Year of issue: 2007

Genre: Economy

Publisher:

Format: FB2

Quality: Scanned pages

Number of pages: 424

Description: In this book, an outstanding Russian economist, philosopher and political figure AA Bogdanov (1873-1928) examines the successive phases of the economic development of society and characterizes each epoch according to the following plan: 1) the state of technology, or man's relationship to nature; 2) the forms of social relations in production and 3) in distribution; 4) the psychology of society, the development of its ideology; 5) the forces of development of each era, which determine the change of economic systems and the successive transitions from primitive communism and patriarchal-clan organization of society to the slave system, feudalism, the petty-bourgeois system, the era of commercial capital, industrial capitalism and, finally, socialism.
The Marxist foundations of the doctrine, along with the conciseness and general accessibility of the presentation, brought the book wide popularity in Russia, and until recently it could be considered the most widespread textbook in the study of economic science not only among workers, but also among wide circles of students.

The first edition of this book was published at the end of 1897, the ninth - in 1906. During those years it was revised more than once, and the last text was already very different from the first presentation that was created in the classes of workers' circles in the Tula forests, and then was mercilessly mutilated by the censors ... During the entire reaction time, a new edition was not required; with the revolution there was an increased demand for this book, and it quickly disappeared from sale. But it was very difficult to prepare a new edition: too much time has passed, too much has happened in life and science; a very large reworking became necessary. Suffice it to point out that this was the period in which the new phase of capitalism was fully defined - the domination of finance capital, the period in which it reached its peak and launched its unprecedented form of crisis - the world war. These 12-13 years in terms of the richness of economic experience are probably not inferior to the entire previous century ...
Comrade Sh. M. Dvolaitsky agreed to take on the largest part of the whole business of revising the course, and it was done together by us. The biggest additions relate to the last part of the course on money circulation, on the tax system, on finance capital, on the basic conditions for the collapse of capitalism, etc .; they are almost entirely written by Comrade Dvolaitsky. He also introduced a number of new factual illustrations in all parts of the course. Significant rearrangements were needed in the arrangement of the material about the previous periods. economic development, in accordance with the latest views on these issues. The history of economic views scattered in the course has been eliminated; this is done in the interests of integrity, since this story belongs, in fact, to another science - about ideologies, and it is better to present it in a separate book. The introduction is greatly shortened - about the basic concepts, in view of its extreme dryness; the necessary material is placed in other departments, in connection with the historical development of the corresponding elements of the economy. At the end of the book, Comrade Dvolaitsky added a brief index of literature.
At the present time, in addition to this course, there are those built according to the same type: "Initial course", set out in questions and answers, by A. Bogdanov, and a large, two-volume course by A. Bogdanov and I. Stepanov (the second volume of which, in four issues , should come out almost simultaneously with this book). The "Short Course" will be the middle link between them, like a systematic textbook, succinctly covering the main facts and foundations of the theory.
The chapters on ideology in this course, as in the other two, do not provide any application to the main subject. Ideology is a tool for organizing economic life and, therefore, an important condition for economic development. Only within this framework, in this regard, it is touched upon here. As an independent subject, it is considered in a special textbook "Science of Social Consciousness", which is written according to the same type.
Amid the tumultuous events of a revolutionary era, solid and holistic economic knowledge is needed more than ever. Without it, planning is impossible either in social struggle or in social construction.

A. Bogdanov. BRIEF COURSE OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. Moscow. 1897. Ed. book warehouse A. Murinova. P. 290. Ts. 2 p.

Mr. Bogdanov's book is a remarkable phenomenon in our economic literature; it is not only a "not superfluous" guide among others (as the author "hopes" in the preface), but positively the best of them. We intend, therefore, in this note to draw the attention of readers to the outstanding merits of this work and to note some minor points in which, in our opinion, improvements could be made in future editions; one should think that, given the lively interest of the reading public in economic issues, the next editions of this useful book will not be long in coming.

The main advantage of Mr. Bogdanov's "course" is the complete consistency of the direction from the first to the last page of the book, which deals with very many and very broad issues. From the very beginning, the author gives a clear and precise definition of political economy as "a science that studies the social relations of production and distribution in their development" (3), and nowhere deviates from such a view, which is often very poorly understood by scientists professors of political economy who stray from " social relations of production "on production in general and filling their thick courses with a heap of meaningless and not at all related to social science platitudes and examples. The author is alien to that scholasticism, which often encourages the compilers of textbooks to be sophisticated in "definitions" and in the analysis of individual features of each definition, and the clarity of the presentation not only does not lose from this, but directly benefits, and the reader, for example, will get a clear idea of such categories like capital, both in its social and in its historical significance. The view of political economy as a science of the historically developing structures of social production is the basis of the order of presentation of this science in Mr. Bogdanov's "course". Having stated at the beginning the brief “ general concepts"About science (pp. 1-19), and at the end a brief" history of economic views "(pp. 235-290), the author outlines the content of science in the section" V. The process of economic development ”, sets out not dogmatically (as is customary in most textbooks), but in the form of characteristics of successive periods of economic development, namely: the period of primitive tribal communism, the period of slavery, the period of feudalism and guilds and, finally, capitalism. This is how political economy should be presented. It may be argued that in this way the author inevitably has to split the same theoretical section (for example, about money) between different periods and fall into repetitions. But this purely formal defect is fully compensated for by the basic merits of the historical exposition. And is it a drawback? Repetitions turn out to be very insignificant, useful for a beginner, because he more firmly assimilates especially important positions. The attribution, for example, of various functions of money to different periods of economic development clearly shows the student that the theoretical analysis of these functions is based not on abstract speculation, but on the exact study of what really happened in the historical development of mankind. The idea of individual, historically determined, structures of the social economy is obtained more integral. But the whole task of leading to political economy is to give the student of this science the basic concepts of the various systems of social economy and of the fundamental features of each system; the whole task is so that a person who has mastered the initial leadership has in his hands a reliable guiding thread for further study of this subject, so that he receives interest in such a study, realizing that the most important issues of modern social life are directly related to the issues of economic science ... Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, this is precisely what is lacking in manuals of political economy. It is not so much their drawback that they are usually limited to one system of social economy (namely, capitalism), but rather in the fact that they do not know how to concentrate the reader's attention on the fundamental features of this system; do not know how to clearly define it historical meaning, show the process (and conditions) of its occurrence, on the one hand, the tendencies of its further development, on the other; they are unable to present individual aspects and individual phenomena of modern economic life as constituent parts of a certain system of social economy, as manifestations of the fundamental features of this system; they do not know how to give the reader reliable guidance, because they do not usually adhere to one direction with all consistency; finally, they do not know how to interest the student, because they understand the meaning of economic issues extremely narrowly and incoherently, placing economic, political, moral “factors” in a "poetic disorder". Only materialistic understanding of history brings light into this chaos and opens up the possibility of a broad, coherent and meaningful view of a special way of social economy, as the foundation of a special way of the entire social life of a person.

The outstanding merit of Mr. Bogdanov's "course" lies in the fact that the author consistently adheres to historical materialism. Describing a certain period of economic development, he usually gives in the "presentation" an outline of the political order, family relations, the main currents of social thought in ties with the fundamental features of this economic system. Having found out how a given economic system gave rise to a certain division of society into classes, the author shows how these classes manifested themselves in the political, family, intellectual life of a given historical period, how the interests of these classes were reflected in certain economic schools, how, for example, the interests of the upward development of capitalism were expressed by the school of free competition, and the interests of the same class in a later period - by the school of vulgar economists ( 284), school of apology. The author quite rightly points out the connection with the position of certain classes of the historical school (284) and the school of catheder-reformers ("realistic" or "historical-ethical"), which should be recognized as a "school of compromise" (287) with its empty and false idea of " non-class "origin and significance of legal and political institutions (288), etc. In connection with the development of capitalism, the author puts the teachings of Sismondi and Proudhon, thoroughly referring them to petty-bourgeois economists, showing the roots of their ideas in the interests of a special class "Middle, transitional place" (279), - recognizing in no uncertain terms the reactionary meaning of such ideas (280-281). Thanks to the consistency of his views and the ability to consider certain aspects of economic life in connection with the main features of this economic system, the author correctly assessed the importance of such phenomena as the participation of workers in the profit of the enterprise (one of the "forms of wages" that "too rarely can be beneficial for entrepreneur "(pp. 132-133)), or productive associations, which," organizing among capitalist relations "," in essence only increase the petty bourgeoisie "(187).

We know that it is precisely these features of Mr. Bogdanov's "course" that will arouse quite a few complaints. It goes without saying that representatives and supporters of the "ethical-sociological" school in Russia will remain dissatisfied. Those who believe that "the question of the economic understanding of history is a purely academic question" will be dissatisfied.(so thinks the journalist "Russian thought" (1897, November, bibl. dep., p. 517). There are also such comedians !}, and many others ... But besides this, so to speak, party discontent, they will probably indicate that the broad posing of the questions caused an extraordinary concise presentation of the "short course", which tells on 290 pages and about all periods of economic development , ranging from the tribal community and savages and ending with capitalist cartels and trusts, and about the political and family life of the ancient world and the Middle Ages, and about the history of economic views. Mr. A. Bogdanov's exposition is indeed extremely succinct, as he himself points out in the preface, directly calling his book a "synopsis." There is no doubt that some of the author's concise remarks, most often referring to facts of a historical nature, and sometimes to more detailed questions of theoretical economics, will be incomprehensible to a novice reader who wants to get acquainted with political economy. It seems to us, however, that the author cannot be blamed for this. Let's even say, without fear of accusations of paradox, that we tend to consider the existence of such remarks as an advantage rather than a disadvantage of the book under review. Indeed, if the author had taken it into his head to expound, explain and substantiate each such remark, his work would have grown to immense limits, completely incompatible with the tasks of the brief guide. And it is unthinkable to present in any course, even the thickest, all the data of modern science about all periods of economic development and about the history of economic views from Aristotle to Wagner. If he threw out all such remarks, then his book would positively lose from the narrowing of the limits and significance of political economy. In their present form, these synoptic notes will bring, I think, great benefit to both teachers and students in this synopsis. There is nothing to say about the former. The latter will see from the totality of these remarks that political economy cannot be studied so-so, mir nichts dir nichts (As Kautsky aptly remarked in the preface to his famous book “ Marx's Oekonomische Lehren "(" The Economic Teaching of K. Marx "))without any preliminary knowledge, without acquaintance with very many and very important issues of history, statistics, etc. Students will see that it is impossible to get acquainted with the issues of social economy in its development and its influence on social life from one or even several of those textbooks and courses , which are often distinguished by an amazing "ease of presentation", but also an amazing empty content, pouring from empty to empty; that the most burning questions of history and contemporary reality are inextricably linked with economic questions, and that the roots of these latter questions lie in the social relations of production. This is precisely the main task of any leadership: to give basic concepts on the subject presented and indicate in which direction it should be studied in more detail and why such a study is important.

