contextual social science- or crossing boundaries

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Contextual Social Science: Or Crossing BoundariesAuthor(s): Amiya Kumar BagchiReviewed work(s):Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 31, No. 43 (Oct. 26, 1996), pp. 2875-2882Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4404715 .

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SPECIALARTICLES

Contextual S o c i a l S c i e n c e : O r Cross ing

Boundaries

Amiya Kumar Bagchi

In the history of social sciences as well as in thehistoryof all disciplines therehas always existed a tension between

effortsat differentiation or specialisation and efforts at reintegration,unification or ordering on the basis of a differentset of conceptual principles.

Contemporary ocial science displays many of the tensionsbetweenspecialisation and-effortsat integration,betweenborrowing from other disciplines and 'sticking to one's last', and between recognition of the specific disciplinarydemandsof cognatefields and theoverweening ambitionto impose one specific methodon thediscussion ofall questionsin social science disciplines.

Thispaper aims to illustrate how seeking answers to certain questions leads to poaching on the territory of otherdisciplines and how at the same time it is important to recognise the power of certain discipline-specific methodsin getting answers to discipline-straddling questions.

I

Introduction

AS soonas humanbeingscreated eminaries,academies, 'chatuspathis'or 'madrassahs',humanknowledge was also subdivided ntonumerous ranches.Our puranas' rerepletewith tales of how dvijas or the first threevarnaswould have to learn 64 different arts

apart from the obligatory scriptures. Butactualhistories f learningwould hencontainthe ways in which different scholarsspecialised in different branches ofphilosophy, or picked up particular skillssuch as those of a physician or a surgeon

or a logician, or a rhetorician.When suchsubdivisionsbecame too rigidly specifiedorspecialisations became too narrow, daringmindswould seekto breakdown thebarriersbetween specialisations, reorder theboundaries,and in the process often createnew disciplines.

Inthepost-RenaissanceEuropean raditionof division of disciplines in which we havewilly-nilly been schooled, social sciencesare a rathernew set of disciplines, almostregarded as parvenu by philosophers,mathematicians or students of classicalliterature.The one exception to this chargeof beingarrivisteamongthe social sciencesis history. But history is rather a peculiarkind of discipline. In orderto be a historianof a particular theme, you have to bethoroughlyacquaintedwith thedisciplinarytechniques and concepts which have beenused to illuminate that theme. In order,for

example, to appreciateexactly how NilesBohr's theory of the constitution of atomsandmoleculesoriginatedandhowitchangedthephysicists' conceptionof what matter s,andto grasp fully the importof Rosenfeld'sintroduction o the reprintof Bohr's classicpapersof 1913 [Bohr 1 l3/1963], you havereally to know what classical physics meant

in the first quarter f the 20thcentury.Thus

the history of science requires anunderstanding f the way thatparticular reaof human knowledge is constituted.

This does not, of course, meanthathistoryor histories of science must necessarily beinsular,withonly thepossibilityofoccasionalcommunicationwith other islands as in thecases of distant atolls in the Pacific beforetheinventionof ocean-going sailingvessels.Suchhistoriescan sometimesilluminatenotonly the methodto be used in analysingthehistoriesandstructures f cognatedisciplines,but also disciplinary practice in other,apparently remotely situated areas of

knowledge.Thus Kuhn'sexplicationof thepracticeof 'normalscience' [Kuhn1970] inwhatmightbe called the division of naturalsciences was then sought to be generalisedto all sciences, including life sciences andthe social sciences, or in the Frenchappellation,the human sciences.

Kuhn's introductionof the concept of

normal science was the result of his earlierstudyof the fate of theCopernican evolutioninauguratedby thepublicationof the Polishastronomer's book, De RevolutionibusOrbiumCelestiumKuhn1957].Copernicus'theoryofa heliocentric niversewasbasicallyan attemptto provide an alternative o thePtolemaicsystem andget rid of some of the'internal nconsistencies of the latter. It wasnot based upon an attemptto explain newdatagleaned romobservation rexperiment.The hypothesis of a heliocentric universeitself has a long history, going back toAristarchusof Samos (c 310-230 BC) andIndianastronomerswho workedin the firstmillennium of the Christian era [Jeans1958:84-87].

But this hypothesis failed to displace thePtolemaic theory among working astrono,mers in Europeor among Arab and Indianastronomers in general. The geocentric

system, formed a very importantpediment

of Christian theology [cf Ingeno 1988].Kuhn's enquiry centred on the questionofhow it was thatthe Copernican ormulationultimately gained acceptance amongEuropean scientists, philosophers andeventually Christian theologians as well,and why it took more than a century and ahalf- to be more precise, till theformulationof thesystem of Newtonianmechanics fortheCopernican ystem to beacceptedas partof normal science. In carrying out thisenquiry, Kuhn found that the CopernicanRevolution was not just a revolution inastronomy, 'but it embraced conceptual

changesincosmology, physics,philosophy,and religion, as well' [Kuhn 1957: vii]. Itssuccess had in turn depended on newdevelopments n philosophicalconceptions,theories of matter and mathematicaltechniques, butalso in the materialbasis ofEuropean civilisation, such as new dataaccumulatedby voyages across theoceans,the development of the techniquesof lens-grindingand the inventionof thetelescope.Thus hedevelopmentof aKuhnian aradigmfor the sociology of science had itselfinvolved a major interdisciplinary ffort.

In the history of social sciences as wellas in the historyof all disciplines, therehasalways existed a tension between efforts atdifferentiationor specialisation,andeffortsat reintegration,unification, or reorderingon the basis of a different set of conceptualprinciples.The tension arisesout of at leastthree sets of factors.First, the evolution ofconceptswithin a particular isciplineitselfgives rise to problems,as one set of axiomsseems to be superior n termsof theirpowerof abstraction or their ability to resolveantinomiesthrownupbyolder ets of axioms.Secondly, new datawhich are considered obe relevant by professionals trained n theolder disciplines seem to demand a new

Economic and Political Weekly October 26, 1996 2875



conceptualisation. This is the case of

paradigm shift par excellence in accordance

with the Kuhnianview of the sociology of

science. Thirdly, problems which are

considered to be irrelevantto disciplinarypractice force their attention on the

professionals or others who are not yetrecognised as respectable practitionersof

the discipline andgive rise to new theoriesorconferrespectability n old 'underground',

disreputable approaches. They may alsodem'anda new interdisciplinary ynthesis.Thus Alfred Marshall made sure that J AHobsonwith his theoriesof imperialismand

underconsumption would not get arespectable cademicappointmentnBritain.But the widespreadand severe problemof

unemployment n thecapitalistworldin the1930s inspired his favourite youngeconomist,JohnMaynardKeynes,to discard

the neo-classical paradigm within whichunemployment is only a temporary and

necessary cost of adjustment to a new

equilibriumand create a general theory of

unemployment. Of course, in a paralleldevelopment,Michal Kaleckiproceededin

a straight line to winkle a theory of

unemployment utof the unfinished heoriesof realisationcrises that Marx left as partof his enormous egacy. But it was KeynesratherhanKaleckiwhoforced heacceptanceof the theoryof involuntaryunemploymentamong respectableeconomists.

