The transition from feudalism to capitalism

[Teacher]

Anyone have any thoughts on the debate among Marxist historians on the transition from feudalism to capitalism?

The first major debate on the subject was between Maurice Dobb and Paul Sweezy. Dobb basically argued that capitalism arose because of "internal" struggles and conflicts within the feudal societies whereas Paul Sweezy placed more importance on the external influences of world trade, growing merchant class, etc.

In the 1970s Robert Brenner initiated more debate on this subject in a famous article in which he gave a critique of the fashionable "world systems" theorists such as Immanuel Wallerstein and Andre Gunder Frank. Brenner argued that capitalism emerged in rural England due to the unique social-property relations that emerged there. Brenner is still around and defending his thesis. Another historian named Ellen Meiksins Wood is also an avid defender of the Brenner thesis.

More recently, there has been a spate of books that take "anti-Eurocentrism" as their premise and are generally critical of the Marxist historical tradition that regards internal European developments as primarily important in the transition to capitalism. Many of these "anti-Eurocentric" historians are not really Marxists at all.

What do you guys think? Was capitalism the result of "internal" or "external" factors? Did it originate in the towns or the countryside? Was it a European or a global phenomenon? Is capitalism simply "growing commercialization" or does it refer to a specific set of social-property relations and economic "laws of motion"?

[Pavlov's House Party]

I'd say it was a result of both, but European colonialism was a huge catalyst; merchants had existed in Europe since cities first came about, and the centralization of the European monarchies in the late Middle Ages gave various European states the strength and money to expand overseas, most notably to the New World and coastal Africa. The Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica, the French and British colonization of North America and Portugese and Dutch colonialism in Africa led to a huge influx of wealth and a highly developed trade infrastructure back in Europe where the merchant class was now becoming more wealthy than the aristocracy. With its wealth, the capitalist class was more powerful; many of the British colonies founded in North America were actually private charters funded by venture capitalists rather than state sponsored expeditions.

So now the capitalists were acquiring more and more wealth and consequently more power than the aristocracy, but were still powerless in terms of political affairs. From this basis it's pretty obvious to see why capitalists all over Europe, with exceptions in Eastern Europe & Russia, would want to get rid of Feudalism as they were becoming the dominant class; monarchies all over Europe were incredibly indebted to a lot of these proto-capitalists to fund their wars.

[Blake's Baby]

As capitalism developed in Europe it would be hard to claim that it wasn't a Eurocentric phenomenon.

But, in this context, what is capitalism? I'd argue capitalism was developing in England and the Low Countries long before the Europeans reached the New World. The Hundred Years War, for instance, was inextricably linked with the wool-trade between England and Flanders, itself based on commodity production and wage labour; that doesn't mean capitalism as a regional system was established by that point but it was strongly developing. The replacement of feudal dues (services rendered) by cash payments in lieu accelerated between 1350-1450, signalling a shift to a cash economy.

Likewise finance capital was developing partly as a result of Italian (particularly Venetian) trading interests with the Arab world. Again, the development of Italian and German banking houses is only partly explicable in terms of the New World because it began before 1492.

The factory system also predates the conquest of the Americas. The combination of all of these factors to produce the capitalist development of Europe obviously is later but all of the factors were already in place and developing after 1350.

[S.Artesian]

I'm with Brenner. Capitalism in agriculture has to precede the development of capitalism in generally. Only in that way is enough labor released, and can be sustained, to break the feudal demographic "trap."

[Jose Gracchus]

The Brenner thesis claims that capitalism emerged from the specific mutation in agricultural relations in England. I think Jairus Banaji and the critical response (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004237) have really undermined the "hard" claims underlying the Brenner thesis, myself.

[Kadir Ateş]

What do you guys think? Was capitalism the result of "internal" or "external" factors? Did it originate in the towns or the countryside? Was it a European or a global phenomenon? Is capitalism simply "growing commercialization" or does it refer to a specific set of social-property relations and economic "laws of motion"?

