FW: 8 Eurocentric Historians

[Forstater, Mathew]

It does get confusing with Blaut, because he does seem to argue not simply that
the plundering of Asia, Africa, and the Americas by 'Europe' and the technical
innovations borrowed from them by Europe were all necessary preconditions for
capitalist take-off and development, but that either an incipient capitalism
itself had developed outside of Europe and/or capitalism would have developed
outside of Europe absent the Euro-interventions. This latter part is where I
have a problem. Capitalism arose as a result of the historical conjunction of a
number of forces.  As it is a global system, Europe does not deserve any
primacy, but Europe did play a particular role, even though that role was not
independent from the 'rest of the world' (ROTW).

My understanding of the old debate about the origins of capitalism was that one
side had the internalist thesis that it was a classic relations/forces of
production story about feudalism, with no causal role for the relations of
Europe with the ROTW; the externalist thesis on the other side claimed that
those relations with the ROTW played a primary causal role--providing the
'primitive' accumulation, plus the triangular/quadrangular trade, and later
colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism opening up markets for goods and
providing raw materials, etc.  But I never remembered any part about capitalism
itself being borrowed from elsewhere, it was built on the backs of the ROTW.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Henwood [mailto:dhenwood at panix.com]
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 3:33 PM
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Subject: Re: FW: 8 Eurocentric Historians

debsian at pacbell.net quoted the inimitable James Blaut:


>For
>these
>scholars, the origins of capitalism are European.

I'm confused. If Europe is to be condemned for colonizing the world, 
and Europe certainly deserves lots of condemnation for that, it must 
have diffused something in the process. I could swear that diffused 
something had something to do with capitalism, but I'm no historian, 
I'm just a journalist.

Doug