[OPE-L:7481] Reply to Rob Albritton by Gil Skillman

[Gil Skillman <gskillman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[I'm posting this reply on OPE-L as well as sending it directly to Rob 
Albritton.]

 Reply to Rob Albritton by Gil Skillman

Thanks for your comments, Rob.  They've raised a number of very interesting 
historical and methodological issues.  Before responding to them directly 
I'd like to frame my reply by summarizing the two criticisms I initially 
advanced with respect to your 1993 JPS article.  You've responded primarily 
to the second criticism, but it turns out, particularly in light of your 
remarks (reproduced below), that they are both relevant, and mutually 
reinforcing.

I first took issue with the reading of Marx that prompts your statement

"In order for value to be able to expand itself according to the basic 
formula of capital M-C-M', capital must totally subsume the 
labour...process such that all inputs...are totally commodified."  [p. 420]

To the contrary, an important constant in Marx's evolving account of 
surplus value from the Grundrisse notebooks to the writing of Capital and 
the Resultate (originally intended as a section of Volume I of Capital) is 
that the two "antediluvian" circuits of usury and merchant capital, yielded 
surplus value in those cases where they financed commodity production (as 
opposed to personal consumption or payment of pre-existing debts).  [See, 
e.g., Grundrisse, 586, 851-53; Economic Mss. of 1861-63, pp. 118-120 in V. 
34, English ed. of Marx-Engels Collected Works; Capital V. III, 730-32; 
Resultate (Appendix to Pelican ed. of Capital V. I),  p. 1023); and even in 
Capital Volume I, p. 645 (Penguin)].

In virtually all of these passages, Marx emphasizes that although these 
circuits of capital yielded surplus value, they did not involve even formal 
subsumption of labor under capital.  In anticipation of my reply to your 
comments, I note that the passage from the Resultate is especially direct 
on this point:  it describes the defining features of the putting-out 
system and then states explicitly that this historical arrangement *did not 
involve* formal subsumption of labor under capital.  More on this point 
below.

Second, I took issue with your conception of "fully commodified labor 
power" (FCLP) on the grounds that it burdens Marx's relatively simple 
definition of labor power commodification (LPC)--the condition that workers 
offer their capacity for labor in the market [K.I, p. 270]--with a number 
of other considerations involving the conditions under which this commodity 
is supplied to the market.  I objected to this on the grounds that 
combining Marx's basic notion of LPC with the factors that influence its 
manifestation imposes an "unwieldy" basis for historical analysis which may 
impose conditions that are simply irrelevant to the particular historical 
stage under study.  With respect to the latter point, I note that there is 
no *necessary* contradiction in imagining that capitalists readily find 
workers offering their labor power for sale, even if *none* of your six 
"pure" conditions are met or even approximated.

To anticipate a subsequent point, the "unwieldy" character of your 
definition can be seen in the fact that it is necessarily *no more,* and 
typically *less* capable of supporting unambiguous assessments with respect 
to the "degree" of LPC than is Marx's simpler definition.  That is, even 
granting that each of its absolute conditions can be translated into 
matters of degree (e.g., workers are more or less completely separated from 
the means of production, or have less or more means of support beyond the 
wage, or are partially mobile, etc.), it need not be the case that all of 
the six variables thus created **move in the same direction** over a given 
historical period.  What if, for example, workers become more separated 
from the means of production (condition 1) at the same time that state 
intervention in the labor market increases (condition 6)?  (Over the long 
period under consideration, I can think of at least two or three instances 
in which such contrary movements occurred.)  In such cases, how would it be 
possible to make *unambiguous* claims about the direction of LPC on the 
basis of your definition?  Do you have, for example, an analytically 
defensible method of *weighting* the six factors to create an aggregate 
"LPC index"?