One has to locate the growth of capitalism as it begins to "commodify" the commons in England, not through, as Henri Pirenne argues, the medieval city as site of commercial activity.

I'm also with Brenner.

[A Marxist Historian]

Anyone have any thoughts on the debate among Marxist historians on the transition from feudalism to capitalism?

The first major debate on the subject was between Maurice Dobb and Paul Sweezy. Dobb basically argued that capitalism arose because of "internal" struggles and conflicts within the feudal societies whereas Paul Sweezy placed more importance on the external influences of world trade, growing merchant class, etc.

In the 1970s Robert Brenner initiated more debate on this subject in a famous article in which he gave a critique of the fashionable "world systems" theorists such as Immanuel Wallerstein and Andre Gunder Frank. Brenner argued that capitalism emerged in rural England due to the unique social-property relations that emerged there. Brenner is still around and defending his thesis. Another historian named Ellen Meiksins Wood is also an avid defender of the Brenner thesis.

More recently, there has been a spate of books that take "anti-Eurocentrism" as their premise and are generally critical of the Marxist historical tradition that regards internal European developments as primarily important in the transition to capitalism. Many of these "anti-Eurocentric" historians are not really Marxists at all.

What do you guys think? Was capitalism the result of "internal" or "external" factors? Did it originate in the towns or the countryside? Was it a European or a global phenomenon? Is capitalism simply "growing commercialization" or does it refer to a specific set of social-property relations and economic "laws of motion"?

I'm surprised to see no mention of Perry Anderson, whose books on this subject, especially "Lineages of the Absolute State," are must reading on this question.

That is presumably because his ideas are out of fashion, as he is, like Karl Marx, very "Eurocentric."

He argues brilliantly and convincingly that capitalism could *only* have arisen out of feudalism, and in fact only out of *European* feudalism, not Japanese, and certainly not out of the unique Chinese mode of production, despite its great technological achievements.

Why?

Because the Scientific Revolution was crucial to the birth of capitalism, and was possible only due to the Renaissance, which was the resurrection of the *ideological* superstructure of the Greek-Roman ancient mode of production, which was uniquely well suited to the development of scientific thought, unlike feudalism or various other of the many different pre-capitalist modes of production.

Feudalism, which has the highest productivity of agricultural labor of any pre-capitalist mode of production, provides the *economic* prerequisites, but economics by itself is not enough.

Anderson is very much on the Brenner side of the Brenner debate, but he goes far beyond Brenner and is much more profound.

As for Dobb/Sweezy, both are right and both are wrong. Both internal and external factors were vital. Certainly without the huge quantities of surplus value extracted from the rest of the world by early European colonialism, the birth of capitalism would have been very difficult if not impossible.

Basically, nowadays we naturally think of the development of capitalism as something natural and automatic. It was nothing of the kind. Without a series of lucky accidents that made the development of capitalism in Europe possible, the human race might well have staggered around in various forms of medieval darkness for millenia, indeed maybe forever.

-M.H.-

[Tim Finnegan]

Because the Scientific Revolution was crucial to the birth of capitalism, and was possible only due to the Renaissance, which was the resurrection of the *ideological* superstructure of the Greek-Roman ancient mode of production, which was uniquely well suited to the development of scientific thought, unlike feudalism or various other of the many different pre-capitalist modes of production.
To what extent is that actually the case, though, and to what extent is it merely bourgeois pomp? Certainly, I don't see how it is possible to reprise an entire ideological system when only limited expressions of it were retained- that retention itself a selective process- and in an entirely different material context. Perhaps you are not explaining it fully, or perhaps I am miscomprehending, but this all smacks of a particularly Whiggish idealism.

[S.Artesian]

He argues brilliantly and convincingly that capitalism could *only* have arisen out of feudalism, and in fact only out of *European* feudalism, not Japanese, and certainly not out of the unique Chinese mode of production, despite its great technological achievements.

