Blaut and his followers seem to see this kind of story as being somehow "Eurocentric" even though it's based on luck -- and as JKS suggests, there's nothing good about foisting capitalism on the world, so it doesn't made Europe look good vis-a-vis non-Europe. To my mind, a Blautian criticism that rejects theories as "Eurocentric" would point to a genetic and/or a cultural explanation as central to those theories. And it might praise non-European areas for _not_ developing capitalism, especially if capitalism isn't some sort of prerequisite for the development of a future humane society (socialism).
You are superimposing a value system on Jim Blaut that he never really subscribed to. He never wrote about how "evil" capitalism was. He assumed that his readers accepted this. He was much more interested in correcting the historical record. This was a scholarly endeavor that involved a critical look at the Oriental Mode of Production and other problematic aspects of Marxist discourse both past and present. This was a debate within Marxism.
When he wrote about people such as Jared Diamond or William McNeill, the emphasis was more on the value of Marxism as an explanatory tool as opposed to strictly technological or climatological interpretations that omitted the class struggle. My review of "8 Eurocentric Historians" can be read at:
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/origins/blaut.htm
Also, unlike Marx, Lenin. and modern Marxian political economy, Blaut and his followers seem to conflate markets with capitalism.
This is not correct. Blaut was not about "markets". He was simply pointing out that commodity production was generalized throughout the world in the late middle ages. There was nothing unique about rural England, as has been pointed out by Kenneth Pomeranz in "The Great Divergence".
On the last, someone on the list said that the idea that antebellum Southern slavery is "not very controversial." It is with me. Slavery -- even when embedded within a capitalist social formation and dominated internationally by capitalist social relations -- is not capitalist. It is not an example of the capitalist mode of production.
Well, with this definition, neither was Junkers Germany or Meiji Restoration Japan. As a rule of thumb, if the bourgeoisie cannot produce commodities with the ready stock of free ex-farmers, it will enslave them or a ready-made substitute.
I hope that this was not overly "volatile". I am afraid that some people might find my thoughts rather than my language objectionable. For this, I apologize in advance.
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