Those that did conquer, did not conquer on the scale that the Europeans started conquering with the rise of capitalism in Europe.<
JD: The "rise of capitalism"? that's the problem, not the Europeans. By the way, did you notice that the USSR was ruled by Europeans? ^^^^ CB: The Europeans rose up capitalism. Did you notice ? Yes, good for the Russians. The first Europeans to start to end what the Europeans had started. Long live the spirit of the Bolsheviks and Marxism-Leninism ! The anti-capitalist Europeans. ^^^^^^^ JD:>>I think it's wrong to assume that Europeans "chose" capitalism ... History has a logic that is beyond the volition of individuals and cultures; capitalism has an inner logic that meant that it was a system that most class systems could have spawned.<< CB:>This is a bit too much dismissive of agency and free will. Humans make their own history. Sure they don't make it just as they please, [right! --JD] but they make it as they choose to some extent. All is not determined by the past. Some is chance and chosen freely of will.< JD: I don't see how anyone could have foreseen the rise of capitalism before it happened. So how could have anyone "chosen" it? CB: They didn't have to foresee the rise of all of capitalism. What they very consciously chose to do was remove peasants from the land and at home and go around the world "opening new markets", murdering ,slaving etc. ( See Section on the Origin of the Industrial Capitalist in Vol.I of Capital which I have quoted here often over the years; and _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_) CB: Where is the locus of this "history" this "logic"? It is in living human beings. Some Europeans did chose capitalism, or else it wouldn't have come about. The logic of the culture of feudalism was not absolutely binding on all to make capitalism. There was a struggle, and the bourgeoisie won in their drive to make capitalism. In struggling for it, they chose it.< JD: Now it's _some_ Europeans, rather than _all_ Europeans, that suffer from moral inferiority. CB: That's your logical error of presumption. I never said "all" Europeans. The "some" were the dominating ones. The ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of its ruling classes, which is an elite minority. ^^^^^^ JD: But even the European capitalists didn't _choose_ capitalism. It's not like 2005, when there's a capitalist elite (or a bunch of them) that have a clear idea of what capitalism is and how they like it and how they want to have it all over the world. The pre-capitalist ruling elites were kings and their advisors, barons, etc. Even the merchants didn't know what kind of _society_ their actions were helping to produce. Instead they thought that they could make a quick buck by chasing the damn peasants off the land, etc. CB: The assertion is not that that they chose something they were calling "capitalism", but that they chose to accumulate wealth by the actions well described in the literature , including in some basic Marxist classics ( and which I won't repeat here), which we now call "capitalism". Making a quick buck by chasing the damn peasants off the land _is_ capitalism, whether they called it that or not. A rose by any other name... ^^^^^^^ >If there were no choice, there never could occur a Babeuf, Marx or Lenin.< JD: I didn't say there was "no choice" (see above). These folks changed the world, obviously (except perhaps Babeuf). But they changed the world because their ideas and actions fell on "fertile ground." The social conditions were ripe for Marx's and Lenin's ideas. Even then, they didn't produce the results they wanted. In fact, Marx didn't even say what kind of post-capitalist society he wanted, except in the most abstract (i.e., vague) terms. CB: Yes JD:>>Further, it wasn't "Europeans" who started capitalism: it was the post-feudal upper classes in England.<< CB:>Post-feudal upper classes in England and elsewhere are appropriately referred to as "Europeans" . Capitalism did not start only in England. It also started in Portugal with the slave trade, and elsewhere. Capitalism has a multilocal origin, though it did get focussed in England at some points of time.< JD: This gets into another pen-l debate, i.e., "what is capitalism?" I'll leave that aside. But if you redefine "Europeans" (as in the phrase "European moral inferiority") as "Post-feudal upper classes in England and elsewhere," then you are simply changing the topic of the debate. But I don't want to change the topic of the debate. CB: Yea, "What is capitalism ?" is sort of like "What is reality ?". JD:>> Third, if those folks hadn't done it, other cultures would have done so: according to some anti-Eurocentric views, the Chinese had capitalism long before China encountered European capitalism. If Europe had stumbled, in other words, China would have taken up the task of "perfecting" capitalism and spreading it all around the world independently.<< CB:>This counterfactual is a point in dispute. It is not proven that capitalism, with its world historic inferior morality, would have arisen out of other historical traditions ( "ethnic groups"). That's begging the question, asserting as true your side of the issue we are disputing.< JD: I don't agree with Andre Gunder Frank and others who see China as pre-capitalist in 1776, but it's a reasonable point of view. CB: At the very least, if it had been Chinese, it would have a different name. Since we are speculating counter-historicals, one could speculate that the Chinese would not have had the conquering and slavery ,etc. but it's specualation of something that will never happen. CB:The Chinese didn't conquer the globe before the Europeans did, and there is no proof they would have, if the Europeans didn't. They didn't use their prior discovery of gunpowder to do what the Europeans used it for. < JD: Heck, they controlled a massive area and a massive population, many of who weren't Han Chinese. They did so in a dictatorial (i.e. bloody) way. Who could ask for anything more? CB: The Europeans didn't have the only inferior culture in the world. Just the most inferior. CB had written: >>>I guess I should add there is no such thing as "capitalism" without the global conquest. Capitalism is inherently imperialistic.<<< I wrote>>I'd agree. However, pre-capitalist class-based modes of production also involved efforts at world conquest. It's only the development of communication, transportation, and weapons technologies that allowed a more successful effort by the Euros.<< CB:< Not world, in the sense of global , conquest, not nearly.< JD: The lack of modern communication and transportation technology meant that the "world" that people saw was smaller in the past. As far as the Chinese empire was concern, they'd conquered the "world," since the outsiders (the Vietnamese, etc.) were mere "barbarians." ... CB:>>>Capitalism has screwed over the most people in history. This means that the Western Europeans' culture, the bearer of capitalism, is pegged as morally inferior rather than superior to other cultures.<<< JD: >>This misses another point. European culture isn't an "independent variable" in history. In fact, European culture as we know it is to large extent a _product_ of 300 to 500 years of capitalism. It's not just that people make history. History makes people.<< CB:>It is also a product of European feudalism and slavery. This is why Marx and Engels put the history of all three European modes of production in _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_. European capitalism ... is the product of its prior history. Men (sic) make their own history , but all previous history lays on their brains like a nightmare and thereby has some determining effect on it, and combines with chance in making the new mode.< JD: I don't get this. CB: In other words, capitalism is caused by what preceded it in history as well as what happened in its "own" course of development. For example, Roman legal principles influenced the development of capitalist law.