Except Japanese capitalism did arise out of Japanese feudalism, or was the Meiji Restoration grafted onto Japan by an external source?




Because the Scientific Revolution was crucial to the birth of capitalism, and was possible only due to the Renaissance, which was the resurrection of the *ideological* superstructure of the Greek-Roman ancient mode of production, which was uniquely well suited to the development of scientific thought, unlike feudalism or various other of the many different pre-capitalist modes of production.
Crap. We are talking about the origin of capitalism. The origin of capitalism precedes the application of the "scientific revolution." Robert Allen in his book The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective shows that it was the relative expensiveness of wage-labor that drove the application of technology to production. Wage-labor, the essential, determining characteristic of capitalism, however preceded the application of such technologies.



Feudalism, which has the highest productivity of agricultural labor of any pre-capitalist mode of production, provides the *economic* prerequisites, but economics by itself is not enough.
More crap. Agricultural productivity in certain indigenous cultures of the Americans was greater than that of feudal Europe. Those societies did not run up against the "feudal limit" to population growth that periodically led to famine, etc.




As for Dobb/Sweezy, both are right and both are wrong. Both internal and external factors were vital. Certainly without the huge quantities of surplus value extracted from the rest of the world by early European colonialism, the birth of capitalism would have been very difficult if not impossible.
Excuse me, how were huge quantities of surplus value, extracted as value, extracted prior to capitalism. And how were those huge quantities inputted into 16th and 17th century England?



Basically, nowadays we naturally think of the development of capitalism as something natural and automatic. It was nothing of the kind. Without a series of lucky accidents that made the development of capitalism in Europe possible, the human race might well have staggered around in various forms of medieval darkness for millenia, indeed maybe forever.
Speak for yourself. We don't. Without the "series of lucky accidents" maybe the human race as a race would have been spared the staggering around in the blood and filth of primitive accumulation. What you call "lucky accidents" are by your own arguments, the dispossession of thousands of small agricultural producers, the destruction of numerous indigenous cultures where communalism predominated, the death of millions through exposures to pathogens to which they had almost no resistance, the deaths of millions through the Atlantic Slave trade.

It's enough to make me look kindly on the Ottoman empire, for one, and to think, for another, how much better off humanity would be if the Moors had defeated the house of Aragon and Castile.

And please, don't try and justify, rationalize, this "lucky accident" of capitalism, but referring to "progress." No doubt you will, though, since your "Marxism" is indistinguishable from bourgeois political economy.

[A Marxist Historian]

To what extent is that actually the case, though, and to what extent is it merely bourgeois pomp? Certainly, I don't see how it is possible to reprise an entire ideological system when only limited expressions of it were retained- that retention itself a selective process- and in an entirely different material context. Perhaps you are not explaining it fully, or perhaps I am miscomprehending, but this all smacks of a particularly Whiggish idealism.

Well,m I'm not explaining it fully, Anderson takes about 50 pages to do it properly. Peculiarites of European history made this possible, with a thousand years of Christian monks poring over Aristotle and whatnot during the Dark Ages, having nothing better to do, instead of burning it like the fanatics wanted to in the sixth century, as with the Library of Alexandria. A historically unique development.

The trick being that the ancient mode of production of Greece and Rome, founded on agricultural slavery, created a corresponding ruling class that was *utterly* divorced from production, had lots of leisure time, was given to the life of the mind, and had a worldview not unconducive to scientific thought, unlike any other pre-capitalist ruling class.

Also property relations in Greece and Rome had a strongly commercial character, which is why "Roman law" is peculiarly congenial for capitalist property relations, and is essentially used to this day, after its rediscovery during the Renaissance.

But in every other way that mode of production was a *barrier* to the development of capitalism. Thus, the steam engine was invented in Rome in the second century A.D. I think it was, but not rediscovered and employed in production until England in the eighteenth century.

