I'm far from an expert but some historians believe capitalism got off to an abortive start in 14th century Italy. The revolt of the Ciompi in Florence from 1378 to 1382 is sometimes said to have resulted in capitalism not taking off properly in Italy then.
Because there is no answer to the question. It's not like capitalism was a clear break from feudalism. It developed slowly and then accelerated. The preconditions for capitalism existed for a long time prior to the commodity becoming the dominant economic unit.
Brenner makes a pretty good argument for England, and that the fundamental relations-- separation between "producers" and the "means of production" (in this case the means of agricultural production) is well-established in the 1600s.
I think what is really at issue, is not where or when did it first occur, but where did it first become dominant, "self-reproducing" as production of, for, and byvalue.
It depends on what you mean by capitalism. Capitalist trade, trade of commodities for the sake of acquiring a surplus out of it certainly started many many centuries ago. A whole nation bend on this developed first probably in Netherlands in late 1500s during the republican period. However the transformation of the production processes itself in a massive scale, to the extend that peasantry (which was hitherto the bulk of productive element in society) was liquidated and transformed into proletariat began in Britain and spread to Europe and the US in the 19th century. This is when we can start talking about a global transition from a formal domination to a real domination of capital in the sphere of production.
I think historically the main problem causing this temporal uncertainty about clear dates is that Bourgeoisie as a class did well enough for long as an economically powerful but politically incapable class. Nevertheless in many countries bourgeoisie came to power or took its share from the state rule before a transition from a formal to real domination in the productive sphere occurred. In fact in countries like Germany and Russia bourgeois parties were excluded from power while there was industrial development -at least definitely in the former case.
I think what is really at issue, is not where or when did it first occur
I think what is at issue here is where, when and how Capitalism first occurred. My contention is it first occurred in Mesopotamia, 12,000 years ago, through the innovation of dam building.
the German Marxist scholar Rudolf Wolfgang Müller wrote in the 1970ies a study which traced some elements of bourgeois society and statehood already in the Greek polis society around 600-500 BCE: http://www.prokla.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/1975/Prokla17-18.pdf (pp. 1-25,in German) ... Ernest Mandel saw some more developed aspects of industrial capitalism in Sung dynasty China (960-1279) which weren't however hegemonic
But of course elements, incidents, expressions of capitalism can be traced to pre-capitalist societies. The word itself comes from the Latin for "cattle" doesn't it? And cattle were the means of exchange in many societies, including those in Africa, well before the 14th century in Italy, or the 16th century in England.
And it's not for nothing, and no accident, that Aristotle comes so very close to understanding exchange value.
But to talk about capitalism existing in a society where agriculture dominated, and subsistence agriculture at that, because dams were built, grain exchanged, really empties the term of meaning.
Examples of wage labor can, of course, be traced back millennia - even most slave-based societies, if you dig under the surface, were intertwined with wage labor to some extent. But to talk of capitalism, wage labor needs to be the dominant (or at least ascendant) social relation, no?
I define Capitalism as the existence of alienated labour and it's counterpart, exploitation; and, of course, the existence of capital (in my contention, in the first instance, the dam – a means of production, privately owned/controlled). History (not written history but the history embodied in cultivated seeds [from Harlan, 1971]) records that these existed 12,000 years ago in an area (a Capital, more precisely) analogous with modern Kurdistan.
What caused it to occur is as much a mystery to me as how life was created on Earth. If anyone can enlighten me I'd be grateful. What causes it to cease to exist, from my experience, is our class violence.
Is it capital in the sense of the organization of labor as dispossessed, detached, of all means of its own reproduction and thus value-producing; having no use value to its "owner" other than as a value to be exchanged for a value equivalent to the means of subsistence?
Yeh it depends on how you define capitalism. I tend to agree with Brenner & those in his camp that there are certain class dynamics that separates capitalism from previous class-divided schemes.
The dispossession of producers from an ability to secure an independent livelihood & being forced to seek employment from employers is critical. It generates in capitalism the dynamic where capital always aims to reduce its labor bill through re-organization & new methods & technologies that reduce labor to produce things, that is, which increases labor productivity continuously.
This means a slave system isn't capitalist because the owners of the slaves are not interested in getting rid of labor...they're committed to maintaining the slave as a means of production.
If we were talking about USA, I don't think capitalism came to exist here til the early 1800s in the northern states. Prior to the war for independence, most of the population were able to live through peasant style agriculture, producing for own subsistence. They bartered with local merchants & each other for goods & were largely independent of the money economy.
