When did capitalism emerge as a distinct sociopolitical system?

[Tzadikim]

I've been reading a great deal about the de Medicis of medieval Florence, and it seems like their little Republic was like seed containing all the forces that would soon erupt in Europe: a commitment to individualism, religious tolerance, a market economy. There are differences between their system and modern capitalism, to be sure, but it seems that the very basic structure was already in place.

This tells me that at least the idea of modern liberalism was already in embryo by the period which we periodize as 'the Renaissance'. The thing is, I'm hardly a historical buff, which is probably a mark against me in my line of work. Are there any previous examples of capitalist societies forming piecemeal previous to that period?

We can extend the question further back: I know for instance that the structure of feudalism was in place well before the disposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476. The Roman slaveholding system had long since given way to a more localized 'manorialism'; all that was needed to fully transition into the era we recognize as the Dark Ages was the fall of the Empire as an institutional establishment. So is it fair to say that two competing systems can exist simultaneously, not in the Cold War sense (which I would consider to be, in a way, artificial), but one as the natural outgrowth of the other, persisting for some duration and still shaped to a great extent by its originator?

I ask this because I have a feeling that the work of the capitalists in their world-historical project isn't over, and likely won't be until long after any of us here have passed from living memory, capitalism itself being quite a young system (if you reckon as I do that in the United States it was fully established only after the destruction of the slave system in the South). Which isn't to say that I don't believe we ought to fight it; we should, and we do. But we need to select our battles, to deprive the enemy the satisfaction of choosing them for us. This we can do by taking a broader perspective on things, by trying to find rough analogies in other periods of history. I have a sneaking suspicion that those organizations which will one day form the backbone of the socialist order will be formed organically and pragmatically by the working class itself, not out of high idealism but by the raw attempt to survive the catastrophes of capitalism.

If my assumption is broadly right - that capitalism has only recently established itself as a durable institution, that the working class is still in the process of being 'proletarianized' - then it may very well be possible that it will endure for a duration that can be numbered in centuries, conservatively assuming that the rapid rate of its technological innovation doesn't lead to it giving rise to an alternative before then.

[Adil3tr]

I think in 1492 christopher columbus shot the starting gun to 500 years of misery.

[Reznov]

I think in 1492 christopher columbus shot the starting gun to 500 years of misery.

I think this pretty much sets the tone.

[ContrarianLemming]

Marx commented that true capitalism began in Italy, not sure when though, I just found that interesting.

[Tzadikim]

I think this pretty much sets the tone.

But I think we musn't fail to remember that, for a long time, capitalism represented the single most progressive economic force ever to emerge on the planet. And while it was certainly brutal in the methods it used to establish itself, it has been for the benefit of man in comparison to the systems that came before. The thing is, it pales in comparison to what will come.

[Hit The North]

This is pretty good discussion about the emergence of capitalism, by Chris Harman:

http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=21


Originally posted by Adil3tr
I think in 1492 christopher columbus shot the starting gun to 500 years of misery.


500 years of progress (as Tzadikim reminds us above), which always results in misery for some.

[S.Artesian]

Marx commented that true capitalism began in Italy, not sure when though, I just found that interesting.

Source, please? Marx certainly sees "proto-capitalist" relations in Florence, and other city-states, but not enough to trigger capitalist accumulation, capitalist development.

Why is that? Because of the lack of capitalist development in the surrounding countryside, in agriculture.

The transformation of agriculture occurs most thoroughly, and originally, in England. Robert Brenner's work in this area is very good.

[Kiev Communard]

Source, please? Marx certainly sees "proto-capitalist" relations in Florence, and other city-states, but not enough to trigger capitalist accumulation, capitalist development.

Why is that? Because of the lack of capitalist development in the surrounding countryside, in agriculture.

The transformation of agriculture occurs most thoroughly, and originally, in England. Robert Brenner's work in this area is very good.

The development of the "proper" capitalism began only in the 16th century, while it became a distinct social mode only in the 17th century in England and the Netherlands and in the second half of the 18th century in most other West European nations and in the Thirteen Colonies. However, its "mature" form came into being only after the Industrial Revolution.

[AK]

I swear I remember once hearing about how Muslims had capitalism before Europeans :confused:

[S.Artesian]

Don't believe it. They did not have capitalism as Marx analyzed it-- the means of production organized as private property, requiring exchange with labor power organized as wage-labor for the production of exchange values and the extraction of surplus value.

[Fulanito de Tal]

I swear I remember once hearing about how Muslims had capitalism before Europeans :confused:

Small amounts of capitalism existed throughout the world for a long time before it rose as the dominating economic model in the West.

