Jim Devine wrote:
I think the passage from Engels reflects the fact that he and Marx learned their economic history at first from Hegel.
But the writings of Marx and Engels are shot through with formulations that go against the grain of the Brenner thesis. Here's another: "The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development." --Communist Manifesto I guess that Marx and Engels were disoriented from reading Henri Pirenne or something.
