Re: The Prize by Any Other Name

["Bruce R. McFarling" <ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 25 Nov 2001 20:27:51 -0800, Harry L Cook
<hlc710@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

>I seldom disagree with Henry C.K. Liu, but I  think
>that analytically markets and capitalism can be seen
>as evolving quite naturally throughout most of the
>Middle Ages, at least the last two thirds.  First there
>were markets, then merchant capitalism, the capitalism
>of trade and exchange, then with the advent of the
>Industrial Revolution in England industrial capitalism,
>the capitalism of saving and investment.

The question is not in the existence of markets, but
the existence of a market *system*, including in
particular the reliance on markets for the requisites
of production, even when those requisites are not
in fact produced for sale in the markets ... with
land and labour being primary examples of such
"fictitious commodities".  A system such as Polyani
described could not have sprung into being instantly,
fully formed, but involved taking existing
institutions playing a more subsidiary role and
modifying them to place them central to the whole story.

The weakness of Polyani's story, of course, is that it
reads as if Europe was the center of action in the
development of these institutions, when it was clearly
a sideshow in the development of the system until
the conquests of Mexico and Peru gave it access to enough
silver to buy its way into the main trade routes in
East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean.
It was, after all, no superior technology nor superior
fighting prowess that established the Raj for England, but
rather the ability of the East India company to finance
larger armies of Indians fighting with weapons produced
in India than the opposition could finance.

It is probably no more surprising that the Europeans
established a system without long term viability than
the problems that the Atecs were experiencing when
Cortes brought horses and old world diseases to Mexico.
And, of course, the viability of the modified version
developed afterwards is still an open question, though
it seems more likely that a collapse will more closely
resemble those of the Maya or Easter Island, with the
biological sustainability failing while the society
is preoccupied with other concerns.


Virtually,

Bruce McFarling, Shortland, NSW
ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Virtually,

Bruce McFarling, Newcastle, NSW
ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx