Debate on primitive accumulation

Barkley writes: >Blaut argues that it was the fact that the Atlantic is narrower than the Pacific that accounted for the crucial ability of the Western Europeans to get to the Americas to do the exploiting before the Chinese (some Asians having already gotten there earlier but who lacked sufficient immunity or technology to resist a later invasion from either Europe or East Asia). >Of course this does not answer the crucial question as to why the Chinese did not go around the Cape of Good Hope in the 1400s while the Portuguese did in 1497 with Vasco da Gama. Thus we had the Portuguese in Goa and Macau rather than the Chinese in Cadiz and Lisbon.< In a book I read many many years ago, EAST AND WEST, by the ultrareactionary C. Northcote Parkinson (he of "Parkinson's Law" fame), argued that the Chinese didn't continue sailing around the Cape of Good Hope because they lacked what he saw as superior Western organization techniques. My thoughts are that the Chinese empire was more interested in ruling and protecting what they had already (an area occupied mostly by Han Chinese) rather than extending their Imperial rule in a radical way. (New territories would have been hard to integrate into the Empire if they were significantly distant from Beijing.) International exploring was a function of imperial _policy_, as opposed to the "Western" business of political-economic competition encouraging radical expansionism at the expense of the rest of the world. The historical accident of the Pacific being wider than the Atlantic of course explains a lot (including the nature of the Chinese empire and the way in which Western European countries related to each other). In line with counterfactual thinking, we should go back in a time machine to either narrow the Pacific or widen the Atlantic and see if it changes the course of history. In a separate message, Barkley writes: >One can make a serious argument that a nascent form of capitalism was in existence in Northern Italy (and in Flanders not long thereafter) from the 1200s on. Even Marx recognized this, labeling it "merchant capitalism." T-balance sheet accounting dates from this period from Pisa and Florence and the first urban public bonds also, which many identify with the origins of modern banking. Also, the first industrial strike by a propertyless urban proletariat occurred in a textile mill in Douai, Flanders (now northern France) in the late 1200s.< I don't know enough about this history, but it's important to emphasize that for Marx merchant capital is not a nascent form of capitalism as much as an incomplete form of capitalism. Under merchant capitalism, the ability to get an M' (revenue) that's large than the M (the initial investment) is dependent on noncapitalist producers creating a surplus-product. Because noncapitalist modes of production are less able to produce a surplus-product without driving down the living standards of the direct producers below subsistence, this limits the growth of merchant capital. It ends up mostly a matter of buying low in one place and selling high somewhere else. Double-entry bookkeeping, bonds, and banks are part of money-dealing capital or interest-bearing capital. It faces similar limits. Unless a surplus is produced, interest cannot be paid. It's true the state can tax people to pay the interest (one of the oldest forms of surplus-extraction, by the way), but there are clear limits to this in a precapitalist society. Merchant capital and interest-bearing capital become the more complete form of capital_ism_ when a proletariat is created, as with the enclosure movement in England. I understand that this process was very limited in Flanders, being hamstrung by traditional "feudal" relations, absolutistic restrictions, and guilds (all of which interacted which each other hand and are thus hard to separate). There might be some kind of threshold below which there isn't enough of a proletariat to allow capitalism's development. >>> Jim Devine 09/17/99 04:42PM >>> Charles writes: >Do you think that if all this [capitalist development] had occurred except none of the Europeans ever left the land mass of Europe, capitalism would have developed in Europe ?< (((((((((( Jim: It's really hard -- if not impossible -- to tell. (((((((( Charles: This is a rather blatant couterfactual. (((((((((( Jim In world history, as far as I know, all other areas that had attained some sort sociopolitical edge vis-a-vis their neighbors took advantage of that edge to expand and exploit. The Arabs spread out of what is now Saudi Arabia. The Aztecs conquered their neighbors. The Romans spread out of Italy, etc. So the slight military advantage of the Europeans in 1492 meant that the option of _not_ expanding was extremely unlikely to be taken. So the possibility of Europe not expanding seems extremely unreal. (((((((((( Charles: Yes. I am trying to get at the theme of this thread which is on the uniqueness of Europe: why did it and nowhere else develop capitalism. So, your other examples are , of course, accurate, but the analogy would be, did those other empire's "accumulations of surpluses" depend in significant or necessary part on the expansions you describe... hold on, I am not asking you to answer that last question ( unless you want to). Anyway, I see below that we agree ( I think) on the point at dispute regarding some significant role in the primitive accumulation of European capitalism for the surplus value extracted from its colonies and slave plantations. (((((((((( Jim: If Europe had not expanded (perhaps because someone built a huge wall around that fraction of the Eurasian land-mass or widened the Atlantic Ocean), maybe the existing social relations ("feudalism") would have not have been shaken up, so that the rise of capitalism would have been aborted. But the demographic collapse of the mid-14th century (the Bubonic Plague, etc.) would still have shaken up those social relations, perhaps encouraging capitalism's rise. (In fact, the inability to expand would have likely made the demographic collapse worse.) Or maybe the political-economic chaos of Western Europe was such that eventually capitalism would have arise. But who knows? I actually don't care if one blames _all_ of Europe's rise on exploitation