Louis Proyect wrote:
Btw, Ken Lawrence's citation was right. I just referred to the wrong one.
The footnote I provided originally from V. 1 of Capital was his citation
for this:
"Although we come across the first beginnings of capitalist production as
early as the 14th or 15th century, sporadically, in certain towns of the
Mediterranean, the capitalistic era dates from the 16th century."
That is from Capital. It states categorically that capitalism appeared as
early as the 14th or 15th century in certain towns of the Mediterranean.
Hmmm. Sounds like Marx didn't grasp the Brenner thesis.
This is a different quote, but it is hardly controversial. It says
something completely different from being a critique of Brenner.
Most of those early capitalist towns didn't go much at all beyond
purely merchant or money-dealing capitalism because of their being
immersed in a countryside dominated by precapitalist relations of
production:
1. They didn't have an adequate supply of free-floating proletarian
labor, while the workers were often semi-proletarians who could fall
back on their own plots of land upon which they could support
themselves. This situation was why political economists complained
that paying "too much" money would make workers "insolent and lazy"
(quoted on p. 615 in the International Publisher's edition of volume
1).
2. In addition and in conjunction, in many of those towns, the source
of purely proletarian labor was squelched by guild organization.
(Though apprentices were mistreated by today's standards, they had a
chance of becoming journeymen and then masters, running the guild.)
3. The cities also lacked much a market for their wares. In volume 1,
chapter 30, Marx argued that the separation of the rural proletarians
from direct access to the means of subsistence (e.g., a plot of land)
created a domestic market for industry.
In Marx and Brenner, the primitive accumulation of capital involved
the expropriation of the rural direct producers, creating a pool of
free-floating proletarians who were dependent on the market to get
their means of subsistence (creating the domestic market). It also
allowed the creation of new industrial towns (such as Manchester?)
away from the older guild-ridden towns.
As for "the capitalistic era dates from the 16th century," that fits
with the rest of Marx's work. I don't think it contradicts Brenner
(though I don't have any of his stuff here). The meaning depends on
what the word "capitalistic" means. There's capitalistic in the sense
of "using money to make more money" (M - M', M' > M). But there's also
capitalistic in the sense of a full-blown system of industrial
capitalism.
The capitalistic era (in the first sense) preceded that in the second
sense of the work, i.e., the full blossoming of the capitalist weed as
a societal mode of production (the real subjection of labor by
capital). The early capitalistic era involved merchant capital (M - C
- M' with M' > M) and money-dealing capital (M - M' with M' > M). It
did not involve capitalist industrial production (M - C - ... P... C'
- M').
How did merchant capital -- buying low and selling high -- and
money-dealing capital -- lending at interest -- get a profit (M' > M)
without there being industrial capital (hiring proletarian labor as
there main source of surplus)? By dealing with people involved in
non-capitalist modes of production, including slavery, feudalism, and
petty production. Using the power of the non-capitalist modes (such as
the feudal system's direct use of coercion), they could take advantage
of price differences and capture some of the surplus produced under
non-capitalist conditions. (It wasn't surplus_value_ until capital
took over.)
--
Jim Devine / "Because things are the way they are, things will not
stay the way they are." -- Bertolt Brecht
