Re: [Marxism] Re: Pomeranz

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Carrol:
> In the first paragraph of the Preface to Eight Eurocentric Historians
> Blaut writes of "those arguments that falsely attribute historical
> superiority or priority to Europeans. . . ." That _or_ vitiates his
> whole analysis, for it is simply _untrue_ that there is _any_ connection
> between "superiority" and "priority."

Well, there certainly *is* such a connection made by 7 out of the 8
historians dealt with by Blaut. Except for Brenner, you are really dealing
with a rogue's gallery, especially Max Weber who believed that the Chinese
have a "strong attachment to the habitual", "absolute docility" and a "lack
of genuine sympathy and warmth." I don't think that Brenner is a racist
myself, nor is his work as bad as some of the others Blaut deals with. My
main complaint is that he is intellectually lazy despite the torrent of
output over the years. How do you disprove Eric Williams without writing
one word about the New World? Amazing.

> Secondly, Lou's citation from Marx above, "Genesis of INDUSTRIAL
> capital," also is irrelevant to the Brenner position. Brenner's works
> are not concerned with the development of industrial capital but with
> the initiation of _capitalist relations of production_, a quite
> different matter.
>
> Carrol

But Brenner has not really made the case that the introduction of lease
farming in England was exceptional. I have pointed out that the same class
relations existed in the Iberian countryside in the same exact time. In
fact, it was the introduction of bourgeois property relations in Spain that
led Cervantes to write his masterpiece. He was bitter over the cash nexus.


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