The southern states continued to maintain a semi-feudal slave regime of course until it was destroyed in the civil war.
Hi I appreciate I sort of left this thread alone to develop and I think it really has. I've only read a couple of posts and this is my reply so far for what it's worth :-)
This idea of merchant capitalism in the 12th Century or even earlier doesn't really ring true. I think we as humans have tried and developed many ways to trade or swap things to our mutual benefit. And of course there have been attempts to force things upon ordinary people, but sheer numbers, and intelligence, have ensured that they haven't been allowed to continue
I think it was with industrialisation that capitalism was invented as a concept and enforced by private police forces. It lead to the forced movement of people to centres or large towns and cities in order to survive as they were forced off the small parcels of land that allowed at least a peasant existence for many.
I think that 'inventing capitalism as a concept' necessarily came after 'practising capitalism in fact'.
If - and it's not the only definition - capitalism is the production of commodities through wage labour, then we can see it existing in embryo in Ancient Greece and Rome, and in the European Middle Ages - in a tiny way.
These were never capable of transforming the over-riding economic conditions however. We can distinguish I think 'capitalism as behaviour' (individual entrepreneurs owning pottery-production workshops for example, or merchants trading stock from one port to another using money as a medium of exchange), which goes back maybe 2,500 years, and 'capitalism as a system' (wage-labour and commodity-production being the economically-dominant forms) that emerged in the last 400 years.
But it's only after these practises emerged that people identified them. They didn't start from a blueprint of 'capitalism as an idea'.
Yeah, I'd say it really
Yeah, I'd say it really started to accelerate mid-17th century.
Ok so we are anchoring
Ok so we are anchoring capitalism, or at least the growth of capitalism, somewhere in the 1600's / C17. Anyone disagree or can be more precise?
I'm far from an expert but
I'm far from an expert but some historians believe capitalism got off to an abortive start in 14th century Italy. The revolt of the Ciompi in Florence from 1378 to 1382 is sometimes said to have resulted in capitalism not taking off properly in Italy then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciompi_Revolt
Much earlier if we see this
Much earlier if we see this variant as an expression of capitalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_capitalism
So what we call Industrial capitalism can be described as a different development developing later.
We might talk of the capitalist revolutions as their beginnings ...English Civil War...French Revolution...Russian Revolution...
12,000 years ago
12,000 years ago
Khawaga writes: Quote: ...I'd
Khawaga writes:
This does not answer the question.
Because there is no answer to
Because there is no answer to the question. It's not like capitalism was a clear break from feudalism. It developed slowly and then accelerated. The preconditions for capitalism existed for a long time prior to the commodity becoming the dominant economic unit.
The next question is where
The next question is where did it first occur?
Quote: The preconditions for
What do you mean by the 'preconditions for capitalism'? Original Sin?
James MacBryde wrote: The
James MacBryde
Brenner makes a pretty good argument for England, and that the fundamental relations-- separation between "producers" and the "means of production" (in this case the means of agricultural production) is well-established in the 1600s.
I think what is really at issue, is not where or when did it first occur, but where did it first become dominant, "self-reproducing" as production of, for, and by value.
Quote: What do you mean by
I'm not sure I am that bothered with answering questions that are not posed in good faith. Typical of your behaviour on libcom.
It depends on what you mean
It depends on what you mean by capitalism. Capitalist trade, trade of commodities for the sake of acquiring a surplus out of it certainly started many many centuries ago. A whole nation bend on this developed first probably in Netherlands in late 1500s during the republican period. However the transformation of the production processes itself in a massive scale, to the extend that peasantry (which was hitherto the bulk of productive element in society) was liquidated and transformed into proletariat began in Britain and spread to Europe and the US in the 19th century. This is when we can start talking about a global transition from a formal domination to a real domination of capital in the sphere of production.
I think historically the main problem causing this temporal uncertainty about clear dates is that Bourgeoisie as a class did well enough for long as an economically powerful but politically incapable class. Nevertheless in many countries bourgeoisie came to power or took its share from the state rule before a transition from a formal to real domination in the productive sphere occurred. In fact in countries like Germany and Russia bourgeois parties were excluded from power while there was industrial development -at least definitely in the former case.
Quote: I think what is
I think what is at issue here is where, when and how Capitalism first occurred. My contention is it first occurred in Mesopotamia, 12,000 years ago, through the innovation of dam building.