Contemporary social science displaysmanyof the tensions betweenspecialisationandeffortsat ntegration, etweenborrowingfromotherdisciplinesand 'stickingto one'slast', andbetweenrecognitionof the specificdisciplinarydemands of cognate fields andthe overweening ambition to impose onespecific method on the discussion of allquestions in social science disciplines(especially characteristicof economics andsome post-structuralistheorists). My aimhereis to illustratehow necessarilyseekinganswers o certainquestions eads o poachingon theterritory f otherdisciplines,and howat the same time it is important o recognisethe power of certain discipline-specificmethods in getting answers to discipline-

straddlingquestions. The illustrations areoffered in the spirit of exploration ratherthanpronouncingauthoritative udgments.

II

Upsurges in Cross-DisciplinaryVentures and Their Pitfalls

In the 18th century, philosophers and

publicists of the Scottish Enlightenment

respectedewdisciplinary oundaries.DavidHumewrote 'A Treatiseof HumanNature'(1739-40), 'An InquiryConcerningHuman

Understanding' 1748), 'A NaturalHistoryofReligion', pioneeringessays onthetheoryof money, prices, banking, and theinternationaladjustmentmechanism undera bullion standard, and a multi-volume

History of England. Adam Smith lecturedon jurisprudence, hetoricandbelles-lettres,logic and ethics, and finally on political

economy. In his lifetime he publishedTheTheory of Moral Sentiments(first edition,1759) and An Inquiry nto the NatureandCausesofthe Wealth fNations (firstedition,1776). However, from the beginningof the19thcentury,political economy was hivedoff as a separate discipline, and Malthus

became its first institutionalisedprofessor(as the HaileyburyCollege for the trainingof the covenantedofficers of the East IndiaCompany) in the Anglo-Saxon countries.

The urge for unification of the humansciences, however, continued unabatedincontinentalEurope.There was virtuallynosubject concerned with the consciousnessandsociety of humanbeings thatHegel didnot lecture on, even if he did not manageto publishmost of these lecturesduringhislifetime. KarlMarx,his most distinguisheddisciple and critic, also knewno boundariesin his enquiries. Starting rom the study of

Greek philosophy, he went on to make adevastatingcritiqueof theneo-Hegelians n

Germany, left explosive analyses of theattempted evolutionsof 1848 and thepost-revolutionarysituation of westernEurope,including a path-breakingaccount of theclass struggles n Francebefore, duringandafter the brief life of the Paris Commune,and accomplished his massive corpus ofwritings on the structureand evolution ofthe capitalist mode of productionand its

ideology. The impulses behind Hegel's andMarx's writings were, of course, radicallydifferent. Hegel wanted to fashion an

ideology of governancefor a Europewhichhad innovatedthe capitalist society but hadyet to find a conceptual framework thatwould both justify the extirpation of theremnants f afeudalmode of production ndmeet any challenges to capitalistrule thatmight be mountedby the masses caught upin the turmoil of transitionfrom an old toaneworder. ncontrast,Marxwanted o findout the laws of motion of a capitalistmodeof production. Being also convinced thatdespite its progressive character incomparisonwithfeudalism, apitalism ouldonly stop the workers from attainingtheirdignityastruly reehumanbeings,hewanted

to work out the rationaleand the logisticsof its overthrow and its replacement by asociety and state under workers' control.

In manyof the accountsof Hegelianismand Marxism,both by their adherentsandtheircritics, it has been fashionable to callthem'holistic'systems. By usingthisepithetit is impliedthatevery time Hegel or Marxor competent Hegelians or Marxiststacklean issue, all the issues come tumbling in,so'that the specific features of the originalproblemarecoveredupandeverythinggetsmixed up in a melange. Nothing, however,can be further rom the truth,especially as

far as Marx's own practice s concerned.InCapital,Vol I (1867), Marx virtuallywrotea full-blooded history of the developmentof capitalismin Britain, with details culledmeticulously from British parliamentarypapersand romotherprimary ources.Whenhe enquiredabout countriesoutsideEuropesuch as India, Chinaand Russia he workedthroughmanyoftheworksof leadingexperts.If his evidence did not fit particularbits of

the theoretical tructure e wasconstructing,he wouldruthlesslydiscard hoseparts atherthan resort to any mystifying device suchas consistency within some unanalysedholistic construct.

The alternative o a holism which cannotbe deconstructedandput togetheragain,orwhich cannot be confronted withuncomfortable fragments of empiricalevidence is not necessarily 'analyticalMarxism'. By thatphraseis often meant aconstructbuilt out of a few primitiveswhichareconsidered to be sufficient for derivingall propositions. There are at least three

different kinds of objections against afoundationalbelief in the finite andpreciselydefinablenatureof all axiomsunderlyinganintegrated, contextual social science. Thefirstobjection s that themeaningsof wordsused for describinga particular ociety, orthe words usedby the membersof a societyas subjects, have often a penumbraaroundthem,and he exactmeaning s revealedonlyin the social practice of those subjectsin aparticular ociety at a particular ime. Therelationship between an employer and anemployee, for example, is necessarilypolitical,butwhich way thepoliticswill tiltwill depend on the social setting. Therelationshiphas very differentmeaningsasbetween a group of workerswith lifetime

employment in a typical Japanesefactoryand agroupof miners ncoal minesinIndia.It is only at a gross level of identificationthat the same set of axioms cancharacterisethe productionrelations in the two cases.

