WHAT IS HINDUISM?
centres by the domestic union of agricultural and
manufacturing pursuits – these two circumstances had
brought about, since the remotest times, a social system of
particular features – the so-called village system, which gave
to each of these small unions their independent
organization and distinct life.”
“Of the different forms of pre-capitalist societies, the
Asiatic form necessarily survives the longest and most
stubbornly. This is due to the fundamental principle on
which it is based — that is, that the individual does not
become independent of the community; that the circle of
production is self-sustaining, unity of agriculture and craft
manufacture, etc. If the individual changes his relation to
the community, he modifies and undermines both the
community and its economic premise; conversely, the
modification of this economic premise — produced by its
own dialectic, pauperization, etc. Note especially the
influence of warfare and conquest. While, e.g., in Rome this
is an essential part of the economic condition of the
community itself [the armed defence of the land they
cultivate], it breaks the real bond on which the community
rests [by leading through military conquest to the
enslavement of captives and the development of slave
labour].”