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print versionI’ve divided this presentation into four distinct parts.[1] A shorthand description of these might be
- Conventional narratives of capitalist origins
- Commercial capitalism as a better alternative
- Modern capitalism, and
- Capital & the peasantry
Imagine these themes as chapters to a book called Introduction to a History of Capitalism. So, what this talk sets out to do is simply construct a framework where we can think about capitalism historically. To start with the conventional narratives, these are based on one or both of two approaches we can call ‘primitive accumulation’ and ‘transition’, both drawn from Marx. In Marx’s eight chapters on primitive accumulation, the most fruitful ones are Chapters 27 and 31. Chapter 27 deals with the expropriation of the English peasantry, and the more general theme one can extract from it is dispossession. Chapter 31 contains a concise view of the world economy, and the corresponding theme here is the way the state bolsters the expansion of capital across nations and territorial boundaries. It also describes the two main trading companies of the seventeenth century as ‘powerful levers for the concentration of capital’.[2]
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