So it was the *combination* of an ideological superstructure conducive to capitalism, rediscovered through the Renaissance, with a material basis for it in feudalism, which unlike the ancient mode of production did have an internal tendency to generate capitalist relations in the medieval cities, that made possible this unlikely event, the birth of capitalism.

The very reverse of Whiggism, as Anderson *in no way* saw capitalism and/or human progress as inevitable.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Except Japanese capitalism did arise out of Japanese feudalism, or was the Meiji Restoration grafted onto Japan by an external source?

---------------------------------------------------------------

To a certain degree, yes as a matter of fact. Without Commodore Whatzsisname kicking down the doors and letting light into Tokugawa Japan, you never would have had a Meiji Restoration.

And the whole point of the Meiji Restoration was to make Japan *just like Europe.* It had an extremely imitative character. Without the European model to imitate, how could it ever have happened?

-M.H.-

-----------------------------------------------------

Crap. We are talking about the origin of capitalism. The origin of capitalism precedes the application of the "scientific revolution." Robert Allen in his book The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective shows that it was the relative expensiveness of wage-labor that drove the application of technology to production. Wage-labor, the essential, determining characteristic of capitalism, however preceded the application of such technologies.

--------------------------------------------------------------

You've had a little wage labor here and there in all sorts of social systems. It could not have become the *dominating* mode of production without the scientific revolution, which could not have happened without the Renaissance.

Wage labor is *more efficient* than slavery or serfdom or various other forms of oppression of the lower classes. It's only in a capitalist system that efficiency drives everything. So it was only because the capitalist mode of production was arising in England that the mechanism Allen describes could become operative.

-M.H.-
---------------------------------------------------------------

More crap. Agricultural productivity in certain indigenous cultures of the Americans was greater than that of feudal Europe. Those societies did not run up against the "feudal limit" to population growth that periodically led to famine, etc.

------------------------------------------------------------------

That may well be so, Anderson didn't go into the Americas hardly at all. But so what? The Incas and the Aztecs faced a lot bigger obstacles to capitalist development than that. Which is why the Spanish could walk all over them so easily.

-M.H.-

------------------------------------------------------------------

Excuse me, how were huge quantities of surplus value, extracted as value, extracted prior to capitalism. And how were those huge quantities inputted into 16th and 17th century England?

------------------------------------------------------------

In the form of gold, the ultimate repository of pure value. "God, Gold and glory," remember? All that gold pouring into the European economy from the Spanish conquests. Semi-feudal Europe was suddenly swimming in extracted surplus value in the pure form. That's why the Netherlands, the most commercially advanced corner of the Spanish empire, saw the first bourgeois revolution in the world.

Secondly, feudalism, unlike other modes of production, tends automatically to create cities where relations are commercial not feudal. The Roman heritage has something to do with this, but the main reason is the inner workings of feudalism, which create little corners where capitalism is generated.

This was true in Japan as well as in Europe, but Japan, not being able to have a Renaissance, could not go further than that, and instead retreated into Tokugawa social paralysis. Which is probably exactly what would have happened to Europe were it not for the Renaissance and the conquest of the Americas.

-M.H.-

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Speak for yourself. We don't. Without the "series of lucky accidents" maybe the human race as a race would have been spared the staggering around in the blood and filth of primitive accumulation. What you call "lucky accidents" are by your own arguments, the dispossession of thousands of small agricultural producers, the destruction of numerous indigenous cultures where communalism predominated, the death of millions through exposures to pathogens to which they had almost no resistance, the deaths of millions through the Atlantic Slave trade.

------------------------------------------------------------

Well, you obviously aren't a Marxist, but we know that. Like Marx said, human progress up till now has been a chariot riding over piles of skulls.

