On 4/28/15 11:47 AM, Charlie wrote: > - yet the key feature of the capitalist mode of production, most > production by wage labor, did not happen
Well, that's a formulation that determines a foregone conclusion. Once you speak of "modes of production", you naturally end up supporting the Brenner thesis which takes one form of capitalist exploitation and essentializes it. Marx, of course, had a different understanding: Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. Without slavery there would be no cotton, without cotton there would be no modern industry. It is slavery which has given value to the colonies, it is the colonies which have created world trade, and world trade is the necessary condition for large-scale machine industry. Consequently, prior to the slave trade, the colonies sent very few products to the Old World, and did not noticeably change the face of the world. Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance. Without slavery, North America, the most progressive nation, would he transformed into a patriarchal country. Only wipe North America off the map and you will get anarchy, the complete decay of trade and modern civilisation. But to do away with slavery would be to wipe America off the map. --Letter from Marx to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov, 1846 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
