Jim B. writes: >I don't think there was an agricultural revolution in England. There was agricultural EVOlution in harmony with other changes taking place, but not as [a]n important causal force.< Now that's an interesting position. There was no AgRev in the UK? To means that there was no _enclosure movement_ -- i.e., no radical change in rural property rights away from (1) the "feudal" situation where property rights were mixed with political rights and shared in a complex and often ambiguous way between the lords and the direct producers to (2) the capitalist situation where the political and economic dimensions of property relations were separated and the landlords claimed the land as their "private" property, rendering the direct producers propertyless. (It is useful at this point to read William Lazonick, "Karl Marx and Enclosures in England," REVIEW OF RADICAL POLITICAL ECONOMICS, vol. 6, no. 2, Summer 1974, pp. 1 - 59.) _Of course_ REVolution and EVolution are always mixed. The enclosure movement happened (or, rather, was imposed) in an uneven way, hitting different areas at different times, depending on the power of peasant resistance and the nature of the crops being grown (and other "natural" conditions). There are, I am told, still areas of the UK where enclosure was never completed (or at least there were 45 years ago or so, which is "today" by long-term historical standards). But the role of qualitative change should be acknowledged along with the quantitative change. Or in the language of mainstream social science, change co-exists with continuity. Of course, change and continuity describe different aspects of the dynamic process. For example, it seems to me that a theory of gradual change (which emphasizes continuity) might be validly applied to issues of agricultural technology. However, a theory of structural change applies to issues of radical changes in property rights. Why is it that you presume that enclosure played no causal role? (I dropped the word "important," since it seems like nothing but a weasel word. Admit it: you see anything that occured in the UK as simply an epiphenomenon of that country's exploitation of the third world, which is nothing but a mirror image of those who blame only the AgRev, seeing colonial expansion as merely an epiphenomenon of the AgRev.) Do you have a theory and evidence that suggests that the autonomous changes in the English countryside involving radical changes in property relations never ever played a role? (Wallerstein notes the importance of rural class struggles. Shouldn't you?) BTW, what _is_ your general theoretical framework that guides your research and tells you what kind of questions to ask and how to weight different kinds of evidence? Correct me if I am wrong in my impression that you are an empiricist, simply marshalling information to justify your position. That's okay by me (if it's so), but you have to realize the limits of empiricism. Empiricists are great at finding information, but that's different from understanding it. > Nor is Brenner's pseudo-class analysis of any help. To claim that capitalism was invented by English tenant farmers is just wrong. And as he himself says, they weren't struggling against anybody. He's confusing the much earlier class struggle of serfs with nobles.< My impression is that Brenner does NOT claim that "capitalism was invented by English tenant farmers" (though I'm sure that he admits that some tenant farmers became capitalists). Rather, my impression is that he generally goes along with Marx's analysis, in which capitalism was "invented" because the powers that were (semifeudalized lords, etc.) privatized what had been nonprivate property (property of the sort I referred to above). The "much earlier struggle of serfs with nobles" is of course the origins of the enclosure movement (though Marx mentions such stuff as the grabbing of Church and Royal lands in the Reformation and the Civil War). This set the stage for _some_ tenant capitalists to engange in _some_ technological innovation and the like. Again the question of "what is heck do we mean by capitalism?" comes up. I can't see how Brenner, given _his_ definition of capitalism, could put anything close to the kind of emphasis on tenant farmers that you attribute to him. Maybe it makes sense given _your_ definition of capitalism, but unlike with Brenner, I've never seen you define that term. BTW, I'm all in favor of criticizing Brenner (and a lot of useful stuff came out of criticism of his most recent book). But this kind of dismissal isn't useful. As I've said, I also find unicausal theories (either "exploitation of the colonies did it" or "the AgRev did it") to be too abstract. As I argued, the real process of history can only be understood as a multicausal and dynamic process. Michael P. says we should call the whole thing off (since you say ToMAHto and I say ToMAYto). I guess we can just agree to disagree, but I think issues such as the meaning of the term "capitalism" and the issues of empiricism and unicausal theories are important. All of these help us understand what's going on. For example, in A.G. Frank's early work, "capitalism" simply referred to market relations (as it did to Sweezy at the time). This definition suggests a completely different emphasis in politics than (say) Brenner's definition in terms of class relations. A market-oriented definition suggests that central planning is the be-all and end-all of socialism (as Sweezy once defined it), while a class-oriented definition says that democratic control over those in power (including central planners) is crucial to the full flowering of socialism. (Your definition of capitalism, whatever it is, has its own implications about the meaning of socialism.) Defining the nature of socialism (you know, the society we'd like to see) should be a central question to socialists. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/~JDevine
