The uniqueness of the East

The Development of Turkish Agriculture: Debates, Legacies and Dynamics

“…For others, such as Haldon [1989], what Wickham [1985] called the 'uniqueness of the east' was more about divergences in superstructure than a discrete 'Asiatic' mode of production resting upon a fundamentally different method of surplus acquisition. Reviewing this debate, which has largely taken place in the pages of this journal [e.g.…”

Modo de produção asiático: considerações teóricas a luz do debate historiográfico

“…Nesse ponto a estrutura do argumento de Haldon é semelhante à de Kovalevsky. Wickham (1985) argumenta contra essa identificação entre renda e tributo apontando que o explorador direto dos camponeses torna diferente as condições de exploração. Enquanto a taxação pelo Estado mantém este distante da sociedade, sem exercer o controle direto da produção na propriedade camponesa, os proprietários feudais exercem seu poder diretamente sobre os produtores, controlando de forma imediata as condições da produção camponesa (Wickhan, 1985, p. 185-186).…”

From Peasant Studies to Agrarian Change

“…Mukhia (1981) revived this debate in JPS with a review of its various positions (including understandings of European feudalism) and an argument that South Asia had not been feudal because of its 'self-dependent' or 'free' peasant production, subject to exaction through state taxes but not to the servile condition of feudal peasants in Europe with their obligations to landed property. The debate then extended with a special double issue of JPS on Feudalism and Non-European Societies (Byres and Mukhia 1985), in which Mukhia's thesis was subjected to wide-ranging critique: of its theorization of feudalism by, above all, labour service as its distinguishing form of appropriation of peasant surplus labour, to which Wickham (1985) counterposed a more fundamental, generic notion of 'coercive rent-taking'; of the view that organization and control of the labour process by peasants in feudal Europe and pre-colonial South Asia was as different as Mukhia proposed (R.S. Sharma 1985;also Singh 1993); and of Mukhia's argument of a lack of contradiction and social tension in the agrarian relations of pre-colonial South Asia, 'a kind of equilibrium' that generated a 'changeless system' compared to feudalism in Europe, for which he was taken to task by Habib (1985).…”

“…Sharma 1985;also Singh 1993); and of Mukhia's argument of a lack of contradiction and social tension in the agrarian relations of pre-colonial South Asia, 'a kind of equilibrium' that generated a 'changeless system' compared to feudalism in Europe, for which he was taken to task by Habib (1985). 13 The contribution of Dirlik (1985) to this special issue extended the comparative frame to China, and that of Wickham (1985) to Iran and Turkey as well.…”