Deep History: Deeper Waters
A Review of David Laibman’s Deep History (New York, 2007)
‘My project is to reach behind the rich veins of human
experience, in all its forms, through the entire time of our existence
on Earth, and seek out explanatory principles that might help
organise our understanding of that record – our basic sense of
ourselves, where we have been and where we are going.’1
Except for those still enjoying the wordplay of
postmodernism, historians and political theorists will appreciate
opening a book with such a stated goal. Here is a subject worth
getting to grips with, for it promises so very much: nothing less
than a total conception of the pattern of history.
David Laibman is a Marxist and the explanatory principles
that he offers are derived from Marx’s formulations, in particular
the notion of modes of production distinguished by their respective
forces and relations of production. But this book is not an exegesis
of Marx’s model of history; it is an adoption of these conceptual
tools to entirely new formulations and ways of looking at the
evolution of human societies. Direct quotes from Marx are few
because the author does not want to reheat past debates about
orthodoxy, but rather knuckle down to the substantive issue. What
concepts explain the deep structural evolution of human history?
Laibman’s answer is that there is a high level construct, the
‘abstract social totality’ (AST) that explains the logic of historical
development. To be clear, for Laibman the AST is not a metaphor
or helpful illustration, it is an explanatory, scientific, testable theory.
Now for most readers of Imprints, this will be an attractively
ambitious project. Nor is the goal of the author simply to provide
historians and political theorists with new tools for academic
investigations, Laibman is an ardent believer in the necessity for
human beings to achieve a classless society, that is, ‘communism’
in its classical sense. The same logical schema that the author
claims explains past epoch making historical changes also points
towards future evolutions and the potential for the abolition of
capitalism.
I should state here that have enormous sympathy for this
project in both its senses. There are patterns in history and I would
like tools that help investigate them; there is a need to replace
capitalism with a more egalitarian way of living and I would like this
1
Laibman 2007, p.viii.
to be provable from an understanding of the past. My engagement
with the book was therefore positive and whatever axes I might
unconsciously find myself grinding elsewhere, I feel that I read this
book with a hope that it would prove successful in its aims.
My report, unfortunately, is that in several ways that are
fundamental to its project, I believe the book to have failed.
This conclusion has nothing to do with a fairly widespread
belief that such totalising efforts in the social sciences are
inevitably doomed by the complexity of human behaviour. In
offering my, sometimes quite fundamental, reasons for believing
that the work hasn’t achieved its goals I hope that I am not
disparaging the spirit of the project.
One very positive aspect of the book is that the author has
approached the subject in a non-sectarian way. He is writing with
the aim of enriching an important discussion for all those wishing
to elucidate the movement of history from a perspective critical of
modern capitalism. You also get the impression that the author is
open-minded towards fair criticism. The tone of the book is
admirably direct without being dogmatic, assertive without being
defensive. It also shows a high degree of sensitivity to where the
problem areas lie.
The kinds of questions that Laibman poses with regard to his
own project are thus: ‘Is this work good social theory? Does it
contribute to our toolbox for a politically fruitful and developing
understanding of history? Is it scientific, critical, humane, open?
Does it help orient people in the vast emancipatory projects of our
time? I face the answers to these questions with considerable
trepidation; my only consolation is that they must also be asked of
all other efforts rendered along the same lines.’2
I hope that the following observations, questions and
disagreements will be understood as being written by a reader who
shares the basic goals of the author, with the aspiration that they
will assist to clarify very complex matters.
The first question I would raise in regard to Deep History is a
relatively obscure one, but one that does colour an assessment of
the main innovations set forth in the book. Is the underlying
philosophical method at work in this book appropriate to its goals?
The author believes in ‘transcending’ contradictions. He writes that
the nature versus nurture spectrum regarding human behaviour
needs to be transcended.3 A section on the need to bring various
2
3
Ibid., p. x.
Ibid., p. 21.
streams of enquiry together is entitled ‘Synthesis: Transcending
the Disciplinary Boundaries’.4 Most importantly for his project,
Laibman believes he has found a way to transcend the apparent
dichotomy between theories about history and the ‘tangle of
formless empirical material’5 that arises from the study of specific
historical moments.
