>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 02/23/01 01:21PM >>>
>CB: As Marx and Engels noted , European capitalism is characterized by an
>explosion of production as contrasted specifically with European feudalism.
>There is a qualitative change, a quantitaive leap in production and niche
>maximization with the advent of capitalism.
Definitely, but you got geographical discoveries and technical innovations to
explain that.
Or maybe you think that the advent of this extraordinary social organisation named
capitalism enabled Europe to conquer the world? Have you been reading the
Goldstone thing that Mark posted or some other author challenging white
supremacist propaganda or did you bypass that kind of stuff completely?
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CB: There are many, many discussions of this issue in this left cluster of lists. No
need to read Goldstone in particular. See _Capital_ on The Socalled Primitive
Accumulation, et al.
Point here is not the historical cause , but the FACT that there was a change from
feudalism to capitalism such that the latter poses an ecological threat that the
former did not.
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BTW, just a question Charles... when did capitalism began and feudalism end in
England according to you? I ask so that I can understand what you are really
talking about and confront it with the historical record.
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CB: Sometime between 1450 and 1550. There have been many posts and references on this
on the Marxism and PEN-L lists.
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>CB: If feudalism had not been overthrown, I doubt that we would be worried about
>running out of fossil fuels or global warming today.
Maybe we would not be worrying about it yet. It's not capitalism as such but the
consumption of fossil fuels that create those problems.
The rate of sustainable
consumption of fossil fuel is very low and can easily be exceeded by a european
feudal economy or any other pre-capitalist one. All it takes is some technical
innovations and the availability of these fuels.
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CB: One of the main differences between capitalism and feudalism is a leap in the rate
of technical innovations. The idea is that feudalism would not have made the
technical innovations made under capitalism for many centuries , if ever. Your
analysis obliterates a definitive distinction between capitalism and feudalism.
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