Without the horrors you describe, the human race would still be stuck in the etenal miseries of slavery, serfdom, etc. The Aztecs being the perfect example, anybody who would want to live under Aztec rule would be insane. Which is why the Spanish were welcomed so eagerly and so foolishly by the people suffering Aztec oppression.

And, by the way, *any* large scale communication between continents before the dramatic advances in medicine that the Scientific Revolution made possible would have lead to death of untold millions through disease, even if somehow the world had gone socialist in the sixteenth century.

-M.H.-

---------------------------------------------------------------

It's enough to make me look kindly on the Ottoman empire, for one, and to think, for another, how much better off humanity would be if the Moors had defeated the house of Aragon and Castile.

------------------------------------------------------------

Kindly on the Ottomans? Who practice chattel slavery on a large scale, of both Europeans and Africans, and regularly staged massacres of troublemakers of all sorts?

Legally speaking, under the Ottoman system *everybody* was a slave, except for the Sublime Porte himself, everybody's master. That was not the social reality, but that is how Ottoman law read.

Ask the Armenians about how kind the Ottomans were. And the Greeks. And the Bulgarians. And the Arabs for that matter.

The Moors in Spain are arguable, the Spanish monarchy turned out to be a drag on historic progress very early. Better if European colonialism had been French, Dutch and English, or maybe Italian. Not necessarily better for the victims, but definitely better for the development of capitalism.

-M.H.-

------------------------------------------------------------
And please, don't try and justify, rationalize, this "lucky accident" of capitalism, but referring to "progress." No doubt you will, though, since your "Marxism" is indistinguishable from bourgeois political economy.

If so, then so is that of Karl Marx, who in his actual writings was first and foremost an economist, basing himself on the work of the classic bourgeois economists and cleaning it up. Simple page count demonstrates that.

Which, in fact, is what you really think, even if you don't momentarily find it convenient to say so.

-M.H.-

[S.Artesian]

If so, then so is that of Karl Marx, who in his actual writings was first and foremost an economist, basing himself on the work of the classic bourgeois economists and cleaning it up. Simple page count demonstrates that.


As I said, there is little to distinguish your "Marxism" from bourgeois political economy, and thank you for verifying that.

Anybody who makes a bit of effort to read Marx's Economic Manuscripts, including the proposed companion volume to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Volume, the proposed additional chapter for Capital on "Results of the Immediate Process of Production," the Grundrisse, will realize that Marx was no more intent on "cleaning up" bourgeois political economy that the proletarian revolution aims at "cleaning up" capitalism.

Marx was concerned with explicating the immanent critique of capital, that contradiction within that would lead to its abolition, overthrow, and transcendence. That's why class struggle is the "ultimate" conclusion of Marx's examination.

Marx wasn't "cleaning up" bourgeois political economy; he was demolishing it. And to say he was foremost an "economist" is no less an attempt at recuperation than it is to describe him as primarily a "philosopher."

But nothing could be further from the minds of neo-Ricardian socialists than actual class struggle. Rather, justifying whatever reality that manifests itself [like the seizure and carting back to the fSU of the means of production in Europe after WW2] is their purpose.

[A Marxist Historian]

As I said, there is little to distinguish your "Marxism" from bourgeois political economy, and thank you for verifying that.

Anybody who makes a bit of effort to read Marx's Economic Manuscripts, including the proposed companion volume to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Volume, the proposed additional chapter for Capital on "Results of the Immediate Process of Production," the Grundrisse, will realize that Marx was no more intent on "cleaning up" bourgeois political economy that the proletarian revolution aims at "cleaning up" capitalism.

Marx was concerned with explicating the immanent critique of capital, that contradiction within that would lead to its abolition, overthrow, and transcendence. That's why class struggle is the "ultimate" conclusion of Marx's examination.

Marx wasn't "cleaning up" bourgeois political economy; he was demolishing it. And to say he was foremost an "economist" is no less an attempt at recuperation than it is to describe him as primarily a "philosopher."

