Robert Heinze<p>Thinking about modes of production and how important the concept was for the development on non-Western <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/Marxism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Marxism</span></a>, because it allowed for separating historical analysis from purely theoretical. But I'm wondering whether people like Samir <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/Amin" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Amin</span></a> or Walter <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/Rodney" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Rodney</span></a> actually read <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/Althusser" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Althusser</span></a> or <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/Balibar" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Balibar</span></a>.</p><p>Balibar (in Lire le Capital and Cinq Etudes) develops a flexible, historically contingent notion of modes of production on a theoretical level, but Amin (and, after him, Eric Wolf or Jairus Banaji) make it concrete, developing it along non-European case studies in order to show it isn't exclusive.</p><p>Amin lived in Paris for a time and taught in Vincennes in 1969, so I would be astonished if he hadn’t connected to these discussions, but he doesn’t cite them anywhere as far as I can see.</p>