the transition to capitalism both soldiers, household
servants, the medieval guilds and Jewish usurers had a caste
character. Yet European history was dominated throughout
by class struggles between those who owned the means and
resources of production (land or modern manufacturing
tools) and those who, whether as slaves, serfs or labourers
lacking their own independent means or production, were
forced to surrender themselves or the products of their
labour to them. Thus it was that in the capitalist system,
farmers and artisans too, lacking large land holdings or
modern industrial means of production were forced to
become what Marx called ‘wage-slaves’ – having to sell
their labour power to the owners of these means of
production, thus reducing human labour itself to a mere
commodity exploited for the generation of ‘surplus value’ and
‘capital’.
Marx on India
Marx saw India – ‘the Hindu economy’ as a prime
example of ‘The Asiatic Mode of Production’ based on the
village community.
“... the Hindu [Indian], on the one hand, leaving, like all
Oriental peoples, to the Central Government the care of
the great public works, the prime condition of his
agriculture and commerce, dispersed, on the other hand,
over the surface of the country, and agglomerated in small