> >But why enclosure? Why travel abroad and steal people? Why did it
>>occur to people to enclose common land for the first time? Why didn't
>>they think of it before?
>>
>>Doug
>
>Enclosing land is utterly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
>Spain enclosed land all through the 15th and 16th century but did not "take
>off". I just finished reading Adolfo Gilly's splendid history of the
>Mexican revolution 1910-1920. The original Zapatista movement was sparked
>by enclosures in Morelos, when sugar producing haciendas were created at
>the expense of communal land deeded to Indians in the 17th century. While
>Mexico was enclosing land, Japan at the very same moment was reinforcing
>feudal property relations in the countryside so as to hasten capital
>accumulation for the growth of native manufacturing. Japan took off because
>it was protected from colonialism. England took off because it became
>colonialist. Mexico failed to take off because it was a victim of
>neocolonialism. Period. Case close. Sentence: ten years with time off for
>good behavior.
>
>Louis Proyect
>Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Enclosure mattered the most at the _origin_ of capitalism, for the
_creation_ of the drive toward M-C-M'. In the process of its
subsequent development, as more & more areas became incorporated into
the capitalist world market, as Japan eventually was, however, the
ruling classes who were capitalist late-comers could use strategies
different from English landlords. Nevertheless, primitive
accumulation -- the separation of direct producers from their means
of production (mainly land, but also customary rights, exclusionary
powers of guilds, etc.) & the destruction of private properties based
upon petty commodity production (e.g., writers) -- continues to this
day. Hence, for instance, the EZLN -- a response to primitive
accumulation.
Yoshie
