A quick question about capitalism

[Let's Get Free]

Would capitalism and the today's European wealth and African impoverishment have occurred without the European attack on Africa, its division, African slavery and dispersal, colonialism and neocolonialism?

[ind_com]

Would capitalism and the today's European wealth and African impoverishment have occurred without the European attack on Africa, its division, African slavery and dispersal, colonialism and neocolonialism?

Capitalism - yes, European wealth and African impoverishment - no.

[Philosophos]

Yes for capitalism, not sure for the European wealth, no if the Africans suddenly had a flash about how to invent guns, trade markets etc.

The way the western culture evolved made it impossible for it to avoid capitalism. One day we would overthrow the kings and we would have democracy. But then the guys with the money would still have more power than the others so capitalism (or something like capitalism) would occure.

I'm not sure of what would happen if the Europeans didn't colonise Africa. Maybe more wars between the European countries. BUT if capitalism was inevitable they would sure have colonised Africa and maybe Antarctica if they could.

Africans were less evolved in the armory section so they couldn't fight for their freedom.

Just my opinion I'm not sure for what I've said

[red flag over teeside]

Let’s not forget that the Africa we see today is the creation of Western Imperialism. The Africa that existed previously was in many ways a more prosperous and developed continent with some pretty advanced societies. Unfortunately for a whole series of reasons the African continent never developed beyond agrarianism which made it a outlet for the emerging capitalist societies.

Slavery by western based merchants with all of its cruelty and horrors made the development of capitalism possible. Without slavery I don't think that capitalism would have reached the critical mass to become self sustaining.

[hetz]

Slavery by western based merchants with all of its cruelty and horrors made the development of capitalism possible. How? The first capitalist countries were England and Netherlands and a few others. What role did slavery play in their development? I don't think that it was a crucial one.
Capitalism, in fact, has historically been anti-slavery.

[Hit The North]

As we know, capital is dead labour. But the living labour that capitalism depends upon is free labour, or wage slavery, not slavery per se.




Slavery by western based merchants with all of its cruelty and horrors made the development of capitalism possible. Without slavery I don't think that capitalism would have reached the critical mass to become self sustaining.

According to Marx's analysis of the genesis of capitalism in Capital Vol 1, it is the massive transformation of peasants into free labourers that fuels the fire of capitalist accumulation; therefore it is the revolution in the countryside, not slavery, that explains the transition from feudalism to capitalism.

In the first section of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels point to the role of international trade, particularly the spurt given to it with the discovery of the Americas and the rounding of the Southern Cape of Africa (opening up sea-going trade routes to the prosperous East) as an important impetus to the emergence of a wealthy merchant and manufacturing class in late Feudalism (the eventual bourgeoisie).

Slavery is part of the mix in the primitive accumulation of capital, but not one that Marx gives much weight to. It is also important to note that the slavery of the 18th and 19th century slave trade is a thoroughly capitalistic affair - another sphere of business activity, trading human beings as commodities very much like the trading of livestock.

So I don't think it is true to say that capitalism would not have developed without slavery.

[ind_com]

How? The first capitalist countries were England and Netherlands and a few others. What role did slavery play in their development? I don't think that it was a crucial one.
Capitalism, in fact, has historically been anti-slavery.

England and the Netherlands depended mostly on the exploitation of India and Indonesia respectively. As long as capitalism can make the most profits, it doesn't care whether it has to depend on slavery or feudalism.

[Hit The North]

England and the Netherlands depended mostly on the exploitation of India and Indonesia respectively.

England and the Netherlands could only exploit India and Indonesia because they were already capitalist.


As long as capitalism can make the most profits, it doesn't care whether it has to depend on slavery or feudalism.How can capitalism make most profit out of feudal economic activity if that activity does not produce commodities?

Finally, slaves are not as productive or as profitable as free labourers. Here's Marx on the matter:


Originally written by Marx
In contrast to the slave, this labour [free labour] becomes more productive because more intensive, since the slave works only under the spur of external fear but not for his existence which is guaranteed even though it does not belong to him. The free worker, however is impelled by his wants... The free worker, however, must maintain his own position, since his existence and that of his family depends on his ability continuously to renew the sale of his labour power to the capitalist.
Capital Vol One, Penguin edition p. 1031

[Let's Get Free]

How? The first capitalist countries were England and Netherlands and a few others. What role did slavery play in their development? I don't think that it was a crucial one.
Capitalism, in fact, has historically been anti-slavery.

