Allen himself, I believe, would be surprised to find out that he had
delivered a devastating critique of the "Brenner thesis." Particularly
writing in the early pages of his paper: "Wrigley's calculations thus
corrobrate...estimates of the labor production gap {between French and
English agriculture} and show that it emerged in the 17th and 18th
centuries."
Well, Brenner says that agrarian capitalism began in the 16th
century, not the 17th century. As Allen's numbers point out, there
was no difference in productivity between France and England in 1700.
There's also a lot more that Albritton has to say that has a bearing
on the topic, but I will save that for later.
Earlier Brenner states: "From 1450 through to the latter part of the
16th century, the French economy enjoyed a growth phase... Aided by the
peasants' accession to unusually large holdings on the morrow of the
population catastrophes andd the lords' initially restrained tax levies,
population growth took place exceptionally rapidly.....
Except that Allen's stats were about productivity, not growth.
Now this last distinction is key for Brenner, for Brenner is last,
first, and foremost examining, analyzing, the conditions of labor, the
social relations of property that encapsulate labor and either advance
or inhibit its productivity.
Yes, and Albritton documents that the social relations were nothing
like Brenner describes. English agrarian labor in the 17th and 18th
centuries was not at all like that described by Karl Marx in his
discussion of labor as a commodity.
Taken together, what do the these statements tell us? Quite simply that
both "phases" of increased productivity required a fundamental change in
the social relations of agricultural production in the English
countryside.
Odd that Karl Marx would regard the plunder of gold and silver, and
slavery, on an equal footing with the enclosures, etc. in "The
Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist". I guess he was a neo-Smithian
or something:
The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation,
enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the
beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning
of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins,
signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These
idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation.
On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations,
with the globe for a theatre. It begins with the revolt of the
Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in England's
Anti-Jacobin War, and is still going on in the opium wars against China, &c.
The different momenta of primitive accumulation distribute themselves
now, more or less in chronological order, particularly over Spain,
Portugal, Holland, France, and England. In England at the end of the
17th century, they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing
the colonies, the national debt, the modern mode of taxation, and the
protectionist system. These methods depend in part on brute force,
e.g., the colonial system. But, they all employ the power of the
State, the concentrated and organised force of society, to hasten,
hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode
of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the
transition. Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a
new one. It is itself an economic power.
