ABSTRACT
Charles Scott Brunger 1 listed the four defining characteristics of the Asiatic mode of production in his Ph.D. dissertation: (1) communal land ownership based originally on tribal relationships; (2) the communal control of labour eventually permits the appropriation of surplus labour by nonproducers; (3) division of labour is limited to the extended family or to the village; and (4) if exchange exists at all, it occurs at the boundaries of the community (Brunger, 1983, pp. 10–11).
