Colin Danby wrote:
> Hello Joseph,
>
> Thanks for an interesting post.
>
> What are "internal factors"? Can you give an
> example which clearly distinguishes the internal
> from the external?
>
Sorry not to get back to you for awhile. FlashNet, my ISP, has
been having a little "world-crisis" of its own. Hopefully, however,
it is now entering another "long wave" of relatively trouble-free
service. However, I am afraid that my comments are going to be *very*
limited. I don't want to comment on the mode of production in Asia
until I have had time to do a bit more reading and check my ideas
against some other authors (including Janet Abu-Lughod as well as
reading more of Reorient).
Internal factors are, for me, the structure of the economy, its
class relations and so forth. Is the economy feudal? slave?
capitalist? ancient centralist mode of production (my
somewhat modified version of Marx's Asiatic mode of production)?
have the peasants been dispossessed etc?
It seems to me that much of AGF's discussion and of the
discussion of cost factors inplicitly presents matters as if we are
dealing with just more or less developed capitalist countries. I
rather doubt this is historically accurate. By way of contrast, Marx
comments on the colonial plunder etc. only spurring capitalist
expansion where there was already a basis prepared previously for it.
For example, he writes that "...The sudden expansion of the
world-market, the multiplication of circulating commodities, the
competitive zeal of the European nations to possess themselves of the
products of Asia and the treasures of America, and the colonial
system--all contributed materially toward destroying the feudal
fetters on production. However, in its first period--the
manufacturing peirod--the modern mode of production developed only
where the conditions for it had taken shape within the Middle Ages.
Compare, for instance, Holland with Portugal." (Capital, vol. III,
ch. XX, pp. 332-3)
I presume that Spain and Portugal were both backwards in this
regard, whereas England and Holland were both relatively
well-developed in this regard.
So with these brief remarks, I will leave the field to you and
Ricardo. I do follow this discussion with interest, although I won't
be able to add anything further to it for now.
--Joseph Green
