Re: Forwarded mail....

[Louis Proyect <vze47t8m@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>I had the same reaction to this post as Anthony.
>The equation of capitalism with trade is hardly
>a "new view". To the degree, if any, that Nigel
>Harris purports to be a Marxist, his position
>seems consistent with what Robert Brenner
>appropriately termed "neo-Smithian Marxism".
>
>Richard Fidler

The use of books like the ones reviewed by Nigel Harris (I picked up
McLintock's two days ago) is not to directly refute Brenner. Instead
they are meant to make us think more clearly about terms like
"feudalism" which were used by the first generation of Marxists
without a lot of knowledge based on primary sources. McLintock's book
fills in a void that has existed for an entire generation since
Pirenne.

In the first wave of Marxist scholarship, there was a tendency to
assume that everything that Pirenne wrote about the role of cities
and international trade had been superseded by Dobb's study of class
transformations in the English countryside.

However, scholarship does not stand still. In "The Great Divergence,"
Kenneth Pomeranz demonstrated that if anything Chinese agriculture
was even more capitalist than Great Britain in the period when
supposedly Great Britain was spawning capitalism within its bowels.

I believe that books like McLintock's "Origins of the European
Economy: Communications and Commerce AD300-900", Christopher Dyer's
"Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520"
and Kenneth Pomeranz's "The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the
Making of the Modern World Economy" are essential reading for people
trying to make sense of the origins of capitalism.

Unfortunately, there is little evidence that either Brenner or Wood
are engaged with the countervailing literature. In Wood's "Origins of
Capitalism," which is now available in an expanded edition from
Verso, there is zero reference to such scholarship. She is content to
repeat formulas about the backward Spanish hidalgo, etc., without any
indication that she has read more recent literature about the
realities of New Spain, etc. This is not serious research, it is
propaganda basically.

--
Louis Proyect, vze47t8m@xxxxxxxxxxx on 06/15/2002

Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org



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