[Kiev Communard]

I swear I remember once hearing about how Muslims had capitalism before Europeans :confused:

The Abbaside Caliphate had more in common with Roman slave-owning society (the extent of slavery and the role of slaves in economy was far higher than those of the previous - the Sassanian - period).

[the last donut of the night]

500 years of progress (as Tzadikim reminds us above), which always results in misery for some.

Yeah, like all those Indians, just "some" people.

[Hit The North]

Yeah, like all those Indians, just "some" people.

What is your point here, except to moralise in the most abject way possible?

[S.Artesian]

But I think we musn't fail to remember that, for a long time, capitalism represented the single most progressive economic force ever to emerge on the planet. And while it was certainly brutal in the methods it used to establish itself, it has been for the benefit of man in comparison to the systems that came before. The thing is, it pales in comparison to what will come.

Its, capitalism's, "progressive" economic force, is not truly "its" force, but rather is the potential for progress contained in the abolition, overthrow, negation of capitalism, with that negation itself created in every movement, every expanded circuit and moment of value.

So the "progress" some like to associate with capitalism-- reduced infant mortality, fewer deaths in childbirth, the end to Malthusian population crashes-- only comes with a couple of big ticket items attached-- one is called socialism, and the other, should that socialist ticket not be redeemed, is barbarism.

The thing is, capitalism truly does pale in comparison to what it itself will create. One way or the other.

[chegitz guevara]

Small amounts of capitalism existed throughout the world for a long time before it rose as the dominating economic model in the West.

Capitalist relations of production, the purchase of labor-power to be expended in realizing a profit from exchange, has existed alongside slavery and feudalism for thousands of years. Here and there, trader republics (Ankara, Ragusa, Novgorod, the Hanseatic League, the Italian republics) might have briefly established themselves, where the ruling class might have been the bourgeoisie, but the dominent mode of production was based on slavery or feudalism, and they made most of their profit by moving goods from a place where the social surplus value contained in an item was low to one where it was high.

The first country where capitalism as the dominant mode of production established itself was probably the Dutch Republic, in the 16th Century, though the various independent lowland statelets may have preceded that be a few hundred years. This was followed soon after by England.

[this is an invasion]

Small pox is progress!

[S.Artesian]

Smallpox is a virus. The deliberate spreading of smallpox among indigenous people by colonizers, traders, expropriators was barbarism. The creation of a vaccine against smallpox was progress.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Just out of curiousity: how do you define "barbarism"? And, for that matter, "progress"?

[anticap]

... is it fair to say that two competing systems can exist simultaneously, ... one as the natural outgrowth of the other, persisting for some duration and still shaped to a great extent by its originator?

This doesn't really address your question, but Richard Wolff argues that systems can and do exist within one another. As one example, he likens traditional marriage to feudalism (by process of elimination) after examining the household through the lens of Marxian class analysis. He then talks about how this feudal class arrangement relates to the capitalist one that it exists within, and how the two do influence each other.

I haven't read it, but I believe that this particular example is laid out most thoroughly in chapter 8 of New Departures in Marxian Theory. I heard it while watching his series of lectures on Marxian class analysis (http://rdwolff.com/content/marxian-class-analysis-theory-and-practice-online-course) where he simplifies the argument (it's in part 4 (http://blip.tv/file/3665542), but he gives examples of other simultaneous class arrangements elsewhere in the series).

[S.Artesian]

Just out of curiousity: how do you define "barbarism"? And, for that matter, "progress"?

Slaughtering people for profit is barbarism. Progress is enhancing health, longevity, welfare, education, etc.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Is slaughtering people for reasons other than profit barbarism?

[AK]

Don't believe it. They did not have capitalism as Marx analyzed it-- the means of production organized as private property, requiring exchange with labor power organized as wage-labor for the production of exchange values and the extraction of surplus value.
So what exactly were they lacking in?

[FreeFocus]

As the descendant of "some" of those people for whom capitalism's "progress" brought misery, I will say fuck off. It certainly isn't abject moralizing, considering the deaths of millions, ethnic cleansing, and possibly the worst loss of human diversity in terms of languages and cultures in history. Moreover, is that the type of world you'd like to create, where you remove the human experience, the human condition, human feelings and aspirations from consideration? If so, there's no need to create - you have a world like that now (aka, capitalism).

[S.Artesian]

So what exactly were they lacking in?

Exactly those things-- "free" dispossessed wage-labor, and the means of production and subsistence organized as property for the exchange with that wage-labor.

