.

However, when talking about Empire, they have the empire of capital in mind. This

effectively explains the state by reducing it to the economy; in other words, they

reduce the different modes of exchange to the mode of exchange C, commodity

exchange. This reduction necessarily follows from their overlooking the autonomy of

the state*/an autonomy that derives from the mode of exchange B (plunder-

redistribution). Yet, the modes of exchange A and B persist and form the capitalist

social formation of the Borromean ring, capital-nation-state. This will never be

dissolved by capitalist globalization. Without understanding the nature of the state,

the revolt of the multitude will only lead to consolidation of the state rather than itsabolition.

The capital-nation-states that were best represented by social welfare nations

started to falter with the longstanding economic stagnation of the 1970s. After 1990,

following the collapse of the Soviet Union, capital and the state began to completely

abandon social welfare. Neoliberalism has thus prevailed, prioritizing small govern-

8. Wallerstein (2003) points out that world capitalism has been dependent on the existence of asignificant rural sector not yet engaged in the wage-labor market. This sector, however, is rapidly

diminishing. The deruralization of the world is on a fast upward curve. It has occurredcontinuously over five hundred years, but has accelerated most dramatically since 1945. It isquite possible to foresee that the rural sector will have largely disappeared in another twenty-five years. Once the whole world-system is deruralized, the only option for capitalists is topursue the class struggles where they are presently located. And here the odds are againsttherein. . . . The net result of all of this is a serious pressure on profit levels that will increaseover time (Wallerstein 2003, 60).


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ment and global megacompetition. However, this movement never extinguishes the

nation-state. First, neoliberal policies require strong states. Second, domestically

these states should confront opposition from nationalists or democrats who give

priority to social welfare and industrial protection. As a matter of fact, in mostnations such confrontation takes up a great portion of the political agenda. In this

regard, the Borromean ring of capital-nation-state is far from dissolved.

Today, it is true that national economic policies (Keynesianism, for instance) do not

function as well as before, as nations are more and more involved in the world

economy. But what this entails is not the dissolution of nation-states within the world

market, but rather into the old world empire, from which modern nation-states were

articulated and shaped. In other words, the world empire functions as the ground,

with nations as the figure. This is represented most significantly by the formation of

the European Union, which was followed by the rise of old world empires such asChina, India, and Russia. We should also add the Islamic bloc to the list, with the

caveat that it was formed through religion beyond nationalism.

The oppositional stance of regional blocs, based upon the old world empires, is

often regarded as the clash of civilizations. For certain, such politico-economic

regional unities are based upon the communality of the old world empires and their

civilizations shared letters, religion, and currency, from which the modern nation-

states are to be differentiated. However, these projects do not signify an over-

coming [of] modernity.9 In Europe, the ideologues of the European Union claim that

they are going beyond modern paradigms such as the nation. If so, they must admit

that Islamic fundamentalists are doing the same. The revival of empires is nothing

other than the policy of capital-nation-states under global competition and pressure.

Accordingly, world capitalism (the empire of capital) reacts not with one empire, as

Hardt and Negri anticipated, but with multiple empires. In this regard, the situation

after 1990 should be considered a new version of imperialism.

However, we should respect the fact that Hardt and Negri are attempting to look

beyond the closure of the capital-nation-state, which entails having refused the

option of social democracy that most postmodernists and poststructuralists have

succumbed to. But this is all the more reason to critically examine their account. In

my view, as I suggested earlier, they lack a structural understanding of the capitalist

social formation, as was also the case with Proudhon and Marx around 1848.

Proudhon, perhaps the first socialist, considered it imperative to abolish both the

state and capitalism. According to him, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute

9. Philosophers of the Kyoto School, led by Kitaro Nishida, have given philosophical foundationto the Greater East Asian Coprosperity, which was imperialist Japans geopolitical strategyduring the 1930s. Their philosophy can be summarized by the slogan of overcoming modernity,or overcoming the nation-state, of which capitalism and communism have been their products.