To give an illustration of the relatively heavy analytical burden that your 
notion of FCLP imposes, I note that in light of the foregoing, your 1993 
article does not evidently succeed in demonstrating that labor power was 
more fully commodified in the latter part of the 19th century than it was 
in the early part of the 18th century.  That is because you do not 
demonstrate that movements in *all* of the six dimensions of your 
definition are unambiguously in the direction of "fuller" 
commodification.  Given the argument you present, directions of movement in 
at least 3 of the 6 dimensions are unresolved:

Condition 1:  Surprisingly, you don't demonstrate that the English rural 
labor force was on average more separated from the means of production  in 
1870 than it was in the early 1700s.  Perhaps it is easy to establish 
this,  but the question is more subtle than it might appear due to the 
operation of selection bias:  there was significant rural outmigration in 
the era separating the two reference points, and obviously the expropriated 
were relatively over-represented in the emigrant group, while those who 
stayed would have included a relatively higher percentage of those who 
owned some productive assets.

Condition 3 actually has two components, frequency and monetization of 
compensation for labor.  You establish that compensation of agricultural 
labor became more monetized over the indicated period, but not necessarily 
that agricultural workers were paid more frequently.  Aside from shares of 
harvest, in-kind payments may well have included daily provisions of food 
or drink, for example.

Condition 6:  You establish a prima facie case that the level of *state* 
intervention declined, but your statement of the condition also speaks of 
"extra-economic force" exercised by labor, capital, landlords, "or any 
other interventionist source."  About these alternative sources of 
intervention you say nothing.  Furthermore, the weighting problem arises 
again if, during this period, some actors increased their levels of 
intervention while others reduced them.

Presumably all of these conditions are important to your conception of LPC, 
or they wouldn't have been included in the first place; thus these lacuna 
must correspondingly be judged as serious omissions in your argument.

A corollary of the foregoing point:  You suggest that the English agrarian 
economy was at best "minimally capitalist" as of 1700 [p. 437] , but 
presumptively *was* capitalist by 1870.  This suggests in turn that there 
was some "tipping point" between those years in which it first became valid 
to assert the existence of agrarian capitalism ("It is only in the 
mid-nineteenth century that English agriculture becomes capitalist"--from 
your 1993 article, p. 437.)  But unless all six of your extra variables 
moved in tandem over the period, or there is some weighted index 
unambiguously representing the aggregate impact of these variables, it 
would be difficult if not impossible to identify that point using your 
notion of FCLP.

I have no idea how significant this problem is, as an empirical 
matter.  But the foregoing argument does indicate that, if representation 
of the "degree of LPC" is at issue here, your more stringent conception 
disfavors your analytical approach relative to one based on a less 
multi-dimensional definition of LPC.

Why does this matter?  As I understand it, the critique of Brenner 
developed in your 1993 article is built on two premises:

Premise I:  Theorizing "pure capitalism," understood as the hypothetical 
scenario in which the innate tendencies of this economic system are *fully 
developed*, is both relevant to and useful for an assessment of the sense 
in or degree to which capitalism can be said to exist in a given historical 
moment [cf. your article, p. 420].

Premise II:  Brenner's invocation of the term "agrarian capitalism" implies 
that English agriculture is "fully" capitalist as of some early date [1993, 
p. 420], insofar as "Brenner claims that capitalist relations of production 
depend fundamentally on 'the full emergence of labour power as a 
commodity." [p. 421]

My foregoing argument indicts Premise I on two grounds:  first, your 
conception of FCLP imposes conditions that may be largely irrelevant to the 
historical period in question, and second, the multi-dimensional character 
of your conception necessarily hampers the scope for making unambiguous 
judgments as to the degree of LPC.  Below, I will argue further that there 
is no clear warrant for Premise I in Marx's writing.  I understand Marx to 
argue that the purpose of theorizing "pure capitalism" is to uncover its 
essential laws of motion, *not* to assess the sense in or degree to which 
capitalism can be said to exist in a given period.

This brings me to your second premise.  For what it's worth, this is the 
aspect of your critique of Brenner that I find most compelling, albeit with 
a significant caveat.  In several of the passages you cite from his 1977 
New Left Review article, Brenner does seem to insist that a core feature of 
capitalism is the existence of a working class that is free in Marx's 
"double sense"--i.e., not only free to sell their capacity to labor, but 
also free of owning any means of production. But in that case he must 
assume the collateral burden of demonstrating that wage laborers were 
typically "free" in this stringent sense *from the beginning* of the 
historical period to which he applies the designation "agrarian 
capitalism."  And while it is true that there were significant numbers of 
expropriated agricultural workers beginning in the 17th century, I doubt 
that Brenner has shown, or could show, that *all* or even *most* such labor 
was expropriated, especially in this early part of the designated era.  To 
that extent he appears to fall short of his own analytical standard for 
what constitutes "capitalism."

