Re: Re: RE: Capitalism as slavery and colonialism

[Jim Devine]

At 11:31 AM 10/26/00 -0400, you wrote:
> >But why would having developed capitalism be a credit to Europe? What's so
>chauvinistic about saddling Europe with
> >having created the most comprehensive system of exploitation and oppression
> >devised by human beings? Are we to credit Europe's conquered subjects with
> >having created capitalism?
> >
> >Andrew Austin
> >Green Bay, WI
>
>These questions would have more punch if we weren't dealing with an
>widespread academic Menshevik milieu which views capitalism as being a step
>up in the evolutionary ladder.

Who are these academic Mensheviks?

If there are such folks -- who included Marx himself during most of his 
career -- it's easy to separate the "capitalism is good" proposition from 
"capitalism in its fullest form first arose in the English countryside" 
proposition. Looking at capitalism -- as Marx defined it, as involving 
"doubly free" direct producers -- from outside of Europe, it appears as a 
plague (reversing the "capitalism is good" thesis), then we can see Brenner 
as saying that the English countryside is the source of one of humanity's 
major sources of horror.


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine