I have never been a big fan of British sheep. They make me wanna sleep.
Steve
On Fri, 1 Jun 2001, Chris Burford wrote:
> At 02/06/01 01:01 +0000, you wrote:
> >Chris Burford wrote:
> > >
> > > It seems clear that Louis Proyect has nothing to say himself on the
> > > role of sheep in the rise of capitalism in England.
> >
> >You're letting Lou get to you, Chris. Let it go, mate
>
>
> I am merely firing a prudent pre-emptive shot in view of LP's inclination
> to divert serious questions with flippant or sarcastic remarks.
>
> Thank you anyway for replying with what you have.
>
> >As for sheep - here's the first verse from an early 16th century poem (cited
> >in Rickword and Lindsay's *Handbook of Freedom* p69):
> >
> >'Commons to close and keep,
> >Poor folk for bread to cry and weep,
> >Towns pulled down to pasture sheep ...'
> >
> >All that civil war had seen many lords killed, and their peasants transferred
> >to new masters, torn from the quasi-contractual ties of yore. The sheep were
> >so valuable because Flemish and Dutch textile houses, conveniently just across
> >the pond, needed fast and reliable access to wool in amounts they could not
> >grow themselves. Mebbe an ancestor of mine was one of 'em - Schaap means
> >sheep.
>
> My family name is that of a properous mediaeval English wool town.
>
> But it seems no one can supply a reference from Wood or Brenner on this
> question. So despite the fact that I have only one book by Wood, and I
> haven't tried to understand the significance of the great Brenner debate
> until now, I will at least supply that reference. It did not even occur to
> me to look at the book before posing my question since I assumed that the
> main protagonists would know the material so much better.
>
> Although Wood's book "A Trumpet of Sedition" (with Neal Wood) is subtitled
> 'Political Theory and the Rise of Capitalism 1509-1688', the following
> passage shows that the issue of wool is important to her explanation of the
> basis of the rise of English capitalism prior to this period.
>
> On page 17 of the Pluto, London, pb edition of this book (1997) (preface by
> Christopher Hill) in the first chapter, entitled 'Two Centuries of
> Revolution' she wrote:
>
> " While agricultural advances could not be matched by those of the
> manufacturing and commercial sectors, even here headway was far from
> negligible. Capitalist agriculture was encouraged by the accelerating
> demand for the export of woolen textiles. Since the twelfth century raw
> wool had been the leading export, to be replaced in the fifteenth century
> by woolen textiles the production of which greatly expanded in the next two
> centuries, not only for sale abroad but also for the home market.
>
> Enormous operations by capitalist graziers, especially in the south and
> east, helped to satisfy the need for raw wool to be woven into textiles by
> the thriving industry of rural cottagers. The weaving, collecting,
> finishing and distribution of cloth for export and home consumption was
> organized by capitalist entrepreneurs. So rural England was the birthplace
> not only of agrarian capitalism but also of English capitalist manufacture
> in the production of textiles."
>
> This does not mean that Samir Amin, for whom I have a lot of admiration, is
> necessarily wrong in arguing that imperialism in the sense of colonisation
> of the rest of the world by Europe is inherent to the *expansion* of
> capitalism.
>
> But it also does not mean that Ellen Meiksins Wood deserves innuendoes
> about her class composition for presenting the relevance of the sort of
> arguments above.
>
> Chris Burford
>
> London
>
>