The most cursory look at history shows that Europe rescued itself from poverty, disease, backwardness and feudalism by its assault on Africa. This assault began in the 14 hundreds from Portugal and by the year 1500 more than 700 tons of gold had already been stolen from Africa (the El Mina slave castle in Ghana is named for the gold mines). At the end of the 15th century Spain was sending Columbus to the Western Hemisphere and within 50 years millions and millions of Indigenous people were already wiped out.

[Hit The North]

The most cursory look at history shows that Europe rescued itself from poverty, disease, backwardness and feudalism by its assault on Africa. This assault began in the 14 hundreds from Portugal and by the year 1500 more than 700 tons of gold had already been stolen from Africa (the El Mina slave castle in Ghana is named for the gold mines). At the end of the 15th century Spain was sending Columbus to the Western Hemisphere and within 50 years millions and millions of Indigenous people were already wiped out.

Well, that really is a cursory look at history. Are you suggesting that African gold rescued Portuguese people from poverty or enabled Portugal to abolish feudalism? I must have missed it when Portugal and Spain became the first capitalist powers in Europe!

Actually, a more than cursory look at history would show that Africa played only a small role in the expansion of European powers; African territory being more useful as trading posts than anything else. Certainly, I'd like to see the evidence that support the contention that the plunder of Africa provided the genesis of the capitalist mode of production.

[Ocean Seal]

It is very possible that we would be living in socialism today if Europe did not exploit Africa. Of course under capitalism imperialism is unavoidable.

[ind_com]

England and the Netherlands could only exploit India and Indonesia because they were already capitalist.

How can capitalism make most profit out of feudal economic activity if that activity does not produce commodities?

Finally, slaves are not as productive or as profitable as free labourers. Here's Marx on the matter:


Originally written by Marx
In contrast to the slave, this labour [free labour] becomes more productive because more intensive, since the slave works only under the spur of external fear but not for his existence which is guaranteed even though it does not belong to him. The free worker, however is impelled by his wants... The free worker, however, must maintain his own position, since his existence and that of his family depends on his ability continuously to renew the sale of his labour power to the capitalist.

Capital Vol One, Penguin edition p. 1031

Commodity production can take place in pre-capitalist societies as well. Imperialist capital can utilize these commodities and the small markets available in colonies, and at the same time cripple the development of national capital to prevent competition.

Marx's observation on slaves is true only when the worker is getting paid just enough to sustain himself on the bare necessities of life, and the slave-owner is kind enough to let the slave live even when he does not work most of the time.

[l'Enfermé]

It had more to do with the plundering of North and South America, not Africa. Anyway, the Arabs and the Turks enslaved a lot more Africans than Europeans did, that didn't make them capitalist superpowers.

[Geiseric]

Well the imperialism as defined by Lenin and Marx in the late 1800s, during capitalism's decline, is not necessary for capitalism to exist. However the colonialization of the Congo, and every other source of raw materials in North and South America i'd argue is necessary for capitalism to exist. The potato which came from South America is necessary for the population growth and the growth of capitalist farming in Europe as well. So in a certain sense modern capitalism couldn't of existed without the colonialism from the 1400s-1700s.

[Hit The North]

Commodity production can take place in pre-capitalist societies as well.


Of course, but it is not peasants that produce commodities but artisans. Peasants do not forge iron, do not dig coal, do not operate machinery or sit in call centres.


Imperialist capital can utilize these commodities and the small markets available in colonies, and at the same time cripple the development of national capital to prevent competition.


What does this have to do with anything? You are merely talking about the action of imperialism - a developed form of advanced capitalism if you are taking your definition from Lenin. I suspect you are trying to articulate some Maoist claptrap about how every advance in the world is the result of the foreign exploitation of the peasant masses and where the modern proletariat play only a parasitical role.

But if you believe that a feudal peasantry which produces mainly for use is more profitable to the capitalist than free labour which produces mainly for exchange, then you need to explain why capitalism develops on the basis of the negation of feudal relations and the transformation of peasants into wage workers.


Marx's observation on slaves is true only when the worker is getting paid just enough to sustain himself on the bare necessities of life, and the slave-owner is kind enough to let the slave live even when he does not work most of the time.


Which was true of practically all workers in the 18th and 19th centuries which is what this thread is concerned with.

And the point isn't that slave owners are kind to their slaves but that only a madman looking to drive himself out of business would kill the slaves he has purchased for no good reason. And Marx's point is that the slave's existence is not tied to a continuous increase in productive value in the way that a proletarian's is, as only capitalism is a system of expanding value, therefore there is real limit to how productive slaves will be.

[Hit The North]

Well the imperialism as defined by Lenin and Marx in the late 1800s, during capitalism's decline, is not necessary for capitalism to exist.