What this solution is will be discussed shortly, but here I just
want to raise a doubt. The notion of transcendence of contradiction
is, of course, perfectly orthodox in Marxism’s Hegelian inheritance.
But an insightful transcendence of the Hegelian kind is, in fact,
relatively rare in human thought. We are talking of radical shifts of
perspective that allow us to see that what had formerly appeared
to irreconcilable concepts are in fact one-sided features of a more
dynamic, dialectical, totality. By contrast, for example, to say that
the difference between apples and pears can be resolved by
understanding them both as fruit is not very profound or dialectical
in the above sense. Several times while reading this book I felt that
the author was offering us apparently transcendent solutions to
problems, but that his actual formula lacked the penetration
necessary to really convince the reader that they were
fundamental resolutions of contradictions rather than metaphysical
constructions.
The most critical example of this for Deep History is the
question of whether Laibman has overcome the problem of ‘hard’
overarching historical theories dissolving in to ‘soft’ theories when
undermined by specific micro studies. Whether, in other words, the
dynamics of history can be explained at an abstract high level,
without their having to be adapted to specific historical detail in
such a way as they lose their explanatory power.
‘My suggestion,’ writes Laibman, is to overcome this
dichotomy, by developing a theory that is simultaneously “hard”
and “soft”. I posit level of abstraction, and arrange these into a
hierarchy, so that at the “highest” level we find the abstract social
totality (AST) and at a “lower” level the (more) concrete social
formation reflecting geo-climatic and developmental variation. At
still “lower” levels numerous contingent and accidental factors,
including the personalities and capacities of individuals, come into
play and infuse variety into the picture, which thus approaches the
concreteness of the actual historical record.’6
4
Ibid., p. 121.
Ibid., p. 4.
6 Ibid., p. 4.
5
Straight away, Laibman recognises that if this is a resolution
of the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ dichotomy, he has to demonstrate that the
AST, the highest level of historical understanding, ‘must inform the
construction of the lower levels, it cannot operate in a vacuum,
independently of the rich detail of the historical record.’7 Secondly,
the AST has to be falsifiable by the historical evidence. ‘Rejecting
any simple path from pristine facts to confirmation or
disconfirmation of theory, I still accept the responsibility to support
the theory from the evidence and experience of history. In other
words, the theory cannot merely be useful, or fruitful, it must, in
some sense, be true as well.’8
The idea then is that the two opposites (crudely: theory and
data) affect each other, but not equally. The AST encompasses
both the next level down, social formations, and below that, very
particular events. Philosophically, this is schema is consistent with
Laibman’s notion of dialectics. ‘Dialectics refers not simply to
mutual interaction, but to interaction between unequal poles. In a
dialectical interaction, dominant determination runs from one pole
to the other; without this, the dialectic characterizes the mutual
conditioning of the poles, their relational consistency, but does not
reveal a dynamic movement in the system that they constitute.’9
It seems to me that this formulation is different to the classic
Hegelian – Marxist tradition, for which the revelation of dynamics
occurs at a different level to that of the contradictions (from the
level of the ‘negation of the negation’ to use Hegelian language).
Laibman’s italicising of ‘dominant determination’ is curiously
evocative of those who want to ‘de-Hegelianise’ Marx’s dialectics10
and as an aside I would ask Laibman if this is conscious? But it is
time to move from philosophy to history and I simply flag the point
that I think the methodology of the book is being shaped, for better
or worse, at this rather intangible philosophical level. In any case,
what matters here is whether we are being offered a metaphysical
construction or a valuable method of understanding the
relationship between the trends of history and the concrete
historical record.
The most important theoretical assertion by Laibman is that
the abstract social totality (AST) explains the pattern of history.
‘Social evolution proceeds through a series of stages, and at the
7
Ibid, p. 4.
Ibid, p. 4.