But nothing could be further from the minds of neo-Ricardian socialists than actual class struggle. Rather, justifying whatever reality that manifests itself [like the seizure and carting back to the fSU of the means of production in Europe after WW2] is their purpose.

Strictly a cheap shot. He didn't invent the idea of class struggle either, took that from the bourgeois historians. Who before them took it from the *ancient* historians of ancient Rome and Greece. One of those ideas rediscovered through the Renaissance. Marx had his start as a classics scholar, don't you know?

According to Marx himself, he only had one truly original idea that he didn't take from the bourgeois philosophers, economics and historians whose ideas he combined into a brand new synthesis.

That was, as he put it, the idea that the class struggle is not just a historical phenomenon that goes on forever, but that it leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, whose class rule will put an end to class rule and class struggles.

And, though this was not particularly original to him, that without capitalism this could never ever ever have happened, period. A basic Marxist idea you obviously hate like poison.

Yes, better than just seizing stuff, the Stalinists should have persuaded the East European peoples, rescued from genocide, ultra-extreme German exploitation and the Holocaust by the Red Army, to voluntarily help the Soviet Union recover, on the basis of international working class solidarity.

But then they wouldn't have been Stalinists. Moreover, due to their previous record it would have been impossible even if they tried.

No need to justify what the Stalinists did. It was plenty justified in the minds of the Soviet working class already, too much so in fact. About whom you obviously don't give a damn, because you are basically a Cold War anti-communist in left wing disguise.

-M.H.-

[S.Artesian]

We're not talking about "inventing" anything, in case you didn't notice. We're talking about whether Marx's analysis "cleans up" bourgeois political economy or explodes and demolishes it. You think Marx was engaged in some sort of continuum that includes Smith and Ricardo, when in fact, the content of his work is a rupture with bourgeois political economy which concludes with the practical activity of the working class for its overthrow.

No, he didn't "invent" class struggle. He did however locate it, fix it historically, in the terms of the social organization of labor; in the conflict between the means and relations of production; in the contradiction between labor and the conditons of labor.


No need to justify what the Stalinists did. It was plenty justified in the minds of the Soviet working class already, too much so in fact. About whom you obviously don't give a damn, because you are basically a Cold War anti-communist in left wing disguise.And you're basically an ignoramus with "a piece of paper on your wall" who is only to happy to pretend that Marxist critique is nothing but "perfecting" bourgeois political economy, and "revolutionary Trotskyism" means pretending Stalinism represented the interests of the working class.

You ignorance regarding the actual content of Marx's work is exceeded only by your ignorance of the actual development of capitalism.

And speaking of cheap shots, that's all you take. I stated you don't know what you're talking about, either regarding Marx's analysis, or the actual origins of capitalism. You respond with slurs about "cold war anti-communism"-- that makes you more than an ignoramus. That makes you an asshole.

[A Marxist Historian]

We're not talking about "inventing" anything, in case you didn't notice. We're talking about whether Marx's analysis "cleans up" bourgeois political economy or explodes and demolishes it. You think Marx was engaged in some sort of continuum that includes Smith and Ricardo, when in fact, the content of his work is a rupture with bourgeois political economy which concludes with the practical activity of the working class for its overthrow.

----------------------------------------------------------

No we aren't. Of course Marx went way beyond bourgeois political economy. To use the right Hegelian word, he "transcended" it (for those who read German, it was "aufgehoben).

You are targeting two words in my previous posting to cloud the issue and deceive the readers.

-M.H.-

--------------------------------------------------------

No, he didn't "invent" class struggle. He did however locate it, fix it historically, in the terms of the social organization of labor; in the conflict between the means and relations of production; in the contradiction between labor and the conditons of labor.

--------------------------------------------------------------

True enough. This was not however an original idea of his. The best French bourgeois historians of his time, like Guizot, did pretty much the same thing, though focusing on other economic contradictions than the wage labor nexus. Real difference being that they thought the solution to the class struggle was the rule of the bourgeoisie, not the rule of the proletariat.