The Kyoto School asserted that the idea of the Greater East Asian Coprosperity differed fromimperialism or Soviet communism, where one nation dominates others, insofar as the task is toovercome the nation-state itself. In the Greater East Asian Coprosperity, each nation remainsindependent and autonomous yet forms the whole in harmony. This logic is akin to Leibnizianmonadology. Needless to say, it is no more than the philosophical justification of Japaneseimperialism. This logic, however, is still useful today and, though unintentionally, has actuallybeen used in Europe and other places for forming regional communities.

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monarch, but the sovereign state remained intact, where people are ostensibly

sovereign whereas living individuals, in truth, are subject to the state. What is more,

in civil societies individuals are subject to money as sovereign; that is, they are

subject to capitalism. In order to realize true democracy, it is crucial to abolish thestate and capitalism. Compared with Proudhon, most socialists, such as Saint-Simon

and Louis Blanc, were more or less heirs to the Jacobin tradition of the first French

Revolution, holding a positive position in regard to the state being neutral and public.

In contrast, Proudhon objected to this sort of political revolution, which he

believed would only strengthen the state and destroy freedom even if it realized

economic equality. He proposed economic revolution, presenting various plans for

alternative economies which he thought would replace capitalism. One example was

the producers cooperatives, where each member would function simultaneously as

labor and management. Wage-labor (labor-commodity) is thereby superseded. Other

examples included alternative forms of money and credit unions, which were

attempts to abolish the sovereignty of money. Proudhon insisted that if the

sovereignty of money remained after the abolition of the monarchy, democracy could

not be realized. Proudhons idea was in essence to establish networks independent

from both the state and the capitalist market. In short, his socialism consists in

realizing the economy of reciprocal exchange on the basis of free individuals. His

ideas are still effectual today.

It is quite evident that Marx was strongly influenced by Proudhon. Throughout his

life he shared Proudhons vision of socialism as a free association that would assume

the place of the state. It is true, however, that from around 1847 Marx began to

criticize Proudhons notion of economic revolution. He thought that a political

revolution was pivotal. An alternative economy such as Proudhons would be

impossible without seizing state power. For example, Marx thought that producers

cooperatives would be unable to compete with capitalist enterprises. He fundamen-

tally criticized Proudhon for his lack of understanding of the capitalist economy,

which was one reason he went on to write Capital.

Nonetheless, this did not lead Marx to abandon Proudhons associationism. In fact,

while writing Capital and even through the First International, Marx continued to

collaborate with Proudhonists. For instance, Bakunin condemned Marx for being astatist, merely on the ground that the state socialist Lassalle called himself Marxs

disciple. In fact, Marx was opposed to Lassalles state socialism as represented in the

Gotha Program (in 1876), which proposed the fostering of producers cooperatives

with state support. Lassalles perspective basically represents the Hegelian con-

secration of the state as reason whereas Marx expected the state to disappear after

the rise of associationism.

Lassalles state socialism, we should note, was completely different from National

Socialism (Nazism), but was the same as social democracy. Marxs critique should

prove he was a thorough anarchist to the very end. Meanwhile, Proudhon andProudhonists later altered their views, accepting the idea of temporarily taking state

power. Proudhonists pursued this strategy during the Paris Commune of 1871, which

Marx praised as a model of proletarian dictatorship. It would be completely wrong,

therefore, to regard Marx as a statist. But how, then, was it possible to draw extreme

statism (Stalinism) from his ideas? It is not because Marx was a statist, but because he


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occurred during the Paris Commune, which was destroyed in two months by the

Germans. It was also the case with the Russian Revolution, where the revolutionary

government had to defend itself by ultimately making itself a powerful state,

inexorably leading to one-state socialism, or Stalinism.Marx never conceived of the possibility of one-state socialism, as he never

expected socialism to be possible within a single nation. Revolution could only be

multinational. Marx was correct, but is this really feasible? Marxists since Lenin and

Trotsky have faced this problem. Marxism turned to statism not because Marx was a

state-socialist but rather because, like Proudhon, he was an anarchist who believed

that the state would soon dissolve. Thus, no matter how passionately we criticize

statism, it does not keep us from falling into the trap of statism. What remains

necessary is the recognition that the state consists in its monopoly of violence, while

always existing against other states.

