[PEN-L:27334] Re: Re: Re: LTV and income disparity

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Justin Schwartz wrote:
>the economy. But I was responding to the Blautian line that everything was 
>just wonderful before capitalism--no unemployment! high living standards! 
>disalienated labor!--which of course is whay it is racist to deny that the 
>thordworld didn't invent capitalism before white people did. I have no idea 
>why this farrago of anachronisms has any appeal for anyone. It represents a 
>very serious decline in left understandings of the world political economy, 
>and helps delay analytical progress.

Jim Blaut did not say anything like this. He simply said that the
development of European capitalism preempted the possibility of it
developing elsewhere along the same lines. He was correct.

As far as how people lived before the Europeans arrived, I strongly
recommend PEN-L'ers to look at an Atlantic Monthly article titled "1491".
The author states:

I asked seven anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians if they would
rather have been a typical Indian or a typical European in 1491. None was
delighted by the question, because it required judging the past by the
standards of today?a fallacy disparaged as "presentism" by social
scientists. But every one chose to be an Indian. Some early colonists gave
the same answer. Horrifying the leaders of Jamestown and Plymouth, scores
of English ran off to live with the Indians. My ancestor shared their
desire, which is what led to the trumped-up murder charges against him?or
that's what my grandfather told me, anyway.

As for the Indians, evidence suggests that they often viewed Europeans with
disdain. The Hurons, a chagrined missionary reported, thought the French
possessed "little intelligence in comparison to themselves." Europeans,
Indians said, were physically weak, sexually untrustworthy, atrociously
ugly, and just plain dirty. (Spaniards, who seldom if ever bathed, were
amazed by the Aztec desire for personal cleanliness.) A Jesuit reported
that the "Savages" were disgusted by handkerchiefs: "They say, we place
what is unclean in a fine white piece of linen, and put it away in our
pockets as something very precious, while they throw it upon the ground."
The Micmac scoffed at the notion of French superiority. If Christian
civilization was so wonderful, why were its inhabitants leaving?

full: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/03/mann.htm

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org