Let us now turn to the second part of our remarks, to an indication of those passages in Mr. Bogdanov's book that, in our opinion, require correction or addition. We hope that the venerable author will not complain to us for the pettiness and even captiousness of these remarks: in the synopsis, individual phrases and even individual words are incomparably more important than in a detailed and detailed presentation.

Mr. Bogdanov generally adheres to the terminology of the economic school that he follows. But, speaking about the form of value, he replaces this term with the expression: "exchange formula" (p. 39 ff.). This expression seems unfortunate to us; the term "form of value" is really inconvenient in a short guide, and instead of it it would be better to say: a form of exchange or a stage of development of exchange, otherwise such expressions as "the dominance of the second exchange formula" (43) (?) ... Speaking about capital, the author in vain omitted to point out the general formula of capital, which would help the student to assimilate the homogeneity of commercial and industrial capital. - Characterizing capitalism, the author omitted the question of the growth of the commercial and industrial population at the expense of the agricultural population and the concentration of the population in large cities; this gap is all the more perceptible because, speaking of the Middle Ages, the author dwelled in detail on the relationship between the village and the city (63-66), and about the modern city he said only a few words about the subordination of the village to them (174). - Speaking about the history of industry, the author very decisively places the "home system of capitalist production" "in the middle of the path from craft to manufacture" (p. 156, thesis 6th). On this issue, such a simplification of the case seems to us not entirely convenient. The author of Capital describes capitalist homework in the machine industry department, referring directly to the transformative effect of this on the old forms of labor. Indeed, such forms of work at home, which dominate, for example, both in Europe and in Russia in the confectionery industry, cannot in any way be placed "in the middle of the path from craft to manufacture." They are standing farther manufactory in the historical development of capitalism, and we should, I think, say a few words about this. - A noticeable gap in the chapter on the machine period of capitalism(the strict division of capitalism into the manufacturing and machine periods is a very great merit of Mr. Bogdanov's "course")the absence of a paragraph on the reserve army and capitalist overpopulation, on its generation by machine industry, on its significance in the cyclical movement of industry, on its main forms. The very cursory mentions of these phenomena by the author, which are made on pages 205 and 270, are certainly insufficient. - The author's assertion that “over the past half century” “profit has grown much faster than rent” (179) is too bold. Not only Ricardo (against whom Mr. Bogdanov makes this remark), but also Marx states the general tendency of rent to grow especially rapidly under any and all conditions (even an increase in rent is possible with a decrease in the price of bread). That decline in grain prices (and rent under certain conditions), which has recently been caused by the competition of virgin fields in America, Australia, etc., has come sharply only since the 70s, and Engels' note in the section on rent (“ Das Kapital ", III , 2, 259-260), devoted to the modern agricultural crisis, is formulated much more carefully. Engels states here the "law" of the growth of rent in civilized countries, explaining the "amazing vitality of the class of large landowners", and further points out only that this vitality "is gradually being exhausted" ( allm ä hlich sich ersch ö pft ). - The paragraphs on agriculture are also extremely short. In the paragraph on (capitalist) rent, it is indicated only in the most cursory manner that its condition is capitalist agriculture. ("In the period of capitalism, land continues to be private property and acts as capital," 127 - and that's all!) A few more words should be said about this in more detail, in order to avoid any misunderstandings, about the emergence of the rural bourgeoisie, about the situation of agricultural workers and about differences this position from the position of factory workers (lower level of needs and living; remnants of attachment to the ground or various Gesindeordnungen etc.). It is also a pity that the author did not touch upon the question of the genesis of capitalist rent. After the remarks that he made about the colonists and dependent peasants, then about the lease of our peasants, it would be necessary to briefly describe the general course of development of rent from labor rent ( Arbeitsrente ) to rent in kind ( Produktenrente ), then to the money rent ( Geldrente ), and from it to capitalist rent (cf. “ Das Kapital ", III , 2, Kar. 47). - Speaking about the crowding out of subsidiary trades by capitalism and about the loss of stability by peasant farming as a result, the author expresses himself as follows: "the peasant economy is becoming poorer in general, - the total amount of values it produces decreases" (148). This is very imprecise. The process of ruining the peasantry by capitalism consists in ousting it by the rural bourgeoisie, formed from the same peasantry. Mr. Bogdanov could hardly, for example, describe the decline of the peasant economy in Germany without touching Vollbauer's (peasants with full (undivided) plots of land)... In the above passage, the author speaks of peasants in general, but after that he gives an example from Russian life - well, and talking about a Russian peasant “in general” is more than risky. The author on the same page says: "The peasant either is engaged in agriculture alone, or goes to manufacture", that is, - we add from ourselves - either turns into a rural bourgeois, or into a proletarian (with a piece of land). This two-way process should be mentioned. - Finally, as a general drawback of the book, we must note the absence of examples from Russian life. On very many issues (at least, for example, about the organization of production in the Middle Ages, about the development of machine production and railways, about the growth of the urban population, about crises and syndicates, about the difference between a manufactory and a factory, etc.) similar examples from our economic literature would be very important, otherwise the mastery of the subject is greatly hampered for a beginner by the lack of familiar examples. It seems to us that the filling of the indicated gaps would very slightly increase the book and would not hinder its wide distribution, which in all respects is highly desirable.

Published in April 1898 in the magazine "Peace of God" No. 4

Reprinted according to the text of the journal

Lenin V.I. Complete Works Volume 4

REVIEW

A. Bogdanov. A short course in economics.

Moscow. 1897. Ed. book warehouse A. Murinova. P. 290. Ts. 2 p.

36 V. I. LENIN

in "definitions" and in the analysis of individual features of each definition, and the clarity of the presentation not only does not lose from this, but directly benefits, and the reader, for example, will get a clear idea of such a category as capital, both in its public and in its historical significance. The view of political economy as a science of the historically developing structures of social production is the basis of the order of presentation of this science in Mr. Bogdanov's "course". Outlining at the beginning a brief "general concept" of science (pp. 1-19), and at the end a brief "history of economic views" (pp. 235-290), the author sets out the content of science in the section "V. The process of economic development ”, sets out not dogmatically (as is customary in most textbooks), but in the form of characteristics of successive periods of economic development, namely: the period of primitive tribal communism, the period of slavery, the period of feudalism and guilds and, finally, capitalism. This is how political economy should be presented. It may be argued that in this way the author inevitably has to split the same theoretical section (for example, about money) between different periods and fall into repetitions. But this purely formal defect is fully compensated for by the basic merits of the historical exposition. And is it a drawback? Repetitions turn out to be very insignificant, useful for a beginner, because he more firmly assimilates especially important positions. The attribution, for example, of various functions of money to different periods of economic development clearly shows the student that the theoretical analysis of these functions is based not on abstract speculation, but on the exact study of what really happened in the historical development of mankind. The idea of individual, historically determined, structures of the social economy is obtained more integral. But the whole task of leading to political economy is to give the student of this science the basic concepts of the various systems of social economy and of the fundamental features of each system; all

REVIEW ON THE BOOK OF A. BOGDANOV 37

the task is that a person who has mastered the initial leadership has in his hands a reliable guiding thread for further study of this subject, so that he receives interest in such a study, realizing that the most important issues of modern social life are directly related to the issues of economic science. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, this is precisely what is lacking in manuals of political economy. It is not so much their drawback that they are usually limited to one system of social economy (namely, capitalism), but rather in the fact that they do not know how to concentrate the reader's attention on the fundamental features of this system; they do not know how to clearly define its historical significance, show the process (and conditions) of its emergence, on the one hand, and the tendencies of its further development, on the other; they are unable to present individual aspects and individual phenomena of modern economic life as constituent parts of a certain system of social economy, as manifestations of the fundamental features of this system; they do not know how to give the reader reliable guidance, because they do not usually adhere to one direction with all consistency; finally, they do not know how to interest the student, because they understand the meaning of economic issues extremely narrowly and incoherently, placing economic, political, moral, etc. “factors” in a poetic disorder. materialistic understanding of history brings light into this chaos and opens up the possibility of a broad, coherent and meaningful view of a special way of social economy, as the foundation of a special way of the entire social life of a person.

The outstanding merit of Mr. Bogdanov's "course" lies in the fact that the author consistently adheres to historical materialism. Characterizing a certain period of economic development, he usually gives in the "presentation" an outline of the political order, family relations, the main currents of social thought due with the fundamental features of this economic system. Finding out how a given economic system

38 V. I. LENIN

generated a certain division of society into classes, the author shows how these classes manifested themselves in the political, family, intellectual life of a given historical period, how the interests of these classes were reflected in certain economic schools, how, for example, the interests of the upward development of capitalism were expressed by the school of free competition, and the interests of the same class in a later period - by the school of vulgar economists ( 284), school of apology. The author quite rightly points out the connection with the position of certain classes of the historical school (284) and the school of catheder-reformers ("realistic" or "historical-ethical"), which should be recognized as a "school of compromise" (287) with its empty and false idea of " non-class "origin and significance of legal and political institutions (288), etc. In connection with the development of capitalism, the author puts the teachings of Sismondi and Proudhon, thoroughly referring them to petty-bourgeois economists, showing the roots of their ideas in the interests of a special class "Middle, transitional place" (279), - recognizing in no uncertain terms the reactionary meaning of such ideas (280-281). Thanks to the consistency of his views and the ability to consider certain aspects of economic life in connection with the main features of this economic system, the author correctly assessed the importance of such phenomena as the participation of workers in the profit of the enterprise (one of the "forms of wages" that "too rarely can be beneficial for entrepreneur "(pp. 132-133)), or productive associations, which," organizing among capitalist relations "," in essence only increase the petty bourgeoisie "(187).

REVIEW ON THE BOOK OF A. BOGDANOV 39

academic ", and many others ... But in addition to this, so to speak, party dissatisfaction, they will probably indicate that the broad posing of the questions caused an extraordinary conciseness of the presentation of the" short course ", which tells on 290 pages and about all periods economic development, ranging from the tribal community and savages and ending with capitalist cartels and trusts, and about the political and family life of the ancient world and the Middle Ages, and about the history of economic views. Mr. A. Bogdanov's exposition is indeed extremely succinct, as he himself points out in the preface, directly calling his book a "synopsis." There is no doubt that some of the author's concise remarks, most often referring to facts historical character, and sometimes to more detailed questions of theoretical economics, will be incomprehensible to the novice reader who wants to get acquainted with political economy. It seems to us, however, that the author cannot be blamed for this. Let's even say, without fear of accusations of paradox, that we tend to consider the existence of such remarks as an advantage rather than a disadvantage of the book under review. Indeed, if the author had taken it into his head to expound, explain and substantiate each such remark, his work would have grown to immense limits, completely incompatible with the tasks of the brief guide. And it is unthinkable to present in any course, even the thickest, all the data of modern science about all periods of economic development and about the history of economic views from Aristotle to Wagner. If he threw out all such remarks, then his book would positively lose from the narrowing of the limits and significance of political economy. In their present form, these synoptic notes will bring, I think, great benefit to both teachers and students in this synopsis. There is nothing to say about the former. The latter will see from the totality of these remarks that

* This is the opinion of the journalist "Russkaya Mysl" 11 (1897, November, bibl. Dep., P. 517). There are such comedians!

