Re: [Marxism] Capitalism and under-development

[Jeremias Zevi via Marxism]

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Louis,

As always I think you misunderstand the point of Political Marxist 
understandings of the development of capitalism.  The point is that 
while a country may be subject to the vicissitudes of a world capitalist 
market (if one even exists at the historical conjuncture examined, which 
at 1920 one can certainly assume), and the pressures of the relativity 
(late) development of the internal relations of capitalism outside of 
England, the Congo is precapitalist precisely because the Congolese were 
not yet market dependent (The peasants were not workers, thus for sure, 
the "native" landowners were not market dependent).  The horrific 
relations of non-capitalist imperialism and colonialism, even if 
somewhat undertaken through capitalist fdi of Belgium (?, I'm assuming 
there was some), does not mean that the Conogolise depended on the 
market for subsistence.  Quite the contrary, the description quoted 
would seem to describe the process of "early" primitive accumulation in 
the Congo, but this is not quite the formal subsumption of labour to 
capital, and for sure not the real subsumption.  So, in short, while the 
end product was a capitalist commodity (tire), the way the commodity was 
produced was not through either absolute surplus value extraction and 
was for sure not through relative surplus value extraction, thus the way 
the "surplus was pumped out of the producers" was not capitalist surplus 
value extraction, precisely because those who got the rubber were not 
workers, the way that capitalist social relations use labour.  Ten 
million Cologolise can die in pre-capitalist imperialism and 
colonialism, and as part of the historical development of the 
"world-system" of capitalism, but this does not mean that the ten 
million died under capitalist social relations in the Congo.



in sol,
Jeremias

On 2017-07-02 13:26, marxism-requ...@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:
Message: 7 Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2017 21:07:10 -0400 From: Louis Proyect 
 To: marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Subject: Re: 
[Marxism] Capitalism and under-development Message-ID: 
<05f4c956-3613-c175-aed3-ca9812426...@panix.com> Content-Type: 
text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 7/1/17 8:19 PM, Philip 
Ferguson via Marxism wrote:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/how-capitalism-under-develops-the-world-2/

"The Belgian colony of Congo offered one of the most elaborate ?models?,
so to speak, of colonial exploitation ? a ?model? nevertheless quite
comparable to what was going on in the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. The
Congo was turned into a huge labour camp ruled by terror. A common
practice when farmers failed to collect enough rubber from wild rubber
trees, was to take their families hostage, or to kill them and put their
severed hands on display in the village as a warning. It was estimated
that over the 4 decades until 1920, ten million Africans died in the
Belgian Congo ? half of the initial population. Over the same period,
companies exploiting concessions which often covered tens of thousands
of square miles, multiplied their original investments 20-fold!"


I was always appalled me by the tendency for the Political Marxists to
describe the Congo as "precapitalist" because labor was based on
coercion rather than markets.

What do you think the rubber was being used for? Automobile tires,
that's what. Without forced labor in the Congo, Belgium would not have
been able to supply tires to Renault.

In a word, Political Marxism has failed to understand capitalism
dialectically.


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[Marxism] Capitalism and the Brenner thesis

[Jeremias Zevi via Marxism]

