robbo203
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Exactly, Robbo. But Wez is not denying that, only opposing gradualism in the place of political revolution. My point is, why seize power when it falls into your hands without a fight?
Yes, I think the term gradualism can give rise to misunderstanding. It has been used for example to describe a process by which a capitalist society might be transformed into a socialist society (or at any rate a society administered in the interest of workers) without the need for a conscious political revolution. Obviously I dont hold that view but I do believe in the idea of a gradual incremental change as a precondition of a political revolution
As far as a capitalist revolution is concerned this change may require a political revolution to sweep away the old order but sometimes not – sometimes as you hint the old order might simply implode from within or crumble away, and offer no resistance. Sometimes the new order may be imposed externally as is the case with colonialism
As far as a socialist revolution is concerned this obviously has to be predicated on the gradual development of a mass socialist movement. Unlike with capitalist revolutions, though I think this necessarily has to involve a political revolution in the sense of a concerted attempt to capture political power in order to get rid of material basis of political power itself
But political seizure of government by the capitalist class doesn’t always come by them actively doing the seizing. In Japan it was handed to them by the Meiji throne. In China and Russia it fell to a new bourgeoisie formed of Bolshevik and ex-Bolshevik leaders, and later, new entrepreneurs emerging from the termination of Bolshevik state-capitalism.
Yes I agree TM but my point is that whether or not the capitalists seize power this presupposes the prior existence of capitalist relations of production and hence a capitalist class. In other words a gradualistic development in which the forces of production come into open conflict with the existing relations of production in what is called a revolution, In Russia capitalism did not begin with the Bolsheviks constituting themselves as a “new bourgeoise”. Rather they stepped into the shoes vacated by the old bourgeoisie whose businesses were mainly nationalised. Capitalism in Russia was already developing when the Bolsheviks came on the scene. Some of its capitalist manufacturing plants such as the Putilov works were among the largest and most modern in the world and foreign capitalists – particularly from France – had invested heavily in Tsarist Russia
This is why I was critical of Wez’s comment
The priority of most reactionary historians is to destroy or at least undermine the Marxist theory of class struggle generating historical change. Your ‘gradualist’ theory of history is one of their favourite tactics and so you must forgive me for being suspicious of its credibility
There is absolutely no contradiction whatsoever between a gradualist theory of history such as I have described above and a Marxist theory of class struggle generating historical change. In fact the latter doesn’t make much sense without the former which posits cumulative quantitative changes – which are by definition gradualistic – bringing about , or making necessary, a qualitive rupture in society which is what we tend to mean by “revolution”
The priority of most reactionary historians is to destroy or at least undermine the Marxist theory of class struggle generating historical change. Your ‘gradualist’ theory of history is one of their favourite tactics and so you must forgive me for being suspicious of its credibility
I dont really get this argument at all. How does the “gradualist theory of history” contradict the “theory of class struggle”?
Surely the historic change from feudalism to capitalism was predicated on the gradual build up of capitalist relations of production within the interstices of a feudal society bringing it eventually into open conflict with the relations of production characteristic of the latter and the consequent intensification of class struggle leading to the overthrow of the latter?
There is no contradiction whatsoever between these two concepts. We can quibble about when exactly political power fell into the hands of the rising capitalist class but we can hardly deny the existence of this class prior to this revolutionary event
Similarly, the socialist revolution presupposes a very long and gradual growth of a class conscious socialist movement leading up the dispossession of the capitalists of their exclusive ownership and control of the means of wealth production. Unquestionably this gradualistic movement will have far reaching cumulative consequences that will progressively modify the very social environment in which socialists operate.
This would be the materialistic approach to understanding history – that the past prepares the ground for the future. The alternative would be to suggest that events happen completely out of blue by someone waving a magic wand somewhere .
I see nothing wrong with the basic argument TM is putting forward. The only issue at stake is when exactly did the state fall into the hands of the capitalist class or those intent upon furthering the interests of this class….
Robbo, this appears to be about a period before the emergence of the Chinese Empire and its bureaucracy (“oriental despotism” ?). — In any event, there was no possibility of the Chinese feudalism of the time evolving into capitalism. I don’t think it’s really a relevant comparison.
