----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Devine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 7:53 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:12069] Re: Origination of Capitalism
> David Shemano writes:
> >could somebody please explain why capitalism originated in England
as
> >opposed to Spain. I am trying to understand the connection between
> >slavery and imperialism and the origination of capitalism. Was not
Spain
> >the most powerful nation in Europe in the 16-17th centuries and in
> >possession of large colonies which it exploited? If so, why
capitalism in
> >England and not Spain? Or is the assumption of my question wrong?
>
> The usual story is that Spain blew all their gold on arms and the
like,
> while given the way that their economy was set up (very feudal), the
> increased supply of gold simply caused a lot of inflation. Their
purchase
> of arms and the like from other countries (rather than producing
them
> themselves) meant that a lot of the economic stimulus went to
Holland and
> England, which had already developed merchant capitalism a bit. So
the New
> World loot fell on fertile ground.
>
> England had the advantage of being on an island, which insulated
them from
> attack and encouraged the development of naval prowess, so they
could
> defeat the Armada and solve the problems of political fragmentation
within
> the island (often at the expense of the Celtic fringe). (On the
other hand,
> Holland was conquered for awhile by Spain.) The growing domestic
> stabilization and the rise of absolutism in England after the War of
the
> Roses [middle to late 1400s] allowed the enclosure movement, which
> revolutionized social relationships in the countryside. This process
> intensified after the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution [mid
1600s]: if
> I remember correctly, the Glorious Rev. of 1688 ended the last
vestiges of
> the king's opposition to enclosures and transferred increasing
amounts of
> power to Parliament, which favored enclosures. By converting the
"feudal"
> rules (in which peasants had a secure access to plots of land and
the like
> but had to submit to the political authority of the lord) into
capitalist
> ones (in which landless peasants lacked the ability to support
themselves
> independently but could move to wherever the jobs were), the
enclosure
> movement transformed the social situation. The lords became
landlords, who
> could exploit the desperate rural workers' labor-power freely,
institute
> technical improvements, and accumulate wealth for themselves,
allowing an
> upward spiral toward urban capitalism and the industrial revolution,
which
> started in the late 1700s. The rise of full-scale capitalism allowed
> England to use the loot from the conquered areas of the New World
and
> elsewhere increasingly effectively.
>
> That's just a sketch, but I think it captures the major points. If
anyone
> disagrees, please say so.
>
> Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
=============
I'm fascinated by the metaphor and image of the upward spiral; a
secular holdover perhaps? It's always been intriguing to me how the
left [such as it is, I know] is every bit as obsessed with the
origins of capitalISM as physicists are with the origins of the
universe.
Also it is sometimes interesting, given our obsession with said
origins as a kind of "fall" given the brutality etc. that we have come
to see the origins of Brit bicameralism as a legal, somewhat
dignified institution [a refined form of class power] rather than as
institutionalized protection racket that has been constantly mangling
"public interest" arguments whenever it gets the chance-capitalists
doing their own form of, gasp!, deconstruction.
Ian
