Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
> I do disagree with Brenner and Ellen Wood on the proletarian nature of much
> of the formally unfree labor in early capitalism--they seem to deny it.)
There are probably innumerable features of the Brenner/Wood account which are debatable and need correction. The only essential part of the argument is the rejection of technological determinism or any version of the doctrine that capitalism was a fated step in human history through which all peoples would have eventually passed. The way Jim Blaut sets up his rigid argument, he marshals assumptions which would lead to racist conclusions in the case of any culture which did not show capitalist "sprouting." Either China was developing capitalism or there was something wrong with China. That is an absurd either/or argument.
Carrol