40 V. I. LENIN

political economy cannot be studied so-so, mir nichts dir nichts, without any preliminary knowledge, without familiarization with very many and very important issues of history, statistics, etc. to get acquainted with one or even several of those textbooks and courses, which are often distinguished by an amazing "ease of presentation", but also an amazing empty content, pouring from empty to empty; that the most burning questions of history and contemporary reality are inextricably linked with economic questions, and that the roots of these latter questions lie in the social relations of production. This is precisely the main task of any leadership: to give basic concepts on the subject presented and indicate in which direction it should be studied in more detail and why such a study is important.

* As Kautsky aptly noted in the preface to his famous book Marx's Oekonomische Lehren (The Economic Teaching of Karl Marx. Ed.).

REVIEW ON THE BOOK OF A. BOGDANOV 41

would help the student to assimilate the homogeneity of commercial and industrial capital. - Characterizing capitalism, the author omitted the question of the growth of the commercial and industrial population at the expense of the agricultural population and the concentration of the population in large cities; this gap is all the more perceptible because, speaking of the Middle Ages, the author dwelled in detail on the relationship between the village and the city (63-66), and about the modern city he said only a few words about the subordination of the village to them (174). - Speaking about the history of industry, the author very decisively places the "home system of capitalist production" "in the middle of the path from craft to manufacture" (p. 156, thesis 6th). On this issue, such a simplification of the case seems to us not entirely convenient. The author of Capital describes capitalist homework in the machine industry department, referring directly to the transformative effect of this on the old forms of labor. Indeed, such forms of work at home, which dominate, for example, both in Europe and in Russia in the confectionery industry, cannot in any way be placed "in the middle of the path from craft to manufacture." They are standing farther manufactory in the historical development of capitalism, and we should, I think, say a few words about this. - A noticeable gap in the chapter on the machine period of capitalism is the absence of a paragraph on the reserve army and capitalist overpopulation, on its generation by machine industry, on its significance in the cyclical movement of industry, on its main forms. The very cursory mentions of these phenomena by the author, which are made on pages 205 and 270, are certainly insufficient. - The author's assertion that “over the past half century” “profit has grown much faster than rent” (179) is too bold. Not only Ricardo (against whom Mr. Bogdanov makes this remark), but also Marx states the general tendency of rent

* P. 93, 95, 147, 156. It seems to us that with this term the author successfully replaced the expression: "home system of large-scale production", introduced into our literature by Korsak.

* The strict division of capitalism into the manufacturing and machine periods is a very great merit of Mr. Bogdanov's "course".

42 V. I. LENIN

to especially rapid growth under any and all conditions (even an increase in rent is possible with a decrease in the price of bread). That decline in grain prices (and rent under certain conditions), which has recently been caused by the competition of virgin fields in America, Australia, etc., has come sharply only since the 70s, and Engels' note in the section on rent ("Das Kapital" , III, 2, 259-260), devoted to the modern agricultural crisis, is formulated much more carefully. Engels here states the "law" of the growth of rent in civilized countries, explaining the "amazing vitality of the class of large landowners", and further points out only that this vitality "is gradually being exhausted" (allmählich sich erschöpft). - The paragraphs on agriculture are also extremely short. In the paragraph on (capitalist) rent, it is indicated only in the most cursory manner that its condition is capitalist agriculture. (“In the period of capitalism, the land continues to be private property and acts as capital,” 127, and that’s all!) this position from the position of factory workers (lower level of needs and living; remnants of attachment to the ground or various Gesindeordnungen, etc.). It is also a pity that the author did not touch upon the question of the genesis of capitalist rent. After the remarks he made about the colonists 13 and dependent peasants, and then about the rent of our peasants, it would be worthwhile to briefly describe the general course of development of rent from labor rent (Arbeitsrente) to rent in kind (Produktenrente), then to money rent (Geldrente), and from it to capitalist rent (cf. Das Kapital, III, 2, Kap. 47). - Speaking of displacement cap-

* - "Capital", vol. III, part 2, pp. 259-260. 12 Ed. - legal provisions that established the relationship between landowners and serfs. Ed.

** - "Capital", vol. III, part 2, chapter 47. 14 Ed.

REVIEW ON THE BOOK OF A. BOGDANOV 43

Talism of subsidiary trades and the loss of stability by the peasant economy as a result, the author puts it as follows: "the peasant economy is becoming poorer in general, - the total amount of values it produces decreases" (148). This is very imprecise. The process of ruining the peasantry by capitalism consists in ousting it by the rural bourgeoisie, formed from the same peasantry. Mr. Bogdanov could hardly, for example, describe the decline of peasant farming in Germany without touching on Vollbauer. Russian peasant "in general" is more than risky. The author on the same page says: "The peasant either engages in agriculture alone, or goes to manufacture," This two-sided process should be mentioned. - Finally, as a general shortcoming of the book, we should note the absence of examples from Russian life. production and railways, about the growth of the urban population, about crises and syndicates, about the difference between a manufactory and a factory, etc.) such examples from our economic literature would be very important, otherwise the mastery of the subject is very difficult is extended for the beginner by the absence of familiar examples. It seems to us that the filling of the indicated gaps would very slightly increase the book and would not hinder its wide distribution, which in all respects is highly desirable.

Published in April 1898 in the magazine "Peace of God" No. 4

Reprinted according to the text of the journal

* - peasants with full (undivided) plots of land. Ed.

In this book, the outstanding Russian economist, philosopher and politician A. A. Bogdanov (1873–1928) examines the successive phases of the economic development of society and characterizes each epoch according to the following plan: 1) the state of technology, or man's relationship to nature; 2) the forms of social relations in production and 3) in distribution; 4) the psychology of society, the development of its ideology; 5) the forces of development of each era, which determine the change of economic systems and the successive transitions from primitive communism and patriarchal-clan organization of society to the slave system, feudalism, the petty-bourgeois system, the era of commercial capital, industrial capitalism and, finally, socialism.

The Marxist foundations of the doctrine, along with the conciseness and general accessibility of the presentation, brought the book wide popularity in Russia, and until recently it could be considered the most widespread textbook in the study of economic science not only among workers, but also among wide circles of students.

Short Course in Economics

Foreword

Comrade Sh. M. Dvolaitsky agreed to take on the largest part of the whole business of revising the course, and it was done together by us. The biggest additions relate to the last part of the course on money circulation, on the tax system, on finance capital, on the basic conditions for the collapse of capitalism, etc .; they are almost entirely written by Comrade Dvolaitsky. He also introduced a number of new factual illustrations in all parts of the course. Significant regrouping was needed in the arrangement of the material on the previous periods of economic development, in accordance with the latest views on these issues. The history of economic views scattered in the course has been eliminated; this is done in the interests of integrity, since this story belongs, in fact, to another science - about ideologies, and it is better to present it in a separate book. The introduction is greatly shortened - about the basic concepts, in view of its extreme dryness; the necessary material is placed in other departments, in connection with the historical development of the corresponding elements of the economy. At the end of the book, Comrade Dvolaitsky added a brief index of literature.

At the present time, in addition to this course, there are those built according to the same type: "Initial course", set out in questions and answers, by A. Bogdanov, and a large, two-volume course by A. Bogdanov and I. Stepanov (the second volume of which, in four issues , should come out almost simultaneously with this book). The "Short Course" will be the middle link between them, like a systematic textbook, succinctly covering the main facts and foundations of the theory.

The chapters on ideology in this course, as in the other two, do not provide any application to the main subject. Ideology is a tool for organizing economic life and, therefore, an important condition for economic development. Only within this framework, in this regard, it is touched upon here. As an independent subject, it is considered in a special textbook "Science of Social Consciousness", which is written according to the same type.

Amid the tumultuous events of a revolutionary era, solid and holistic economic knowledge is needed more than ever. Without it, planning is impossible either in social struggle or in social construction.

Introduction

I. Definition of economics

Every science represents

systematized knowledge of the phenomena of a certain area of human experience

Cognition of phenomena is reduced to mastering their mutual connection, to establish their relationships and thereby be able to use them in the interests of man. Such aspirations arise on the basis of the economic activity of people, in the process of the labor struggle of mankind - the struggle that it invariably wages with nature for its existence and development. In his work experience, a person comes across, for example, that rubbing dry pieces of wood against each other with sufficient strength and duration gives fire, that fire has a remarkable ability to produce such changes in food that facilitate the work of the teeth and stomach, and together with so are given the opportunity to be content with less food. The practical needs of mankind, thus, push it to establish a connection between these phenomena - to their knowledge; having understood their connection, humanity is already beginning to use it as a tool in its labor struggle. But this kind of knowledge of phenomena, of course, does not yet represent a science - it presupposes

systematized

cognition of the entire sum of the phenomena of a particular branch of labor experience. In this sense, the knowledge of the relationship between friction, fire, etc. can be considered only as an embryo of science, precisely the science that currently unites physicochemical processes.

The special subject of our economic. science, or political economy

Is an

the field of social and labor relations between people

In the process of production, people, by virtue of natural necessity, become in certain relations with each other. The history of mankind does not know of such a period when people, quite scattered, one by one, would earn their livelihood. Even in the most immemorial times, hunting a wild animal, carrying heavy loads, etc., required simple cooperation (cooperation); the complication of economic activity entailed the division of labor between people, in which in a common economy one performs one work necessary for all, the other does another, etc. Both simple cooperation and the division of labor put people in a certain connection with each other and represent the primary , elementary industrial relations. The area of such relations is not, of course, limited to simple cooperation and division of labor; it is much more complex and broader.

Passing from the lowest stages of human development to the highest, we are faced with the following facts: the serf part of the product of his labor gives to the landowner, the worker works for the capitalist; The artisan does not produce for personal consumption, but to a large extent for the peasant, who, for his part, transfers part of his product directly or through merchants to the artisan. All these are social and labor ties that form a whole system

The complexity and breadth of relations of production are manifested especially strongly in a developed exchange economy. So, for example, under the rule of capitalism, permanent social relations are established between people who have never seen each other and often have no idea of the strong threads that bind them together. A Berlin stockist may have shares in a South American factory. By virtue of the mere fact of owning these shares, he receives an annual profit from this enterprise, i.e. part of the product created by the labor of the South American worker, or, practically equivalent, part of the value of his product. In this way, an invisible social relationship is established between the Berlin stockbroker and the South American worker, which economics must investigate.