My caveat with respect to this critique is two-fold.  First, even granting 
this point, it doesn't follow that Brenner would, or need, accept any of 
your other conditions for "full" commodification of labor power (except 
perhaps that concerning the absence of extra-economic forms of coercion), 
and by and large I don't see how the logic of his substantive argument 
would compel him to.  Second, and relatedly, I don't even see that the 
logic of that argument compels him to embrace *categorically* the condition 
that workers are completely separated from the means of production.  No 
necessary violence to logic, history, Marx's analytical categories, or the 
substance of Brenner's argument is done in positing a nascent form of 
capitalism that, while not exhibiting all the features of developed 
capitalism, is nonetheless unambiguously distinguished from prior 
manifestations of the circuit of capital by the routine availability of 
workers offering their capacity to work for hire, *whether or not* the 
availability of commodified labor power is secured by complete separation 
of workers from the means of production.  Thus, as I'll argue below, all 
that really matters for the viability of Brenner's argument is that there 
existed rural English capitalists--e.g., tenant farmers--who were able to 
gain access to commodified labor power on a consistent basis.  By your own 
estimation, this appears to have been the case by 1700 at the latest.

This is the first point at which my initial criticism of your article, 
summarized above, applies.  Marx did not in fact insist that 
self-valorization of value via the circuit of capital M-C-M' required the 
"total subsumption" of labor, or even the *formal* subsumption of labor 
under capital (defined, as I'll discuss below, by the condition that 
capitalists assume direct oversight of existing processes of commodity 
production).  According to Marx, one instance of the circuit of capital 
that yielded surplus value in the absence of even formal subsumption was 
the putting-out system.  While it did not involve formal subsumption, and 
manifestly did not presume the separation of workers from the means of 
production, I would argue that the putting-out system of commodity 
production was distinguished from earlier forms of rural domestic industry 
by the commodification of labor power.  That is, rather than domestic 
producers purchasing raw materials, transforming them, and selling the 
result, these producers were hired by merchants who supplied them with the 
necessary raw materials, paid them by the piece for their output, and sold 
the result (on this point recall Marx's comment that "The piece-wage is 
nothing but a converted form of the time-wage, just as the time-wage is a 
converted form of the value or price of labour-power" [Capital V.I p. 692, 
Penguin ed.]).

In Marx's own estimation, then, the incomplete separation of workers from 
the means of production did not preclude the appropriation of surplus value 
via circuits of capital premised on the commodification of labor power.  If 
we add to this Brenner's argument that in the period he studies tenant 
farmers exercised control over the production process in the sense of 
formal and to some extent real subsumption, it does not seem inappropriate 
from the standpoint of Marxian analytical categories for Brenner to 
represent class relations in rural 17th-century England as a distinctive, 
although obviously primitive, form of capitalism.

With these general comments in mind, I turn next to your reply.

> Reply to Gil Skillman by Rob Albritton
> In order to fully understand my position I would suggest that Gil read my 
> book A Japanese Approach to Stages of Capitalist Development. In one short 
> article critiquing Brenner, I could not fully develop my theoretical 
> framework based as it is on an interpretation of Capital as fundamentally 
> a theory of pure capitalism with two other levels of analysis implied or 
> developed to some extent that I call: 'mid-range theory' and 'historical 
> analysis'.

I noted where you made a similar suggestion in your latest reply to Zmolek, 
and tried at the time to secure a copy.  Unfortunately, the library in our 
three-college consortium that has your book is closed until September, so 
I'll have to wait.  However, for immediate purposes I don't see that this 
poses any serious obstacle to pursuing our exchange, which has three 
primary reference points independent of  the analysis in your book: Marx's 
theory of capitalist exploitation, English economic history for the 
relevant era (say 1650-1870), and those aspects of the philosophy of 
history and social science that speak to the question of what constitutes 
an adequate explanation or a workable conceptual framework.  My arguments 
below, for example, will be grounded almost entirely in terms of Marx's 
analytical categories and some basic, probably mutually accepted, facts of 
economic history.  The one key exception concerns the question of whether 
the putting-out system involved LPC, but that point is largely secondary to 
my main argument.