Secondly, much of analytical Marxism;especially the varietyconstructedby JohnRoemer (1982, 1986) has beenlbased onaxioms of individual maximisation. InRoemer'swork,we have to admireas a tourde force the generationof what looks likea Lenin-Mao structureof classes [Bagchi

1982: chapter 6] out of a small set ofassumptionsabout the distributionof assetsandof labourpower. But such a derivationdoes not allow for any interdependencebetween the utility functions of differentindividualsnordoes it allowfor any politicalaction as groups - action that may upsetsome of the implicationsof a class structurederivedentirelyfrom initialdistributions fassets and labourpower. Hirschman 1971)pointed out that political action involvesgiving voice to grievancesof individualsorgroups and that while economic action inamarket-govern'edociety meansexercising

2876 Economic and Political Weekly October 26, 1996



the option of exit when a job, a service ora product ails to satisfy, voice may also bean instrumentof economic action, withinfirms or outside (such as demanding theabatementof noise or pollution). AnalyticalMarxism makes no room for such choices.Nor does it make room for the third of theHirschmanriad,namely, oyalty,which canplay arole in thegovernanceof firmsas wellas that of political parties or commitment

to ideologies and hence in determiningthetextureandstructure f thepolityconcerned.

Finally, except by invoking the crudestform of economic determinism such as thebreakdownof capitalismthroughcrises ofrealisation or overaccumulation or thebreakdownof feudalismthrougha crisis inthe realisation of labour rents), analyticalMarxism fails to account for, or give areasonable description of, revolutionaryupheavals n the mode of productionor thestructure of the society and state. Thisinability, which is made into a virtue, itshares with structuralists f many varieties

and can be traced back to the 19thcentury,when 'systematisers' would only pick outthosefeatures hatwouldfit into aparticularview of stages of historyor relativists whowould refuse to compareone periodof thehistoryof a regionor subjectwith another,or one culturewith another[Thrupp1957:

564-66].1will claim lateron thatanyattemptto comparetwo sufficiently distantperiodsof the historyof a countryor society or thehistories of differentcountries or societiesalmost inevitably leads to the breaking ofinterdisciplinary barriers of 'trespassing'[Hirschman 1981].

Among the more recent excursions into

interdisciplinarityn the human sciences,one of the most notable has been that ofMichelFoucault,who disregarded heusualboundaries ndopened upnewtdrritoriesorexploration. The use of knowledge asinstruments of power, of methods ofdiscipliningas contrivances for monitoringand governance, the survival of similarpatternsof rule under apparentlydifferentpolitical structures(in this excursion, ofcourse, another Frenchman, Alexis deTocqueville,was hisgreatpredecessor),andthereproduction f structures f coercion inthe various cells of the body politic and the

bodysocial- all thesehave beenilluminated,often with a lurid glare, by Foucault'sresearches. am,however, going to use oneparticularragmentof his enormouscorpusto illustrate he dangersof interdisciplinaryventures even for powerful minds.

In his Order of Things (which wasoriginally published in French in 1966 asLes Mots et les Choses) Foucault seeks toshow how in linguistics, in life sciences andin politicaleconomy, order was establishedby classifying, measuring and ranking.

In his key chapter, the chapter on'Representing', Foucault cites Descartes'

Regulae (forhim the Classicalage is definedby its discovery of the Cartesianmethod)to putforward he view that"there xist twoforms of comparison, and only two: thecomparison of measurement and that oforder"Foucault1973:53].It s.notaccidentalthat another authorityappealed to in thesame chapter s FrancisBacon for the latterhad already anticipated his formulation nthe first two decades of the 17thcentury.'

Descartes' formulation,however, is not anacceptable ormulationof, shall we say, thedisciplinarymethod 'the scientific method'smacks of a claim for the method of thenatural sciences as the only method ofdisciplineddiscourse) or two differentkindsof reason. First, certain kinds of order canbe reduced o measurementsee,forexample,Debreu 1954]. At the same time, orderingcan be partialor incomplete, and the setsunderconsideration anbe fuzzy, andatthesame time meaningful comparisonscan bemade on thebasisof such deliberately uzzyconcepts,andpartialorincompleteordering

of sets. Even more frustratingly, problemof incommensurability an ariseeven in thenatural ciences,and traises tsheadalreadyin the 17th century [Feyerabend 1972].Newton'scorpuscularheoryof lightand he

competing wave theory of Huygens arestriking examples of incommensurability.Physics became the paradigmaticnaturalscience precisely ntheperiod romthe 17thto the 19th century, in spite of such in-commensurability roublingits discourse.

When we try oapply, ollowingFoucault,the Cartesiandictumto'politicaleconomy,we are faced with both a genealogy and 'astructural ransformation n the disciplinewhich ill fits the discipline. First, unlikegeneral grammar or biology, politicaleconomy as adisciplinedidnot exist beforethe 17th entury Groenewegen1987].Whenit arose as a discipline it was alreadyconcernedwithmeasurement.What s called'wealth' in Foucault'sEnglish version wasalreadymeasuredbythe authoritiesFoucaulthimself cites: the amount of bullion in thecoffers of the prince,or in a widercontext,inthetreasury f thekingdom orthenation,when such a constructbecame a generallyacceptedcategory),orthesurplusgeneratedin foreign trade, or finally the production

and 'wealth'of a kingdom. Whathappenedwiththe Physiocrats,AdamSmithandDavidRicardo was a change in focus from thesphere of exchange to the sphere ofproductionas the majorobject of analysis,and not a change from a disorderlyclassification o measurement rorder ntheCartesian sense, In the chapter on'Exchanging', here s a section headed TheCreation of Value'. This section is almostentirely taken up with the paraphrasing fsome of the central ideas of Cantillon andthe Physiocrats. In a later chapterheaded'Life, Labour and Language', Foucault

devotes a section to Ricardo,butagainfailsto bring out either the basic differencesbetween Ricardo's theory and thePhysiocrats', or substantiate that Ricardoestablished the historicity of economics.2

In his chapteron 'Exchanging',Foucaultindeed says little that is valid and that hasnot been better explained, with a moresensitive attention to the historicalsetting,in Marx's Theories of Surplus Value Marx,

