* From: Jim Devine Your "capitalism without workers" is a contrast to the real world capitalism in which there are a lot of proletarians. But Brenner, as I understand him, is talking about what started the system going. We rightly associate capitalism with proletarians, just as we associate measles with red spots on the skin. But Brenner is talking about the etiology of the disease. One can have the measles virus before the red spots come.
^^^^^ CB: On this analogy , the body of the virus would be not just in the English countryside, but in the colonies as well. The etiology of the disease is geographically spread out, not focussed in one place.