The vision of a simultaneous world revolution is mythical. Even today it tacitly

functions, though we no longer use the expression simultaneous world revolution.

Hardt and Negris global revolt of the multitude is one prominent example. Such a

revolt might break out in isolated areas, but even these would soon be squashed by

states. People would react with panic and fright when faced with the anarchic

situation, and would demand a reinforcement of the state for more security and

protection. This would ultimately result in a fortification of the capital-nation-state.

This duly applies to the simultaneous world revolution of the past. Far from

overthrowing the state and capitalism, the revolution in 1848 resulted in the

establishment of an advanced version of the capital-nation-state. For instance,Bonaparte in France and Bismarck in Prussia facilitated state-sponsored industrial

capitalism through social policies and welfare initiatives that eventually led to

imperialism.

Conclusion

We are confined in the Borromean ring of the capital-nation-state. Social democracy,

which regulates capitalism and redistributes wealth by way of parliamentarydemocracy, is not free from this fact. More often than not, social democracy

functions as chauvinistic nationalism. In order to get out of this deadlock, counter-

movements against the state and capitalism in each nation are cause sine qua non.

Concretely, this requires the creation of a noncapitalist alternative economy based

upon reciprocal exchange at the level of transnational networks*/that is, without

state dependence. But if these movements were to reach a certain level of

development, they would certainly face disruption by the state and capital;

transnational networks would be blocked and divided. Therefore, countermovements

from outside or above are just as necessary.The state cannot be overcome only from within or from below, as it exists against

other states (enemies). It is just as impossible to abolish one state on its own. If we

cannot count on a simultaneous world revolution, what else is possible? In this regard,

the Kantian idea of a world republic and perpetual peace are suggestive. These ideas

have typically been read as part of a conservative pacifist manifesto. As I understand


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them, however, Kant is proposing nothing other than a gradual, simultaneous world

revolution to abolish both the state and capital. We have observed how Kantian moral

law leads to his economic plan of superseding capitalism. In addition, if applied to the

political, it will lead to a federation of states that supersedes the state.Kant published the treatise To Perpetual Peace in 1795, when Napoleon was

about to rise to power in the course of the French Revolution. It may be said that Kant

anticipated the new type of war emerging among nation-states, which was fervently

admired by Romantic philosophers such as Fichte and Hegel. The Kantian idea was

ignored throughout the nineteenth century, but gained respect at the time of the First

World War, when the League of Nations was formed in accordance with Kants notion

of perpetual peace. The League of Nations was ineffective, however, mainly because

it was not ratified by the United States. It simply could not prevent the Second World

War. The United Nations, formed following the Second World War, has also proved tobe without any real power. It has often been criticized for becoming a tool for

hegemonic nations to legitimate their purposes, and is even looked down upon for

having to rely on the hegemonic nations military forces. The idea of solving

international conflicts through the United Nations is often cynically denounced as

Kantian idealism.

Such criticisms of the United Nations can be traced back to Hegel, who mockingly

criticized Kants design of a federation of nations, and this criticism has been

repeated ever since. In Hegels view, a federation fails without a superpower that can

punish the nations that violate the law. In other words, there can be no peace withouta hegemonic state. For Hegel, world history is nothing but the stage on which nation-

states compete with one another. The world-historical idea is realized by a hegemonic

state. The problem is, however, that such a state may simply seek its own interest.

Thus, the world-historical idea comes to be actualized through a subjective will or

desire, as was the case with Napoleon. Hegel called this the cunning of Reason.

