The Rise of Capitalism and The Productivity of Labour - Michael Roberts Blog

The rise of capitalism and the
productivity of labour
In my view, there are two great scientific discoveries made by Marx and Engels:
the materialist conception of history and the law of value under capitalism; in
particular, the existence of surplus value in capitalist accumulation. The
materialist conception of history asserts that the material conditions of a
society’s mode of production and the social classes that emerge in that mode of
production ultimately determine a society’s relations and ideology. As Marx
said in the preface to his 1859 book A Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy: “The mode of production of material life conditions the
general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the
consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence
that determines their consciousness.”
That general view has been vindicated many times in studies of the economic
and political history of human organisation. That is particularly the case in
explaining the rise of capitalism to become the dominant mode of production.
Now there is new study that adds yet more support for the materialist
conception of history. Three scholars at Berkeley and Columbia Universities
have published a paper, When Did Growth Begin? New Estimates of
Productivity Growth in England from 1250 to 1870.
https://eml.berkeley.edu/~jsteinsson/papers/malthus.pdf
They attempt to measure when productivity growth (output per worker or

worker hours) really took off in England, one of the first countries where the
capitalist mode production became dominant. They find that there was hardly
any growth in productivity before 1600. But productivity started to take off
well before the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 when England became a
‘constitutional monarchy’ and the political rule of the merchants and capitalist
landowners was established. These scholars find that, from about 1600 to 1810,
there was a modest rise of the productivity of the labour force in England of
about 4% in each decade (so 0.4% a year), but after 1810 with the
industrialisation of Britain, there was a rapid acceleration of productivity
Privacyto
growth & Cookies:
about 18%Thisevery
site uses cookies.
decade (orBy continuing
1.8% a year).to The
use this
movewebsite,
fromyou agree to
agricultural
their use.
capitalism of the 17th century to industrial capitalism transformed the
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
productivity of labour.
Close and accept

The authors comment: “our evidence helps distinguish between theories of
why growth began. In particular, our findings support the idea that broad-
based economic change preceded the bourgeois institutional reforms of 17th
century England and may have contributed to causing them.” In other words,
it was the change in the mode of production and the social classes that came
first; the political changes came later.
As the authors go on to say, “an important debate regarding the onset of

growth is whether economic change drove political and institutional change
as Marx famously argued or whether political and institutional change kick-
started economic growth”. The authors don’t want to accept Marx’s conception
outright and seek to argue that “reality is likely more complex than either polar
view.” But they cannot escape their own results: that productivity growth
began almost a century before the Glorious Revolution and well before the
English Civil War. And “this supports the Marxist view that economic change
contributed importantly to 17th century institutional change in England.”
The other interesting aspect of the paper is that the authors try to measure the
impact of population growth on productivity and wages. In the early 19th
century, Thomas Malthus argued that it was impossible for productivity growth
toPrivacy
rise sufficiently to enable
& Cookies: This workers
site uses cookies.to
Byincrease
continuingtheir real
to use incomes,
this because
website, you agree to
higher incomes
their use. would lead to increased births and eventually over-population,
scarcity of food
To find out more,and famines
including howetc, then reducing
to control thehere:
cookies, see population and incomes
Cookie Policy
again.
Close and accept
The authors note that before 1600, there is evidence to support the Malthusian
case. The period from 1300 to 1450 was a period of frequent plagues — the
most famous being the Black Death of 1348. Over this period, the population of
England fell by a factor of two resulting in a sharp drop in labour supply. Over
this same period, real wages rose substantially. Then from 1450 to 1600, the
population (and labour supply) recovered and real wages fell. In 1630, the
English economy was back to almost exactly the same point it was at in 1300.
The reason that the Malthusian argument has validity before 1600 is that there
was little or no productivity growth; so livelihoods were determined by labour
supply and wages alone. Pre-capitalist England was a stagnant, stationary
economy in terms of the productivity of labour. But so was the impact of the
Malthusian over-population theory. The authors found that Malthusian
population dynamics were very slow: a doubling of real incomes led to a 6
percentage point per decade (0.6% a year) increase in population growth. That
implied that it took 150 years for a rise in real incomes to drive up population
sufficiently to cause a reversal in income growth.
But once capitalism appears on the scene, the drive for profit by capitalist
landowners and trading merchants encourages the use of new agricultural
techniques and technology and the expansion of trade. Then productivity
growth takes off at a rate increasingly fast enough to overcome the slow impact
of Malthusian ‘overpopulation’. Indeed, with industrial capitalism after 1800,
the growth in productivity is 28 times higher than the very slow negative impact
of rising population on real incomes.
Thomas Malthus
This confirms the view of Engels when he

