RedJacobin
18th December 2005, 05:25
Originally posted by
[email protected] 16 2005, 12:48 AM
Just a thought what was Marx view on the subject?
Here's a frequently quoted passage from him:
The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre. It begins with the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in England's Anti-Jacobin War, and is still going on in the opium wars against China, &c.
source: Capital, Ch. 31 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm)
The message is that slavery and other forms of armed robbery were fundamental to the genesis of industrial capitalism. Also, that capitalism was a global system from the beginning.