Your comrade, under heavy manners, James
James MacBryde #14 What
James MacBryde #14
What definition of capitalism are you using?
the German Marxist scholar
the German Marxist scholar Rudolf Wolfgang Müller wrote in the 1970ies a study which traced some elements of bourgeois society and statehood already in the Greek polis society around 600-500 BCE: http://www.prokla.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/1975/Prokla17-18.pdf (pp. 1-25,in German) ... Ernest Mandel saw some more developed aspects of industrial capitalism in Sung dynasty China (960-1279) which weren't however hegemonic
But of course elements,
But of course elements, incidents, expressions of capitalism can be traced to pre-capitalist societies. The word itself comes from the Latin for "cattle" doesn't it? And cattle were the means of exchange in many societies, including those in Africa, well before the 14th century in Italy, or the 16th century in England.
And it's not for nothing, and no accident, that Aristotle comes so very close to understanding exchange value.
But to talk about capitalism existing in a society where agriculture dominated, and subsistence agriculture at that, because dams were built, grain exchanged, really empties the term of meaning.
Examples of wage labor can,
Examples of wage labor can, of course, be traced back millennia - even most slave-based societies, if you dig under the surface, were intertwined with wage labor to some extent. But to talk of capitalism, wage labor needs to be the dominant (or at least ascendant) social relation, no?
Auld-bold asked: Quote: James
Auld-bold asked:
I define Capitalism as the existence of alienated labour and it's counterpart, exploitation; and, of course, the existence of capital (in my contention, in the first instance, the dam – a means of production, privately owned/controlled). History (not written history but the history embodied in cultivated seeds [from Harlan, 1971]) records that these existed 12,000 years ago in an area (a Capital, more precisely) analogous with modern Kurdistan.
What caused it to occur is as much a mystery to me as how life was created on Earth. If anyone can enlighten me I'd be grateful. What causes it to cease to exist, from my experience, is our class violence.
James MacBryde wrote: I
James MacBryde
Clearly, though, these things also existed within feudalism and slavery - or do you consider those things capitalism, too?
Is it capital, though, of the sense of money being invested in order to make more money?
Is it capital in the sense of
Is it capital in the sense of the organization of labor as dispossessed, detached, of all means of its own reproduction and thus value-producing; having no use value to its "owner" other than as a value to be exchanged for a value equivalent to the means of subsistence?
Yeh it depends on how you
Yeh it depends on how you define capitalism. I tend to agree with Brenner & those in his camp that there are certain class dynamics that separates capitalism from previous class-divided schemes.
The dispossession of producers from an ability to secure an independent livelihood & being forced to seek employment from employers is critical. It generates in capitalism the dynamic where capital always aims to reduce its labor bill through re-organization & new methods & technologies that reduce labor to produce things, that is, which increases labor productivity continuously.
This means a slave system isn't capitalist because the owners of the slaves are not interested in getting rid of labor...they're committed to maintaining the slave as a means of production.
If we were talking about USA, I don't think capitalism came to exist here til the early 1800s in the northern states. Prior to the war for independence, most of the population were able to live through peasant style agriculture, producing for own subsistence. They bartered with local merchants & each other for goods & were largely independent of the money economy.
The southern states continued to maintain a semi-feudal slave regime of course until it was destroyed in the civil war.
Hi I appreciate I sort of
Hi I appreciate I sort of left this thread alone to develop and I think it really has. I've only read a couple of posts and this is my reply so far for what it's worth :-)
This idea of merchant capitalism in the 12th Century or even earlier doesn't really ring true. I think we as humans have tried and developed many ways to trade or swap things to our mutual benefit. And of course there have been attempts to force things upon ordinary people, but sheer numbers, and intelligence, have ensured that they haven't been allowed to continue
I think it was with industrialisation that capitalism was invented as a concept and enforced by private police forces. It lead to the forced movement of people to centres or large towns and cities in order to survive as they were forced off the small parcels of land that allowed at least a peasant existence for many.
I think that 'inventing
I think that 'inventing capitalism as a concept' necessarily came after 'practising capitalism in fact'.
If - and it's not the only definition - capitalism is the production of commodities through wage labour, then we can see it existing in embryo in Ancient Greece and Rome, and in the European Middle Ages - in a tiny way.
These were never capable of transforming the over-riding economic conditions however. We can distinguish I think 'capitalism as behaviour' (individual entrepreneurs owning pottery-production workshops for example, or merchants trading stock from one port to another using money as a medium of exchange), which goes back maybe 2,500 years, and 'capitalism as a system' (wage-labour and commodity-production being the economically-dominant forms) that emerged in the last 400 years.
But it's only after these practises emerged that people identified them. They didn't start from a blueprint of 'capitalism as an idea'.