1905-10/nd),EricRoll's HistoryofEconomicThought [Roll 1938] and Schumpeter'sHistory of Economic Analysis [Schumpeter1954]. Foucault's statement that in the

classical period, "there is no politicaleconomy,because, ntheorder fknowledge,production does not exist" [Foucault1973:166] is pure Marx. But the matureMarx would have recognised that even ata timeexchange occupiedthe mainattentionof economists such as Mun, North orCantillon, much production n France andEnglandwas organisedalongcapitalistines,with profit takingthe form of surplusvalue

extracted rom labourrather hanthatof thegains made by a trader n a pureexchangetransaction.As far as political economy isconcerned, there is no justification inFoucault's discourse for the followingstatementof faith:"Inany given cultureandat any given moment, thereis always onlyone episteme that defines the conditionsofpossibility of all knowledge, whetherexpressedin atheoryor silently investedina practice.The monetaryreformprescribed

by the StatesGeneralof 1575, mercantilistmeasures, or Law's experiment and itsliquidation,allhave the samearchaeologicalbasisas the heoriesof Davanzatti,Bouterone,Petty, or Cantillon. And it is thesefundamentalnecessities of knowledge that

we mustgive voice to"[Foucault1973:168].Neither the notion of 'thearchaeologyof

knowledge' norrealhistorycan be invokedinFoucault's support.Almost two centuriesseparated the work of Cantillon and themonetaryreformof the StatesGeneral,andmore than a centuryand the experienceofaverydiferentpoliticalandeconomiccontextseparated Petty and the said reform. Thistimegap could have been ignored f Foucaultwas not so insistent on creating a strictdivision between the so-called Classical,

and hepre-Classical Baroque)periods,andbetween the Classical periodand the early19th century. (It is difficult to be preciseabout these calendar periods, becauseFoucault s so imprecisenhis timedivisions.)If archaeology s to be called as witness forthe validityof thequotedstatement, t mustbe thearchaeologyof Foucault' disorderedreading of the texts of political economyrather than the archaeology of conceptsunderlying the visible structure of thediscourse of political economy.

Foucault is technically wrong in criticalareas.Forexample, he distinguishesbetween




only two functions of money, those of a

numeraire or accounting unit, and of a

mediumof exchange.Heignores he functionof moneyas a storeof valuealtogether.Thisis not a trivialerror,for it obscures the factthat England was able to create a differentstore of value in the 18th century, whichgave its oligarchy greater stabilitythan theancien regime of France. This is theestablishment f low-riskpubliccredit,which

allowed the wealthyto invest in governmentsecurities with confidence, enabledsuccessive British governments to financeits second HundredYears' War with Franceat a low cost and played a majorrole in theeventualvictoryof Britain ver ts continentalrival [Dickson 1967; Brewer 1989].

There is anotheraspect of the creation ofthenew order, n the 'long 18thcentury'end-ingin 1815,aboutwhich Foucault s entirelysilent.The new orderwas also sustainedbytheenormous xpansionofwesternEuropeandependencies outside Europe, their use in

furthering he cause of internationalcom-

petitiveness and the ideology behind thatcompetitiveness and colonialism. Amongthe 18thcenturywritersonpoliticaleconomyand related subjects, there were strongopponents of formal colonialism such as

Josiah Tucker and Adam Smith [Bagchi1995]. But they also included strongadvocates of Europeandomination of thenon-Europeanworld orfurthering he causeof dominancewithinEuropeand spreadingEuropean (sometimes narrowed down to'Christian')civilisation and it is the lattergroupwho won politically. Foucault seemsto be entirelyoblivious of this aspect of the'orderof things' created n his Classical and

post-Classical epoch. This is all the moresurprising ecause exts of politicaleconomyare acriticalpartof the matrixwhich he usestoargue he case for a new episteme forcingitself throughthe Classical period.

IIIIntertemporal and International

Comparisons and Necessity ofCross-Disciplinary Studies

Students of extremely narrow territoriesof knowledge have often regarded plungesintomultidisc;plinary xplorationsastelltalesigns of lack of disciplinary rigour. They

have regarded he workingof guilds in theFranceof Colbert,or the financialaccountsof Indian ailwaysduring heperiodof Britishrule, for example, as worthwhileobjects ofrigorous research, and no comparisonsseemed to be relevant in such accounts.However, even in the case of finances ofIndianrailways, for example, the questionwould naturallyarise as to whether the costof railwaylocomotives (which were almost

exclusively imported romBritain)reflectedworldprices.And f theydidnot,how shouldthedivergencebe accounted or? Withinthesameareaof enquiry, t may be askedfurther,howdoes theenquirer ccount or he extreme

disparity n earningsof Britishmanagersorforemen and of Indian workers, such assignalmen, iremen,and so on?Inansweringsuchquestions heeconomics and hepoliticsof colonialism and racialism wouldnecessarily have to be invoked, and thepristine rigour of untainted measurementand observationwould be entangledin thecomplexitiesof cross-disciplinary esearch.

Many liberalsand Marxistshave tried to

model modem societies on the frameworksprovided by Adam Smith in his WealthofNations or Karl Marx in his Capital, VolI. The Marxistsmightdifferfromthe liberalsin paying greater attention to strugglesbetween workers and capitalists indetermininghecourseofparticularocieties.But bothgroupswould normally agreethatin the normal, short-term working of acapitalisteconomy, markets would tend torule,and herole of politicswouldbe minimalin understandingsuch working. In fact, aschool of theorists ried oderive hecontoursof the state apparatusfrom the logic of

capital accumulation itself. Apart fromprofessed Marxists or liberals, even manydissidents from both schools, such as KarlPolanyi, who according to the politicalscientist,R M McIver, eft "farbehindalikethe dogmatics of Karl Marx and theapologetics of the reaction" px of McIver'foreword to Polanyi 1957], have believedthatthere s such anentityas a pure'marketeconomy', thatis, 'aneconomy directedbymarketpricesandnothingbut marketprices'[Polanyi 1957:43].

However,manyMarxistshave overlookedthe fact thatMarxwasperhaps he firstgreatsocial scientist to notice that at the core of

a moderncapitalist society, there is a unitwherepolitics, rather han hemarket,rules.This unit is a moderncapitalistfirmor anyproduction unit which is based on wagelabour. Within the firm, so long as theemployeeworks ortheowneror themanagerof the firm, the latterhas control over hisactions.Thiscontrolmaybe limited nvariousways, but the ways they are limited aredeterminedby the structureof the society,andsometimesalsoinfluencedbythesocietyin which thatparticulartyleof organisationof the firm originated.