You first argue, citing two passages from Marx, that a theoretical grasp of 
"pure capitalism" is necessary to an adequate analysis of its actual 
historical development:

>         In Volume Three of Capital Marx writes:
> And even though the equalization of wages and working hours between one 
> sphere of           production and another, or between different capitals 
> invested in the same sphere of production, comes up against all kinds of 
> local obstacles, the advance of capitalist production and the progressive 
> subordination of all economic relations to this mode of production tends 
> nevertheless to bring this process to fruition. Important as the study of 
> frictions of this kind is for any specialist work on wages, they are still 
> accidental and inessential as far as the general investigation of 
> capitalist production is concerned and can therefore be ignored. In a 
> general analysis of the present kind, it is assumed throughout that actual 
> conditions correspond to their concept, or, and this amounts to the same 
> thing, actual conditions are depicted only in so far as the express their 
> own general type. (III, 241-2)
> And later in the same volume Marx writes: 'The constant equalization of 
> ever-renewed inequalities is accomplished more quickly, (1) the more 
> mobile capital is?(2) the more rapidly labour-power can be moved from one 
> sphere to another and from one local point of production to another.' 
> (III, 298) Marx goes on to claim the capital mobility depends on: (1) free 
> trade and competition; (2) a credit system of mobilize social savings for 
> capital; (3) all spheres of production are subordinated to capitalists; 
> (4) a high population density. (III, 298) Labour mobility depends on: (1) 
> abolition of all laws preventing the movement of workers; (2) indifference 
> of the worker to the use-value character of the production process; (3) 
> the maximum reduction of skilled to unskilled labour; (4) disappearance of 
> prejudices of trade and craft amongst workers; (5) the subjection of 
> workers to capital. (III, 298)

>         A careful reading of Capital demonstrates that throughout Marx 
> assumes 'that actual conditions correspond to their concept' and that 
> among other things this implies for Marx the unimpeded mobility of 
> capital and labour, or in other words a fully competitive capitalism. 
> While such an economy never exists in history, Marx shows that it can 
> exist in theory, and furthermore, that such a theory is essential for 
> understanding how an economy that operates strictly in accord with 
> commodity-economic principles must operate. In short, Marx's theory of 
> capital reveals precisely what capital is when it operates unimpeded 
> according to its own principles. This theory of unimpeded competitive 
> capital that Marx introduces and Sekine refines, is what I refer to, 
> following Sekine, as  'the theory of  pure capitalism.' Clarity at the 
> level of the theory of pure capitalism is essential in any historical 
> analysis because revealing capital's inner logic is a precondition to 
> thinking about the externalization of this logic in any particular 
> historical context where it is articulated with numerous other social 
> forces that may reinforce or compromise its inner logic.

I don't see how these passages support the premise, central to your 
argument, that a model of "pure" capitalism can be usefully applied in 
assessing the sense in or degree to which capitalism can plausibly be said 
to *exist* at a given historical moment.  To the contrary, I think these 
passages, if anything, argue *against* the suggestion made at several 
points in your 1993 article that there is some significant threshhold 
percentage level of capitalist production and exchange relations below 
which "agrarian capitalism" cannot reasonably be said to exist.  Two 
arguments here:

1)  So far as I can see, the first passage doesn't say anything about using 
a model of pure or frictionless capitalism for the purpose of determining 
the sense in or degree to which capitalism can reasonably be said to 
*exist* at a given historical stage, the purpose you intend for it in your 
article ["...I want to contest Brenner's very use of 'agrarian 
capitalism'.  Is the agrarian sector in early modern England sufficiently 
capitalist to warrant labelling it 'agrarian capitalism'?"--1993, p. 
419].   As I read the passage, Marx suggests that one must ignore 
historically specific frictions on the grounds that they are "accidental 
and inessential" to "the general investigation of capitalist 
production."  He does *not* specify, so far as I can see, what purpose the 
resulting "general analysis" should serve.  The second passage also doesn't 
appear to say anything one way or another about the specific analytical 
purposes to which a model of frictionless capital might be put.  The larger 
passage, beginning on p. 297, just makes the general theoretical claim that 
equalization of profit rates across sectors proceeds more quickly to the 
extent that frictions are absent.