wrote: “For us the matter is easy to
explain. The productive power at
mankind’s disposal is immeasurable. The
productivity of the soil can be increased
ad infinitum by the application of capital,
labour and science.” Umrisse 1842
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to
their use.
https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/michael-roberts/engels-
200/paperback/product-y9pzdr.html?page=1&pageSize=4
Close and accept
Before capitalism, feudal societies stumbled along with their economies
ravaged by plagues and climate. For example, the Black Death of 1348 engulfed
English society for more than a year, claiming about 25% of the population. For
three centuries after the Black Death, the plague would reappear every few
decades and wipe out a significant share of the population each time. So real
wages in England were mainly affected by these population changes and the
consequent size of the labour force (if, as argued above, at a very slow rate).
But under capitalism, productivity rose sharply and the level of real wages was
no longer determined by the weather or pandemics but by the class struggle
over the production and distribution of the value and surplus value created in
capitalist production in agriculture and industry. One of the features of the rise
of capitalism from 1600 that the authors point out is the increase in the
working day and working year – another confirmation of Marx’s analysis of
exploitation under capitalism.
their use.
Close and accept

The authors note that as capitalism started to move from agricultural
production to industry, in the latter half of the 18th century, real wages in
England fell slightly despite substantial productivity growth. They cite one
potential explanation, namely “Engel’s Pause,” i.e., the idea that the lion’s share
of the gains from early industrialization went to capitalists as opposed to
labourers.
Engels’ pause and the condition of the working class

in England
On this day, 15 March 1845, Friedrich Engels published his masterpiece of social analysis,
The Condition of the Working Class in England. This year is the 200th anniversary of
Engels’ birth. Below is a short (rough) extract from my upcoming book on the
contribution that Engels made to Marxian political economy. Engels was just 24 …
Continue reading
Michael Roberts Blog 10
The
theirauthors
use. are reluctant to accept that Engels was right, preferring a
To find out more, includinginhow
Malthusian explanation thetolate 18thcookies,
control centurysee here: Cookie
(having Policy it).
just rejected
Moreover, they think real wages started to grow as early as 1810, before the
period of the
Close and1820-1840
accept cited by Engels as a ‘pause’. But anyway, we can see
that the gap between productivity and real wages widened sharply from the
beginning of industrial capitalism to now. Surplus value (the value of unpaid
labour) rocketed through the early 19th century.
Most important, the study refutes the ‘Whig interpretation of history’, namely
human ‘civilisation’ is one of gradual progress with changes coming from wiser
ideas and political forms constructed by clever people. Instead, the evidence of
productivity growth in England shows “sharp and sizable shifts in average
growth” supporting the notion that “something changed.” i.e., that the
transition from stagnation to growth was more than a steady process of very
gradually increased growth.” On the gradual Whig interpretation, the authors
conclude that “the results do not support this view of history.”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334831075_The_Whig_i
nterpretation_of_history
Also, the study shows that, as sustained productivity growth began in England
substantially before the Glorious Revolution of 1688, it was not the change in
political institutions that led to economic growth. On the contrary, it was the
change in economic relations that led to productivity growth and then political
change. “While the institutional changes associated with the Glorious
Revolution may well have been important for growth, our results contradict
the view that these events preceded the onset of growth in England.”
As Engels
their use. put it succinctly: “The materialist conception of history starts from
the
To proposition
find out more,that the production
including of cookies,
how to control the means to support
see here: Cookiehuman
Policy life and,
next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social
structure; thataccept
Close and in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in
which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is
dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products
are exchanged. From this point of view, the final causes of all social changes
and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in men’s
better insights into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of
production and exchange.”
The authors cannot avoid reaching a similar conclusion. As they say: “Marx
stressed the transition from feudalism to capitalism. He argued that after the
disappearance of serfdom in the 14th century, English peasants were expelled
from their land through the enclosure movement. That spoliation inaugurated
a new mode of production: one where workers did not own the means of
production, and could only subsist on wage labour. This proletariat was ripe
for exploitation by a new class of capitalist farmers and industrialists. In that
process, political revolutions were a decisive step in securing the rise of the
bourgeoisie. To triumph, capitalism needed to break the remaining shackles of
feudalism…. Our findings lend some support to the Marxist view in that we
estimate that the onset of growth preceded both the Glorious Revolution and
the English Civil War (1642-1651). This timing of the onset of growth supports
the view that economic change propelled history forward and drove political
and ideological change.”
The development of capitalism in agriculture and in trade laid the basis for the
introduction of industrial technology that led to the so-called industrial
revolution and industrial capitalism. The Industrial Revolution occurred in
Britain around 1800 because “innovation was uniquely profitable then and
there”. As real wages rose, there was an incentive to exploit the raw materials
necessary for labour saving technologies in textiles such as the spinning jenny,
water frame, and mule, as well as coal burning technologies such as the steam
engine and coke smelting furnace. Labour productivity exploded upwards.
There was staggering rise in investment in means of production relative to
labour. According to the authors, from 1600 to 1860, the capital stock in
England grew by a factor of five, or 8% per decade.
their use.
Close and accept