[S.Artesian]

Is slaughtering people for reasons other than profit barbarism?

Not interested in word games. The topic is capitalism as a distinct social system.

[AK]

Exactly those things-- "free" dispossessed wage-labor, and the means of production and subsistence organized as property for the exchange with that wage-labor.
Makes me wonder how someone ever managed to label them as 'capitalist'.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Not interested in word games. The topic is capitalism as a distinct social system.

Word games? I thought that it was a pretty simple question.

[Queercommie Girl]

I swear I remember once hearing about how Muslims had capitalism before Europeans :confused:

That is true to a certain extent. In China and the Islamic World, proto-capitalist relations emerged before they did in Europe, but the prevalent and relatively advanced Asian feudal socio-economic structures prevented the further development of capitalism. Rather, capitalism first emerged in a comprehensive sense at where feudalism was at its "weakest link" (a capitalist version of Lenin's theory), namely Western Europe.

[S.Artesian]

Makes me wonder how someone ever managed to label them as 'capitalist'.

There's a whole "school" out there that labels every trading nation, city-state, of the past as capitalist.

[AK]

There's a whole "school" out there that labels every trading nation, city-state, of the past as capitalist.
And that is...?

(I really have no clue when it comes to these things)

[S.Artesian]

And that is...?

(I really have no clue when it comes to these things)


Wallerstein, Gunder Frank, Braudel... "world systems" advocates.

[the last donut of the night]

What is your point here, except to moralise in the most abject way possible?

Not at all. I was just responding to your claim that the beginning of capitalism and its primitive accumulation didn't affect negatively "some" people. If modern population calculations are correct, it affected about 1/5 of humanity's population at the time (1500, around there).

[Fulanito de Tal]

That is true to a certain extent. In China and the Islamic World, proto-capitalist relations emerged before they did in Europe, but the prevalent and relatively advanced Asian feudal socio-economic structures prevented the further development of capitalism. Rather, capitalism first emerged in a comprehensive sense at where feudalism was at its "weakest link" (a capitalist version of Lenin's theory), namely Western Europe.

Weber stated that the Protestant Ethic pushed for the Spirit of Capitalism. That made accumulation of wealth a moral rule, so people had to try to get rich in order to prove their predestined seat in Heaven. This was another factor that lead to the rise of capitalism in the West.

He argued that Confucianism did not push for capitalism because to move up in the hierarchy, people had to prove their literary knowledge. Culture became the valued element, not wealth accumulation.

As far as Taosim, people didn't want to go to a heaven. The place to be in Taosim is in the psyche, so there was no need for a person to prove their predestiny through wealth accumulation.

India's caste system highly restricted social mobility, so why would anyone work harder? Also, people of Hindu faith, although not necessarily in the same manner as Confucianism, believed in being well cultured as a sign of social status.

[Queercommie Girl]

Weber stated that the Protestant Ethic pushed for the Spirit of Capitalism. That made accumulation of wealth a moral rule, so people had to try to get rich in order to prove their predestined seat in Heaven. This was another factor that lead to the rise of capitalism in the West.

Partly true. In China and Indian the passive and relatively lazy ethics promoted by Buddhism hindered the development of the merchantile spirit.

You could say that in China the capitalists didn't emerge because they were "choked by petit-landlord culture" (like Chan Buddhism). Just like in the West it is more difficult for revolutionary socialism to develop due to the prevalence of petit-bourgeois culture. This ties in with Lenin's "weakest link" theory since feudalism was more advanced in Asia and modern capitalism is more advanced in the West.

[S.Artesian]

Weber stated that the Protestant Ethic pushed for the Spirit of Capitalism. That made accumulation of wealth a moral rule, so people had to try to get rich in order to prove their predestined seat in Heaven. This was another factor that lead to the rise of capitalism in the West.

Cart before the horse. The emerging bourgeoisie, requiring alienable wealth, wealth that could only be accumulated through exchange, through maximizing surplus, pushed that "spirit."

[Fulanito de Tal]

In China and Indian the passive and relatively lazy ethics promoted by Buddhism hindered the development of the merchantile spirit.

I don't think lazyness had anything to do with it. It had to do with values. People in Buddhism were focused on something else, specifically, self -awareness and -control.


Cart before the horse. The emerging bourgeoisie, requiring alienable wealth, wealth that could only be accumulated through exchange, through maximizing surplus, pushed that "spirit."

I don't understand your claim, but I think you're implying circular causation. Can you elaborate?