In a passage from the Resultate that is parallel in sense to the first one 
you cite above, Marx makes clear to what purpose such a "general analysis" 
is to be put--and it *isn't* to assess the sense in or degree to which 
"capitalism" can in fact be said to exist in a given historical stage, but 
to uncover the "general laws" of the system under study.  Indeed, in the 
accompanying footnote he accepts the contemporary, friction-filled European 
economies as instances of "capitalism" without making any judgments 
whatsoever, on the basis of some "pure" model of capitalism, as to what 
"degree" of frictions might disqualify a system from being labelled 
"capitalist":

"Classical economics regards the versatility of labour-power and the 
*fluidity* of capital as axiomatic, and it is right to do so, since this is 
the tendency of capitalist production which ruthlessly enforces its will 
despite obstacles which are in any case largely of its own making.  At all 
events, in order to portray the laws of political economy in their purity 
we are ignoring these sources of friction, as is the practice in mechanics 
where the frictions that arise have to be dealt with in every particular 
application of its general laws."
[Resultate, Appendix to KI, p. 1014, Penguin]

In the accompanying footnote, after noting the relative fluidity of capital 
and versatility of labor in the US, Marx adds that "In Europe, even in 
England capitalist production is still affected and distorted by hangovers 
from feudalism"--i.e., it's still unambiguously *capitalist* production, 
despite these impurities.

Which brings me to the second point:

2)  Both the first passage you cite and the similar passage I reproduce 
from the Resultate speak of the innate transformative tendencies of 
capitalist production.  What they notably *don't* state is that any minimum 
"threshhold" level of capitalist production and exchange relations must 
obtain before that transformative process begins--once you have capitalist 
production, it "ruthlessly enforces its will" with respect to whatever 
obstacles may exist.  Given this, what firm basis is there for your 
suggestion that an agricultural labor force consisting of "25-30 per cent" 
wage-laborers [1993, p. 431], or for that matter even a half or a third of 
that range, is insufficient to allow a judgment affirming the existence of 
"agrarian capitalism"?

You next assert

>         According to Gil the labour of Appalachian coal miners must be 
> commodified (fully?) or not.

No, my point here, as it was with respect to your other conditions for 
FCLP, is that it may be inappropriate to bundle the market conditions that 
influence the existence or degree of LPC with the fact of LPC itself, 
however the latter is measured.  Specifically, here, I'm arguing that the 
immobility of coal miners in an Eastern Kentucky "company town" doesn't 
plausibly count as an exception to the assertion that they sell their labor 
power to the mining company. However, nothing in my comment here suggests 
an "either-or" interpretation of LPC.  I'll say more about this in response 
to your next point.

>  According to my interpretation of marxian economics labour-power is 
> rarely if ever fully commodified in history, but because we know what 
> full commodification entails, we can explore its degree of 
> commodification. And this is important, especially to the coal miners 
> concerned. Indeed, I would argue that the general mobility of capital and 
> lack of mobility of labour-power has been a central cause of the 
> apartheid capitalism that now exists in the world.

Perhaps, but note you're still willing to call it *capitalism* despite the 
immobility of labor power (which contradicts your condition 5).  Is there a 
degree of immobility, short of involuntary servitude, below which you would 
*not* call present-day capitalism "capitalism," so long as capitalists 
could routinely hire labor power?

>  Perhaps Gil does not want to theorize degree of commodification, but 
> instead wants to think in either/or terms.

I think it would be fair to say that Rakesh didn't give me much of a chance 
to theorize about *anything* before inviting your rebuttal.  I hadn't 
intended my non-systematic comments, offered in response to a request from 
another list member for my opinion of your debate with Zmolek, to form the 
basis for a fully realized critique of your treatment of LPC. But here we 
are, so I'll address the "either/or" vs. "degree" question in response to 
your next comments.