Industrial capitalism had arrived, and along with rising productivity came
increased exploitation of labour and the ideology of ‘political economy’ and
bourgeois institutions of rule.
Share this:
 Share
Like
6 bloggers like this.
Related
Returning to Heinrich Engels on nature and Marx’s law of value: a debate

July 25, 2013 humanity between David Harvey and
In "capitalism" April 2, 2020 Michael Roberts
In "capitalism" April 2, 2018
In "capitalism"
michael roberts March 28, 2021 marxism

their use.
Close and accept

37 thoughts on “The rise of capitalism and the
productivity of labour”
Nad M.
March 28, 2021 at 10:59 am
But how is this relevant today in terms of growth and the destruction of nature? “
The productivity of the soil can be increased ad in nitum by the application of
capital, labour and science.”
Growth today means exhaustion of the soil and climate change, among other
things. Yes, today capitalist productivity can feed all humans on Earth. However, in
60/70 years time, capitalist productivity will have to increase exponentially. That
will again impact on nature and the environment.
To feed the growing population and preserve life on earth at the same time,
capitalism has to make all the basic food we eat today synthetic. I don’t see how
that could be done even under an alternative mode of production. Some
anthropologists and socialists for a cooperative economy in harmony with nature.
How that might provide for the world population is a big question.
Another alternative, which is already happening, is a decline in the global

population. But that I think should be accelerated by more birth control.
Reply
Mike Quille
March 28, 2021 at 11:36 am
Do we as Marxists not need to be careful about going from one extreme (the wise
political ideas of the English 17th century bourgeoisie drove economic growth) to
the other opposite extreme (impersonal, inevitable improvements in economic
productivity drove political change)?
IsPrivacy
there not a danger
& Cookies: Thisinsite
interpreting Engels’s
uses cookies. ‘succinct’
By continuing explanation
to use of you
this website, the agree to
their use. conception of history as privileging developments which are not
materialist
inTouenced
find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
by human consciousness and action?
Is there not a dialectical process at work here, whereby people constantly and
Close and
consciously accept
strive to improve their lives through economic, political and cultural
changes to their material, intellectual and spiritual environments?
It is true that the idealist ‘Whig interpretation of history’, which privileges the
ruling classes’ role in human advancement, needs to be challenged and changed,
but surely not at the expense of limiting the in uence of human consciousness
and action, which itself helps produce the economic growth which then helps
produce the conditions for political change.
Reply
michael roberts
March 28, 2021 at 12:50 pm
Mike yes we do need to be careful as both Marx and Engels pointed out at
various times. It is a dialectical relationship between economic foundation and
the ideas and action of humanity. I think this quote from Marx sums it up. “Men
make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not
make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing
already, given and transmitted from the past.”
Reply
Mike Quille
March 28, 2021 at 1:20 pm
Yes that’s right, Marx’s formulation of historical materialism is better than