“In the public administration of their lives, people enter into well-known relations that are independent of their will — production relations; these relations always correspond to the given achieved stage of development of their material productive forces "

II. Economic Science Methods

Economic science, like other sciences, uses two main research methods: this is - 1)

induction

generalizing

Going from particular to general, and 2)

deduction

generalizing

Drawing conclusions from the general to the particular.

The induction method is expressed primarily in generalizing descriptions. Having a number of phenomena, we look for what they have in common, and get this way

first generalizations

Seeking further features of similarity already between them, we come to generalizations of the second order, etc. If we took a number of, for example, farms of blacksmiths, then we can find common features in them and, highlighting this common, make ourselves an idea of the farms of a blacksmith generally. We can do the same with the households of bookbinders, bakers, tailors, etc. By comparing the first generalizations obtained in this way and highlighting what is similar between them, we can get the concept of a craftsman's economy in general. We will then have a generalization of the second order. Distinguishing common features from this and from another generalization, namely, one relating to the economy of the peasants, we can come to a broader generalization - "the economy of a small producer." If we note the common features of such a number of similar phenomena, then we thereby give a generalized description.

The processes of life are so complex and varied that a simple description is easily entangled in them: in phenomena that are very close to each other, the same signs are present, sometimes absent, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker; all this often makes it extremely difficult to generalize and complicate the description. Under these conditions, one has to resort to another method, to

induction of statistical

The statistical method finds out

how often

there are certain signs in this group of phenomena, and

to what extent they are expressed at the same time

With the help of generalizing descriptions, we distinguish “owners” and “non-owners” from society on the basis of property ownership. The method of counting, statistics, can bring clarity and accuracy to our research, that is, to show how often the sign we have indicated is repeated in a society of people and to what extent. Using a statistical method, we can come to the conclusion that out of 100 million people, let's say 80 million. are similar to each other in that they have property, and 20 mil. - the fact that they do not have one, - and also how many millionaires, rich, poor people, etc. among the owners. But the role of our method is not limited to this. The same calculations could, for example, establish that in the same society 10 years ago there were 85 owners per 100 members, and 10 years earlier - 90. Thus, a development trend is established, that is, the direction in which the observed facts are changed. But where this trend came from, and how far it can go, it remains unknown: our calculations could not show

The fact is that the statistical method, while giving a more perfect description of facts, does not, however, give them

III. Presentation system

Social relations of production and distribution change gradually, sequentially, little by little. There are no quick transitions, there are no sharp boundaries between the previous and the next. Nevertheless, when studying the economic life of a society, it is for the most part possible to divide it into several periods, significantly differing in the structure of social relations, although not sharply separated from one another.

The greatest interest for us is - and at the same time the most studied by science - the course of development of those societies that have become part of the "civilized" humanity of our times. Basically, the path of development of these societies is everywhere similar. So far, two main phases have been outlined, proceeding in different cases differently in particular, but in the essential almost the same, and one phase to which the future belongs.

Primary subsistence farming

Its distinguishing features: weakness public person in the struggle with nature, the narrowness of individual social organizations, the simplicity of social relations, the absence or negligible development of exchange, the extreme slowness of the ongoing changes in social forms.

Exchange economy

The size of social production and the heterogeneity of its elements are increasing. Society appears to be a complex, whole, consisting of individual farms, which satisfy their needs only to a relatively small or negligible degree with their own products, and in the largest part - with the products of other farms, precisely through exchange. Development goes through a struggle of interests and social contradictions; its speed increases.

A socially organized economy is an unattained stage of development

The dimensions and complexity of production continue to grow continuously, but the heterogeneity of its elements is transferred to the tools and methods of labor, while the members of society themselves are developing towards homogeneity. Production and distribution are systematically organized by society itself into a single, integral system, alien to fragmentation, contradictions, and anarchy. The development process is accelerating more and more.

Natural economy

I. Primitive tribal communism

The data, on the basis of which one has to study the life of primitive people, cannot be called rich. No literature has remained from the time of primitive man, since it could not have existed at that time. The only monuments of this period are bones, tools, etc. found in the ground, as well as traces of prehistoric social relations preserved in customs, cults, legends, the roots of words, etc.

There is another important source that can be used in the study of the life of primitive mankind, this is the life, relationships, customs of modern savages, especially those of them who are at the lowest stages of development. But, resorting to this source, you need to be very careful in your conclusions. Now there are no savages who have never had to have relations with more developed peoples; and it is easy to fall into the grave error of mistaking for a remnant of primitive customs what has actually been borrowed in comparatively recent times. Errors of a different kind are also possible. Another tribe, which has already developed a culture to a certain extent, again loses most of its acquisitions as a result of an unsuccessful historical life. Taking such a feral tribe for a primitive wild, you can make many wrong conclusions.

In any case, even that stock of data on the life of primitive people, which is available at the present time, is sufficient to clarify the main features of social relations of the "prehistoric" era.

1. The primitive relationship of man to nature

In the struggle with nature, primitive man is extremely poorly armed, worse than many animals. Natural tools - arms, legs, teeth - are much weaker in him than, for example, in large carnivorous animals. Artificial tools, those that now give man a decisive advantage over the rest of living and dead nature, were then bad, crude, and too few of them were at the disposal of man, so that they could not significantly facilitate his struggle for existence.

In this difficult struggle, primitive man is far from being the king of nature. Quite the opposite: the first period of human life is a period of oppression, human slavery. Only the oppressor and master is not another person, but nature.

The first tools were undoubtedly a stone and a stick. These tools, taken directly from nature, can apparently be found even among the higher apes. But now nowhere were there such savages who would not have known other weapons.

The brain of primitive man is weak, undeveloped. He has no time for mental work in the midst of a constant, exhausting struggle, in which the danger of death does not stop for a minute.

And nevertheless, a person develops. A stupid, oppressed slave of nature, earning a livelihood, fighting for his existence, in the process of work, he gets acquainted with the objects and forces of nature, from generation to generation transfers and accumulates experience, improves tools. With terrible slowness, for many thousands of years, inventions and discoveries are being made one after another. All such things are invented that seem extremely simple to the man of our times. But primitive man got them very dearly. By combining a stone and a stick, processing them, adapting them to different purposes, many others originated from these primitive tools - stone axes, hammers, knives, spears, etc.

2. The structure of the primitive clan group

Modern science, neither in the present nor in the past, knows such people who would not live in society. In the primitive era, there were already connections between people, although much less extensive than now. It was just as impossible for a man of those times to do without the help of other people in the struggle for existence as it is today. Face to face with a hostile nature, the individual would be doomed to a quick, inevitable death.

However, the power of social unions was extremely insignificant. The main reason for this was the very poor development of technology; and it, in turn, gave rise to another reason - the extreme narrowness of social ties, the insignificance of the size of individual societies.

The lower the technique, the less perfect the methods of struggle for existence, the more space of the earth is required for each person, the "area of exploitation", in order to obtain means of living. Primitive hunting is such an unproductive occupation that on one square mile of land, under average natural conditions of the temperate zone, it can feed no more than 20 people. Any significant group of people would have to spread out over such an enormous space that maintaining social communication would be extremely difficult; and if we take into account the primitive technique of communication between people - the absence of any roads, the absence of tamed animals on which to ride, the enormous dangers associated with the smallest travel - it becomes obvious that the size of the social union reached then at most a few dozen people.

To unite for a joint struggle for life in those days was only possible for people who were already bound by nature itself by the unity of origin, by kinship. People who were alien to each other by blood did not enter into free alliances for productive activities: primitive man could not invent such a complex thing as a contract; and most importantly, the terrible severity of the struggle for existence taught him to be hostile to any person with whom his kinship and life together were not tied. Therefore, the social organization of the primitive period had the form

The basic production relation of the genus-group is simple cooperation. Social labor activity is so limited and uncomplicated that everyone knows how to do everything that others can, and everyone does, each individually, approximately similar work. This is the weakest form of communication of cooperation. In certain cases, a connection of a more intimate nature appears on the scene: the collective performance of affairs that are beyond the strength of an individual, but realizable with the help of that mechanical force that is created in the united activity of a whole group, for example, joint protection from some strong beast, the hunt for him.

3. The emergence of ideology

The primary ideological phenomenon was speech, which began to take shape in that remote period of a person's life, when he began to leave the zoological state. The emergence of speech is closely related to the labor process: it originated from the so-called labor cries. - When a person makes any effort, it is reflected in his vocal and respiratory apparatus, and he involuntarily escapes a certain cry, corresponding to this effort. The sound of "ha" that escapes from a lumberjack striking with an ax, the sound of "wow" accompanying the efforts of the Volga barge haulet pulling the rope, the cry of "ah-ah" that can be heard from Tunisian pavement workers when they raise and lower a heavy "woman" - all these are “labor interjections” or labor cries.

The organisms of individual members of the genus group were extremely similar to each other, because they were closely related and lived together in the midst of the same natural environment. It is therefore quite natural that the corresponding labor sounds were the same for all members of the primitive tribal commune and by themselves became the designation of those labor actions to which they belonged. Thus, a few primitive words arose. Changing and becoming more complex with the development and complication of their basis - labor actions, they only developed over the millennia into a mass of later dialects, which are reduced by philologists to a few roots of several extinct languages.

Primitive words thus denoted collective human endeavors. Their importance, as an organizing form for the labor process, is not subject to any doubt here: they first regulate work, giving movements a friendly and correct character, and inspire workers, then acquire the meaning of an imperative mood or a call to work.

Thinking is a later ideological phenomenon. It is like an inner speech. Thinking is composed of concepts expressed in words and combined into "thoughts" or ideas. For him, therefore, words, symbols are needed that would denote those living images that are in the mind of a person. In other words, thinking arises from speech. If we admitted the opposite, that speech is a product of thinking, that individual individuals "think" words before they are uttered between people, then we would come to a completely ridiculous conclusion: no one would understand such speech, it would be accessible only to the one who created it. And if this is so, then it must be admitted undoubted that not only words, but also thinking arose from the social process of production.