9 Ibid., p. 51.
10 Althusser 1970, p. 178; Haug, 2006.
8
level of the AST these stages are an absolutely determinate
ladder.’11 And ‘the determinate ladder of theoretical stages –
assuming it exists, an assumption that cannot be separated from
confirmation of its ongoing extraction from the raw material of
history – occurs only at the level of the AST. As soon as we depart
from this level and examine social formations at more concrete
levels, variety in external conditions and consequent variations in
pace and detailed features of development are introduced. We
might say that the AST would only be directly visible only on a
planet with one continent, with no mountains, rivers, narrow
isthmuses or any other barriers to communication and diffusion of
cultural traits, and a common climate, flora, fauna and so on.’12
The point about the hypothetical planet is vivid and makes
Laibman’s contention admirably clear. Given those ‘perfect’
conditions, human society would necessarily go through certain
historical periods. These being: primitive communism, slavery,
feudalism and capitalism. These periods are derived not from
historical observation, but from the logic of the structures of the
AST.13
What are those structures? They are the ‘productive forces’
(PF) and the ‘production relations’ (PR) that will be familiar to
readers of Imprints from the works of Marx and the huge
subsequent literature about them. The PFs and PRs form a
consistent whole, the ‘mode of production’ (MP). Laibman,
probably wisely given that it would lead away from his main
purpose, does not spend a great deal of time on the debates about
these concepts. Rather he formulates two propositions that are
important for developing his logical stages-view of history. Firstly,
that PRs are progressively replaced over time with ever more
sophisticated PRs and, secondly, there is a tendency towards
development in the PFs. Because any particular set of PRs tend to
stasis, a tension develops within a mode of production, resolved if
a revolution takes place leading to a new mode of production.
Laibman rather ably defends himself from those who would
characterise such a view as ‘productive forces determinism’, by
pointing out that that the whole dynamic of the model relies on a
notion that the PRs persistently shape the PFs. They progressively
restrain the PFs, blocking the development of productivity like ‘so
many fetters’ to be ‘burst asunder’ in the famous phrase of Marx.
Laibman 2007, p. 4 – 5.
Ibid., p. 5.
13 Ibid., p. 28.
11
12
According to Laibman there have been five stages (modes of
production) in human history: primitive communism, slavery,
feudalism, capitalism and (modern) communism. The ordering of
these modes ‘is not determined from historical observation as
such… The ordering is theoretical, not empirical, and is based on
the concept that the development of the PFs, through the entire
period of class-antagonistic MPs requires periodic replacement of
PRs, in an order revealing progressively more sophisticated and
powerful means of coercion, incentive and control. This ordering
must now be explained.’14
Now we come to the crunch. If this model is something more
than a way of organising historical material, if changes in history
can be explained at this AST level, then the test is whether the
logic of the model requires human history to evolve through these
stages. Laibman thinks it does, I wasn’t convinced.
The first transition that Laibman believes arises from AST
considerations is from primitive communism to the slave mode of
production. Laibman, who rejects the idea present in Marx that
there was ever an ‘Asiatic mode of production’, asserts that slavery
is logically and necessarily the first form of systematic surplus
extraction. The slave mode of production, he argues, appears
when it is possible to extract a surplus large enough to support the
necessary apparatuses of coercion and control, and at a time
when only direct physical coercion will produce a surplus.15 Purely
on the basis of the content of these formulations and not the actual
historical record, in other words, from within Laibman’s own
framework, are these definitions enough to convince us that the
first form of class society has to be slavery rather than, say, one
based on the extraction of tributes from peasants? Suppose
agriculture to have reached the point that it is possible to generate
significant surpluses and suppose coercion necessary to gather
this surplus, why would the person being exploited, be, in the first
instance, a slave, the chattel of a ruling class? Isn’t it as likely, in
fact, that initially the first elites would not be able to leap from
primitive communism straight to owning other human beings, but
rather and perhaps over many centuries, their privileged position
would have arisen through the gradual tightening of their control
over the limited surplus available to society?
If we leave the terrain of logic and structure to follow E.
Gordon Childe’s account of the actual origins of class society on
14
15
Ibid., p. 28.
