Meillassoux on Foraging as a Mode of Production

Passages out of the 1973 paper by Claude Meillassoux "On the Mode of Production of the Hunting Band", from W.P. Alexandre (ed.) French Perspectives in African Studies. It's a remarkably audacious and useful essay in which, after building a general picture of gathering-hunting "band" societies, Meillassoux contrasts it with a general picture of  farming societies. He sketches two different modes of production and figures out their contrasting effects throughout the rest of the social system of relationships and cultural understandings: on reproduction, gender, kinship, family, political order, time and more. All that in these few paragraphs.

    The social organization of production which develops around this [foraging] mode of exploitation presents, as a result, a certain number of features. Co-operation between the group of hunters and gatherers is only effective and necessary for the duration of an expedition. It ends with the dividing of the spoils. The partners, if they wish, could immediately leave the group concerned and join another -- without being deprived or depriving the others. In other words co-operation may be impromptu (it brings together each time the partners willing to participate) and ad hoc (it groups members and agents necessary for an enterprise in a circumstantial fashion). Since co-operation is sporadic and precarious, the composition of the productive groups is not definite.... In other words, the mode of production does not require a continued membership of the same group. Nor does it create a dependence between partners since each one owns his own tools and the sharing of the produce absolves them of all reciprocal obligations. Relations of production do not therefore result in any long-lasting social cohesion as far as the band is concerned. Bands are, indeed, reported to be unstable and composite.

    The circulation of goods takes place within a limited and diffuse circuit; within the co-operative group of hunters the collective produce is divided and handed over to each of the partners individually through the institution of sharing. Unlike the situation in agricultural societies, there is no redistributive system, i.e. no centralization of the product and deferred distribution -- the act of circulation, as of production, is instantaneous.

    The shortness and sporadic repetition of activities lead to a way of life which is tied to the present, without any duration or continuity. The way of life is 'instantaneous'.... The preoccupations of hunters and foragers are directed towards day-to-day production far more than towards reproduction. Within the band there are no durable ties binding young people to their elders, no material dependence obliging them to remain close to them. Children do not provide a form of insurance in the sense of their being future providers for non-productive old people; nor are they the future recruits of an ancestral cult. Social control over procreating women is therefore unimportant, if not non-existent, and women, as a result, enjoy a freedom which is apparently only limited by their physical constitution.... The mode of production also offers opportunities for individual freedom which is revealed by the sexual attitudes, the weakness of the marital ties, individual mobility, the fragility and instability of social institutions, both within the band and the nuclear family.

    The social organization of production does not provide the basis for the development of a centralized, lasting political power... there is no basis here for dispossessing [the producer] of his product. The leadership of a productive activity never lasts any longer than the duration of the enterprise itself; each time it is discussed anew.... Sharing as an institution provides no opportunities by means of which power may be asserted or made to endure since, like hunting itself, it is a discontinuous and repetitive process. Power has no chance to find its justification in a permanent and necessary economic and social function....
 

    ...[A] farming economy is differentiated [from foraging]... by the incorporation into the land of a sum of labour whose output is deferred. The duration of the productive process and the delayed acquisition of the product lead to a prolonged and continuous co-operation in carrying out agricultural activities. The distribution of the tasks as well as the durability of the product, its storage and consumption over an extended period -- at least equal to a complete farming cycle -- the need to resume work while still consuming the previous harvest, this constantly renewed cycle entails an indefinite prolongation of the ties binding together all those people who co-operate in [the] same farming enterprise. In such societies, where duration, expectation, and cyclical repetition -- that is, time -- are paramount, the future becomes a concern and, along with it, the problem of reproduction: reproduction of the total strength of the productive unit, both in number and in quality, in order to ensure continued supplies for its members; reproduction of the structures of the unit in order to preserve the hierarchy which ensures its functioning. Descent -- which provides for group membership and renews the relations of production -- and marriage -- which renews the hierarchical structures -- become major concerns. Children are viewed as the natural dependants of man, procreation as the most direct means of obtaining dependants, and the family as a divine and natural institution. Relations of production assume the appearance of kinship. Women, as producers of the producer, become the most potent of the means of production oriented towards the future and therefore are subjected to coercion and restrictions. Women, in farming societies, are subject persons, and the subjection they endure on account of their reproductive capacities leads to an even more complete subjection in the field of production. Preoccupations with the future also imply a return to the past: geneologies become longer and the ancestors emerge as political and religious figures.

    Relationships between man and Nature change. The farmer has to toil ceaselessly to keep his land against the invasion of vegetation and the depredation of the animals. He must engrave his life on the soil and prevent its erasure.... Instead of being a protective force, Nature becomes hostile. Distinctions between the village and the bush become clearly expressed in the topography as well as in the language. The bush is now a strange and dangerous place, peopled by evil spirits... fearful beings, representations of the overwhelming forces of Nature which have to be vanquished, mastered, or won over....

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