If we turn o concrete studies of firms, we

cansee that he relationsbetweenthe Indianworkersand theirEuropean upervisorsandmanagers njutemillsbefore the 1930swerebasedon a completelydifferent deologicalandcoercive basis fromthose of Americanmanagers and their workers in the NewEnglandtextile industry n the sameperiod.The firstset of relationswasbasedonracism,use of licensed muscle power inside andoutside the mills and the overt use of thelaw andordermachinerywhereverworkersappearedto challenge the prerogativesoftheirmanagersandtheirrulers.By contrast,while the law and order machinery of thestatealso stood behind the managersof US

mills, the relations,inside the factorywerebasedon collectivebargaining, nnegotiatedsettlements. It is only when the normalmachineryof negotiation broke down thatpolice methods or gangsters were used tobrowbeat the workers.

With theemergence of theJapanese-stylefirms which seem to have outperformedheUS multidivisional irms nmostcomparablesettings, researchers have turned their

attention o specific differences of businessorganisation within the groupof advancedcapitalist countries. The differences inorganisation are also connected with thedifferences n thedynamicsof business irmsor conglomerates in Japanas against thosein Britainand the US. It has been claimed,for example, that the formerare interestedin maximising marketshares and sales andthe latter are interestedin maximisingthestock exchange value of firms [see, for asample of views, Aoki and Dore 1994].Japanese and American-style firms havemany other differences which cannot be

derived as syllogisms from the workingofthe market. Thus even advancedcapitalisteconomieshavecharacteristicswbich canbeunderstood nlybycombining lements romthe disciplines of economics, politics,organisationtheory, sociology and studiesof ideology and culture.

Thus even for OECD countries,we haveto question Polanyi's claim that in marketeconomies, Instead feconomybeingembed-ded in social relations, social relationsareembedded ntheeconomicsystem' [Polanyi1957:57].Foreconomicallyunderdevelopedcountriessuch aclaim is even moredubious.This meansthat or thestudyof all societies,

anything more drastic than a provisionalseparation between superstructural andstructural elements (to use Marxianterminology) is not analytically fruitful,although uchseparationanseem toproducespectacular results from time to time.

But the imperative to blend elements ofstructureand superstructure, nd to graspthatmany elements of superstructure nterinto the formation of structures hemselvesdoes notimply that 'cultural'elements mustbe given precedence over structures, orpeculiar geopolitical conjunctures. Thedangerof doing so is demonstratedperhaps

best by taking the case of Japan,the onlycountrynot populatedby west Europeans,whichsuccessfullychallenged in thespheresof economics and politics) the dominanceof the west in the eraof formalcolonialism,and which has become the home of thesecondbiggesteconomy n theworld.Japan'ssuccess has been attributedby both non-Japaneseand Japanese scholars to its Con-fucianismandits Shintoism,whichcreateda loyal citizenry and an obedient workingclass. To these elements Morishima 1982)has added a willingness and an ability tolearn fromothercountrieselementsof ideo-logy, statecraftand production echniques.




Japan'sprincipaloreignsourceof instructionuntil the arrival of the Portuguese and theDutchwasChina.After heMeijiRestoration,Japan's rulersset up a programmeof con-sciously selective learning from differentwestern countries. Shintoist ideology wassuccessfully instilled into young mindsthrough a scheme of universal primaryeducation succeeded by intensive pro-grammes of secondary and universityedu-

cation which covered progressively largersections of the population.

All this is true. But exactly what roleConfucianismplayed, and at which stagesof Japan'spost-1868 development,becomeproblematic ssues as soon aswe look acrossthe ChinaSea to the originalhome of Con-fucianism. Moreover, as Wan (1988) haspointedout,thefamed oyaltyof theJapanesedid not prevent the assassinationof primeministersandotherhigh-rankingpoliticiansin the 1930s, atthe height ofJapan'smilitaryadventuresnChina.Moreover, hecreationof a 'conformist' working class was the

resultof conscious institutional ngineeringto overcome hortages f skilled abourwhichbecame especially acute in the wake of theseveral major wars in which Japan wasengaged from the 1890s [Watanabe1987].Moreover,Japan's labour force proved tobe anythingbutdocile and conformistafterher defeat in the second World War (thePacificWar, n Japanese erminology).TheUS governmentthen helped the Japanesegovernment and Japanese employers tosg#agely repress he militantsections of theworkers,and install conformist, company-basedunions[Armstrong,GlynandHarrison1984:136-40].

Again,all these caveats do not imply thatideology or culture was not important inpoweringJapan's economic growth. It wasvery mportantngiving a particularharacterandapeculiardegree of strength oJapanesenationalism, to the sense of uniqueness,Yamato,whichseemed o pervadeallspheresof her ife.Italsomade herrulersparticularlyfierce in advancing,or in defending, whatwas seen as Japan's nterest(orup to 1945,its symbolic equivalent, the honour of theemperor). But this should be seen as asubterraneousnfluence,a stratum f igneousrocks, f you like,andchangeson theground

or sudden shifts in fault lines were ofteninfluencedby otherfactors,such as victoryor defeat in a war, emergence of laboursurpluses or shortages, the availability ofhighlyeducatedmanpowern asocietywhich

geared itself to meet foreign challenges

throughintensive learning, and so on.

IV

Cross-Disciplinarity and Creationof New Fields of Studies

In a path-breaking essay, Marc Bloch(1928/1953) had stressed the role ofcomparisons in alerting investigators toproblemswhichhadbeenhiddenby thevery

fact of familiarity, o unorthodoxclaims ofcausality or processes which give rise to

apparently imilar effects in very differentsettings and to the necessity of exploringnew seams in orderto find nuggets of goldilluminatingdarkcorners.But comparisonsand boundary crossing may also generatenewterrains f study,and hey may then casttheir shadow on old disciplines and oldmethodologicalapproaches.One of the best

illustrations of such a development is thenewly emerging continent of women'sstudies ('woman studies'? 'studies ofwomen'? 'genderstudies'?).The systematic

analysis of the subjugationof women to thepower of men goes back, in Europe, at leastto MaryWollstonecraft 1792/1986). Therearetwo other classics dealingwith the samesubject, Mill's Subjectionof Women 1869/1986) and Engels' Origin of the Family,PrivatePropertyand theState [Engels 1891/1986]. They pointed to different facets anddifferentperiodsof thehistoryof subjectionof women. Wollstonecraftand Mill were

both concernedwith contemporary ssues,andespeciallywith thepositionof themiddleclass women, though muchof their analysiswould cut across class boundaries.Wollstonecraft accepted the usual charac-terisation f womenascreatures f sentimentand possessors of weak intellect. But sheattributed hese defects to a bad system ofeducationor no education at all, which wasthe ot ofwomen(Gatens1991).Mill focusedmore strongly on the position of womenwithin the monogamous family, and thelegally constructed ate ofwomen,who aftermarriagemadea transition rom the ownerof property o apropertyless lave subjectedto the lust and arbitrary uleof her husband[Shanley 1991].