Ibid., p. 28.
this planet, then as well as the appearance of slavery we find
examples, such as that of ancient Egypt, where tomb paintings
show ‘peasants coming in to pay their rent or dues, always in kind,
while a scribe notes down on papyrus what each man brings and
an overseer with a whip keeps the tributaries up to the mark.’16
This latter source of wealth was almost certainly far more
important initially than that created by slaves.17
It is possible for Laibman’s schema to be adjusted to take in
to account the above point, he does not, in fact, need to insist that
slavery was the first form of exploitation to have a working AST
model, but already the particular model we have been offered
looks inexact.
Nevertheless, assuming, then, that a slave mode of
production has come in to being, is there a dynamic, at the AST
level, that explains what will happen to it? Laibman follows earlier
Marxist historians in saying that there is a fundamental problem for
the stability of a slave mode of production in that it is continually
obliged to seek outside its own territory for new sources of slaves
and to devote an increasing share of the surplus to supporting this
activity. The slave MP also, because of the lack of incentive for the
slave to develop the productive forces intensively has a tendency
to expand them extensively: larger agricultural holdings,
construction projects, etc. The PF – PR model therefore points
towards a crisis of the mode of production, as more and more of
the share of the surplus is devoted to the means of coercion and
control in this expanding system. For Laibman, the explanation for
the overrunning of Rome by Germanic and other peoples
ultimately lies at the level of the AST.18
There are many accounts of the decline of Roman civilisation
as well as an increasing number of both Marxist and non-Marxist
studies that argue the decline has been exaggerated.19 My own
preference is for that of G. E. M. de Ste. Croix. This differs from
Laibman’s AST explanation in one very important aspect. The
author of Deep History believes that the backdrop of small-scale
peasant production against which the gangs of slaves are working
is an ‘inert medium within which the slave dynamic occurs.’ For Ste
Croix, on the other hand, the decline of the importance of slavegenerated surpluses (for, approximately, the reasons given above)
caused a massive tightening of the screw by the Roman elite on
16
Childe 1966, p. 166.
Harman, 1999, p. 22 – 8.
18 Laibman 2007, p. 30.
19 Most recently Ward-Perkins 2007.
17
the non-slave lower social classes. The ruination and
demoralisation of the once-free Roman peasantry is what
contributed, above all, to the inability of the empire to save itself
from invasion.20 The difference is important for the question of
methodology. Laibman’s book is an attempt to distil a few high
level explanations for the pattern of history, it does not suit this
project to have to constantly adjust ‘hard’ theory with ‘soft’ lowerlevel historical data; but without amendment, the explanation for
the conquest of the Western Roman Empire in Deep History
seems inadequate.
The crisis of the slave mode of production gives way to the
feudal mode. Laibman argues that this change is a necessary one
because it is not possible for a slave mode of production to move
directly to a capitalist mode.21 Now again, adhering strictly to the
logic of the model and setting aside actual historical events for the
moment, I have a question about this. I’m happy to agree that at
the AST level, a slave mode of production cannot develop directly
into a capitalist one, but why, therefore, must the end of slavery
mean specifically feudalism? There are several theoretical ways in
which surpluses could be extracted from a labouring class.
Excluding the possibility of a capitalist form does not necessitate a
feudal form: that needs to be demonstrated. Here we are not
helped by Laibman’s definition of a feudal mode of production.
‘The feudal solution rests on the confinement of class
relations to the small scale of the manor: a self-contained and
territorially enclosed social system based on agricultural
production (although it also incorporates handicrafts and other
non-agricultural activities). The ruling function rests in the Lord of
the Manor, with a retinue of retainers and a caste of military
functionaries (the knighthood). The subjugated producing class
consists of serfs, who are held in service to the lord (vassalage)
through their connection to the land. Unlike slaves, serfs are not
owned outright by the lord; they cannot be bought and sold. Tied to
the manor by birth, they also have a right to that connection, which
cannot be taken from them.’22
Medieval historians, Marxist or otherwise, would only
recognise parts of this definition. Since we are dealing with logic
and structure, rather than history, Laibman can, of course, define
feudalism however he wants. But if the model is ultimately to be
de Ste. Croix 1981, pp. 453 – 503.
Laibman 2007, p. 30.
