MARXIAN ECONOMICS 69 agricultural technique, there is no necessary association of these techniques with these relations of production. Industrial slavery as well as agricultural capital-ism have existed as important modes of production. There is, however, an economic reason why feudal and slave relations of production become associated with agricultural production while capitalist relations become associated with industrial technology; this reason has to do with maximizing the rate of exploitation. We do not, however, wish to labour this fairly simple point; rather, in order to demolish Barber's argument, we wish to dwell on the methodological insights of just one small piece of Marx's work, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations,^ for the study of under -development. At the outset, it must be stated that Marx's Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations was not a piece of pure historical writing; rather it was a theory based on historical study. "The Formen ... — it is important to note at the outset—are not 'history' in the strict sense."4 And although it was based largely on Marx's knowledge of classical antiquity and the European middle ages, its methodological insights could be used for a study of capital accumulation in the Third World, for "the Formen seek to formulate the content of history in its most general form". ^ It is clear that Marx was predominantly interested in the capitalist mode of production and in studying the rise of capitalism. Hence, his interest in pre-capitalist economic formations was geared to the objective of understanding how certain features of capitalism, which are fundamental to its existence, have developed through history. Capital is a social relation to Marx, whicli brings together those who own the means of production and those who own only their labour power. How does this come about? Men reproduce their existence by operating in natuie, taking from nature. Taking from nature can be seen as appropriation, and expressed in the concept of property. In the beginning, says Marx, the relationship of the worker to tlie objective conditions of his labour is one of ownership. But in the course of social evolution this is progressively broken up and there occurs a separation of free labour from the objective conditions of its realization. Its final clarification is achieved under capitalism, when the worker becomes doubl} free—free from the means of production and free from the product of his labour. This -is the process which, in its possible variations of type, Marx wishes to analyse in P re-Capital 1st Economic Formations. Though particular social formations, expressing particular phases of this evolution, are very relevant, it is the entire process spanning the centuries which he has in mind. The transition from one phase to another is not his major concern, except insofar as it sheds light on the long-term transformation. But for capitalism to exist the original formation of money-