-M.H.-

---------------------------------------------------------------
And you're basically an ignoramus with "a piece of paper on your wall" who is only to happy to pretend that Marxist critique is nothing but "perfecting" bourgeois political economy, and "revolutionary Trotskyism" means pretending Stalinism represented the interests of the working class.

You ignorance regarding the actual content of Marx's work is exceeded only by your ignorance of the actual development of capitalism.

And speaking of cheap shots, that's all you take. I stated you don't know what you're talking about, either regarding Marx's analysis, or the actual origins of capitalism. You respond with slurs about "cold war anti-communism"-- that makes you more than an ignoramus. That makes you an asshole.

--------------------------------------------------------------

And you're basically a troll.

That you are a cold war anti-communist is obvious from your attitude to the Soviet Union, your utter disinterest in the sufferings of the Soviet people during World War II, and the general nature of your postings.

So until you can engage in rational argument without an ignorant slur or a cheap shot in every other line, why don't you just get back under your bridge? I don't think I should waste much more time arguing with you.

-M.H.-

Since

[Thirsty Crow]

Strictly a cheap shot. He didn't invent the idea of class struggle either, took that from the bourgeois historians. Who before them took it from the *ancient* historians of ancient Rome and Greece. One of those ideas rediscovered through the Renaissance. Marx had his start as a classics scholar, don't you know?Apparently, scholar was all that Marx was, blatantly disregarding the living practice of class struggle and instead revelling in the airy world of scholastic discourse. Right.

Though, I might assume that you mean that the notion of class struggle as a driving force of historical social development is not something Marx "invented". Fine, show me evidence to support this thesis.


According to Marx himself, he only had one truly original idea that he didn't take from the bourgeois philosophers, economics and historians whose ideas he combined into a brand new synthesis.
Again, evidence?
Or is it too much to ask for textual reference?

[A Marxist Historian]

Apparently, scholar was all that Marx was, blatantly disregarding the living practice of class struggle and instead revelling in the airy world of scholastic discourse. Right.

---------------------------------------------

Uh? Where did I say that? He was up to his neck in the class struggle to the limited degree he could be. Though he did spend most of his time in the British Museum burrowing through old manuscripts.

He did both. They don't contradict each other. In fact, they are necessary for each other.

-M.H.-

---------------------------------------------------------------

Though, I might assume that you mean that the notion of class struggle as a driving force of historical social development is not something Marx "invented". Fine, show me evidence to support this thesis.

Again, evidence?
Or is it too much to ask for textual reference?

Textual reference. Francois Guizot, probably Marx's favorite bourgeois historian--and one of the French *politicians* who he hated the most, as in politics he was a total bourgeois reactionary, who hated socialists.

He saw class struggle as the motive force of history. The particular class struggle he had in mind was the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the feudalists, as in for example the French Revolution of 1789.

I have one of his books on my shelf, makes interesting reading. I'll give you the full ref if you like, though I'll warn you it's in French.

A lot of Marx's own analyses of the rise of capitalism in Europe come straight out of Guizot, in particular how capitalism arose in the medieval cities.

-M.H.-

[Hit The North]

That makes you an asshole.


--------------------------------------------------------------

And you're basically a troll.



You two might have previous beef on some other forum, but it would be super-cool if you could desist from flaming each other and stick to substantive argument.

This is an interesting thread and it would be a pity if moderators had to issue infractions.

Cheers.

[S.Artesian]

Not a problem...... put that guy on my ignore list.

[A Marxist Historian]

You two might have previous beef on some other forum, but it would be super-cool if you could desist from flaming each other and stick to substantive argument.

This is an interesting thread and it would be a pity if moderators had to issue infractions.

Cheers.

Hey, works for me. He started it. I would like nothing better than to put a stop to it right now.

-M.H.-