22 Ibid., p. 31.
20
21
used to explain developments in our world, rather than remain a
theoretical abstraction, this particular definition needs amendment
in two regards. Firstly, serfs were commonly bought and sold; they
were invariably transferred when the land they worked changed
ownership and were typically described in charters as if the
property of the owner of the land. Secondly, the relationship
between a serf and the lord of a manor was not one of vassalage.
A vassal owed military service to the lord in return for a fief
(typically an area of land - along with its serfs - later a financial
stipend), the relationship established by an act of homage between
the vassal and their lord. In other words, vassalage was a
relationship between senior and lesser members of the ruling
class, not between lords and serfs.
Once again, it is possible to bring Laibman’s schema into line
with an identifiable version of feudalism as it existed historically by
adjusting his definitions. It should also be possible to address the
question of why feudalism after slavery. But the fact that Laibman’s
current formulations are shaky plants doubts in the overall project.
Are we really discovering the deep structures of history? Or is
something rather more circular going on here? At this point in the
book I began to lose heart that these AST levels of explanation
were really illuminating the patterns of history. The links in the
chain leading from one mode of production to the next seemed to
me to be breakable precisely at the points where they were
supposed to be demonstrating the power of the AST method.
In Laibman’s discussion of the dynamics of feudalism, he
convincingly demonstrates that their most important feature is that,
by contrast with slavery, there is an incentive for the producers to
improve the techniques of production. As a consequence, the PFs
advance to what Laibman terms ‘the second-most-difficult of the
revolutionary transitions: to capitalism.’23
Does the AST model have something to say about the muchdebated transition of feudalism to capitalism? Laibman believes
so. He argues that an understanding of the dynamics between the
PFs and the PRs in late medieval society explain why the
transition is protracted and why it takes place in separate stages.
Many theories notice that new markets and trade act to dissolve
the manorial economy, without offering an explanation for why
these markets and trading incomes should have appeared. Those
which suggest or imply that the feudal ruling class themselves
intentionally introduce these new forms of wealth is rejected,
23
Ibid., p. 36.
correctly in my opinion, by Laibman. Instead ‘there is an inherent
low-level trap in this transition, one in which the surpluses that are
needed to transform merchants and artisans into capitalists is
lodged in a reduced, but fortified feudal sector.’24 This blockage by
a resistant feudal core is why the transition is so very long. Unless
I have missed it somewhere though, Laibman does not offer an
explanation of why the blockage is eventually overcome.
Presumably the answer would lie in some reformulation at the level
of PF – PR interaction of the position of those, such as Dobb and
Brenner, who believe that the answer has to be sought in terms of
the generation of new forms of wealth within the structures of
feudalism.
Capitalism is the next mode of production for the AST
treatment. Here Laibman defends Marx’s theory of value,
successfully in my opinion. He offers an account of the elements of
surplus extraction with a conceptual geometrical figure to illustrate
his schema.25 A passing critique of the Analytical Marxist authors
is made: on the grounds of their abstracting rational actors from all
social character. Laibman then turns to deriving from his model the
reasons why the capitalist mode of production is doomed.
When it comes to offering crisis theories for capitalism,
Laibman points out that there is a long spectrum of opinion, even
among Marxists, as to the nature of such crises: whether they are
endemic, inevitable, or likely to lead to an ending of the system.
Laibman places his theory at the extreme end of the spectrum.
Crises are more than temporary resolutions of capitalism’s
instability, they occur with increasing severity along a long-term
path towards the inviability of the continuance of the capitalist
system.26 As Laibman points out, this position corresponds most
fully to the basic claim of Marxism, which sees the transcendence
of capitalism and its replacement by socialism/communism, as
more than merely desirable.
The problem with defending the most ambitious claims of
Marxism with regard to the intensification of crises, says Laibman,
is that all of the theories offered, with the exception of the falling
rate of profit argument, have failed to be rigorously convincing, and
even the falling rate of profit position appears suspect to many
observers due to the perversity of the evidence.
24
Ibid., p. 40.
Ibid., p. 81.
