Abstract

A long debate about the American “transition to capitalism” was apparently settled via a rough consensus on the gradual prevalence of rural capitalism in the north; and that even small, subsistence-oriented farm households engaged in some market exchange, while market-oriented farm households engaged in some subsistence activities. Yet certain Marxist scholars argue that even prevalent market exchange did not necessarily signify a capitalist economy. Similarly, certain world-systems scholars see the debates as somewhat pointless, inasmuch as capitalism is a systemic characteristic that exists regardless of any individual identification. These latter notions derive in part from Braudel’s tripartite structure of early modern economic life, which sees self-sufficiency and basic daily survival existing alongside market economies and everyday forms of exchange, with the capitalist world-economy in turn overarching, yet not necessarily affecting, the other two levels. This paper posits that colonial America’s “transition” to capitalism was effectively the gradual, often contested, and geographically uneven addition of Braudel’s second layer of economic life – the market economy – onto the first layer of self-sufficiency and basic material life; with this process arguably driven by the third layer of the larger capitalist economy, as other recent studies of the colonial Hudson Valley have focused on, albeit while ignoring the region’s diverse and uneven economic geography It explores the notion of geographically-uneven Braudelian economic structures and transitions within the late 17th and 18th century colonial Hudson Valley, a region of four rather distinct subregions demonstrating that even within relatively small geographical spaces, at least at certain times, one can find different means of Braudelian economic life, and by extension, varying articulations with the world-economy and possible paths to eventual core emergence.

Highlights

  • This journal is published by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press

  • After about two decades of back-and-forth over the subsistence versus market orientation of colonial and early republic rural Euroamericans, as well as the timing of the market transition (Dunaway 1996a: 6-7), a rough consensus gradually emerged on several points: that rural capitalism in the north became more prevalent over time, especially during the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Lamoreaux 2003: 438); that there were regional differences in this transition’s timing, in part based on the crops grown in a given area (Hornsby 2005; Lemon 1987); and that even small, subsistence-oriented farm households engaged in a certain amount of market exchange, while market-oriented farm households engaged in at least some subsistence activities (Bushman 1998; Kulikoff 1993)

  • Various Marxian participants concluded that even where market exchange became predominant in the British North American colonies and early United States, it wasn’t necessarily a capitalist economy (Merrill 1995: 317-25; Mutch 1980: 856; Post 2009)

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Summary

Introduction

This journal is published by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Rather than a regionally-comparative staples approach, Vickers (1996) examines hinterland social structure and economic processes in the northern colonies, and posits a dynamic and burgeoning economy comprised of still largely self-sufficient yet surplus-producing agricultural households, local crafts- and tradespersons, and larger merchants in the coastal seaports.

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