Engels’s ‘succinct’ one that you quote. This sentence in the quote…..”From this
point of view, the nal causes of all social changes and political revolutions
are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in men’s better insights into eternal
truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange.” –
can all too easily be interpreted as locating causation outside of human
imagination and action – the last thing we want!
Kieran
Privacy K.
& Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to
March
their use.28, 2021 at 1:25 pm
The import of this quote is heavily in uenced by where the emphasis is
applied;
Close andtryaccept
before or after the rst comma.
ucanbpolitical
March 29, 2021 at 1:07 pm
But what an inheritance. Currently global renewable energy investment runs

at $560 billion. So the 30 trillion cost of the pandemic pays for over 50 years
of investment. The self in icted war on terror running a bill approaching $10
trillion would have paid for the conversion of the US power system from black
to green. The $1 trillion wasted on arms each year pays for all the
desalination plants and their associated green power plants needed to end
water shortage and begin reforestation. This is the kind of propaganda we
need to make to promote socialism by showing how all this potential is being
squandered and not only squandered but imperilling the planet, our home.
Nad M.
March 28, 2021 at 12:52 pm
Agreed! And how not to fall into determinism and mechanical interpretation of
the relation between the economic and the the ideological. After all, how to
explain that a few capitalists, even a ruling class that is so integrated in the
capitalist mode of production and the international circuit of nance capital yet
it has both medieval and bourgeois thinking and morality?
Reply
A.M
March 28, 2021 at 4:08 pm
Should be mentioned that even Engels was wary of such reductionism later on
in his life, as seen in his letter to Bloch – I feel like he was slowly starting to
see how the SPD was shaping up to be. Much to learn
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21.htm
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree Reply
to
their use.
vkClose and accept

March 28, 2021 at 5:09 pm
The problem here is documentation: we don’t have the peasants’ side of the
story for the period. And we couldn’t, as they were illiterate.
The probably was a lot of consciousness and action before the 19th Century –
we just don’t know about it (and never will, as the documentation isn’t available
and will never be available).
The most we can do is to infer, .e.g the Gracchian land reforms that triggered
the famous Roman Civil War; Spartacus’ slave revolt; some peasant revolts in
medieval England, Italy, France, China and elsewhere. We do what we can, but
we cannot fabricate narratives. You must understand that History is 99.999%
forever lost – what survived to us is merely a tiny hole through time.
It doesn’t change the fact that all the evidence that survived to us points to the
direction Marx’s theory is the correct one, though. History is not a hard science,
but it still is a science, and we shouldn’t shy away from making scienti c
conclusions over the evidence.
Reply
A.M
March 28, 2021 at 11:47 am
Hello, Mr. Roberts! Long-time reader of your blog. Just chipping in that the
embedding of the images from the article you’ve used appear to have been
broken, as they’re much smaller, and therefore, harder to see. Cheers!
Reply
michael roberts
March 28, 2021 at 12:46 pm
yes, the new wordpress format is ruining them i shall try and correct.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree Reply
to
their use.
EddieClose and accept

O'Sullivan
March 28, 2021 at 1:09 pm
The power of the argument is irresistible. But would you agree that the shift in
production away from tangible goods to intangible services constitutes a historic
transformation in the mode of production? Tangible good production required
centralised manufacturing, large-scale single-site employment and abundant
xed capital investment. Service creation (including health) works perfectly well
when it’s decentralised and even when people work from home. And the amount
of xed capital investment can be modest (a laptop and relevant software). Your
example of economic change occuring well before political change suggests that
the revolution in the mode of production we’ve seen in our lifetimes will in due
course be followed by political change but not now.
Reply
Ron
March 28, 2021 at 3:33 pm
I’m working from home for the last year on a modest 11 years old desktop with
an open source operating systen and some never paid for software. Right. But
the “back of ce” I’m working with consists of two huge data centres with
hundreds of servers and petabytes of storage and ber cables running all
around the country.
So services only serves the real economy.
Reply
Eddie O'Sullivan
March 28, 2021 at 7:40 pm
But who or what is creating value? You or the data centre machinery? My
answer is: you create the value sitting at home. The data centre supports your
value-creation. This is completely different to the way value is created in
tangible good manufacture where labour and constant capital (physical
inputs and machinery) combine together in the same location.
their use.
mandm
March 28, 2021 at 4:48 pm
Close and accept
“But would you agree that the shift in production away from tangible goods
constitutes a historic transformation in the mode of production?”
This “historical transformation is the neoliberal one at the centers of the

