>>> furuhashi.1 at osu.edu 03/01/01 02:27AM >>>
***** Having got rid of the small farmers, how was it possible for the merchants and planters to establish the plantation system for the production of sugar? The obvious answer: by buying slaves. Yet this only pushes the question back a step. Why were slaves available to be used? Before they could be bought, the slaves had to be 'produced'; more precisely, they had to appear on the market 'as commodities'. But this poses large questions, namely of the formation of class systems of 'production' and appropriation of slaves in Africa (or elsewhere). The point here is _not_ to enter into the debate concerning the degree to which the formation of such a structure marked the emergence of a new mode of production, or merely the adaptation and intensification of an already existing one. It is to argue that _its existence should in no way be assumed_; that _the needs of capitalism, or capitalists, are not in themselves enough to explain it_ [Yoshie: Note the importance of _opposition to functionalism_ that Brenner highlights here]. This is especially because class formation, or the intensification of exploitation, is generally an _outcome_ of class conflict, and this outcome itself needs to be accounted for.[100]
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CB: But doesn't the need of capitalism explain substantially the existence of slavery ? Slavery came about because the new bougeoisie were trying to maximize their wealth accumulation, not because the indentured servants were trying to avoid being enslaved.
The Case of Colonial Virginia
The relevance of this question is clarified by the very great difficulty, if not impossibility, of enslaving the European settlers themselves in the colonial context. In Virginia, for example, the demand for tobacco from England and Europe set in train a demand by planters and merchants for increased output for export, and a consequently increasing pressure on the direct producers to increase their output. In this case, the direct producers for the planters and merchants were for the most part indentured servants, subject to work for their masters for a specified number of years before gaining their freedom. In this situation, the way to ensure and increase output was for the planters to intensify their servants' labour, extend their terms of service, and close off their access to land by engrossing it themselves. These processes were indeed set in motion. Yet actually to accomplish them required increasing class exploitation and oppression and, in return, class conflict. From the 1660s, the Virginia colony was wracked by class conflict, by a succession of conspiracies and revolts, set off by the resistance of servants and ex-servants to the oppression of the planters, and culminating in 1676 in Bacon's rebellion -- the greatest social conflict in the pre-revolutionary history of North America.[101] In fact, the planters were in the long run unsuccessful in either seriously depressing the condition of European servants or preventing them from getting land. The existence of a massive class of small tobacco farmers is a characteristic feature of Virginia's eighteenth-century social and political structure.[102] _Had the planters, therefore, depended upon the labour of the European colonists, it might have been impossible to construct plantations -- due to the results of class struggles in the South_. Of course, as it turned out, plantations did, in the long run, come to dominate Southern society -- but this was on the basis of slavery. _Had it not been for the outcome of processes of class formation and class conflict in Africa_, the development of Southern society, indeed society throughout the Western hemisphere, might have been very different. Capitalism, _in itself_, cannot account for it.
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CB: This is a somewhat circular argument. He only reaches the conclusion based on the assumption that the class struggles in Africa were not part of capitalism. Why is it that the class struggle in Africa arose coincident with the rise of capitalism , did not exist during European feudalism ? If the class struggles in Africa are part of capitalism, then "capitalism in itself can account for slavery".
His argument is also weakened by his statement that "the relevance of this question is clarified by the very great difficulty, if not impossibility, of enslaving the European settlers themselves in the colonial context ". This seems to imply that the colonial rulers _were_ trying to enslave the working class white settlers, that is that the drive to establish slavery came from the colonial ruling class, i.e the bourgeoisie. Thus, "capitalism" and the capitalists do explain the establishment of slavery, they did "need" slavery. The only odd way to say otherwise is to imply that the indentured servants wanted enslavement of Africans instead of themselves. I don't think it makes sense to claim that the white indentured servants' struggle was a cause of slavery. It might be a cause of the enslavement of Africans instead of themselves. But the institutional drive for slavery came from the capitalist "half" of the class struggle.
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