[lbo-talk] corporate rationality

[Somebody Somebody]

This need to conflate slavery with a putative world capitalist system derives from an abstract schema in which there can only be two forms of exploitation in the Western world over the last 500 years: feudalism and capitalism. So, yeah, once you rule out the notion that slavery is feudalism, there you go: it must be capitalism. No more thinking required. This is nothing but idealism in the guise of historical materialism. 

For that matter, it's not obvious that the system (if we can even call it that) of agricultural petty proprietorship and mercantilism in early colonial America was capitalist either, but again, we have to accept that it was to the extent that it contrasts so strikingly with 13th century Norman England. Clearly it wasn't feudal... so it was capitalist. It's a fun game.