Jim's restatement of the Brenner thesis coincides with what Marx said and what Ellen Wood said. I think the problem with this whole debate is that we have a tendency to label individuals as right or wrong and then apply these labels in a slap dash way without any feel for the context. Nobody ever has written a study of a particular episode in history that can be applied everywhere and every time without modification. I think it makes more sense to learn what we can learn from a writer, whether it be Brenner or Frank or Wallerstein, without either writing them off as entirely wrong or putting them on a pedestal and declaring that they are altogether correct. I guess that's what they mean by sectarianism. Jim Devine wrote: > 3) the slave sugar plantation system was economically conservative (it > "changed little"), as fitting with the hypothesis that merchant > capital-dominated modes of production tend to be conservative. It also fits > with the Brenner hypothesis, that modes of production where the direct > producers are totally under the thumb of their employers tend to be > technically conservative, because the power of slave-owners (or > serf-dominators) gives them an incentive to squeeze the direct producers > rather than engage in what Marx termed relative surplus-value extraction. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