of the rest of the world or if one blames it _all_ on Europe's internal dynamic. (I don't agree with either extreme, however. Not only is it more likely (based on historical experience) that _both_ domination of the periphery and the internal dynamic were important, but since these two forces interacted with each other in a dialectical way, it's hard to separate them out.) ((((((( Charles: I agree with this completely. But my original question above was meant to get at that the domination of the periphery was a necessary cause or condition for the capitalist takeoff in Europe. The internal dynamic was a necessary cause or condition too. Neither by themselves was sufficient. Your reply to Barkley ( I copy at the bottom here) is instructive and makes sense to me as well as seemingly applies Marx's concepts in a creative way. You seem to be arguing that it is the lack of discovery of extracting surplus value from free laborers IN PRODUCTION that was the difference between the other semi- or borderline capitalist forms and the one that took off. This would be precisely why Marx emphasized that surplus is made in production and not circulation ( or as you mention, in money lending). That is theoretically quite tight. ((((((((((( Jim If one blames all of E's rise on exploitation, then in some ways it's a critique of the periphery that allowed itself to be conquered and exploited. If, on the other hand, one blames it all on capitalism's (or Europe's) internal dynamic, it's quite a critique of capitalism and/or Europe, considering what that dynamic did to the rest of the world. I don't think the blame game should guide historical understanding. ((((((((((((( Charles: This might sound like blame, but what about ( besides the discovery of free labor above) a sort of negative Weberian factor ? unprecedented cutthroat ruthlessness and use of force against the conquered peoples ? Not to blame , but just as a real, material political and economic element ? As has been pointed out, the Chinese for example backed away from the use of the gunpowder that they had discovered. So, two unique elements, somewhat opposites: free labor internally, and unprecedented use of force externally, both necessary , but neither sufficient alone. Charles Brown Jim Devine jdevine at lmumail.lmu.edu & http://clawww.lmu.edu/~JDevine Barkley writes: >Blaut argues that it was the fact that the Atlantic is narrower than the Pacific that accounted for the crucial ability of the Western Europeans to get to the Americas to do the exploiting before the Chinese (some Asians having already gotten there earlier but who lacked sufficient immunity or technology to resist a later invasion from either Europe or East Asia). >Of course this does not answer the crucial question as to why the Chinese did not go around the Cape of Good Hope in the 1400s while the Portuguese did in 1497 with Vasco da Gama. Thus we had the Portuguese in Goa and Macau rather than the Chinese in Cadiz and Lisbon.< In a book I read many many years ago, EAST AND WEST, by the ultrareactionary C. Northcote Parkinson (he of "Parkinson's Law" fame), argued that the Chinese didn't continue sailing around the Cape of Good Hope because they lacked what he saw as superior Western organization techniques. My thoughts are that the Chinese empire was more interested in ruling and protecting what they had already (an area occupied mostly by Han Chinese) rather than extending their Imperial rule in a radical way. (New territories would have been hard to integrate into the Empire if they were significantly distant from Beijing.) International exploring was a function of imperial _policy_, as opposed to the "Western" business of political-economic competition encouraging radical expansionism at the expense of the rest of the world. The historical accident of the Pacific being wider than the Atlantic of course explains a lot (including the nature of the Chinese empire and the way in which Western European countries related to each other). In line with counterfactual thinking, we should go back in a time machine to either narrow the Pacific or widen the Atlantic and see if it changes the course of history. In a separate message, Barkley writes: >One can make a serious argument that a nascent form of capitalism was in existence in Northern Italy (and in Flanders not long thereafter) from the 1200s on. Even Marx recognized this, labeling it "merchant capitalism." T-balance sheet accounting dates from this period from Pisa and Florence and the first urban public bonds also, which many identify with the origins of modern banking. Also, the first industrial strike by a propertyless urban proletariat occurred in a textile mill in Douai, Flanders (now northern France) in the late 1200s.< I don't know enough about this history, but it's important to emphasize that for Marx merchant capital is not a nascent form of capitalism as much as an incomplete form of capitalism. Under merchant capitalism, the ability to get an M' (revenue) that's large than the M (the initial investment) is dependent on noncapitalist producers creating a surplus-product. Because noncapitalist modes of production are less able to produce a surplus-product without driving down the living standards of the direct producers below subsistence, this limits the growth of merchant capital. It ends up mostly a matter of buying low in one place and selling high somewhere else. Double-entry bookkeeping, bonds, and banks are part of money-dealing capital or interest-bearing capital. It faces similar limits. Unless a surplus is produced, interest cannot be paid. It's true the state can tax people to pay the interest (one of the oldest forms of surplus-extraction, by the way), but there are clear limits to this in a precapitalist society. Merchant capital and interest-bearing capital become the more complete form of capital_ism_ when a proletariat is created, as with the enclosure movement in England. I understand that this process was very limited in Flanders, being hamstrung by traditional "feudal" relations, absolutistic restrictions, and guilds (all of which interacted which each other hand and are thus hard to separate). There might be some kind of threshold below which there isn't enough of a proletariat to allow capitalism's development.