That may be so but it still refutes the claim that “Feudalism did not exist in China it only existed in Europe”
Incidentally, feudalism did not just exist in China- what about Japan?
https://www.ancient.eu/article/1438/feudalism-in-medieval-japan/
“Feudalism did not exist in China it only existed in Europe”
https://www.britannica.com/place/China/The-Zhou-feudal-system
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429447808/chapters/10.4324/9780429447808-9
You missed a part, Adam said that the state had to be overthrown
I didn’t miss the part nor did I deny the state had to be overthrown. I was simply countering your incorrect and non-materialist claim that Without a bourgeoise revolution, the bourgeoisie class could not have been established.
The bourgeoise class emerged prior to the bourgeois revolution and ws the material basis for such a revolution to happen in the first place- in the same way that a revolutionary socialist majority is the material basis for a socialist revolution. Or do you suppose a socialist majority can be created after the socialist revolution a la Leninist vanguardism?
As for historians claiming bourgeois revolutions can happen in the absence of a bourgeois I take this to mean the relative absence of the bourgeois in the practicalities of a revolution – not the absence of the bourgeoisie itself. In Russia pre-1917 there certainly was a domestic capitalist class but it was considered to be too weak by the Bolsheviks to mount en effective challenge to the Tsarist regime
These two extracts are written by Adam Buick, they confirm everything. Without a bourgeoise revolution, the bourgeoisie class could not have been established
Actually if I read Adam correctly he is not saying that at all. What he said was:
“More broadly, I have agreed with you that capitalism existed before the bourgeoisie won political control. Of course it did, otherwise they would have had no economic basis and in fact would not have existed.
If capitalism existed before the bourgeoise won political control then obviously the bourgeoise existed before it won political control since you can’t have capitalism without a bourgeoise or capitalist class
Actually to claim that “without a bourgeoise revolution, the bourgeoisie class could not have been established” goes against a materialist reading of history since it deprives the bourgeois revolution of the key material element that would make it a bourgeois revolution in the first place – namely a bourgeois or capitalist class
Our main concern as a socialist/communist organization is the socialist proletarian revolution, it is not the fucking feudalist/ capitalist revolution
That’s exactly what I said so I am still puzzled as what exactly it is you are complaining about
Something is wrong with the spgb when they are accepting applicants who do not follow the materialist conception of history
Who is not following the materialist conception of history? You seem to be just making wild unsubstantiated charges here. The debate has to do with when did capitalist relations of production emerge in the UK. The Marx quote that ALB provided is quite useful here – notably this:
“The English class of great landowners, allied with the bourgeoisie — which, incidentally, had already developed under Henry VIII — did not find itself in opposition — as did the French feudal landowners in 1789 — but rather in complete harmony with the vital requirements of the bourgeoisie. In fact, their lands were not feudal but bourgeois property.”
If you are criticising TM then you are also criticising Marx’s view – in which case when do YOU think bourgeois property relations emerged in England?
Therefore, Russia, China, Cuba and North Korea were matured for a proletarian revolution instead of carrying over a bourgeoise/nationalist revolution. The SPGB should erase all the articles written about this process and teach something different to the sympathizers and new members. Bernstein is not the only Marx revisionist
I cant make any sense of this. The preconditions of a socialist revolution are very different to those of a capitalist revolution. Who are these members who have suggested Russia et al was ready for the former? No one has said this. You cant have socialism without a conscious socialist majority and in Russia – by Lenin’s own admission – the number of socialists were miniscule relative to the population
When we discuss the enclosures just how much of the Commons was privatised by the nascent capitalists?
The earliest enclosures in England go back as far as the 13th century and were related to such developments as the establishment of deerparks . The pace of enclosures sharply increased during the Tudor period an in this instance the reason was more directly economic,. As has been pointed out the growth of the wool trade required the conversion of arable land into pasture. Not only did this require less labour but the still numerous class of independent peasants – the yeomanry – faced with rising rents and denied access to land, found themselves increasingly unable to support their way of life.
