Ellen M. Wood writes:
>The point of Marx's critique of "the so-called primitive accumulation" ...
>is that no amount of accumulation, whether from outright theft, from
>imperialism, from commercial profit, or even from the exploitation of
>labor for commercial profit, by itself constitutes capital, nor will it
>produce capitalism.
Louis writes:
> >>REPLY: The "exploitation of labor for commercial profit" is obviously a
> reference to the sort of thing that transpired on Jamaican sugar
> plantations and Bolivian silver mines in the 17th century when the
> largest labor force in human history was amassed in order to produce
> commodities for the world market under the auspices of companies traded
> on the London stock market. This has nothing to do with capitalism in
> Wood's eyes. Actually to be fair, Wood and Brenner have simply ripped off
> Laclau who
>developed this bizarre analysis first. At least Laclau had the
>forthrightness to call this feudalism while Wood prefers vaporous
>formulations like "exploitation of labor for commercial profit." One would
>assume that she believed that North American slavery was precapitalist as
>well, by this logic.<<
Did Wood and Brenner plagiarize from Laclau? do you have evidence to back
up this accusation?
I think one of the problems here is that Louis is using a different
theoretical apparatus that Wood or Brenner. The "exploitation of labor
commercial profit" seems to be shorthand for the exploitation of labor
under either slavery or feudal relations of production (or something like
those) under the aegis of what Marx termed commercial or merchant
capitalism (an incomplete version of capital). Harry Braverman defines
"mercantile capitalism" as "the buying and selling of commodities but not
their production" (LABOR AND MONOPOLY CAPITAL, MR edition, p. 63) and is
essentially a matter of acting as a "middle man" in product markets. In
practice, it was linked to non-capitalist modes of exploitation. Full-scale
(industrial) capital involves proletarianization. It is of course the
development of the latter that concerns Wood, since the existence of
merchant capital (and markets) goes back several millennia.
I think I'll stop there, not only because I have other things to do, but
because Louis undermines his own credibility by repeatedly making false
accusations against his enemies -- or exaggerates their positions. This
also prevents serious discussion, as does the practice of treating every
discussion as a matter of a fight between good guys (Louis and a few of his
chosen heroes) and bad guys (others).
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