[Queercommie Girl]

I don't think lazyness had anything to do with it. It had to do with values. People in Buddhism were focused on something else, specifically, self -awareness and -control.


Which are idealistic goals that had little to do with improving concrete productivity and living standards.

[Aesop]

Culture does not shape material conditions. Material conditions shape culture.

[Fulanito de Tal]

Culture does not shape material conditions. Material conditions shape culture.

Please apply your statement to the discussion.

[L.A.P.]

I don't think there was ever an exact time when Capitalism became a recognized political ideology I think it just happened. Most Capitalist and people who symbolize Capitalism such as Milton Friedman are really just Libertarians and Liberals who support Capitalism so no one really calls themselves a Capitalist and nothing else.

[anticap]

For Mises, "liberalism" meant 'a system of human cooperation under the division of labor based on private ownership of the means of production,' and "capitalism" meant global liberalism, which he said emerged during the 19th-century.

Incidentally, he also said (to Rothbard, who accepted it) that capitalism exists where there is a stock market (which kicks the legs out from under the "America is not truly capitalist" argument so often employed by their idolaters).

[Aesop]

Please apply your statement to the discussion.

It is pretty self explanatory.
Meaning that no it was not weber's theory of the protestant work ethic which lead to England and the USA becoming the first countries to be recongnised as capitalist, but the protestant work ethic mantra was used to justify their development.

[Fulanito de Tal]

It is pretty self explanatory.
Meaning that no it was not weber's theory of the protestant work ethic which lead to England and the USA becoming the first countries to be recongnised as capitalist, but the protestant work ethic mantra was used to justify their development.

I understand that part, but then why did capitalism not rise in other societies?

[Technocrat]

Capitalism arose around the end of the 16th century in Holland and after that was mainly developed in America and England.

It is an "ahistorical" phenomena.

See Lewis Lapham on "the end of capitalism" By Lynn Parramore.

Or just do a search "capitalism + holland"

[Technocrat]

It is pretty self explanatory.
Meaning that no it was not weber's theory of the protestant work ethic which lead to England and the USA becoming the first countries to be recongnised as capitalist, but the protestant work ethic mantra was used to justify their development.

Calvinism and Capitalism in the Netherlands, 1555 - 1700:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1899418

[Queercommie Girl]

I understand that part, but then why did capitalism not rise in other societies?

Capitalism did develop independently in East Asia. The Lanfang Republic was the first capitalist state that was formed in Asia, it was created by Han Chinese migrants in Indonesia.

But East Asian capitalist development lagged behind European capitalism by around 200 years. When East Asia was still in its indigenous "early capitalist" era, European capitalism was already becoming imperialist. In 1888, the Dutch conquered the Chinese Lanfang Republic, thus destroying the last vestige of an "indigenous capitalism" independent from European imperialism and colonialism.

[Technocrat]

Capitalism did develop independently in East Asia. The Lanfang Republic was the first capitalist state that was formed in Asia, it was created by Han Chinese migrants in Indonesia.

But East Asian capitalist development lagged behind European capitalism by around 200 years. When East Asia was still in its indigenous "early capitalist" era, European capitalism was already becoming imperialist. In 1884, the Dutch conquered the Chinese Lanfang Republic, thus destroying the last vestige of an "indigenous capitalism" independent from European imperialism and colonialism.

This is interesting. Do you have any recommended reading on this?

[Queercommie Girl]

This is interesting. Do you have any recommended reading on this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanfang_Republic
http://www.asiawind.com/hakka/lanfang.htm
http://www.suite101.com/content/history-of-the-lanfang-republic-a104128


By the 1770s there were some 20,000 Chinese in West Kalimantan. At the time, Dutch influence in Borneo was still small and the sultans mostly kept to the coastal areas. Low Lan Pak was able to establish his own inland mining settlement (called a kongsi, or company).


After successfully offering assistance to a local sultan against a rival, Low Lan Pak found his popularity soaring at the age of 57. Other Hakka from the area began to seek his protection and Low Lan Pak established the first republic in Asia in 1777. He himself declined to be crowned sultan and instead took a presidential position. This is also considered to be the first Chinese republic.

[Aesop]

I understand that part, but then why did capitalism not rise in other societies?

Well it certainly was not due to some supernatural force or some work ethic that the English, US populace had. It was down to material conditions such as free labour(primitive exploitation i.e slavery), relative isolation from other 'great' powers among other factors.
If the protestant work ethic was the key to the initial development of capitalism how come hungary, switzerland or even scotland become beacon of capitalism and economic might.
In addition as marxists we recognise that the base creates the superstructure, not the other way around. Meaning that protestantism was used as justification for these countries advanced economic development, rather than it actually creating capitalism.

