La estructura de las relaciones de producción tributarias: Estado y Sociedad en Bizancio y el Islam primitivo

Abstract

This paper examines the value of the concept of a tributary mode of production in relation to two specific state and socio political configurations, the East Roman or Byzantine Empire, on the one hand, and the early unified caliphate of the Umayyads and the 'Abbāsids on the other. While arguing that analysis of social formations at the level of mode of production can asist in pinpointing key elements in the relations of production and distribution of surplues wealth, and thus focusing historical discussion on the fundamental structures which determined access to political and economic power and authority in any given social formation, this paper also notes that further refinement of the analysis will depend upon discussion, at the level of social formation, of the political relations of surplus redistribution, which determine to a large extent the social-economic institutions of the society and state in question, as well as the constrains imposed upon these political relations by the economic structures which underpin them.