This development was aided and abetted by another – the Reformation. As Marx noted in <u>Capital</u>: The process of forcible expropriation of the people received in the 16th century a new and frightful impulse from the Reformation, and from the consequent colossal spoliation of the church property. The Catholic Church was, at the time of the Reformation, feudal proprietor of a great part of the English land. The suppression of the monasteries hurled their inmates into the proletariat. The estates of the church were to a large extent given away to rapacious royal favourites, or sold at a nominal price to speculating farmers and citizens, who drove out, en masse, the hereditary sub-tenants and threw their holdings into one (Karl Marx. <u>Capital</u>, Vol 1, Ch27).
However, the enclosure movement really reached its peak in the period from 1750 to 1860, which roughly coincides with the first great Industrial Revolution when literally thousands of Parliamentary Bills were passed giving effect to these enclosures. As Irfan Habib notes:
The drive for rent led to the eighteenth century enclosures, since large landowners found that capitalist farmers, using the methods of new husbandry, could pay them higher rents. The result was that by the early years of the nineteenth century, the bulk of the English peasants had been evicted through private enclosures (where the estates of the large landowners were fairly well consolidated) as well as through parliamentary enclosures (where in areas of mixed properties, the landowners needed acts of parliament to consolidate estates and terminate existing tenancies). (Irfan Habib, “Capitalism in History”, <u>Social Scientist</u>, Vol. 23, No. 7/9, Jul. – Sep., 1995, pp. 15-31)
According to J. M. Neeson, enclosures occurring between 1750 and 1820 dispossessed former occupiers of some 30 percent of the total agricultural land of England – a significant figure given the already concentrated pattern of landownership (J. M. Neeson, 1996, <u>Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820</u>, York University, Toronto). This drastic incursion on the traditional way of life of rural folk was reinforced by a battery of other pieces of legislation such as the Game Laws which prohibited unauthorised hunting, making a rural way of life even less sustainable for many.
Yes thanks Robbo, I know that – but how much on/in UK media. Binoy Kampmark and Craig Murray are publishing each day.
True. So much for the concern of press for press freedom
Lockdowners versus Libertarians
One only has to check out the coverage, or almost no coverage of the current Julian Assange case on MSM which is surely one of the most important cases ever for press freedom – and so little of it is being covered.
There is daily coverage of the trial here
Thomas
Just a quickie – there are economic historians like Ellen Meiksins Wood who would argue that “mercantile capitalism” is not really capitalism as such – see her book The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View (2002). There was capital in the form of merchant capital of course in periods you mention but is the mere existence of capital sufficient to allow us to talk about the existence of capitalism? Similarly wage labour. In Ancient Roman there was wage labour but the dominant form of coerced labour was of course slave labour
We can define capitalism as a constellation of interlocking features but it is a tricky business to pin down when exactly capitalism was supposed to have kicked off . To use the language of dialectics it may be a case of quantitative changes transmuting into qualitative changes – for instance a growth in the extent of wage labour
Though I am no expert in this field, I do find Thomas’ account of things quite plausible. History does not come neatly packaged in stages. If a shorthand way of describing capitalism is the “wages system” (and Marx himself described capitalism in this way) then clearly labour service in the feudal sense of compulsory work on the manorial lord’s demesne was giving way to wage labour long before the 17th century – most particularly after the Black Death in the mid 14th century when wage rates increased sharply along with an increase in tenant farmers as the lords scrambled to secure a reliable income in the face of significant labour shortages (see for example M M Postan’s book “The Medieval Economy and Society”)
I am quite sympathetic to the “agrarian-origins-of-capitalism” school of thought, associated with individuals such as Ellen Meiksins Wood and Robert Brenner who emphasise the historical specificity of capitalism and locate its origins narrowly in a qualitative break in the structure of rural property relationship in England. It has often been contrasted with the trade-based or “commercialisation” school represented by the likes of Paul Sweezy, James Blaut and others who take a much less Eurocentric view of this whole subject and focuses on such things as the revenue derived from the slave trade. In fact, though these two different models may be, not so much opposed, as complementary.
