Feudalism to Capitalism (Europe)

[Erinr2013]

Hi everyone! This is my first post woohoo.

I have an online discussion forum for my class, and I'd really like to post a question but I can't think of a good enough question to pose to the class.

We're currently learning about the change of Europe from feudalism to capitalism. We discussed the basics, like the shift in the social pyramid and mercantilism.

Can anyone think of a good, thought-provoking question?
I was going to ask is Karl Marx theory was the most accurate to describing this shift but someone already beat me to it.

Thank you

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

How did the emergence of wage labour effect relations between men and women?

(Silvia Federici wrote a great book about it ;))

[robbo203]

There are two main rival theories both within the Marxian tradition that have been put forward to account for the origin of capitalism in Europe. One of these focuses on external factors such as the spread of commerce, the growth of colonies (primitive accumulation etc) and particularly the transatlantic slave trade. The other focuses on the changing pattern of socio-economic relations in the countryside - particularly in England, where full blown capitalism first saw the light of day.

I am sympathetic to this latter point of view - the agrarian origins of capitalism - as advanced by Marxists such as Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood (see, for example, the latter's bookThe Origin of Capitalism, New York, Monthly Review Press, 1999), The great thing about this explanatory model is the way in which it brings into the picture a whole number of variables and shows how they interact to produce a distnct trend towards capitalism - like the Black Death, the peculiarities of the English political stucture , the emergence of capitalist farmers employing wage labour and the cottage industries that preceded industrialisation proper

The other explanatory model focusses on external factors packs a powerful punch too but it doesnt really clinch the argument as to why in particular it was in England that we first saw full blown capitalism. Eric Williams' classic study, Capitalism and Slavery, (1944, London, Andre Deutsch) is part of this genre. Willaims looked at the profits obtained from the "triangular trade" between Europe, Africa and the New World and how these fuelled early industrialisation. Williams' thesis has been the subject of much controversy. Some historians have argued that the very backwardness of plantation slavery in the New World which tended to put a brake on technological innovation was unlikely to result in a sufficient level of profits being generated to finance industrialisation back home . However, more recent research by economic historians has seemingly given weight to Williams' argument . For instance, Robin Blackburn in The Making of New World Slavery: from the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800. (Verso, London, 1998) using data from the 1770s contends that profits from the triangular trade could have provided "anything from 20.9% to 55% of Britain’s gross fixed capital” (p:542, 517–18).

All the same, this kind of begs the question as to why this financial wealth was channelled into capital accumulation. Spain , for instance, had an empire considerably larger than England's between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries but it was not in Spain but rather England that full-blown capitalism first emerged.

In my view merchant capital was a necessary but not sufficient reason to account for the origins of capiutalism. From that point of view you could say that these two different explanatory models are complenentary rather than competing

[Blake's Baby]

I'd agree with that - I too tends favour the 'agrarian' model (you can see the beginnings of 'capitalisation' in England in the 1300s, long before the 'Colonies') but also the reasons why Spain and later Portugal didn't become advanced capitalist states was in part due to the failure of their 'mercantilist' policies (as well as internal factors sucha s the expulsion of Jewish and Moslem merchants). In short, Spanish gold and silver went to Amsterdam not Madrid; it helped to develop the capitalism of the Low Countries which then helped them (and England) develop as the most advanced capitalist nations of the 1600s.

So, yeah, combination of factors. So, maybe 'why did capitalism develop in England not Italy?' (or Spain, or anywhere else).

If you like, PM me and I can send you some notes about the change from feudalism to capitalism that I did as a contribution to a discussion group. It might provoke some other questions.