> I don't understand why it's not possible to think that the > combination of internal changes within Europe plus imperialism > combined to produce capitalism as we know it. Why is such a > passionate matter of either/or dispute? > Doug > >>>>> > > Looks to me like the subtext to the essentiality of > colonialism argument is that capitalism itself is > not a stage of historical progress, relative to > its predecessors, but merely a different form of > the same underlying misery and oppression. > > No progress means little scope for reform, You could say this is one of the subtexts; as Bairoch sees it "if the exploitation of the Third World had been the main cause of or even only a major factor in the Industrial Revolution ... this would entail a very significant consequence...it would imply that economic development requires the exploitation of other large regions to succeed and, since the Third World could not fulfil these conditions today, it implies the impossibility of its economic development. Therefore it is very fortunate that the experience of the West shows that a process of development is possible without exploitation of other regions". But this is not my subtext. For me it has to do with the pattern of world history. The 50/50 happy middle Doug Henwood wonders about can never be an answer, and not just because this is a wholly inaccurrate way of accessing the role of different sectors of the economy, but because "internal changes" include a lot more than economics. And even the role of internal *economic* changes as such includes a whole range of exciting issues like the so-called 'agricultural revolution', technology and the use of new source of energy, population dynamics and diminishing returns, living standards and the home market.