Words and concepts served, as we have seen, to call to work and to combine labor efforts, but their role was not limited to this. Words very early became a way of transmitting and preserving continuously accumulating work experience in the group. An adult member of a primitive communist group explains to a child his economic functions. For this, for example, he points out an edible plant to him and adds a number of words expressing a certain sequence of actions (“find”, “pluck”, “bring”, “break”, “eat”). The child remembers the instructions made to him, and in the future can use the information given to him

4. Forces of development in primitive society

The size of the genus group is strictly limited by the level of labor productivity: with these methods of production, the group must necessarily disintegrate as soon as the force of reproduction increases its number beyond a certain limit. Instead of one group, there are two, and each of them, occupying a separate area of exploitation, can again multiply to the previous limit, in order to disintegrate into two again, and so on. Thus, reproduction tends to infinitely increase the number of inhabitants of a given country. But the area of the country is limited, and with these methods of production it can provide livelihoods only for a certain number of people. When the density of the country's hunting population has reached, for example, 20 persons per square mile, then further reproduction is already excessive, and the growing population has a lack of livelihoods. This is the so-called

absolute overpopulation

Absolute overpopulation entails hunger, disease, increased mortality - a whole lot of suffering. The power of suffering gradually overcomes the dull immobility of custom, and the progress of technology becomes possible. Hunger forces one to overcome aversion to everything new, and the embryos of new ways of fighting for life begin to develop, both those that were already known before, but did not find general use, and those that are being rediscovered.

One obstacle to development, the most important, is removed. There remains another obstacle - the lack of knowledge, the inability to consciously seek new ways of dealing with nature. Thanks to this, development proceeds unconsciously, spontaneously, with such a slowness that a modern person can hardly imagine.

Improving technique only temporarily relieves the suffering that results from absolute overpopulation. The new methods of social labor, in turn, turn out to be insufficient when the population increases even more; and again, the power of hunger forces people to take a step along the path of development.

One of the first consequences of absolute overpopulation is the usually fierce mutual struggle of clan societies, and then the resettlement of entire tribes to new countries. Such a resettlement is just as difficult a task for the dull psyche of primitive people as any change in technology.

II. Authoritarian tribal community

1. The origin of agriculture and cattle breeding

The force of absolute overpopulation forced primitive people to improve little by little the tools and methods of primitive hunting production; and it, over time, forced them to leave the limits of this production and switch to new methods of struggle for life, such methods that largely eliminate the dependence of human existence on the spontaneous whims of external nature.

Agriculture and cattle breeding arose in different countries, apparently independently, and at first separately from one another, depending on local natural conditions.

The discovery of agriculture with the greatest probability can be imagined as the result of a number of "random" facts, which had to be repeated from time to time. Having accidentally spilled the grains of wildly growing grain plants collected in the reserve, a person after a few months found spikes that had grown in the same place. A thousand times it should have remained incomprehensible; but sooner or later the connection between the two phenomena was established in the mind of the savage, and the necessity gave rise to the idea of taking advantage of this connection. The discovery most likely could have been made by women who, due to their children, led a less wandering life than a male hunter, and were more engaged in collecting fruits and grains.

Primitive agriculture is very little like modern agriculture in the roughness and unreliability of its methods. Sokha, for example, is a rather late invention; even in relatively recent, far from primitive times, the plowing operation was carried out with the help of a tree, cleared of all branches, except for one, which was sharpened at the end and which made a furrow when the tree was dragged across the field; the earliest agricultural tool was a sharpened stick, with the help of which holes were made for grains. We are still faced with this kind of land cultivation in southern Africa, namely in Angola, where the cultivation of one grain plant, called cassava, is quite widespread. Digging up the ground with a sharpened stick, women plant cassava stalks there, which give a bountiful harvest for several years. Of course, there is no need to talk about more perfect methods of cultivating the land at the first stage of the development of agriculture. So widespread among the Slavs, arable farming, too, one must think, was originally carried out by the methods that Angolan women still use to this day: it is not for nothing that the word "plow" means in some Slavic dialects simply a stick or a pole.

As for cattle breeding, it probably came from the domestication of animals for fun. And now many more savages, wandering hunters, standing at the lowest stage of development and having no idea of real cattle breeding, tame quite a few wild animals, from which they do not derive any material benefit, and which are rather even a burden for them. Later, of course, the usefulness of some of these animals became clear, and their domestication was already applied systematically.

2. Development of industrial relations of the genus group

The increase in the productivity of social labor made possible a significant increase in the size of the clan group; and cattle breeding, in particular, creating more advanced methods of movement (riding on deer, horses, camels), allowing, therefore, the maintenance of social relations in more significant spaces than before, further contributed to the expansion of the boundaries of the clan. Thus, the size of society was often measured not by tens, but by hundreds of people, and, for example, the patriarch Abraham could number in his nomadic group 417 people capable of carrying weapons.

The vastness and complexity of production, growing many times over, gave rise to new forms of division of labor. One of them is of the greatest importance for further development: it is the allocation of labor that organizes production.

When group production was insignificant in size, extremely simple and designed only for the immediate needs of the very near future, then organizational work could still be a common matter, could be combined with executive work, since it did not exceed the average understanding of the group members. But when it comes to distributing hundreds of different jobs expediently among individual workers in order to calculate the needs of the group for whole months ahead, carefully measure the costs of social and labor energy with them and carefully monitor these costs, then organizational activity must be separated from performing labor. the combination of the one and the other in each individual person becomes impossible - it far exceeds the average measure of the mental strength of the people of that time; organizational activity becomes the specialty of the most experienced, most knowledgeable persons. In each separate group, it is finally concentrated in the hands of one person, usually the eldest in the family - the patriarch.

At the first stages of the development of organizational work, the role of the leader performing this work is still weakly distinguished over the activities of the other members of the clan. The organizer is still doing the same work as they did. As more experienced, he is more likely to be imitated than obeyed. But as the division of labor develops and the tribal economy becomes more complex, organizational work becomes completely isolated from executive work: they begin to obey the patriarch, cut off from the direct process of production. Thus, in the sphere of production, personal power and subordination arise - a special form of the division of labor, which is of tremendous importance in the further development of society.

War, from the point of view of individual groups, should be viewed as a special branch of production, social and labor struggle against external nature, because human enemies represent an element of nature external to society, just like wolves or tigers. In the patriarchal-clan era, this area of production acquires an important significance, because the greater, than before, population density made more frequent clashes between people; especially among nomadic pastoralists, there is almost constant struggle over pastures. Wars have greatly contributed to the strengthening and consolidation of the power of the organizer: they require a close-knit organization, strict discipline. Unconditional obedience to the leader in war is carried over little by little and into peacetime. It is very likely that it was in the sphere of war and hunting that the initially organizational power arose, which then gradually spread to other branches of production, as its complexity increased. This expansion of the sphere of organizational power should have been especially facilitated by the fact that the distribution of the spoils of one or another type of enterprise depended on the organizer of war and hunting; and that in itself gave him considerable economic strength and authority among the group.

3. Development of forms of distribution

To the extent that organizational activity in production passed from the group as a whole to an individual - the patriarch, it was also necessary to transfer into his hands the power organizing distribution. Only the organizer was able to unmistakably, in accordance with the general interests, decide the questions: what part of the social product can be consumed immediately, how much must be spent on further production and how much to keep in the form of a reserve for the future; only he could, taking into account the role of individual members of the group in the general production, give each one exactly as much as was necessary for the successful fulfillment of this role.

The more the majority of the clan group lost the habit of actually participating in organizational activity and control over distribution, the more unconditional became the right of the patriarch to dispose of the surplus product. As the total amount of surplus labor increased, the share of the product that the organizer used for his personal use became more and more significant - therefore, the inequality in distribution between him and the rest of the group increased. This is already a kind of embryo of exploitation, but only an embryo: a person engaged in such complex work as organizational work actually had a much greater amount of labor than anyone else, and comparatively broader needs had necessarily developed in him. The scope of exploitation was extremely limited already due to the general insignificance of production and the small variety of products: the organizer himself had to be content with the same means of consumption as others; and even if he chose the best of all that was produced, he could not nevertheless eat ten times more meat or bread than any other member of the group. True, he could exchange with another group a part of the total surplus product for some special means of consumption; but this happened comparatively rarely, owing to the insignificant development of exchange.

Further, in those cases where separate clan groups were united in a common tribal organization for any particularly extensive enterprises, the product of common labor (production of a common hunt, military robbery) was distributed by the same persons who organized the enterprises themselves, usually by a council of elders; distribution between groups was then carried out in accordance with the degree of participation of each of them in the common work.

4. Development of ideology

The selection of the organizer of its production among the genus group gradually changes the attitude of the individual to the group and its psychology.

If the power of nature over people has diminished, then a new power has arisen - one person over others. In essence, this was the former power of the group over its individual member, only transferred to an individual person - the patriarch.

Equality in distribution has been lost: the entire product of surplus labor is at the disposal of the organizer. But the inequality is not yet sharp: the organizer continues, as the group did before, to devote to each the necessary means to support his life and fulfill his role in production. The organizer himself, in developing his needs, did not go far from the other members of the group.

The connection of mutual assistance, the cohesion of the group in the struggle with the outside world is still growing in comparison with the previous period. First, more perfect forms of cooperation and division of labor within a group bring its members closer together than before, when everyone could perform most of the everyday work independently of the others, when simple "joint labor" prevailed; secondly, the unity of the clan benefits in part due to the fact that it finds itself a concrete, living embodiment in the personality of the patriarch.

At the same time and by virtue of the same conditions, embryos of individualism arise in the genus group, the essence of which is that

a person separates in his consciousness from the group; what appear

interests, whereas before there were only community interests.

5. Forces of development and new forms of life in the patriarchal-clan period

Since social consciousness in the era under study represented the same essentially spontaneous obstacles to any development, as in the previous stage of human life, it is obvious that the engine social development the same elemental force of absolute overpopulation had to appear. As the population grew, there was a shortage of livelihoods, the conservatism of custom had to recede, - technology gradually improved, and social relations changed. The emergence and gradual expansion of exchange was an eminently important acquisition of this development. Exchange progress, i.e. more precisely, the social division of labor, taking place on the basis of the development of technology, itself represented a powerful engine for all subsequent development.

Another less significant acquisition of the era under study is the appearance

Due to the emergence of surplus labor, it was in many cases beneficial for the organizer of the genus group to increase the number of members of the group: at the same time, the amount of surplus product that the organizer had at his disposal increased. Therefore, in patriarchal societies, there are frequent cases when an enemy defeated in a war was no longer killed, but joined to a given group and forced to participate in its production. Such affiliated members of the group were its slaves.

However, one should not imagine the slaves of the patriarchal period in the form of people reduced to the state of things. They were

as equal members of the community that joined them, the community of work closely linked them with the rest and gradually blotted out the memory of the previous struggle. The organizer "exploited" them hardly more than his blood relatives - they worked like others. They were not sold, and in general they were treated approximately the same way as American Indians were to adopted captives.