[Hit The North]

It is an "ahistorical" phenomena.


How can it be ahistorical? This would mean that capitalism has always existed.


Originally posted by Douglas
I understand that part, but then why did capitalism not rise in other societies? This is how Marx summarises it:


The starting point of the development that gave rise to the wage labourer as well as to the capitalist, was the servitude of the labourer. The advance consisted in a change of form of this servitude, in the transformation of feudal exploitation into capitalist exploitation. To understand its march, we need not go back very far. Although we come across the first beginnings of capitalist production as early as the 14th or 15th century, sporadically, in certain towns of the Mediterranean, the capitalistic era dates from the 16th century. Wherever it appears, the abolition of serfdom has been long effected, and the highest development of the middle ages, the existence of sovereign towns, has been long on the wane.


In the history of primitive accumulation, all revolutions are epoch-making that act as levers for the capital class in course of formation; but, above all, those moments when great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled as free and “unattached” proletarians on the labour-market. The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil, is the basis of the whole process. The history of this expropriation, in different countries, assumes different aspects, and runs through its various phases in different orders of succession, and at different periods. In England alone, which we take as our example, has it the classic form.On the question of capitalism emerging in Italy, Marx writes in a footnote in the same text:


In Italy, where capitalistic production developed earliest, the dissolution of serfdom also took place earlier than elsewhere. The serf was emancipated in that country before he had acquired any prescriptive right to the soil. His emancipation at once transformed him into a free proletarian, who, moreover, found his master ready waiting for him in the towns, for the most part handed down as legacies from the Roman time. When the revolution of the world-market, about the end of the 15th century, annihilated Northern Italy’s commercial supremacy, a movement in the reverse direction set in. The labourers of the towns were driven en masse into the country, and gave an impulse, never before seen, to the petite culture, carried on in the form of gardening. (emphasis added)
So for Marx, the levers of historical change, the movement from feudalism to capitalism, are, above all, class struggles leading to the expropriation of the peasant commune and the transformation of the serf into a "free proletarian" (remembering that for Marxists the "freedom" of the proletarian is only freedom from ownership and control of his/her own means of subsistence); and a revolution in the world-market as a consequence of the discovery of the Americas and the rounding of the Southern Cape of Africa, opening quick trade routes to the East.

Obviously there may be other factors in the formation, as Marx concedes when he writes that "The history of this expropriation, in different countries, assumes different aspects, and runs through its various phases in different orders of succession, and at different periods." Nevertheless it is the key material factors, described above, which need to be in motion.

As for Weber's thesis, there is some concern about the quality of the empirical data he presents showing an affinity between protestantism and early capitalist development, but even if we accept this affinity, there are good reasons for early capitalists to convert from Catholicism to Protestantism, not least the limits Catholic teaching placed on usury: banking and credit. It was also politically compelling given the allegiance to Catholicism that was the hallmark of the feudal ruling class. Japan also gives us an example of capitalist development which takes place without the guiding influence of protestantism which highlights that perhaps material factors (Japanese feudalism) are more important determinants. Of course, this isn't to discount the material impact that ideological factors can have: once a state (like England or Holland) becomes a protestant state, the freer are capitalist relations to develop further. But it means, unlike Weber, we don't have to fall into the trap of idealism, viewing ideas as the prime cause of historical change.

[Technocrat]

How can it be ahistorical? This would mean that capitalism has always existed.

No, to say that it is a historical phenomena would be to say that capitalism has always existed.

This is just quibbling over semantics, though - we agree that capitalism has not always existed.

[Rafiq]

I swear I remember once hearing about how Muslims had capitalism before Europeans :confused:


Wasn't really the Marx definition of Capitalism. But yes, they had a Bourgios system.

That's because, back then, the Middle East was the "Bully" and they were sort of the Imperialists of that time, while the West was Poor, and in Chaos.


But the Roman empire had it before them.

To be basic, every empire had Capitalism.

[Technocrat]

Wasn't really the Marx definition of Capitalism. But yes, they had a Bourgios system.

That's because, back then, the Middle East was the "Bully" and they were sort of the Imperialists of that time, while the West was Poor, and in Chaos.


But the Roman empire had it before them.

To be basic, every empire had Capitalism.

Not really capitalism in the sense that surplus wealth and production is controlled by the market. Empires and kingdoms traditionally disdained commerce and sought greater central control over production, but the surpluses mainly went toward conspicuous consumption (building bigger palaces and such).