Following Hegel, Marxists have ridiculed Kantian cosmopolitanism. Today this position

is repeated even by neoconservative ideologues in the United States. (Incidentally, it

is not surprising to learn that many of them used to be Trotskyites.) After 9/11, these

ideologues attacked Europe for siding with the United Nations, again dismissing theorganization as old Kantian idealism. However, these politicians remain unaware

that they themselves have based their position upon an old Hegelian idealism.

The United Nations, however, in its present state is far from the Kantian idea of the

federation of nations. Kant was not as nave as he has been criticized for being. In

fact, he shared with Hobbes a deeply pessimistic view of the state and human beings.

He was fully aware of the deep-seated violence in human nature, which he called

unsocial sociability. At the same time, he believed that this violence could

ultimately be contained. Interestingly, he did not count on human intelligence or

good will for this containment. He wrote, That means which nature employs to bringabout the development of innate capacities is that of antagonism within society, in so

far as this antagonism becomes in the long run the cause of law-governed social order.

By antagonism, I mean in this context the unsocial sociability of men, that is, their

tendency to come together in society, coupled, however, with a continual resistance

which constantly threatens to break this society up (1970, 44).

592 KARATANI

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According to Kant, the federation of states, and subsequently a world republic, will

be brought about not by human goodwill and intelligence but through unsocial

sociability and war. We could call this the cunning of nature in contrast to Hegels

cunning of reason. Kants optimism, in the end, was backed by a strong pessimism.11

Meanwhile, Hegels view was dominant throughout the nineteenth century. The

struggle for hegemony among empires continued, eventually resulting in the First

World War. However, the devastation brought on by the war forced people to

reconsider the notion of perpetual peace. In this sense, it may be said that the League

of Nations was actualized by the cunning of nature. The same is true of the United

Nations, which was a result of the Second World War. This is not to suggest, from

historical experience, that we must await the next world war to bring about a higher

form of the federation of nations. Rather, it is to suggest the fundamental

importance of the idea. Were it not for such a regulative idea as the world republic,states would remain and war would forever be repeated.

Kant, we should remember, distinguished between constitutive and regulative

ideas, or rather the constitutive use of reason and the regulative use of reason. The

Marxist attempt to abolish the state and capital, since the Russian Revolution, is an

example of the constitutive use of reason par excellence. Certainly, it brought about

the violence of reason. But it does not necessarily follow that reason in general

ought to be denied. As Kant has shown, the critique of reason, or the critique of its

grounding that is caused by the constitutive use of reason, cannot be made but by

reason.Postmodernist discourses have attempted to dispose of this idea as illusory. But

these postmodernist attempts are themselves mere illusion and are often carried out

by those who were once possessed by such illusion and later became disillusioned.

The idea is, by definition, illusion (Schein), but it is a transcendental illusion in the

sense that it is indispensable and immovable. As a matter of fact, while intellectuals

have been mocking the idea as a grand narrative, people were attracted by religious

fundamentalisms that seem to counter the state and capital in their own way.

Intellectuals should not mock this, but be ashamed of their own inaction and

incompetence.Second, the idea of superseding the state and capital is not a constitutive idea, but

a regulative idea that would continue to function as an index for us to gradually

approach, despite its not being fully realizable. This idea is neither a fantasy of the

future society nor an arbitrary plan designed by the intellect. Rather, it comes from

natural historical necessity*/namely, the inexorable structures formed through the

relation between humans and nature, and between humans themselves. This idea can

11. Kant claims that unsocial sociability or antagonism in human nature would eventuallybring peace, or the self-control of violence. But how is this possible? I believe the Freudiannotion of the death drive, or aggression drive, is the most suggestive. In 1920, Freud began toregard the superego as the internalization of the aggressive drive rather than as theinternalization of external social rules. He soon after came to acknowledge the positive roleof the superego, as well as civilization, which went against the prevailing criticism of

Karat Ani 2

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