26 Ibid., p. 93 – 4.
25
Laibman therefore, with some implied sympathy for the
falling rate of profit argument, tries to offer an AST level
explanation for the inevitable intensification of crises under
capitalism. Another conceptual geometry proposal presents the
various elements of his theory. I found this discussion and method
of conducting it to be useful. If the right diagram can be
constructed, it helps clarify and model complex phenomena, like
capitalist crises. The author is well aware that the figure he offers
does not contain all the possible linkages, without which there is a
danger that ‘the entire construction will collapse once again into
total reciprocity and indeterminacy, but the danger must be
faced.’27 In all this I found myself closer to Laibman than at any
other place in the book and, whilst tempted to be old-fashioned by
trying to find a special place for the falling rate of profit argument
rather than have it share importance with other roots of capitalist
crisis, am willing to go along with the schema in Deep History.
The discussion gets suddenly more complex, however, when
Laibman wants to distinguish the capitalist mode of production
from the other modes of production on the grounds that it has
within it a nest of evolutionary stages, under the larger construct of
the AST. The justification for this layering is that of complexity:
there are long cycles at the level of AST, within which are shorter
cycles of structures that still remain above the level of full historical
contingency. Why, intrinsically, should capitalism deserve this
treatment and not the other modes of production? Medievalists, for
example, could happily point to very distinct stages within their
period, with important structural dynamics operating differently at
different times. So, for example, Duby amongst others has drawn
attention to how, in parts of France around the year 1000, the
social order of warriors crystalised into a distinct, self-consciously
noble, ruling elite: marking a very distinct periodisation within the
general medieval framework.28
Even allowing for a theory of sub-stages operating uniquely
within the capitalist mode of production, I do not accept the
particular set of stages offered by Laibman. It is interesting, but it
seems overly derived from his political outlook rather than the kind
of logical inferences that his method requires. I had no idea what
the author’s politics were before reading the book, but at this point
I think they become evident.
According to the author’s system, we are in stage III of
capitalism, one where there is a troubled and protracted move
27
28
Ibid., p. 115.
Duby 1980, passim.
from the cold war towards a totalised global capitalist world, stage
IV. ‘Stage IV would involve a global, passive, state, an end to
diffusion.’29 It ‘requires the global state that transnational capitalist
class theorists observe as immanent in the emerging world
institutions (World Bank, IMF etc.).’30
It is strange, having discussed history at a very philosophical
level up until now, to find the book invoking specific historical
institutions. Once again the reader is told that this model is
genuinely theoretical in the sense that the move from one stage to
another is chain linked. But for me the schema is flawed by the
author’s belief that Islam is fundamentally more reactionary than
Judaism and Christianity;31 that a very long time period must
elapse before an end to the capitalist mode of production is
possible;32 that the Gorbachev era represented a mature version of
socialism in Soviet Russia;33 and that even now the post-Soviet
Russian social formation is not capitalist.34
I happen to disagree with all these statements, but even if I
did not, there is a problem. By claiming to derive these
propositions from ‘the careful guidelines laid down by the PF – PR
model’,35 Laibman runs the danger of wrecking his schema
altogether. It hardly seems credible that such historically specific
conclusions derive from the AST analysis. Surely these relatively
‘low level’ statements (compared to the book’s entire theme of
deep history) have to be analysed at a much more historically
concrete level, or we end up having an AST theory that threatens
to become crudely determinist. A theory intended to operate over
ten thousand years is suddenly applicable to decades.
To judge from an introductory comment by Laibman, he is
open to suggestions about alternatives to his model. ‘Am I losing
track of important elements, placing them into the category of
fortuitous and accidental phenomena, only to focus on an
incomplete set of basic principles? Possibly! That is for critics of
my account to argue. But the proof of their pudding will be in the
alternative theory posed by them. To show how it can be done
29
Laibman 2007, p. 136.
Ibid., p. 136.
31 Ibid., p. 139.
32 Ibid., p. 137.
33 Ibid., p. 181 – 2.
34 Ibid., p. 183.
35 Ibid., p. 183.
30
better is quite a different matter from abandoning the attempt
altogether.’36
I have done my best to discuss the ideas of Deep History
from within the framework set by the author. In other words, I have
taken seriously the possibility that there are dynamics,
understandable from the highest level, the abstract social totality,
that explain the necessary development of human history. If such
dynamics exist though, I do not believe, for the reasons stated
above, that they are the ones given by the author.
