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The Journal of Contemporary Asia has run a number of articles and reviews about the Asiatic Mode of Production (AMP) in the past, mostly favourable to Marx's concept as a research tool for understanding Ancient Asia (and, through such an understanding, to evaluate more resolutely the nature of the contemporary social systems in Asia). Foremost were two articles by Hungarian academic, Ferenc Tokei, but also significant pieces by Marian Sawer, S.N. Mukherjee, V.G. Kiernan, D. McEachern, Kate Currie, and J. Wanna, as well as the present authors of this article.' Our aim is to sum up the last 30 years of work on AMP for the guidance of new researchers or those just plain fascinated by Ancient Asia. We are mindful of what Eric Hobsbawm said in his interview with the New Left Review: "One can study the modus operandi, the ways in which a particular social system functions, and why it generates or fails to generate the focus of change. For example, in order to analyse the Chinese economy over a period of centuries, you need to understand what it was in that country which prevented and impeded change, which stabilised rather than destabilised that society, in spite of many elements of economic and technological progress." For an important question of World History is why Asian countries, which reached a high level of development and culture by the 17m Century, were unable to go on and further develop their social systems, and instead became a prey to Western colonialism. The idea that AMP also contained dynamic elements as well as ones that held back the division of labour and accelerated growth is worth exploring.
To launch this literature review2 of work done on the ancient societies of Asia, let us go back to Marx's thoughts about the Asiatic Mode of Production. That corpus of knowledge had been largely built up from reports of colonial officials3 and from the "travelers' tales" of competent observers such as Dr F. Bernier Hegel, who died when Marx was 13 years of age and had written about the political "Spirit" in "Oriental Despotism."
The classical school of British political economy (James Mill, J.S. Mill, and Richard Jones) had followed the Physiocratic leader in France, F. Quesnay, in taking an...