Before I proceed, though, it should be noted that your 1993 article 
*unavoidably* introduces an "either/or" question when it asks whether "the 
agrarian sector in early modern England [was] sufficiently capitalist  to 
warrant labelling it 'agrarian capitalism.' "    The only logically 
possible answers to the question posed in this way are *either* yes, it 
was, *or* no, it wasn't (*or*, I suppose, it can't be determined either 
way).  This "either-or" aspect of your analysis, although not pervasive, is 
echoed in subsequent statements such as "...English agriculture does not 
become substantially capitalist until the later period..." [p. 420] and, 
more emphatically, "It is only in the mid-nineteenth century that English 
agriculture becomes capitalist..." [p. 437].  If the intended message of 
the article is to be read instead as simply "English agricultural 
production was less capitalist in the 17th and early 18th century than it 
was in the latter half of the 19th century,"  then no compelling critique 
of Brenner's formulation is even suggested in the first place, let alone 
established.  Brenner could readily embrace this characterization without 
at all modifying his argument.

[Of course, he would still need to address your challenge to his claim that 
tenant farmers in the early modern era were significantly engaged in the 
production of relative surplus value.  I have some questions with respect 
to this aspect of your argument as well, but let that be for another 
discussion.]

> If he wants to think in terms of degree (absolutely essential to avoid 
> economism I would think), then he must have some criteria of more or less. 
> He apparently does not like my six criteria derived from thinking through 
> the inner logic of capital as a theory of pure capitalism, but then he 
> must come up with some others.

All right.  Let's start with Marx's definition of LPC as the condition that 
workers offer their labor power for sale (or, speaking strictly, for lease, 
since indentured servitude is ruled out) (Capital, V. I, p. 270).  While 
it's true that a given worker either does or doesn't offer his labor power 
for sale, this condition allows for differences of degree in any number of 
ways.  One could ask what proportion of a person's working hours are 
performed on the basis of wage labor, or what percentage of income is 
derived from wage labor.  From the standpoint of the system as a whole, one 
could determine the percentage of total labor hours that are performed on 
the basis of wage labor, or the percentage of the working population that 
provides some level of wage labor, or the percentage of income that the 
working class derives from wage labor.  Which variation in degree is to be 
emphasized depends on the question under study.

It seems to me that the only quantitative aspect of LPC that matters for 
Brenner's analytical purposes is whether labor power was sufficiently 
commodified in the period under study to allow tenant farmers to exist as 
capitalists, i.e., to appropriate surplus value, and to pursue desired 
innovations in agricultural production, such as those involving expansion 
in the scale of production.  This condition does not evidently require that 
workers be completely separated from the means of production or bereft of 
non-labor forms of income, or paid weekly in money, or have completely 
impersonal relations with capitalists, or be utterly mobile, or be free of 
all forms of "extra-economic coercion."

>  Defending all six is more than I want to do right now, but I would say 
> two are absolutely fundamental to my list and to Marx. When he states 
> that workers are 'free' in two senses: free of all means of production 
> and free to sell their labour power, I take this to mean that they have 
> no access to any means of production and must therefore sell their 
> labour-power, which fortunately they are free to do.

In my reading, the key difference between your argument and Marx's is that 
he does not postulate separation from the means of production as part of 
the *definition* of LPC; instead he posits this theoretically as a 
necessary condition for the *existence* of LPC, that is, for the 
instantiation of his definition.  I believe that as a categorical statement 
this postulate is obviously wrong, insofar as there have always been 
significant numbers of workers who both owned some means of production and 
supplied wage labor.  But whether or not this is true, it remains the case 
that Marx does not insist on bundling the basic *definition* of LPC with 
the economic conditions putatively affecting its existence.  And I think 
that's a preferable analytical tactic, for reasons outlined earlier.

>  According to these two criteria, putting-out workers represent an 
> in-between position. In my book I discuss senses in which their 
> labour-power is or is not commodified. To the extent that merchant 
> capitalists strictly control the inputs and outputs of the putting out 
> system and the fact that the tools in this case are of little value, 
> deprives the direct producers' ownership of the means of production of 
> much meaning. Hence, I would interpret Marx's 'formal subsumption' as a 
> useful concept to apply to putting out production.

First, in light of my earlier comments, I obviously agree that the 
putting-out arrangement represents a borderline case in the range of 
possible manifestations of the circuit of capital.  But I don't think its 
"in-between" status stems from any ambiguity as to whether labor power was 
commodified in this arrangement.  Evidently, putting-out workers offered 
their labor for hire to merchant capitalists, rather than simply purchasing 
the needed constant capital goods from merchants, transforming the inputs, 
and selling the result.