The emergence of exchange and the emergence of slavery - two at first glance very dissimilar facts - contain one very important common feature: they both represented a violation of the old system of cooperation based solely on blood relationship and the enormous mental similarity of individuals that followed from it. The ties of kinship must be imbued with a spirit of extreme exclusivity, a spirit of intolerance towards everything that goes beyond them; new forms of life stood in some contradiction with this intolerance, limited it. And from this a whole series of social facts arose.

The domination of purely tribal ties was the complete, unconditional domination of custom. The force of habit to established forms of life was so great, personal self-awareness was so weak that an individual just

III. Feudal society

1. Development of technology

If a patriarchal clan society was formed under the influence

emergence

new production methods that provide human life, then feudal society had its basis

further development

these ways.

The predominant value of agriculture in production, in which cattle breeding plays a subordinate role, and a completely sedentary life with a limited land space - these are the technical conditions of the feudal period.

When nomadic tribes of pastoralists begin to engage in agriculture, at first it is a subordinate, auxiliary branch of production for them; it adapts to the conditions of livestock raising, so that the area under crops changes very often. But as the population density increases, the land space decreases, and the area of nomadic life narrows, as cattle breeding is limited in its development by the lack of pastures, agriculture becomes an increasingly important element of the struggle for life. With a completely sedentary existence, it already represents the main area of the struggle for life, and cattle breeding, having lost its connection with nomadic life, adapts to the conditions of agriculture, turns, as it were, into its branch. As for the tribes from the very beginning of purely agricultural, their business boils down to the gradual development of agriculture, which little by little loses its primitive, semi-vagrant character, and includes cattle breeding. When there is too little free land to, as the soil is depleted by repeated sowing, from year to year, unlimitedly move to new places, then a more correct "shifting" farming system is formed: a part of the land that is depleted is abandoned and rests while another part is sown. at the disposal of the community; this is depleted - they return to that, etc. Further improvement develops a "three-field" system: arable land is divided into three approximately equal parts, of which two are allocated for crops - one for winter crops, the other for spring bread, and the third remains " under steam. " Gaining new strength for the next year, the fallow field also serves as a pasture for livestock. Together with the three-field, the first form of artificial fertilization is also developing - namely, adoration.

These conquests of agricultural technology, which are undoubtedly a huge step forward, prevailed throughout the entire feudal period; and the threefields in Europe outlived it for centuries.

Other branches of the extractive industry (hunting, mining) and the manufacturing industry in the feudal era were in a very undeveloped, partly embryonic state. War was of no small importance in the life of the then society, as a necessary way to protect all production, and as the only means to expand the territory of society.

2. Production and distribution relations within the feudal group

a) Agricultural group

The increase in labor productivity led to such an increase in the size of social organization that the community was often measured not in hundreds, but in thousands. At the same time, the conditions of agricultural technology caused some fragmentation of production within its limits.

Already in the large patriarchal clan group, a partial stratification into families was noticed; it was generated, as indicated, by the impossibility for the patriarch to single-handedly carry out all organizational work, by the need to shift some of it onto other, smaller organizers; however, these small organizers had only a negligible degree of independence, and the production of the whole community was characterized by considerable unity. Under the dominance of sedentary agricultural production, small economic units - families - acquire greater independence in economic life. To carry out agricultural work, the strength of a separate family group is usually quite sufficient — there is no need for the general cooperation of the entire group; moreover, small-scale family production in this case is more productive, since with rough farming methods a small group, focusing its attention and the application of its labor force on a small area, is able to make fuller use of its natural forces and properties than a large group that scatters its collective activities over a wide area.

Thus, the agricultural community on the border of the feudal period consisted of many family groups related to each other in origin, each of which led to a largely separate agricultural economy. In size, these groups were a cross between the patriarchal clan of antiquity and the modern family; they corresponded approximately to the Slavic "big families" of several dozen people, which have survived in some places to our time.

However, there are still quite significant industrial ties between family groups. In many cases, when the strength of an individual family turned out to be insufficient, neighboring families, or even the entire community, actively helped it. This often happened when building a dwelling, when clearing a new plot from under the forest for arable land, etc. In cattle breeding, the benefits of compatibility were so significant that from spring to autumn, communal livestock almost always united into one herd, which grazed on inseparable communal pastures supervised by community shepherds; among the indivisible pastures belonged, among other things, all fallow fields and fields from which the harvest had already been taken, so that each section of the field served the separate production of the family group only during the continuation of purely agricultural work. Most of the mowing in the communal meadows was done collectively, and then the hay was divided among families in proportion to their field area.

Moreover, even the use of arable land was usually regulated within certain limits by the community: family production did not remain associated with a particular piece of land; from time to time a new allocation of fields was made between families; at the same time, each farm received either a plot of the same size, only in a different place of communal arable land, or the size of the plots also changed, in accordance with the size of the families, with their labor force and so on. Similar changes and redistributions took place at the beginning, maybe every year, then - after a few years. They had the meaning that they equalized the benefits and disadvantages resulting from the unequal fertility of different plots of land. However, already from a fairly early time, the communities cease to redistribute those lands that were cleared from the forests and wastelands by the labor of an exclusively separate family. Consequently, in the communal redistributions, the fact is expressed that the initial acquisition of the communal land was carried out by the joint labor of the entire community, whether it was the labor of clearing new uncultivated land, or simply the labor of conquest.

b) Allocation of feudal lords

Where the development of the feudal group from the agricultural community proceeded most gradually and most typically; there the sequence of this development is as follows:

At the beginning, the structure of the community was relatively homogeneous - the difference in the size of individual farms was not so great as to ensure that the largest of them had a decisive economic dominance over the rest. Matters concerning the entire community were decided by a council of elders - the owners; for collective enterprises requiring a single organizer (mainly in the event of war), the council of elders elected a leader from among its midst, who fulfilled this role only temporarily, while there was a need. When wars were fought - as usual - not by one community, but by a tribal union, then the petty leaders of the squads elected, in turn, a common temporary leader.

However, the seeds of economic inequality already exist. One of these embryos represented, even if only temporarily, the separation of the organizer of common enterprises; another embryo is that, in addition to communal ownership of land, there was also private ownership. The lands cleared by the own labor of an individual family were already its property; in the same way, the lands acquired by military means, since they were distributed among the participants in the war, were usually no longer redistributed.

It is as clear as possible that the farms, which somewhat stand out from the environment of the rest by their greater economic strength, should, under such conditions, develop this strength faster than the others. First, it was easier for such farms to expand the area of their private holdings by clearing new unoccupied land; secondly, the persons belonging to these larger farms, generally occupied a more prominent position in the organization of military enterprises, and, consequently, received a more significant share of the war booty - movable and immovable. It interferes with remembering that movable prey was also

The Russian Slavs called them "servants", "slaves", since the agricultural community inherited from the patriarchal group, by the way, these embryos of slavery in their mild form.

Thus, the inequality of economic units grew more and more, and little by little undermined the former homogeneity of the community. The influence of the richer families on the course of communal life was increasingly intensified and strengthened due to the fact that economic superiority allowed them to put all other farms in some material dependence on themselves: large farms took upon themselves the organization of such enterprises that were beyond the power of everyone else. for example, the construction of large mills, bakeries, etc. Being much more stable, large farms suffered much less from any economic shocks, from hunger strikes and other natural disasters, which are so common with undeveloped technology; therefore, large farms often provided small farms with assistance from their reserves; and the small peasants usually paid for it with labor workers, which allowed the rich to significantly expand their plots and, in general, their entire production.

c) Separation of the priestly estate

In the early stages of the development of the authoritarian tribal community, the patriarch was the organizer of not only peaceful labor, but also military affairs; and if he himself did not possess the qualities of a military leader, then he chose such a leader for the time when it was required, while retaining the highest control and leadership. The development of feudalism put forward the leader as an independent, and at the same time hereditary military organizer. The tribal community itself was divided into family groups and moved to the neighboring community. The labor activity of the family group was carried out under the guidance of its head - the owner. What, therefore, was left of the organizational role of the patriarch?

Despite the considerable independence of family groups, there were still quite a few economic and household ties between them. That

control over their economy and these connections, those

uniting

the peace-organizing functions that were previously performed by the patriarch could not, for the most part, pass either to the feudal lord, who was too specialized in his special activities, or to the head of a large family, whose sphere of leadership was too narrow. This general control, the general peace-organizing role remained with the successor of the patriarch - the priest.

The priest was the custodian of the accumulated social experience passed down from the ancestors; since this experience was transmitted in a religious form, like the covenants and revelations of deified ancestors, the priest was the representative of the gods, the bearer of communication with them. And the main activity of the priest was economically organizing, and it was of great importance in life.

So, for any farmer it is extremely important to know at what time to start preparing arable land, when to sow, etc.: the whole fate of his labor depends on the correct distribution of time. But accurate calculation of the time of the year is possible only with the help of astronomical knowledge. This knowledge was available only to the priests, who, on the basis of observations of the sun, moon and other luminaries transmitted over the centuries, kept a calendar accurate enough for Agriculture.

In some countries, such as, for example, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Hindustan, a very high accuracy in determining the time was required. In these countries, due to the melting of mountain snows or the onset of tropical rains, periodic floods of rivers occur, which flood everything around them over vast areas. These spills, leaving fertile silt, give rise to a huge yield of the land, but at the same time, like a formidable element, they threaten the death of both people and everything created by their labor. To use one and avoid the other, the strictest timing is necessary, full knowledge of the relationship between the seasons and the water level of rivers is necessary. This was the work of the priests, who highly developed astronomy there and kept accurate records of the course of the spills. “And it was not enough to monitor the spills: it was necessary, if possible, to regulate them, for which canals, dams, drainage tanks - ponds and lakes were needed. They had to be arranged and systematically monitored; and in the future, with the help of the same structures, to expand the field of labor, irrigating neighboring waterless areas. In this respect, the ancients performed true miracles of technology. Preserved, for example, data on the famous Lake Merida with its channels, thanks to which it was possible to process huge areas ancient egypt, - spaces that now represent the arid sandy deserts of inner Libya. For such work, of course, managers and engineers with a significant stock of mathematical knowledge were needed. These leaders were again the priests, who were especially distinguished by their knowledge in the field of geometry.

3. Development of ideology in a feudal society

In the field of ideology, feudal society made a huge step forward.

Having grown out of a relatively small tribal community, the social organization of feudal society spread over vast areas and united hundreds of thousands, in other cases millions of people. Technology has been enriched and production has become much more complex than in previous periods. In order to maintain production connections between people, in order to express and establish complex relationships of their actions, tools, materials of labor, the main means of organization had to develop -

Which during the period under review, indeed, achieved an enormous wealth of expression and flexibility. Not only has the number of words increased many times, but many types of their combinations and modifications have been created, such as, for example, declensions and conjugations in our Aryan and many other languages.

