The Origin of Capitalism
LC Class | HB501 .W915 |
The Origin of Capitalism is a 1999 book on history and political economy, specifically the history of capitalism, by the political theorist Ellen Meiksins Wood, written from the perspective of political Marxism. It was reviewed as an "Outstanding Academic Book" by Michael Perelman.[1]
Summary
The book is divided into three sections. The following summary is based on the second edition (though some references are to the first).
Wood's
Wood argues that past historians have tended to see capitalism as a natural and even inevitable human behaviour, which came into being when barriers to trade and commerce were removed: essentially, in their understanding, people were waiting for the opportunity to become capitalists. Wood argues rather that capitalism did not come about until a set of unique historical circumstances compelled people to.
Part I, 'Histories of the Transition'
In part I, Wood surveys past work on the transition to capitalism. She sketches how
Part II, 'The Origin of Capitalism'
In part II, Wood argues that capitalism emerged in the unique conditions of late medieval and early modern English agrarian society, basing her argument firmly on Robert Brenner's ‘Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe’.[6] She argues that commerce is not equivalent to capitalism and does not produce it because 'the dominant principle of trade everywhere was not surplus value derived from production but "profit on alienation", "buying cheap and selling dear" ':[7] that is, although trade involves the seeking of profits, it does not in itself affect how goods are produced. Wood argues that polities which flourished from trade such as medieval Florence and the early-modern Dutch Republic that did not become capitalist are not examples of a 'failed transition', but rather examples of how trade and urbanisation has flourished widely in human history without capitalism developing. She likewise argues that various past societies, such as early modern France, had peasantries with ample opportunity to enter into commercial production, which, however, did not take this opportunity. Thus Wood concludes that capitalism must have arisen from changing imperatives in fundamental relations of production.[1]
Wood sees these unique circumstances arising in
Part III, 'Agrarian Capitalism and Beyond'
In part III, Wood sketches how industrial capitalism developed from its agrarian English origins. She argues that the end of subsistence farming produced a large population which needed both to sell its labour and to buy basic necessities of life, creating a mass consumer market quite different from the markets for luxury goods that characterised non-capitalist commerce. This mass market underpinned the development of mass production.
Wood argues that England's rising productivity slowly but inevitably forced competing economies to enter capitalist modes of production: although the development of capitalism was a chance event, it set in motion a transition that would become global. She argues that English capitalism did not cause England's imperialism, noting that neighbouring non-capitalist economies like Spain and France also built overseas empires. She does find, however, that English capitalism produced a distinctive kind of imperialism. Rather than ruling purely through 'extra-economic' methods of exerting power (such as force), England exported its model of social property relations to its colonies, providing powerful economic imperatives for people to adopt capitalism. English imperialism also drew on the nascent capitalist ideology of thinkers such as
Wood sketches the reliance of capitalism on the political structures of the
Editions
The book was originally published in 1999 by Monthly Review Press, and then a revised[10] edition was published in 2002 by Verso Books, with the subtitle "A Longer View".[11] A reprint appeared in 2013 and again in 2017.
- ISBN 1-58367-000-9, 120 pp.
- Wood, Ellen Meiksins (2002) The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, ISBN 978-1-85984-392-5, 213 pp.
- Wood, Ellen Meiksins (2013) The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, Aakar Books, 2013. ISBN 978-93-5002-241-2, 224 pp.
- Wood, Ellen Meiksins (2017) The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, Verso Books, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78663-068-1, 213 pp.
Reviews
Reviews include:
- Geoff Kennedy, Labour / Le Travail, Vol. 44 (Fall, 1999), pp. 303–305, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25149026
- Richard Biernacki, Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Jul., 2000), pp. 638–639, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2654574
- Kevin R. Cox, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 91, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 220–222, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3651208
- Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, ( sections: Social & Behavioral Sciences \ Economics ) October 1999, n. 37
- Review in The Economic Journal Volume 109 Issue 459, Pages 867 - 876 Published Online: 28 Jun 2008
References
- ^ a b Perelman, Oct. 1999
- ^ 1999, p. 35.
- ^ a b c 1999, p. 2.
- ^ a b 1999, p. 70.
- ^ 2002, p. 69.
- ^ Brenner, Robert (1976). ‘Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe,’ Past & Present, 70, February, pp. 30-75.
- ^ 2002, p. 78.
- ^ David McNally, "Ellen Meiksins Wood obituary" The Guardian.
- ^ 2002, p. 129.
- ^ According to the Acknowledgements, the second edition is "...substantially revised and expanded..."
- ^ Copyright notice on the 2002 edition