At 07:08 PM 4/26/2007, you wrote:
Why does it have to be either or. Why is it necessary to either
external loot or
domestic exploitation causes development?
--
Michael Perelman
I will get into more depth on this later on, but the basic problem is
that Robert Brenner confines "primitive accumulation" to the English
countryside. This is not how Marx saw it. It is really about
separating peasants from the means of reproduction and forcing them
to become workers. If there was a surplus of workers, wage labor was
the best way to exploit them. If there was a shortage, then slavery
or other forms of bondage would work. This is the crux of the
difference between Norwich in the 16th century and Potosi.