By contrast, Engels' problematicis therole of the subjectionof women and of thesexual division of labour n the emergenceof 'civilised societies' and of the stateas aform of coercive organisationfor unitinghumangroups [Engels 1891/1970:esp 209-

55]. It is not true, as has sometimes beenasserted e g, Di Stefano 1991 thatMarxism

byitsveryconstruction r tsepistemologicalbasis was blind to the conditionof womenas members of the subjugated gender asagainst women as members of particular

classes (propertyless as against thepropertied). The following statement of

Engelsbearswitness to his awarenessof the

subjection fwomenacrossepochsofhistoryand particular social formations [Engels1891/1970:233]:

Theoverthrowf mother ightwas heworld-historicdefeat of the female sex. The manseized hereins n thehousealso,thewomanwas enthralled,he slave of theman'slust,amereinstrumentforbreedingchildren.hislowered osition fwomen, speciallymani-festamong heGreeks f the Heroicand tillmore f theClassicalAge,hasbecome mbel-lished anddissembledand, n part,clothedinamilder orm,butby no meansabolished.

Of course, withall its marksof superiorityover contemporaryapproaches o the issueof subjection of women, Engels' analysissuffered romseveralmajor imitations.First,Engels was necessarily limited by thehistorical and anthropological sources inrespect of datathrownup by them and theirepistemological approaches. In particular,they gave far too idyllic a picture of thedignity of women in 'barbaric'as against

'civilised'societies. Secondly,Engels, whilebeing one of the first to note theconnectionof women'sposition nsociety and hesexualdivision of labour ended o see the causationonly one way. He derived thepower of menover women from the sexual division oflabourand ts evolution over time, and gaveinadequateattention to the other directionof causation,viz, thatparticularpatternsofsexual division of labour may be derivedfrom the prior subjection of women. Inaddition to the dual relationshipbetweensexual division of labourand subjectionofwomen, women's position is foundto have

been implicated n ideologies of family,thestate, nationalism,ethnicityandreligion,toprovideaminimalcount.The sexualdivisionof labour s also implicated n thedistinctionbetween the private and public spheres insocieties asdiverseasthoseof ancientRomeand modem Iran,or modernJapanor Indiaforthatmatter.These are areas hatwere leftout of Engels' analysis.

Thirdly and ironically, Engels more orless truncatedhis analysis on the thresholdof development of the capitalist mode ofproduction.In Capital,Vols 2 and3, Marxgives an extensive, though incomplete,

analysis of the processes of expandedreproduction f capital.These processesareindeed at the heart of reproductionof thestructures of power associated with

capitalism. But Marx somehow omits the

analysisof thebiologicalsite of reproductionof humansocieties, that is, of the positionof women as the reproductiveagentsforall

human beings. Extending the Marxian

analysisof the firm to thatof the site of the

family which envelopes women as thereproducers, t can be seen that the familyalso is at an arm's-lengthdistance from theday-to-dayworkingof the marketandmust,therefore, ethesite of theexerciseofpolitical

power andideological hegemony, and theirnecessary opposites, resistance andcontestation.Theemergentfieldof women'studieshas,of course, enormouslyenrichedour understanding of the family as an

ideologically constructedentity.This does not mean hatthekindof analysis

of the interaction between demographicfactors, methods of production, propertyholding and sexual division of labour that

Engels pioneered(see as a fineexample,hisdiscussionof thedistinction n thepositionsof women in pastoral societies as againstsocieties of hunters and gatherers [Engels1891/1970: pp 318-20] has become obsolete.




Thepower of thiskind of cross-disciplinary

analysiswas demonstrated yEasterBoserup

(1970) where she distinguished between

'female' and 'male' farming systems intheAfrican setting, and associated systems of

property n land, or rather the produce of

the land with different patterns of sexualdivision of labour.The former are systemsof shifting cultivation, where men help intree-fellingand the clearing of the land,but

the women perform all the subsequentfarming operations.The latter are systemsof sedentarycultivation,with crops grown

onthe same fields yearafteryear,with some

periodsof restor systems of crop rotation.

The latter system often replaces shiftingcultivation when population densityincreases,and men takecommandover the

major mplementsof production.However,insystemsof hoecultivationwhich prevailed

in most partsof sub-SaharanAfrica down

to the 1970s, women take a much greater

part in agriculture,and sometimes spend

muchmore abourin t thanmen,ascompared

withsystemsof ploughcultivation.Boserup(1970) hypothesised that the latter gainedin importancewhen a substantial body of

propertylessmen andwomenwere availabletocarry nthe mostonerous asksandwomen

of the propertiedmen (andsometimes even

of the propertyless households) could be

confinedmorestrictly o the domesticsphere.Boserup, of course, recognised that

Europeancolonialism and the introduction

of private property with exclusive and

alienableproperty ightsvested inparticularindividual hadamajor mpacton theposition

of womeninAfrica. Colonialismintroduceda system of male dominance in production

and in the family in many societies whichwererelativelyfree of such dominanceear-

lier.By conferringproperty ightsonleading

members fparticularthnicgroups 'tribes')colonial authoritiesdeprivedothermembers

of those groupsof their inheritedaccess to

pasture and arable, and women sufferedextensive proletarianisationn the process.This history has continued even after

independence.By forcing families to pay

poll taxesinmoneyandthereby compellingactivemales o abourin generallyEuropean-

owned)minesandplantations, olonialrulers

compelledwomen to become stay-at-home

providersof subsistence. In South Africa,of course,by denyingAfricans access to all

but the poorest and minimal areasof land,the authoritiesmade sure that subsistence

farmingcould not be even the last resortof

mostworkers.But thesesystemsof coercion

ensured a massive subsidisation of the

reproduction of the so-called advancedenclaves of non-white dependencies and

white settler colonies by the subsistence

sectorand its core workers, the women [cf

Arrighi 1970; Bagchi 1982: chapters6-7].

