Manufacture and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism

Abstract

Robert Brenner's theory of the passage from feudalism to capitalism in England in the early modern era contends that an “agrarian capitalism” makes up the core of the transition. This thesis is weak, measured against fundamental insights presented by Karl Marx in different parts of Capital, I. On the other hand, in the exposition of English developments subsequent to the Tudor enclosures, in the last part of that work, “So-Called Primitive Accumulation,” Marx conspicuously ignores relevant insights developed in earlier chapters, on the nature of manufacture and of large-scale industry. There, manufacture had appeared as a condition of large-scale industry, while advanced capitalism was seen as a result of overcoming deficiencies in the structure of manufacture. Marx's text on primitive accumulation would have benefited from being presented more in coherence with this earlier analysis. The “agrarian capitalism” thesis loses credibility when confronted with empirical data on English manufacture and a Marxian synthesis.