In its general structure, the feudal system was based, like the previous one, on power and subordination, only in significantly more complicated forms. Society represented a long hierarchical ladder, where each lower authority was subordinate to the highest. This socio-economic system of feudalism also determined the nature human thinking, which in essence remained authoritarian, but significantly developed and became more complex. In the realm of thought, primitive animism is the spiritualization of all inanimate objects, which, according to the ideas of the savage, act according to the dictates of their "soul" - are replaced by more subtle and flexible religious beliefs. Instead of a direct order from the organizer and the execution of this order, a person saw in life a long chain of connections: the order is transmitted, for example, from the pope to the king, from the king to his most powerful vassals, from them even lower, etc., to the last peasant ... The imaginary world is built on the model and likeness of the "earthly" and precisely the social world: it is inhabited by demigods, gods and higher gods, who, in a hierarchical feudal chain, control various elements of nature and the entire system as a whole. So, for example, in the religion of the Greeks, which originated in the period of early feudalism, Zeus was the supreme ruler of the world, followed by his most powerful vassals Poseidon and Pluto, who, in turn, were subject to thousands of the most diverse gods. In some feudal religions, the lower gods are replaced by saints, who are assigned certain areas of activity: but this is only a difference in names. So, in the Slavic religious beliefs, Saint Ilya, who replaced the ancient god Perun, is in charge of thunder and lightning, Nicholas the Wonderworker, the heir of Dazhbog, is in charge of the fertility of the soil, etc.

In relations with the gods, the relations with the "earthly gods" are repeated, that is, to the feudal authorities. With the mediation of the priests, the quitrent is offered to the gods in the form of a sacrifice, in the form of work on vows on temples - corvee.

The thoroughly authoritarian, feudal ideology saw in everything the "finger of God", and was distinguished by its extraordinary integrity. She all fit into a religious worldview, which combined practical and scientific knowledge, legal and political ideas, etc. She thus played a universally organizing role in life. And at the same time, and precisely for this reason, it was an instrument of the domination of the priests, who were the carriers of the most important technical and socio-organizational knowledge of the era of feudalism.

4. Forces of development and its direction in feudal society

The spontaneous conservatism of the feudal period, similar to the conservatism of the clan group, but still less durable and stable, had to retreat under the influence of spontaneous forces. Such is the power of absolute overpopulation, that is, the lack of funds generated by the immobility of technology to meet the needs of society.

The primary influence of absolute overpopulation, or "land cramped", was expressed in the countless wars of the feudal world. As it was found out, it was mainly these wars that led to the transformation of free agricultural communities into feudal groups, and created the very type of organization of feudal society. As it grew and developed, so did the scale of wars. So, behind the unification of the feudal world Western Europe under the rule of the papacy followed the crusades, wars aimed at expanding its territory, to get rid of the land crush, which was growing.

In any case, wars were the least advantageous way for the feudal world to get rid of the surplus population, since, destroying the productive forces of feudal society, they thereby created a new surplus population, if not among the victors, then among the defeated. Therefore, it was necessary to accomplish, albeit very slowly, and proper technical progress. In agriculture, until the end of the Middle Ages, in general, it was insignificant - there human consciousness represented the greatest obstacles to development. Another thing was the manufacturing industry, where conditions were more favorable for development. There progress was faster: technically better methods of production were worked out, which are possible given its small artisan character; the craft was gradually separated from agriculture and specialized. Thus, the social division of labor intensified; therefore, the exchange intensified. The craftsman strove to be closer to the places where his products were sold and left little by little from the countryside to the emerging exchange centers - the cities.

Briefly defining the general direction of the changes taking place in feudal life, it must be said that, acting in various ways, absolute overpopulation led the feudal world to one goal - to the development of the social division of labor, which is expressed in exchange.

Even the wars of feudal society had the necessary result of the growth of relations, and consequently - production ties and exchange between feudal groups. Campaigns of feudal squads to foreign areas destroyed their isolation, introduced people to products that were not produced in their homeland. This created the conditions for the subsequent exchange. In particular, such an expansion of ties acted on the feudal lords in the direction of the development of their needs: there was an opportunity to exchange the surplus product received from their peasants for a variety of other people's products; while the feudal lord, of course, most of all strove to acquire luxury goods.

General characteristics of natural-economic societies of the past

1) In the field of industrial technology, natural societies of the past are characterized by significant power of external nature over people, and, conversely, by little power of people over external nature. This applies to the greatest extent to the primitive communist society, to the least to the feudal one.

2) In the sphere of production relations, these societies are characterized, firstly, by relative narrowness, and secondly, by the organized nature of production relations. However, since time immemorial, unorganized production relations have existed in them, which have created some kind of connection between separate organizations. And in this sense, the extremes are: a primitive society - an almost completely isolated, highly cohesive group of several dozen people, in which there are almost no unorganized (exchange) ties, and a feudal society, much less cohesive, but embracing as many as hundreds of thousands, even millions of people, united not only by organized, but also partly by exchange relations in the struggle for life.

3) In the sphere of distribution, the characteristic is, firstly, the dominance of organized forms of distribution, and secondly, the absence of extremes of wealth and poverty. And in this respect, only a primitive society is quite typical, and the feudal one already stands on the border of new forms of life.

4) The public consciousness of natural societies of the past is distinguished by spontaneous conservatism (the rule of custom) and the poverty of cognitive material. It would be almost correct to recognize the primitive era as having no worldview, the next two are characterized mainly by natural fetishism, which reflects the power of nature over society, but the power is already shaken and not unconditionally overwhelming.

5) According to this nature of social consciousness, the forces of development in these societies are spontaneous. Absolute overpopulation is the main driver of social development.

Development of exchange

1. The concept of an exchange society

We have seen that natural economic organizations either actually existed without exchange, or, in any case, were able to do without it. Closed and economically isolated from the rest of the world, they produced everything necessary to satisfy their needs: food, clothing, and tools. An entirely different picture is presented by the exchange economy. Here one cannot speak of the independent existence of not only separate production units - factories, farms, mining enterprises, etc., but also entire regions, and even entire countries. So, for example, when Russia, as a result of the world war, was separated from the rest of the world, it began to feel an acute shortage of a number of products necessary to meet the most urgent needs. If certain regions of Russia, for example, St. Petersburg or Moscow region, due to complete disruption of transport or other reasons, were cut off from the rest of Russia, then most of their population would be doomed to certain death. This applies even more to individual enterprises, farms of the exchange system.

The fact is that a developed exchange economy differs from a natural one by a wide

social division of labor

This means that the exchange economy consists of a huge number of enterprises formally independent from each other, which are engaged in the production of one product: iron and machine-building plants, textile and match factories, shoemaking and beading workshops, dairy farms and farms of grain-growers, peasants, and etc., etc. In a word, all production is split into a number of branches, and they are divided into numerous individual farms. True, already in the primitive communist community there were the embryos of the division of labor; Considering the economy of an authoritarian-clan and feudal society, we even pointed to the separation of individual branches of the economy, animal husbandry, agriculture and handicrafts. But it was all a division of labor in

within

a production group connected by a common organizing plan. For example, the tribal community, through the patriarch and other organizers subordinate to him, appropriately distributed the available labor forces: it sent part of its members to graze cattle, another part to plow the land, etc., in order to satisfy the needs of the entire community as fully as possible in this way. This type of division of labor resembles

Quite different is the social division of labor in an exchange society. There is not a single organizing will, no production plan. It is a system of separate, seemingly independent from each other enterprises that are interconnected

In a subsistence economy, products are produced that are intended for the consumption of a production group; in an exchange economy, products are produced that, as a general rule, are not intended for their producers, but for

2. Three forms of exchange

It goes without saying that exchange did not immediately reach its modern form. During the centuries-old existence of mankind, it has come a long way of development. For the very fact of its emergence, which dates back to antiquity, most likely to the early stages of an authoritarian clan community, first of all, it was necessary to have an excess of products produced by this community, or, in other words, known degree development of labor productivity. But this is not enough. If two communities produced the same products, in the same abundance, exchange would not make any sense, and no one would resort to it. There can be no talk of exchange even if communities living nearby have surpluses of various products, but are in hostile relations with each other. In this case, only the robbery of one community of another could take place, as it often happened in practice.

Hence, it is clear that for the exchange between two communities, two conditions are necessary: the difference in the products they produce and the friendly relations (social connection) between them. The first condition was fulfilled at first largely due to the difference in the means of production that external nature gave to different communities: an agricultural community, whose land produced grain well, but poorly - flax, entered into exchange with another community, whose soil was more convenient for sowing flax, but gave poor harvests of grain; a group of nomadic pastoralists gave meat for the bread of farmers, etc. The second condition was fulfilled in the tribal ties of the individual communities, ties supported by their collective enterprises. Subsequently, with the greater development of exchange, the differences in production began to increasingly be determined not only by the directly given natural conditions, but also by unequal already established technical skills; and friendly relations were often established in addition to tribal kinship.

In its historical development, exchange goes through three phases, takes three different forms: simple or random, full or expanded, and developed or monetary.

1 ax = two spears.

3. Money

The history of the monetary form of exchange represents a sequential change of various commodities that act as money.

At first, this role everywhere fell to the share of a commodity widespread for one reason or another, whether it was amber, leather, salt, beans, cocoa, special shells, etc. the quality of money of those goods that are in a given locality the most constant objects of import or export, and in two neighboring villages, different monetary goods often turn out to be. In countries of nomadic life, money was most often

In southern Europe, it was still 10 centuries before P. X .: in the folk Greek poems of Homer, one can find an estimate of a copper tripod at 12 bulls, golden armor at 100 bulls, etc. In some peoples, even the very name of money comes from the name of cattle. Latin pecunia (pecunia) undoubtedly comes from the word pecus, which means cattle. The name of the Indian banknote "rupee" and the Russian ruble are also derived from the root that forms the name of the cattle.

But little by little money-cattle were replaced everywhere by metal money. Initially, iron and copper money appeared on the stage. These metals were obviously bought no less willingly than cattle, because metal tools and weapons were essential items in every household. At the same time, metals have many advantages due to which they are technically more suitable for fulfilling the role of money: first, they are more easily divided into pieces of low value than livestock, which cannot be divided into parts without killing; secondly, the substance of metals is homogeneous, and their individual pieces have the same qualities, while other goods, including livestock, do not have this advantage: one sheep cannot be completely equal to another sheep; thirdly, metals are better preserved - even copper and iron, which gradually deteriorate under the influence of air and moisture; fourthly, metals have a smaller volume and weight with the same exchange value with other goods, because they require a relatively large amount of labor to obtain.