Women'spositioninsociety is implicatedwith numerous structures of dominance,

ideological and material, and analysing itnecessarily involves prolongedexercises in

unravelling, deconstruction and puttingtogetherof all the dominance-subordinationand conflict-complicity relations.Correspondingly, here are no simple, once-for-all strategies for removing women'ssubjection;sectoral as well as macro-socialstrategies will have to be thought throughand fought throughatevery stage. But some

simple demographic nputsmay illuminatehow structuresof coercionpersist. Boserup(1970) has given illustrations of howpolygamyis rationalisednfarmingsystemsin which women's labour s important,andasubstantial,propertylessproletariat f menas well as women doesnotexist. The survivaland reproductionof such polygamy seemsto require that the demand for women'slabour should grow faster than women

available for such labour.Otherwise therewould be an increasing numberof womento work on the land cultivated by the

husband's family and surplus labour may

become a problem. Analogously, in theIndian (and south Asian) situation we arefaced with an apparent paradox.The sexratio is adverse in the sense that there aremore men than women in the population,and hisadverse ex ratio s notyet improvingfor women for India as a whole (though itis neither dversenordeterioratingnKerala).But the demand for dowry has increasedover time among almost all sections of thepopulation,and bride price has practicallyvanished.The explanationof this has to dowith numerous factors connected with thedistribution of propertybetween men andwomen,the neffectivenessof, and he desire

to evade, legislation conferring propertyrights on daughters, married as well asunmarried,and the increasing incidents of

unemployment among women displacedfrom traditionaloccupations, especially in

ruralareas.However,given allthesefactors,the widespread incidence of dowry issustained by one social custom and one

demographic act. The social custom is thatmen generally marrywomen younger than

themselves,and thedemographic act is thatthe growth of population in south Asiabecame significant only after 1921, andcontinued to accelerate down to the 1970s.

This meant that for any cohort of men, thenumberof womenyoungerthanthemselvesremained arger,and so long as populationgrowthaccelerated,hedifference n numbersfor any given age difference also increased.These factors ensured that against the

backgroundof the aforementioned socialcustom andthe enormousmaldistribution fpropertyandpaidwork asbetweenmen andwomen,thenumber f womenwhose parentswere willing to pay dowryto a given cohortof men could be expected to be largerthanthe numberof menof thatparticular ohort.It is well established that a substantial

improvement in women's literacy and inwomen's position n society eventually eadsto substantialdeclines in fertility.A declinein fertility would also tend to bring downthe number of marriageable womenaccessible to a given cohort of men andcontribute othe erosionof the dowrysystemin the custom-ridden, male-dominatedsocieties of south Asia.

It is not being suggested here hata decline

in fertility evels or even in theimprovementin certain basic indices of women's living,such as female literacy or women's lifeexpectancywill ipsofactoempowerwomen,or end the dowry system, which is rightlyseen as a sign of the subjugationof women.(That some women internaliseconsumeristvalues or possessive 'familialism' anddemand dowries from their parents isconfirmation,rather han a refutationof the

prevalenceof patriarchy). atriarchal aluesand structuresare known to impinge on thedifferential statuses of women in northernIndia with fierce patriarchy) nd nsouthern

India (with relatively weak patriarchy.)However, it is also known that amongscheduled castes and scheduled tribes,patriarchy s gaining strengthand causingthe ratioof females and males to decline andconverge to the levels prevailing in thegeneral population [Agnihotri 1995; Drezeand Sen 1995, chapter 7; Malhotra,Vanneman and Kishor 1995; and Murthi,Guio andDreze 1995].Thusthefightagainstgenderbias within hepoor,slow-developingcountry hatIndia s cannotbe confined o lyto therealmsofdemography reasilyvisibleindices of economic well-being,buthavetobe waged in all areas where genderbias is

codified and takesanexpressiveform. Evenwhen the pace of development reaches a

differentpitch,with basic changes in social

structure,genderbias takes its toll throughson-preference acting side by side with a

preference for smaller families. In China,Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, for

example, rapid fertility transitionhas been

accompanied by an increasing ratio offemales to males at birth [Park and Cho1995].This kindof developmentgives forceto the distopias of the kind constructedbythe Lebanese novelist, Maalouf (1994). Isthe east Asian 'miracle' at least partly

attributable to a particular form ofexploitationof patriarchy Bagchi 1984],oris the continued subjection of women inthese fastdevelopingcountriesa throwbackto precapitalist alues?A multi-disciplinaryresearchprogramme an throw ighton such

challenging questions.

V

An Apologia for Living inInterdisciplinary Space

HerbertSimon, a major social scientistand theoristof 'the sciences of theartificial'has put forward he compulsionof scientific




quest as justification for his living in'interdisciplinaryspace' from almost thebeginning of his career [Simon 1992]. Icannot makeany such exalted claim for mystraying into interdisciplinarity and

increasingly making that my preferredhabitat. The reasons for my practice havebeen rather mundane. The problems thatattractedme demandedthat I stray beyondthelimitsof contemporary conomics. Even

before writing my PhD dissertation,I hadwrittenarticleswhich would not be regardedas strictly kosherby orthodoxeconomists.ButwithmyPhDthesis,whose coreconsistedof a statistical exercise to find out thedeterminants f private nvestmentin Indiaduring the first two plan periods, I wasconfrontedstarklywith the ahistoricityofthestandard conomic models of investmentbehaviour [Bagchi 1963]. Investmentbehaviourseemed to be governed by pasthistoriesof firms and ndustriesnotcapturedin the standard accelerator (or capitaladjustment)modelsormodelswhichposited

recent and current profits as the majordeterminants f investment.Therewere otherproblems- such as those of ineradicablenon-linearities in a multiply constrainedeconomy- thatmadeit difficult to work outcredible tatistical estsfordecidingbetween

competing hypotheses.Even if currentconstraintsdid not make

for departures from linearity, historical

experiencesofparticularirmsand ndustriesseemed to be deeply embedded in the

expectations ndbehaviourof entrepreneurs.To takeaconcreteexample, facedwithverysimilar external conditions such as the sizeof the domesticmarket,governmentpolicies

relating to labour and industry, andgovernment plans for setting up new steelplants, the Indian Iron and Steel Companyand theTataIronand Steel Companythrewup very different investment strategies.

