Reading notes on 'Fundamentals of Political Economy' (Youth Self-Study Series)

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1. How did private ownership, classes, and the state come into being?

At the end of primitive society, due to the development of productive forces, a large amount of surplus labor products appeared. These clan communal labor products, including means of production, were privately appropriated by clan leaders using their authority, leading to private property and private ownership. The tribal leaders who gradually took most of the communal property for themselves became increasingly unequal in production and economic relations with other clan members, resulting in wealth differentiation. As the production unit shifted from the entire clan to individual families, a very small number of people controlled all the privately owned land that required a large labor force for cultivation, while most original clan members had no land to farm. The latter, to survive, could only become slaves under the control and command of the former to obtain the minimum means of subsistence. The former, as slave owners, forced and controlled the majority of people, the slaves, to work for them, obtaining almost all (after deducting the portion needed by the slaves under their control) of the slaves’ labor products. This production relationship created two vastly different groups with contradictory and naturally opposing classes. Slaves, cruelly exploited and abused by slave owners, naturally rose up in resistance and struggle, uniting to destroy the slave owners’ means of production, seize their private property, and kill the slave owners. Slave owners, to suppress the slaves’ rebellion and struggle, protect themselves and their private property, and maintain this exploitative hierarchical order and production relationship where a few slave owners enjoy wealth while most slaves suffer, naturally gathered their forces to constantly suppress slaves through extra-economic violent means. The military, courts, and other violent organs thus emerged. These organs together form the overall violent apparatus, which is the state.

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2. How are the contradictions between production relations and productive forces in slave society and feudal society concentratedly manifested as class struggle? And how did the form of feudal land rent develop?

In slave society, slave owners completely possess all means of production, including the slaves themselves. Due to the cruel oppression and exploitation by the slave owners, slaves could not endure it and often resisted by passive resistance such as working sluggishly or directly destroying production tools. In order to ensure production, slave owners would replace the slaves’ production tools with even more backward and cumbersome ones. This is actually the manifestation of the contradiction between slave production relations and productive forces in the form of class struggle.

In feudal society, landlords owned the vast majority of the land, while peasants owned very little or no land at all and could only rent land from landlords. Landlords exploited peasants through the form of land rent. Among these, labor rent was a result of the low level of productive forces in the early feudal period. Peasants were forced to work on the landlord’s land without any compensation and could only cultivate their own land after finishing the landlord’s fields. Therefore, peasants had little enthusiasm for working on the landlord’s land, and production efficiency was low. To ensure efficient production and obtain more wealth, landlords hired overseers who used violent coercion to force peasants to work hard. Under this form of land rent, the class contradictions between peasants and landlords were very sharp, and peasants launched fierce resistance.

As productive forces further developed, the original labor rent could no longer be maintained due to peasants’ intense struggles and was replaced by rent in kind. At this time, peasants could cultivate only their own land, but had to hand over half or even seventy to eighty percent of their harvest to the landlords. To cope with these taxes, peasants had to extend their working hours, yet even so, their situation remained difficult. As rent in kind developed to a certain extent, landlords’ exploitation became increasingly harsh, peasants’ lives were generally hard, agricultural production lagged behind, and contradictions between landlords and peasants became even sharper. Peasants rose up to resist and challenged the feudal production relations.

In the late feudal period, with improvements in production technology and the development of commodity-money relations to a certain extent, feudal landlords gradually implemented monetary rent. Peasants were subjected to layers of exploitation by merchants and landlords, leading to accelerated differentiation: a small number became agricultural capitalists, while most went bankrupt and became hired laborers. The natural economy loosened and declined, and the commodity economy was developing. However, at this time, the landlord class that controlled the feudal state and monopolized large amounts of land would not passively accept their demise. They vigorously suppressed and restrained the development of industrial and commercial economy, neglected or even destroyed research into production technology, and obstructed the development of productive forces. The contradictions between the emerging bourgeoisie and the landlord class, as well as between the peasant class and the landlord class, were very sharp.