Listen Mr. Grouchy, it is not a matter of Ellen Meiksins Wood meeting a content
quota. She wrote a book called "The Origin of Capitalism", it is published by
Monthly Review, it enters into a debate that has a long history in Marxist
thought, and raises issues that are at the very heart of Marxist theory. Some
think that there are even more important implications: "only by understanding
capitalism's beginning, can we imagine the possibility of it ending" to
paraphrase the book jacket.
It matters in all kinds of ways. It may not be related to certain current policy
issues (although the argument can be made that some of the issues are), but
these are important issues for Marxists and others inspired by Marx, historians,
political economists, etc., to debate.
Of course, Wood's main target are those approaches that make capitalism out to
be natural, inevitable, etc. But that is anything but the Williams-Rodney view.
I just can't understand why anyone, especially a Marxist, looking at the topic
would choose to virtually ignore the whole literature. Is it not even worthy of
consideration or refutation? Apparently not.
Doug:
----I really don't understand the point of all this. Is Ellen Wood an
insufficient enemy of capitalism because her book doesn't meet some
sort of content quota? How does all this really matter? Maybe it
does; I'm all ears.
