> Brad Mayer wrote:
> > >Of course, the analogy was invoked mostly as a corrective to Doug's
> >open-ended skepticism. If capitalism is a historical system, like
> >feudalism, with a beginning and an end, it should follow at at some
> >point, the system "passes its zenith", so to speak. What that point
> >is, though, is certainly open to debate. The (highly abstract)
> >criterion deployed here is that in which capital attains a scale and
> >scope of development to the point where capital itself becomes its
> >own "greatest barrier" to its further development,
The French historian, Fernand Braudel, in his work Civilization and Capitalism, suggested that economic systems tend to build upon each other, in layers, like a coral reef. One layer does not replace the previous layer, it merely becomes the new highest layer of society. He spoke from the history he was studying. The early, local, primitive markets of the Middle Ages were not replaced by capitalism, he could still find them there, operating in France, even in the 1800s. Capitalism was a new layer, operating on a much higher level, organizing and, when profitable, controlling the activity of lower layers, but leaving much of the low level functioning untouched, because there was so little profit in it. Capitalism was drawn toward the choke holds of the emerging world economy, areas like trade, where one might be able to charge monopoly rents and accumulate vast fortunes.
Feudalism was a political system. It was replaced by a different political system.