I recently caught up with an old friend of mine over Skype. As is my wont, I launched on an excruciatingly long monologue about my anti-Marxist perspective on capitalism. He suggested that I read Ellen Meiksins Wood’s Origin of Capitalism. It is a definitive restatement of the new orthodoxy that began with Robert Brenner’s seminal article from 1976, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe.” The debate over the transition from feudalism to capitalism (“the transition debate”) has always been a ground where prominent Marxist historians (Dobb, Sweezy, Anderson, and so on) made their bones. In what follows (part I), I will present the knotty problem posed by the transition. I will then show how Brenner presents an elegant (and orthodox) Marxist explanation. Then I will lay out Wood’s explanation of the rise of capitalism. This will allow us to better appreciate and evaluate the Marxist lens. In part II of this essay (coming soon), I will demonstrate how Marxists are constantly reaching for variables and explanations extraneous to the frame to explain large-scale, and quite central, phenomena in the history of capitalism. Lastly, I will then lay out my argument for a different lens; one in which there is no need to constantly reach outside the model for explanations.
The Marxists' Achievement
The Marxists' Achievement
The Marxists' Achievement
I recently caught up with an old friend of mine over Skype. As is my wont, I launched on an excruciatingly long monologue about my anti-Marxist perspective on capitalism. He suggested that I read Ellen Meiksins Wood’s Origin of Capitalism. It is a definitive restatement of the new orthodoxy that began with Robert Brenner’s seminal article from 1976, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe.” The debate over the transition from feudalism to capitalism (“the transition debate”) has always been a ground where prominent Marxist historians (Dobb, Sweezy, Anderson, and so on) made their bones. In what follows (part I), I will present the knotty problem posed by the transition. I will then show how Brenner presents an elegant (and orthodox) Marxist explanation. Then I will lay out Wood’s explanation of the rise of capitalism. This will allow us to better appreciate and evaluate the Marxist lens. In part II of this essay (coming soon), I will demonstrate how Marxists are constantly reaching for variables and explanations extraneous to the frame to explain large-scale, and quite central, phenomena in the history of capitalism. Lastly, I will then lay out my argument for a different lens; one in which there is no need to constantly reach outside the model for explanations.