Daniel Little has a thought-provoking post on the so-called Brenner debate, in which the causes for the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Europe are disputed. The basic lines of argument are as follows:
- population growth => economic activity => sustained economic growth (Postan)
- weak peasant farmers, strong capitalist farmers => enclosure and farming innovations => rapid agricultural growth (Brenner)
- enhanced protections of property rights => incentive for profitable activity => sustained economic growth (North)
However, Little argues that this schematic presents a false choice. He then abstracts a larger point:
In short, one important consequence of the Brenner debate was the renewed focus it placed on the question of social causation. Brenner and the other participants expended a great deal of effort in developing theories of the causal mechanisms that led to economic change in this period. And in hindsight, it appears that a lot of the energy in the debates stemmed from the false presupposition that it should be possible to identify a single master factor that explained these large changes in economic development. But this no longer seems supportable. Rather, historians are now much more willing to recognize the plurality of causes at work and the geographical differentiation that is inherent in almost every large historical process.
I’m only barely familiar with the terms of this debate, but Little seems to be arguing that overdetermination is a plausible approach to social causation, in itself a Marxian idea.
R. H. Tawney addressed this in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, which was an elaboration of Max Weber’s <Max Weber’s thesis ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’</i.
There were many factors involved in the transition. My own view is that if there was a “master factor,” it was the increased freedom that the Reformation brought, in that it was was more instrumental than anything else in effecting this transition. It not only underlay the rise of capitalism but also the development of liberalism as a political philosophy that led to the spread of liberal democracy.
However, I think it would be a mistake to attribute the rise of capitalism to ideas, which I suspect came later. It was the freedom that common people experienced that led to wholesale change resulting in innovative social, political and economic trends. This transition is still being elaborated globally.
This transition resulted in the creation of a whole new class — the “middle” class — between the rentiers and the tenants. Previously crafts people and trades people had been an appendage of society. They were to become its center with the rise of capitalism.
I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of Deirdre McCloskey’s books on the subject. She attributes it to a certain set of values or ideology.
Dears, No need to wait. A draft of Vol. 2 of my loony project to write six (gak!) volumes is available in reasonably final form at deirdremccloskey.org, as is a cruder draft of Vol. 3. Sincerely, Deirdre
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