Again, this process of separation, in each case, varies, as a result of different material conditions, and historical development. What can be seen, here, is a parallel with what is seen in the natural world, in which, although the same natural laws, such as gravity, apply throughout the Universe, the effects do not simply produce a series of identical consequences. The most obvious variation is that which leads to various forms of ruling-class, as against those of the AMP, which results in the development of a ruling caste, which, itself comes into existence as a consequence of the overarching role and importance of the administrative body itself, in the production of the society.
The importance of being able to mobilise resources for the civil engineering projects associated with the AMP, ensured the central role of that administrative body, and its functionaries. As Barrington Moore Junior describes, the members of such bodies could not always ensure that their children had the required intelligence, particularly as the bodies introduced examines for admission, and so they often adopted the clever children of others to ensure a continuation of the family dynasty. The separation arises on the basis of this increasing inequality in distribution, as production in the society increases. The unequal distribution is not based on ownership of property, but on this control of the administrative body.
In contrast, in other societies, it is the ownership of property that forms the basis of the unequal distribution, and separation from society. That maybe from the ownership of servants and slaves or the ownership of land and other means of production that are handed down within families and accumulated. This simple inheritance of property requires none of the comprehensive system of laws, customs and taboos, developed over very long time periods for a caste system.
Everywhere, the basis of political domination was the performance of a social function – the warrior chief who obtains tribute, the administrator who is kept at the expense of the community,
“and further that political domination has existed for any length of time only when it discharged this its social function. However many the despotisms which rose and fell in Persia and India, each was fully aware that it was above all the general entrepreneur for the maintenance of irrigation throughout the river valleys, without which no agriculture was possible.” (p 230)
British colonialism, precisely because it could not answer the question “who owns this land?”, in India, failed to understand this, and so, as it broke up the village communities, failed to understand that no one, therefore, had the responsibility for maintaining the irrigation systems, and other civil engineering works that were the basis of the AMP. So, the maintenance was not done, the systems collapsed, and the agricultural production collapsed with it. A similar thing is seen with the privatisation programmes carried out in Britain, since the 1980's, and with the fiscal austerity measures implemented by governments across the globe, today, that lead to the collapse of infrastructure with no one stepping in to replace the role of the state, as shareholders, and other owners of fictitious capital, simply suck the firms dry that are assigned those tasks, as they undertake widespread asset stripping, and revenue extraction. The consequence has also been a continual erosion of social productivity.
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