Economists have recently begun to takeseriously the fact that once an investmenthas takenplace, its effects become at least

partly irreversible, so that the furtherdevelopment of the industry or regionbecomes dependent on the path traversedearlier[Dixit andPindyck 1994]. However,whenhistoricitysdefined n such anarrowly'economistic' manner, it does not answer

broader questions about the environmentwhich influences the rateand allocation ofinvestment in an economy. In particular,why was it that in a colonial economy ofwhich India was a leading example, mostinvestment was rathershort-term n natureand total investment was insufficient togenerate a brisk rate of growth? Marxistsandnationalists, f course,had ried o answersuch questions in the past. But I found thatthe answers had been clouded by folklore.For example, I was told by two senioreconomists, who had been researchingtherole of big capital n India, thatBritishfirms

operating n colonial India had a long timehorizon but the Indian firms did not. Oninvestigation,I found ittle evidence of sucha systematicdifference. In fact, in the periodbetween he two worldwars, he shoe seemedto be on the other foot, with Anglo-Indianfirms pulling in and Indian-controlled irmspushingon. Anotherbitof folklore was thatIndian firms were risk-aversebecause theylacked a 'modem' outlook and education.

Again,I found thatwith the exception of theParsis, hebiggestandsome of themost enter-prising Indian nvestors came from tradingcommunities and were deeply traditional ntheirworldoutlook; ew of themhadacquiredmuch modern education but they didquite well in competition with the Britishundercomparable onditions [Bagchi 1972:chapter 6]. Attempts to answer suchquestions, of course, took me very far outof the domain of contemporaryparadigmsof economics.

There s another spectof thedevelopmentof capitalismin India which bothered me.

The historical videncesuggested hatracismplayed a strong part n the constructionandcohesionof theexpatriateEuropean apitalistclass operating n India. Racism was also astrong lement n thediscourseofjustificationof colonialism. Yet I found no systematicanalysisof the role of racism n influencingthe natureanddifferentiation f thecapitalistclass in India, and I proceeded to try andrepairthis omission [Bagchi 1970; Bagchi1972:chapter ]. Ilaterextended hisanalysisto the roleof racism n shoringup Europeancolonial rule andin the subordination f the

workingclass in thecolonies jBagchi 1982:

chapters2-4; Bagchi 1990a].Iam,of course,

aware thatI was often treading n pathsthathistorians and sociologists analysingcolonialism and race-dividedsocieties hadtravelleddownbeforeme[forarepresentativeanthology of such writings, see Rex andMason 1986].

Historyhas appealedto me primarilyasa way of grounding my understandingof

contemporary eality npatterns f behaviourthat have been conditionedby past experi-ence. In tryingto understandpost-colonialcontinuities in underdevelopment n Indiaand in the third world in general, I had toventure nto ideologies andstructures f in-

equality-

ideologies and structureshatuseclass, or differencesin initialendowments,attributions f race andracism,caste ascrip-tions, and discriminationin political andcivil rights on the basis of inherited andinvented ethnic and communal differencesas weaponsof domination.Adaptationsandtransformati6ns are produced in thosestructures through the resistance of theoppressed,andthroughseismic changes in

geopolitical alliances [Bagchi 1982].The patternsof growthor the experience

of ordinarypeoplein colonial Indiawere notinfluencedonly by the structures f colonia-

lism in the aggregate.The very natureof thecapitalist nterpriseswas verydifferent rom,let us say, the way they are portrayed nstandard ccountsof capitalistenterprisesnEngland in the 19th century. The political

and social environment rendered relationsbetween employers and employees in'capitalist' enterprises n India much more

complicatedthan those between owners ofcapital and 'free' owners of labour power

[Bagchi 1990].If 'capitalist' enterprises were not just

sitesof such relations, heconsciousnessandthe conditionsof existence of workerswouldalso not conformto thoseconceptualisedbyhistoriansof British abourbefore heclassicaccount of E P Thompson (1963) becameavailable.Workers particularlyhose ivingunder subhuman conditions in 'cooliebarracks' and noisome slums - were verylikely to carry o their workplace deologiesheavily mbricatednreligionandcommunityconsciousness. But theirconsciousness and

behaviourwould also be strongly nfluenced

by the experience of racist colonial rule intheir home districts and of supervisorsatworkplaces, not just as managers but asrepresentatives f an all-powerful,alien raceas well [Bagchi 1990a].

But traditions inventedor nherited)neednot always carrynegative implications.Not

only can they provideidioms of resistance,but they can have far-reachingegalitarianand libertarian mplications.Whiilewritingan introduction o a collection of paperson

democracy and development, I tried toindicate sources of traditions nIndia,whichhave very definite anti-authoritarian nddemocraticmeanings,butwhich haveoften

beenwrappedupinreligiousorother-wordlyterminology [Bagchi 1995]

Structuresof domination and resistance

(often in a transmutedpattern)go on, butsuddenchanges still takeplace in the world

today,forwhichnobodywasreallyprepared.I am engaged in recapturing acets of this

histdryandfocusingonthosecontradictionswhich gripme from time to time. I findthatI cannot discipline myself to give up mywanderings and go back solely to the

discipline I was trained in or adopt someother'monodiscipline' tocoin aneologism)as my sole refuge.

I know that I have not answered manyquestions about the feasibility of genuineinterdisciplinarityn thegrovesof academicin which paricular patches are jealously

guarded.Nor have I answeredthe questionas to whether borrowing of methodsfrom other disciplines can always be fruit-ful. But I am sure that there are bravehearts and diligent minds to cultivate alienpatches despite signboards of 'Trespasserswill be prosecuted', and such people willknow that you cannot sow wheat seeds ina flooded paddy field and hope to reap a

golden harvest.




Notes

[I am greatly indebted to the School of SocialSciences of Jawaharlal Nehru University forinviting me to give lectures on which the presentpaper is based, and to discussants of thoselectures for penetratingcomments. Inparticular,I would like to thank Yogendra Singh andSusheel Kumar and finally Niraja Gopal Jayal,who favoured me with a written comment. I amalso indebted to Nirmala Banerjee for comments

on the penultimate draft of the paper. None ofmy benefactors should be blamed for themistakes remaining in the paper.]

1 I am indebted to ParthaChatterjeefor askingsearching uestionsaboutanearlier ormulationof mine and forcing me to sharpenmy critiqueof Foucault as the 'arranger' of the humansciences from the 17th and 18thcenturies. ButPartha hould not be held responsible for anymistakes I commit in my interpretation ofFoucault.

2 Canguilhem(1994) tries to explain andjustifyFoucault's thoughts on 'the death of man',as propoundedin The Order of Things. Butthis exegesis contains virtually nothing onhow in the Foucaultian (Foucauldian?)

scheme the epistemic foundation of politicaleconomy participates in sounding the death-knell of woman (man) as the subject ofhistory.

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contextual social science- or crossing boundaries

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