I hope that my comments have indicated the direction in
which I think the various models for each mode of production, in
my view, require amendment.
I have to say though, that I am dubious whether ultimately
the methodology will prove to be a fruitful one. Deep History keeps
its focus on the issues that Laibman wanted to address by quite
consciously avoiding digging for quotes by canonical Marxists.
This is a welcome feature of the book because over their lifetimes
and arising from very different contexts, Marx and Engels made
statements that when placed against each other can look
inconsistent. Moreover, being human, they changed their minds
about some issues and reformulated others. Thinking about the
methodology in Deep History, did, however, cause me to reach for
the bookshelves in the hope that these thinkers might help me put
my finger on what it was about the project that I, at some basic
level, found unsatisfactory. One particular comment by Marx in the
German Ideology seems so relevant and helpful that I hope
Laibman will not mind my quoting it.
‘When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent
branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence. At the best its
place can only be taken by a summing-up of the most general
results, abstractions that arise from the observation of the
historical development of humanity. Viewed apart from real history,
these abstractions have in themselves no value whatsoever. They
can only serve to facilitate the arrangement of historical material,
to indicate the sequence of its separate strata. But they by no
means afford a recipe or schema, as does philosophy, for neatly
trimming the epochs of history.’37
If I am to satisfy Laibman’s request, that in rejecting his
model, a critic is obliged to put forward an alternative theory, I
would take inspiration from this quote of Marx’s. It seems to me
that what is needed for a deep understanding of the dynamics of
36
37
Ibid., p. viii.
Marx 1970, p. 48.
history is not a variant of the AST schema but rather one that
works the other way around, inside-out, as it were.
A model derived from taking as a starting point the actual,
material, sensuous, warts-and-all, experience of human history
does, of course, already exist. I think that Marx’s own theoretical
formulations about history form the bulk of such an alternative
theory. Which might seem odd given that Laibman’s AST is also
derived from Marxist concepts. But there is a fundamental
difference in approach between that of Marx and that in Deep
History. Marx’s generalisations about history were derived by
examining particular historical moments, their contradictions, and
thus arriving at powerful insights that were sometimes at a very
high level of abstraction: such as his famous Preface to A
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.
By contrast, I have arrived at an opinion, perhaps rather
harshly, that Deep History makes the methodological mistake of
deriving a new recipe for trimming the epochs of history out of
Marx’s highest level generalisations and loses track of the fact that
a powerful truth always comes to human consciousness from
practice. If we want to obtain new deep theoretical insights into a
particular mode of production, or about all of human history, they
will be generalisations wrung after a great deal of effort and study
from an investigation of actual history and not a priori logical
deductions arising from certain conceptual definitions.
To finish, however, on a positive note. Deep History is a very
refreshing book. It is rare these days to encounter historiographical
works of any sort that deal with an entire, totalising, conception of
history. Historians and political theorists failing to address such
matters though, run the risk of holding to unconscious or semiconscious set of ideas about ‘larger’ matters that must inevitably
affect their particular area of local expertise. It was a real pleasure
to think about these topics for the first time in many years and I
feel that my engagement with the book has led to a welcome
enrichment of my own practice as a socialist and as an historian.
Conor Kostick
Trinity College, Dublin
References
Althusser, Louis 1970, Reading Capital, London: NLB.
Childe, E. Gordon 1966, Man Makes Himself, London: Fontana.
Duby, Georges 1980, The Three Orders, Feudal Society Imagined,
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Harman, Chris 1999, A People’s History of the World, London:
Bookmarks.
Haug, Wolfgang Fritz 2006, ‘Marx’s Learning Process: Against
Correcting Marx with Hegel’, Rethinking Marxism, 18, 4: 572 – 84.
Laibman, David 2007, Deep History, New York: State of New York
Press.
Marx, Karl 1970 [1932], The German Ideology, London: Lawrence
& Wishart.
de Ste. Croix, G. E. M., The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek
World, London: Duckworth.
Ward-Perkins, Bryan 2007, The Fall of Rome and the End of
Civilization, Oxford: Oxford University Press.