Subsequently, iron and copper are replaced by silver and gold. In noble metals, all of these technical advantages are especially pronounced. The difficulty, at first glance, is the question of how these metals, almost useless in production, could be bought as readily as cattle, iron, etc. The matter is explained as follows. Silver and gold are mainly used for jewelry. Even nowadays jewelry is easily sold: undeveloped people - especially poorly educated women - are often ready to deny themselves what they need to put on some beautiful trinket. And non-cultural and semi-cultural peoples especially love ornaments and value them: European merchants for some string of beads bought goods of great value from savages, for example, huge quantities of fish, game, fruits, etc. Thus, the demand for jewelry created an opportunity transition from iron and copper money to silver and gold.

However, one should not think that metallic money appeared immediately in the form of modern coins with their graceful finishing, with precise weight and with a certain fineness. Metal was originally a monetary commodity, and only: it differed from other commodities in that it was accepted in exchange for any thing that its owner wanted to sell.

4. Labor value and its importance in the regulation of production

In an exchange society, every producer exchanges his product - his

For other people's goods: first for money, then this money for other products that he needs; but money, as we have seen, is also a commodity, and therefore there is no need to speak of it especially. How many other people's goods will the manufacturer receive for his own? In other words, how great is the exchange value of his goods?

Let us assume that society is completely homogeneous, that different economies are similar in terms of the amount of needs and in the amount of labor energy that is expended in production in each of them. If there are a million such farms, then the needs of each of them amount to one millionth of the needs of society, and the labor of each of them amounts to one millionth of the social expenditure of labor energy. If at the same time all social production fully satisfies the entire sum of social needs, then each farm, in order to fully satisfy its needs, must receive for its goods one millionth of the total social product. If individual farms receive less than this, they will begin to weaken and collapse, will not be able to fulfill their former social role, to provide society with one millionth share of all its labor energy in the struggle against nature. If some farms receive more than one millionth share of the total product of social labor, then other farms will suffer and begin to weaken, which will receive less.

The amount of labor energy that society needs to produce a certain product is called the social value, or simply the value of this product.

Using this term, the previous considerations can be presented as follows:

In a homogeneous society with divided labor, in order to fully maintain productive life in its former form, it is necessary that each farm, in exchange, receive for its goods

equal to them in value

the amount of these products for your consumption. In the example given, the value of the commodities of a given economy is equal to one millionth of the total value of the social product, and the value of consumer goods necessary for the economy is also equal to one millionth of all social labor energy.

Social value is measured by the duration and intensity of the work of the people who participated in the production of the product. If it takes 30 hours of social labor to make one product, and 300 hours of labor, twice as intensive as in the first case, to produce another product, then it is obvious that the social value of the second product, the amount of labor energy embodied in it, is 20 times more than the cost of the first.

Slavery systems

1. The origin of slave organizations

Depending on historical conditions, the development of feudalism can proceed in two different directions. Feudalism, as was the case in medieval Europe, can turn into serfdom; but under special conditions it develops in a different direction, giving rise to slave systems.

The difference between slave and serf relations does not at all lie in the degree of exploitation and personal dependence: in certain cases, slavery is much less severe than serfdom, and vice versa. The main difference between these two economic systems should be sought in the position that the dependent class occupies in the production process. A serf, like a slave, is deprived of personal freedom - but he is a small owner, and together with his family he works on his allotment or is engaged in a craft on his farm, performing corvee for the owner or giving a rent. As for the slave, he not only does not have an economy, but does not even own his own labor force.

The slaves were already in the patriarchal community. These are prisoners of war who were forcibly introduced into the composition of a genus group alien to them by blood and then, as it were, adopted by the latter. Slavery also existed under feudalism. It embraced those elements of the dependent population who, being cut off from agriculture and deprived of their own economy, lived at the house of the overlord as "courtyards". But in the economic life of those periods, slavery did not play any significant role. It is different in the slave system: here slavery acquires a decisive role in production.

The original origin of slavery is attributed to the capture of people in war.

One of the elements of external nature for each production organization are organizations hostile to it, with which it is forced to fight. Such a struggle very often captures a significant part of the energy of human societies. This applies especially to those societies that advanced on the path of development earlier than others and in terms of material well-being stood above their neighbors. Backward societies, under the influence of absolute overpopulation, with particular force fell on the lands of those who excelled them in a cultural sense. It often happened that backward "barbarian" social groups - clans and tribes - won much higher standing of their societies and partly destroyed, partly adopted their culture. But some societies, thanks to early development division of labor, and, consequently, exchange, it was possible to develop the highest military technology, which gave them a decisive advantage over the backward, often still nomadic tribes. For a number of centuries, such advanced societies managed to victoriously fight against the spontaneous onslaught of the lower tribes. These victories usually led to an increase in the productive forces of more cultured social organizations, which turned their many captives into slaves.

2. Inter-group production ties

If the slave economy at the initial stage of its development was still mainly of a natural character, then in its developed form it is definitely mixed, natural-exchange. The needs of the slaves, reduced to a physiological minimum, were satisfied primarily by the slave group's own products, while the largest share of master's consumption was based on exchange. Purple textiles, vessels, especially earthenware vases, precious household utensils, and all kinds of luxury items were produced by individual households to meet the needs of the slave owners. Some products were transported over great distances. So, for example, purple clothes and carpets were exported from Greece to Italy, Sicily supplied huge areas with its beautiful chariots. This was the predominant character of trade, and it was mainly the upper classes of the slave group that were drawn into the sphere of exchange.

True, there were also such slaveholding enterprises that did not conduct agriculture at all. Such were the many ergasterias of the Greek cities, which supplied industrial products to the market; such were the mining enterprises (for example, the Lavrian silver mines of Attica). Since these farms had to buy consumer products for slaves, they lived entirely in the area of exchange relations, but in general agricultural enterprises prevailed.

Be that as it may, the era of ancient slavery is associated with a significant development of money circulation. In those days, by the way, money for the first time took the form of a coin: the newly emerging socio-economic organization - the state - took upon itself the responsibility, or rather, arrogated to itself the right to mint bars of a certain shape, weight and value from money metals, which serve

universal legal instruments of circulation of goods

The very matter of exchange has gradually emerged as an independent occupation of a special social class of merchants who, buying goods from producers, deliver and sell them to consumers and live off the difference in exchange value in the first and second cases.

In general, the volume of trade was still negligible in comparison with the current one. This can be judged with certainty on the basis of the amount of money that was required for the circulation of goods; the extraction of gold and silver in Asia and Europe, even in the flourishing era of the classical world, was many tens of times less than at the present time; meanwhile, the exchange technique was not highly developed, the need for money for exchange transactions was almost not weakened by such highly sophisticated devices as in our times (circulation of banknotes, bank notes, check system, etc.).

3. Ideology

Public consciousness in the era of the slave system was not, of course, continuous, homogeneous. It was profoundly different for those opposite elements that made up the slave-owning group, and depended on their position in the production process.

The slave's living conditions were incredibly difficult. With marks burned on their bodies, often chained in heavy chains, they had to work from early morning until late at night in the fields or in the industrial enterprises of their masters. The work took place under the strict supervision of cruel overseers, who only thought about how to earn the mercy and bounty of the slave owner by their inhuman treatment of slaves. After working all day, the slaves went to the barracks at night - a kind of dungeon, often located underground.

In general, the slave was viewed as an instrument of production, as a working animal. In this respect, the classification of the instruments of production, which took shape during the period under study, is extremely characteristic. She distinguished:

1) instrumenta muta - mute, dead tools, for example, an ax., A machine; 2) instrumenta semivocalia - living instruments, but those that are only half, that is, very imperfectly, they express their feelings in a voice, these are pets, and 3) instrumenta vocalia are instruments endowed with the ability to speak, that is, people are slaves.

Thus, slaves were reduced to the level of draft animals, a simple belonging of household implements

Under such conditions, there is little to say about the ideology of slaves; its extreme poverty and meaninglessness, its narrowness and limitation are beyond any doubt. There is nothing to look for elements of development here; the mental life of people of this class was even in the best cases (learned slaves) a faint reflection of the mental life of masters.

4. Causes and course of the decline of slave societies

For the development of any society, a certain surplus of energy is necessary, which could be spent on expanding production, improving technology and, in general, increasing the productivity of social labor. Societies that do not have such an excess of energy, or that waste it unproductively, are doomed to slow but sure death.

All this led to the beginning of a process of slow degeneration in the Eastern despotism, which usually ended with the intervention of more viable external forces.

The structure and life of the slave-owning societies of the ancient world were both much more complex and diverse. Accordingly, the course of their economic and general decline seems to be more complicated.

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Russia. Russian Science: Economic Science- The first Russian translation of the book Hell. Smith's Theory of the Wealth of Nations was made by Politkovsky in 1802 06. Smith's ideas enjoyed considerable popularity both in educated society and in government spheres. The named translation is made according to ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

POLITICAL ECONOMY- a science that studies the laws governing production, exchange, consumption and distribution of material wealth in society at different stages of its development. The term "P.E." formed from three Greek. words: "polyteya" social structure, "oikos" ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

BOGDANOV- (pseud .: real fam. Malinovsky; other pseudonyms Werner, Maksimov, Ryadovoy) Alexander Alexandrovich, economist, philosopher, political scientist. activist, scientist naturalist. Graduated from ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Bogdanov (Malinovsky) A.A. (Malinovsky, 1873 1928; autobiography) b. 10 (22) August 1873 people's teacher, the second of 6 children. My father soon rose to the rank of teacher of inspectors at a city school, and thanks to this, I got 6 7 years ... ... Big biographical encyclopedia

Bogdanov A. (pseudonym)- Bogdanov, A. (pseudonym) philosopher and economist. His main works: 1) The main elements of the historical view of nature (St. Petersburg, 1898); 2) Cognition from a historical point of view (St. Petersburg, 1901); 3) From the psychology of society. Articles 1901 1904 (St. Petersburg ... Biographical Dictionary

Primitive communal system- the first socio-economic formation in the history of mankind. Fundamentals of the doctrine of P. s. as a special socio-economic formation were laid down by K. Marx and F. Engels and further developed by V. I. Lenin. According to most ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

BOGDANOV- 1 . (pseud .; real surname Malinovsky; part.pseudonyms: Werner, Ryadovoy, Rakhmetov, Reinert, Sysoyka, Maksimov, etc.), Alexander Alexandrovich (10.VIII.1873 7.IV.1928) Russian. politician activist, philosopher, economist, doctor by profession. Genus. v… … Soviet Historical Encyclopedia

Bogdanov, Alexander Alexandrovich- Alexander Alexandrovich Bogdanov Alexander Alexandrovich Malinovsky Date of birth: 10 (22) August 1873 (1873 08 22) Place of birth ... Wikipedia

Alexander bogdanov - a short course in economics. In and. Lenin. review