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Another thing that Louis, amongst other critics of the Brenner thesis 
tend to obviate though, is that yes, lease farming would have and did 
have an enormous impact on the world, the emergent industrial capitalism 
of England in the 1800s, was built on the back of the agricultural 
capitalism of England (1688-late 1700s), which itself was created 
through the emergence of agrarian capital (1400-1688).  It was the 
agricultural capitalism which the physicrats and Germans including Hegel 
noticed, but little understood.  Smith himself is just 100 years more of 
capitalist development which Bacon and Locke had long noticed (not to 
mention Moore and Thomas Smith).  Neither the Americas, slavery, nor 
China touched off the development of capitalism.  For political 
Marxists, the point is that due to the unique form of class struggle 
(unless one posits a transhistorical development, all class struggle is 
unique) in England, developed the unintended consequence of capitalist 
social relations (not wage labour mind you, but the very control that 
capitalists have over labour-power).  England's "primitive accumulation" 
was the original accumulation of capital (not the original accumulation 
of property, given that Marx himself noted that property is always a 
political relationship, and property long pre-existed capitalism), but 
that in order to develop control over surplus value, capital needed to 
rule labour-power, which itself is a process.  That is, it is not 
overnight that this change can be made.  This was a development of the 
surplus extraction of the landed aristocracy over their ex-peasants.  
(The market of leases owned by the landed aristocracy, leased land to 
the tenant-farmers, who hired servants-in-husbandry and day-laboruers to 
work under the tenant-farmers to "improve" the land.  What makes 
political Marxism distinctive is its insistence that capitalism is 
always a loss for those who become workers, for if they only have their 
labour-power to bring to the market, labourers without any other 
recourse to means of subsistence must sell themselves on the impersonal 
demands of the market.  This is what primitive accumulation was, the 
taking away, not of property, but access to means of subsistence.  
Furthermore, if the development of capitalism is always a loss for the 
workers, political Marxism refocuses the development of capitalism on 
the people who were the first capitalists:  the landed aristocracy of 
England.



Unfortunately I find that many critics of Political Marxism tend to not 
understand the basic arguments made.  Blaut's article, and, e.g., 
Davidson as well, missread and argue the contrary of what Brenner 
actually writes.


On 2018-08-18 14:00, marxism-requ...@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2018 10:28:59 -0700
From: Ralph Johansen
To:marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Capitalism and the Brenner thesis
Message-ID:<6e1d5bc6-112b-efe0-d4a3-98b3af931...@charter.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

Louis Proyect wrote

Was slavery a "factor"? V. 1 of Capital and Engels's "Conditions of the
Working Class in England" are largely examinations of the textile mills
with the first book constructing a theory based on their workings and
the second an empirical look at working class life.

There are three essential elements in the production of surplus value:
labor, raw materials and machinery. Without cotton, could England have
developed what most people regard as fully realized capitalism? Would
lease farming in the 15th century in and of itself led to England ruling
the planet?

To even pose the question shows how flawed Political Marxism is.


Lou, there weren't slaves in America until 19 or so were brought in to
Virginia in 1619. They weren't of course brought in to plant cotton for
the mills of Lancaster. That all occurred after the period Robert
Brenner and Spencer Dimmock are concerned with as the period of the
origins of capitalism. 1400-1600. As I understand it, it wasn't until
the late 17th and 18th century that cotton from the Americas became a
factor in English capitalist production.

And what's that got to do with political Marxism? I first read Brenner's
argument in NLR in the 70s. I didn't concern myself with his particular
Marxist orientation. I was following the development of the thesis he
was laying out. I did the same with his several critics and his
subsequent responses. I came to the conclusion that Brenner was spot on.

Political Marxism is another subject. We could go there as well. I know
you've written 

[Marxism] Defiant Resistance: The Venezuelan Crises and the Possibility of Another World

[Jeremias Zevi via Marxism]

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https://socialistproject.ca/2019/04/defiant-resistance-the-venezuelan-crises-and-the-possibility-of-another-world/?fbclid=IwAR0eA0Dmf8LZhTMttkThnB4pn-KB6abwuDN2pIRoHJe_MTdFPj_e1OTM5aE


Bob Dylan once said, “Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting 
late.” February 23rd, 2019, was the day that Juan Guaidó, the 
self-proclaimed President of Venezuela, had “authorized” “humanitarian 
aid” to enter Venezuela, an attempt to force the Maduro government, and 
thus the Venezuelan people, to their knees. There is great urgency as an 
ever-increasing escalation of violence is being perpetuated by those who 
would destroy Venezuela, including several attacks on Venezuela’s 
electrical grid over the last few weeks. But let me be clear: the 
Venezuelan poor are resilient, and any change will be on their terms. 
Most importantly, Venezuelan politics is collective, and there is a deep 
form of solidarity across communities along with an abiding interest in 
building a different form of politics. In short, if one does not unearth 
this collective politics, one cannot understand what is happening in 
Venezuela.


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