Ascent/Descent

[DMS <dmschanoes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I subbed, unsubbed to spare LP the task,
and then I read how LP is only happy when
he is being reviled, so I thought the least
I could do was resub and try to throw some
happiness his way.

Indeed, the ascent of European capitalism is
a critical issue, and the reasons for the lack
of ascent in China is essential (but I know very
little about Chinese agriculture).  Incidentally,
my anaysis of the capitalization of agriculture is
based on the French Revolution and the role of
assignats in the "liquidation" of landed/church
property.  And the development of the US, prior to
and directly after the Civil War.

If the argument is that slavery was critical to
the acceleration of capitalism, and its expansion,
there can only be agreement.

However,  I do not think that
the accumulation of wealth either through
the extraction of specie or mercantile
operations creates the social relation
defining capital.

We could argue that not all developing national
capitals had significant resources and penetrations
in colonies during the developmental period, but that
would be a compartmentalization ignoring the general
conditions of the world market feeding the development
itself.


The problem, as I see it, is a formulation that very
closely approximates the "critical mass" theory of the
accumulation of wealth leading to a "take-off" of
industrial development. This too is compartmentalization,
and parallels the "take-off" theories so popular with
the Rostow twins, etc. in the US in the 50s and 60s.

It is evident in the development of the US and France that
the capitalization of agriculture, breaking the obsolete
forms of landed property, France in its revolution,
the US in its Civil War, is the mechanism that allows
for the growth of the domestic market, and the detachment
of labor from land.

Regarding Spain, the history of Spain's interaction with
its colonies, particularly the Caribbean colonies, is
the history of Spain's inability to sustain its colonies;
an inability that includes basic provisions, technical
resources, means of transport (ships), and even the
supply of laborers, slaves. England even won the asiento
to provide the slaves to the Spanish colonies.

This inability is nothing other than the difference
between extraction and reproduction, feudalism being
incapable of the latter.