[lbo-talk] Marx quote

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sun Feb 13 14:05:57 PST 2011


And this is one of the (rather rare) cases in which Marx was flatly wrong!

The hand-mill was antagonistic to f eudalism, and French feudalism flourished by destroying hand-mills. The mill driven by a water-wheel was a major source of feudal control over peasants. Grain is useless until you grind it; the hand-mill allowed the peasant to grind his own grain and say fuck-you to the lord. But if the only way to get your grain ground was to take it to the mill powered by a water-wheel (and owned by the feudal lord), then you had to allow the miller to keep a sizeable portion of your grain.

Carrol

-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Barry Finger Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2011 3:56 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Cc: lbo-talk Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Marx quote

The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist.

Marx, Poverty of Philosophy (1847)

Barry Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 12, 2011, at 4:45 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> There's a quote from Marx that starts something like "The steam engine
gave us...." Anyone know what it is?
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