78 SOCIAL-SCIENTIST and bourgeois realism, therefore, have little future in India. In a vast country with uneven economic development these may still have a useful role to play in certain pockets, but on the whole, the struggle against semi-feudalism entails a struggle against bourgeois ideology. In literature and art enormous possibilities have been opened up, and strides are taken to develop revolutionary forms and transform the old ones. From the progressive bourgeois art, historical development will show the emergence of a literature and art meant for the people, and enjoyed by the common man. Perhaps it is worthwhile to explore the possibility specific to this semi-feudal society. The labouring people have not forgotten their own art forms, their own modes of self-expression. These forms are intimately related to their social existence and as such they still vivify and sustain the communal existence of millions of Indians. The songs, dramas, narratives, spectacles and festivals, the ways of speech and thought, dress and habits of the people may point a way from the pre-capitalist forms to a future socialist culture. Experiments in this enormously rich transformation are yet to begin. 1 It makes scientific sense to speak of capitalism in general, even of "production in general" (Marx, 'Grundrisse, 1973, p 85), but the capitalist mode of production itself is to be distinguished from the actual historical capitalism in any given society. Capital used England as the "chief illustration" in the development of Marx's theoretical ideas, but it was not a study of English capitalism as such. (Preface to the first German edition, Capital, Volume I, 1970, p 8) Scientific discourse proposes a model—capitalism—which is able to "generate" the concrete social phenomena (Grundrisse, pp 100-111; Capital,\\ol III, p 810;Lenin, Collected Works, Vol IV, 1960, pp 86-87). The differences between two capitalist societies are therefore historically determined; one aspect of this determination relates to cultural differences. But the crucial point to note is that the mode of ^production is the ultimate determinant of the nature of elements in the superstructure. It is in this sense that one can talk about capitalism in general as well as capitalist societies, about bourgeois culture in general as well as particular cultures in particular bourgeois societies. >2 Capital, Vol III, Chapter XX; Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, 1963, Chapter II and III; H K Takahashi/'A Contribution to the Discussion", The Transition/row Feudalism to Capitalism : A Symposium, 1957. 8 PA Baran, The Political Economy of Growth, 1957; P M Sweezy, "Obstacles to Economic Development", in C H Feinstein fed). Socialism. Capitalism and Economic Growth, 1967; P Patnaik, ^Imperialism and the Growth of Indian Capitalism", in K M Kurian fed), India—State and Society: A Marxian Approach, 1975. 4 R P Dutt, India Today, 1979, Chapter VI; A K Bagchi, "European and Indian Entrepreneurshi^ in India", in E Leach and S ^N Mukherjee, Elites in South Asia, 1970. A K Bagchi, Private Investment in India 1900-1939, Cambridge, 1972. 6 P Patnaik, "Industrial Development in India since Independendencc", Social Scientist, June 1979. 7 Charles Bettelheim, India Independent, 1968, p 59. P Patnaik, "Industrial Development in India since Independence", op cit; N K