[PEN-L:11638] Re: Re: Re: Re: colonialism

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol@xxxxxxx> 09/21/99 05:37PM >>>
A question to Jim Blaut:

I am not quite sure what are you trying to demonstrate in this and related
threads:

- that slavery and colonial exploitation created economic benefits for
slave owners and pludereres?  - that seems an obvious and uninteresting
conclusion.

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Charles: This is obvious , but it is far from uninteresting. It is very important, and important today, not just in history, because the present is in unity with the past. We cannot understand and change the present without , understanding the history which made the present.

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- that slavery and colonial exploitation was a key element in capitalist
development? - that seems a moot point for several reasons.  First we need
to define what kind of "condition" we are talking about - is it a necessary
condition?, a sufficient condition?,  a contributing factor (but neither
necessary nor suffcient)?

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Charles: Depends on what you mean by "moot". Moot can mean a question no longer in dispute or it can mean still in dispute ( it has exactly opposite meanings). On this list it seems to be a debated point.

Slavery and colonial exploitation was a necessary but not sufficient condition in capitalist development ,that is origin and history continuously right up to the present (in the sense that the material institution of racism is derivative from slavery and colonialism). Slavery, racism and colonialism are as much a necessary condition of capitalism as is wage-labor.

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The necessary condition argument can be rebutted by showing instances of
countries that pursued capitalist development without any meaningful
benefits of prior colonial exploitation or slavery - exmples include
Germany, Sweden, or Japan.

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Charles: This is Cartesian reductionist error. Capitalism is a world system. Some specific countries may not go through all the specific steps, Beside the fact that, as mentioned a number of times, the countries that Wojtek excepts from colonialism and racist exploitation are not entirely free of them.

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The sufficient condition can be questioned by the counterefactual of Spain
and Portugal that in th einitial phase of colonial expansion seemed to be
main beneficiaries of colonial exploitation. The Spaniards, for example,
are 'credited' with plundering virtually ALL Inca gold.  Yet, both
countries became thrid rate industrial and military powers by the 18th
century -  which indicates that plunder alone was not a suffcient condition
for the capitalist takeoff.

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Charles: Yes, colonialism is not a sufficient condition. Establishing the institution of wage-labor is also a necessary conditiion. The prime example given by Marx is England and its primitive accumulation by throwing the English peasants off of the land and establishing wage-labor or free labor.

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The contributing factor argument is trivial, unless we specify the exact
conditions and exact nature of that contribution.  That endeavour, however,
seems to me problematic for methodological reasons,  Unless one insists on
a simple, monocausal explanation of capitalist development, we must assume
many pre-conditions and contributing causes.  For example, geographical
location that favors exchange with different cultures (Middle East, Far
East, as well as the legacy of previous cultures, mainly Roman and Greek
transmitted to Europe via Arab connection), type of economy and
agriculture, social institutions, type of military conflict, type of
interaction with foreign countries and cultures, the type and level of
colonial exploitation, the pre-existing class structure, the importance of
cities and unrban economies, cultural and religious heterogeneity, type of
leadership, knowledge and technology etc.

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Charles: There may be other contributing causes, especially as to why capitalism developed exactly as it did. For example, why it took off in England before Germany or Spain or Japan.  Why its center shifted from England to the U.S. etc. However, colonialism, slavery and racism , and wage-labor remain necessary causes for the system as a whole.


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All those conditions and their combinations represent different variables
that must be considered in different combinations to evaluate their
contribution, if any, to the outcome in question (i.e. capitalist
development).  Just to illustrate the complexity of teh task, the twelve
variables I just listed can produce 144 different combinations if each
those variables has only two values.  The problem is, however, that we do
not have enough cases to make all the relevant comparisons to sort out th
ecombinatins that re important from those that are not - in fact, we have
more possible variables than cases, the latter being limited to a handlful
of Western European nations, and perhaps Japan and the US.

In this situation, we simply have no way of analytically separating the
exact set of conditions that "account for" capitalist development in Europe
but not elsewhere.  The best we can do is to form an "educated guess" which
means forming different opinions that cannot be proved or disproved by
empirical evidence.  That is avery sobering thought, indeed.

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Charles: I would term this last section as more "drunk" than sober. It gets confused because in part because of the problems of analysis I point out above. Then the attempt to put an analysis of a definite quantity of variables ,when the variables do not relate as equal quantitative contributions, but a complex qualitative set , produces a very inebriated understanding, very far from sober.

We have much empirical evidence which urges us to test the hypothesis and theory of abolishing colonialism , racism and wage-labor as the method for abolishing the aspects of capitalism that we do not want or need (We have a theory of the latter because of empircal evidence on the problems of capitalism).

Charles Brown