You are not exactly focusing on the transition from feudalism to capitalism when you introduce Jefferson's individual practice on a slave plantation in Virginia in the late 18th, early 19th century. The "improvement," and accounting practices adopted/adapted by Jefferson are just that-- adopted and adapted and not from feudal agriculture, but from the development of agricultural capitalism in England.
That is the history, not of the transition to capitalism, the source of the social relation of capital, but of capitalism's weight in and transformation of the world markets. And what you say about Locke is absolutely correct and embraces the "paucity" of capitalism in transforming social relations everywhere in its own "perfect image," leaning, relying, molding, and maintaining plantation and plantation type production in the name of the greatest of goods-- the sanctity of private property. Locke is the philosopher of 17th century emerging capitalism. He certainly was no Adam Smith. Industrial capitalism does not spring full blown from anybody's forehead. As I stated before, capitalism is not a homunculus, existing as a perfectly formed midget-- a social "mini- me," waiting for enough gold, sugar, tobacco, tulips to be pumped through its system to emerge in a Superman costume from a Clark Kent suit. Thanks for the advice. I am really quite used to capital's contradictions, and think I do a fairly OK job of teasing apart the strands of those contradictions (of course, that's a self-evaluation, and others might have more stringent criteria for a passing grade in this area). Nevertheless the reason I can "accept" and apprehend, to whatever degree, capital's contradiction is because I'm pretty sure I grasp the fundamental contradiction at the core of capital; that between the means of production organized as private property which can only survive as capital to the degree that it exchanges itself with wage-labor; each exists only in opposite identity, in the organization of the other. For that to occur, labor must be separate for any use, save its use in exchange. It, labor has to be separated from the conditions of labor, from the means of subsistence. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 1:48 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] What Marx meant by primitive accumulation > sartesian wrote: > > >Move the discussion of improvement forward, for the US, and you will see > >where Jefferson's, or the plantation "productivity," ends, it runs up > >against its limits, limits that at the same time prevent it, based on > >internal dynamics, internal class relations, from transforming itself > >into modern agricultural production units. > > > > > > But I am focusing on the transition from feudalism to capitalism. If the > plantation system in North America was a more backward mode of > production than the one found in the mother country, then perhaps a > crown victory over Jefferson and Washington would have been more > "progressive". I find all sorts of inconsistencies in the Brenner-Wood > approach. When Wood writes about John Locke in the British context, he > is the quintessential bourgeois philosopher of "improvement". But in the > New World, he helps to draft the constitution of the Carolina colony, > which enshrines private property in slaves. > > None of this is difficult to understand if you accept the early stages > of capitalism as combining markets, wage labor and "extra-economic" > factors. It is only when you try to superimpose current understandings > of capitalism, with its high degree of relative surplus value, upon the > past that you get into trouble. This is not to speak of modern day > capitalist societies that depended almost exclusively on extra-economic > coercion. This includes just about all of colonial Africa. > > When Cecil Rhodes set up the trading monopoly for Rhodesia, he used the > bylaws of the 17th century East India Company as a model. This was the > same Cecil Rhodes who Lenin singled out as an examplar of the *latest* > stage of capitalism. Marxism is all about contradiction and you'd better > get used to it. >