Second, as I note in my initial criticism, Marx repeatedly asserts that the 
circuit of merchant capital corresponding to the putting-out system *does 
not* constitute an instance of formal subsumption of labor under 
capital.  Thus, whether or not it is "useful" to consider it as such--and 
that must be for a separate discussion--it's clearly not what Marx had in 
mind.  The reason for this is that, for Marx, the defining feature of the 
phenomenon he labels "formal subsumption" is that capitalists assert 
*direct* control of the production process as supervisor and manager 
[Resultate, Appendix to Capital, V. I, pp. 1019, 1021], and it is precisely 
the case that merchant capitalists *did not* exercise this direct control 
in the case of putting-out arrangements.

Consequently, I see the borderline status of the putting-out system as 
stemming from the fact that, like the circuit of industrial capital Marx 
analyzes from Chapter 6 onward in Vol. I of Capital, putting out featured 
commodification of labor power, but, unlike that circuit, it did not 
feature even the formal subsumption of labor under capital.

>         Finally Gil again displays his either/or thinking in interpreting 
> my article to have argued something like labour power is not commodified 
> in British agriculture in 1700, therefore this agriculture is not 
> capitalist, while in 1875 it is.

Rather, I interpret your article as not attempting to mislead readers when 
it poses the question, "Is the agrarian sector in early modern England 
sufficiently capitalist to warrant labelling it 'agrarian 
capitalism'?"  This is by its nature an "either-or" question, and I assume 
that whatever else you do in that article, you address the either-or 
question that you yourself posed.

>  The thrust of my article is to show that agricultural labour is much 
> less commodified in 1700 than in 1875, and that there is a tendency for 
> Brenner and his followers to reify 'agrarian capitalism'. The result is 
> for them to read back into history a much higher degree of capitalist 
> social relations than actually existed, which is not to say that 
> embryonic capitalist forms that appeared early on in British agriculture 
> did not play an important role in capitalism first developing in that country.

As mentioned above, I would agree that Brenner, at least in his 1977 
article, appears to invoke relatively stringent conditions for 
distinguishing "capitalism" from earlier modes of production.  But I also 
think that these conditions are more stringent than the substance of his 
argument entails.  Granting entirely that capitalism was much more 
"embryonic" in 1700 than in 1875 does not invalidate the assertion that the 
social relations of agricultural production in early modern England took on 
a new and distinctive form that, in light of Marx's analytical categories, 
can coherently be labelled "agrarian capitalism."

In sum: As I understand it, your 1993 critique of Brenner's invocation of 
the term "agrarian capitalism" proceeds from the premise that theorizing 
"pure capitalism," understood as the scenario in which the system's innate 
tendencies are *fully developed*, is relevant to and useful for an 
assessment of the sense in or degree to which social relations of 
production and exchange in a given historical era can be termed 
"capitalist."  I think that this imposes an inappropriately stringent 
test.  As I read Marx, he asserts rather that the "pure" model of 
capitalism is to be used to uncover the innate *laws of motion* of 
capitalism, not to evaluate claims concerning the *existence* of this mode 
of production in a given moment.

To pursue the latter issue, one must instead identify the set of features 
deemed to be *fundamental* or *essential* to the system under study, 
without which it could not meaningfully be called "capitalist."  There is a 
rather large distance between the two tests; your approach imposes a 
*maximal* standard for what constitutes capitalism, where what is instead 
required is a specification of the conditions *minimally* necessary for a 
system to be coherently deemed "capitalist."  Thus, as your article 
acknowledges, none of your six conditions for FCLP have ever been satisfied 
singly, let alone collectively, in any actual capitalist system.  And yet 
we have no hesitation in calling such systems "capitalist," and I suggest 
the reason is that they all recognizably satisfy the same basic set of 
criteria.  For Brenner's argument, I suggest, the relevant criterion is not 
degree of fidelity to your conception of FCLP, but rather that tenant 
farmers in the era he studies appropriated surplus value and had consistent 
access to commodified labor power.


Thanks again for your comments, which have compelled me to think more 
carefully about the details of Brenner's argument and the key issues in 
your exchange with Zmolek.