Marx didn't have a theory of imperialism. But you are right, given that imperialism is specific stage of capitalist development and not the first stage by any means. So logically, imperialism develops out of capitalism and not the other way around. Although why you think capitalism was in decline in late 1800s is beyond me.


However the colonialization of the Congo, and every other source of raw materials in North and South America i'd argue is necessary for capitalism to exist.


Necessary perhaps but not sufficient. Also, it is not like Europe did not have its own raw materials. The explosion in the English woollen industry did not depend on either Africa, Asia or the Americas. It actually was made possible by the bourgeois revolution in the countryside. Meanwhile, the British industrial revolution was fuelled with coal dug up in Britain by British workers. The emergence of Germany in the late 19th Century as an economic powerhouse was also based on an abundance of natural resources and, in terms its colonial power, it remained a pygmy.



The potato which came from South America is necessary for the population growth and the growth of capitalist farming in Europe as well. So in a certain sense modern capitalism couldn't of existed without the colonialism from the 1400s-1700s.


Many things are necessary for massive population growth but only capitalism harnessed them to such a degree that it produced those results. There was no massive population growth like we saw in Europe in the Americas where the potato was indigenous.

[hetz]

The most cursory look at history shows that Europe rescued itself from poverty, disease, backwardness and feudalism by its assault on Africa.Actually I read somewhere that the living conditions of "common people" in Western Europe actually degraded with the rise of capitalism. It's only later that improvements have been made.
Anyway I think your claim is wrong. Feudalism, as other comrades here said, didn't "go away" because of the colonization of Africa, neither did the living conditions etc. in Europe improve chiefly because of that.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Necessary perhaps but not sufficient. Also, it is not like Europe did not have its own raw materials. The explosion in the English woollen industry did not depend on either Africa, Asia or the Americas. It actually was made possible by the bourgeois revolution in the countryside. Meanwhile, the British industrial revolution was fuelled with coal dug up in Britain by British workers. The emergence of Germany in the late 19th Century as an economic powerhouse was also based on an abundance of natural resources and, in terms its colonial power, it remained a pygmy.

The presence of raw materials (eg sheep) doesn't in and itself mean a given industry (wool) is viable, since it only exists in relation to the broader capitalist economy. Insofar as the primitive accumulation of capital by colonial ventures (not to mention the importance of certain raw materials that don't exist in Europe, for examples, potatoes, sugarcane, tea, or, more recently, coltan) has been, and is, necessary for captialism to function, positing an isolated industry is kinda nonsensical.

[hetz]

The presence of raw materials (eg sheep) doesn't in and itself mean a given industry (wool) is viable, since it only exists in relation to the broader capitalist economy.In England people were driven off their lands so that fields could be turned into pastures for sheep, so obviously there was something "viable" about all that.


Insofar as the primitive accumulation of capital by colonial ventures
The foundation for this primitive accumulation were the developments in Europe, colonialism came after.

The industrial capitalists, these new potentates, had on their part not only to displace the guild masters of handicrafts, but also the feudal lords, the possessors of the sources of wealth. In this respect, their conquest of social power appears as the fruit of a victorious struggle both against feudal lordship and its revolting prerogatives, and against the guilds and the fetters they laid on the free development of production and the free exploitation of man by man. The chevaliers d’industrie, however, only succeeded in supplanting the chevaliers of the sword by making use of events of which they themselves were wholly innocent. They have risen by means as vile as those by which the Roman freedman once on a time made himself the master of his patronus.
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.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch26.htm

[skitty]

I think Gladiator and l'Enferme touched on this; but didn't the elimination of the commons, inflation from gold and silver pouring in from the Americas and the slave trade kick off capitalism?

[Let's Get Free]

Actually, a more than cursory look at history would show that Africa played only a small role in the expansion of European powers; African territory being more useful as trading posts than anything else. Certainly, I'd like to see the evidence that support the contention that the plunder of Africa provided the genesis of the capitalist mode of production.

Finance capital, the export of capital, monopoly, etc., are all articulations of a political economy rooted in parasitism and based on the historically brutal subjugation of most of humanity. The subjugation of the Americas and the enslavement of Africans financed the rise of the European empires, as Marx and classical economists like Smith recognized.

Through slavery, colonialism, through the extraction of immense quantities of natural resources, and most particularly through the institutionalization and elaboration of techniques for the exploitation of mass labor at a hitherto inconceivable level, the apparatus was synthesized for the accumulation of wealth at a grand scale. Slavery became a "massive global business" the last fully worked out system of global capitalism. (The World is a Ghetto.)