present imperial system. Industrial capitalism long ago used automation to
degrade the worker into an adjunct of the machine, and the machine itself
directed by technicians whose digitalizing labors are determined by capital’s
law of value (not human need). But the machines themselves are quite tangible,
as are the tangible wage goods you enjoy. So are the millions of alienated labor
that produces them these tangible good at the peripheries of the intangible
(except for weapons of war and order at center).
Most western economists (even good ones) persist in forgetting Marx’s image of
a bloody birth of industrial capitalism: the blood of New World, Asian and
African labor. India, for instance, was much richer than England in 1700, but its
riches ended up in England, leaving Indian peasants and artisans with the
famines produced by English machinery. The situation persists with the Modi
comprador mode of production and the hundreds of million of peasants ghting
for their lives.
Reply
mandm
March 28, 2021 at 6:28 pm
correction of typo’s in the penultimate sentence of the penultimate paragaph:

“So are the millions of alienated laborers who produce these itangible goods
at the peripheries of the intangible (except for weapons of war and order)
center.
Eddie O'Sullivan
March 28, 2021 at 7:47 pm
This seems to suggest that tangible goods remain the sole value form in
Privacy & Cookies: This
contemporary site usesThose
capitalism. cookies.
ofBy
uscontinuing to use this
creating services website, you agree to
(intangible
their use.
commodities) are therefore deemed not to create value. If that’s the case,
then the 80+% of those employed in advanced economies who work in
services cannot be exploited since de nition they cannot be a source of
Close and accept
value-added. The political implication is that workers in service industries
have no direct interest in change: how can they when they create no value
and consequently create no value.
Eddie O'Sullivan
March 28, 2021 at 7:49 pm
Corrected version (this is what happens when you work from home).
“This seems to suggest that tangible goods remain the sole value form in
contemporary capitalism. Those of us creating services (intangible
commodities) are therefore deemed not to create value. If that’s the case,
then the 80+% of those employed in advanced economies who work in
services cannot be exploited since by de nition they cannot be a source of
value-added. The political implication is that workers in service industries
have no direct interest in change: how can they when they create no value
and consequently cannot be a source of surplus value.”
mandm
March 29, 2021 at 5:27 am
Eddie, i was suggessting that the “intangible” service economies at the center
of present imperial system are supported by the tangible socially necessary
goods produced by labor at the ex-colonial peripheries–not that servce
workers produce no “value”. Any work–private prison guard, professional
torturer or assassin employed by Eric Prince, Facebook ad-placement
computer whiz, Google algorythmaniac, etc.–performed for some capitalist
enterprise produces exchange value. Public librarians, teachers, postal
workers, nurses, unpaid domestic (mainly women) workers are of no value,
but use value.
Eddie O'Sullivan
March 29, 2021 at 8:48 am
their use.
Services
To find (intangible
out more, commodities)
including how to controlde nitelysee
cookies, have exchange
here: value (people
Cookie Policy
create and others buy them. But do they have use value?
Close writes
Marx and accept
in C1 Vol 1 Capital:
“The commodity is at rst an exterior object, a thing, which by its properties
satis es human wants of one sort or another.”
The commodity has to be something that meets human “wants” (the word
used by Marx is Beduerfnisse, which can be translated as “needs”, “essentials”
etc).
Services do that.
The idea of the “exterior object” can be inferred as meaning the object must
have material characteristics.
Another interpretation is that the object could also be something which is

objectively perceptible at the level of the individual but lacks physical
characteristics. This could include music and teaching, which are intangibles.
Marx’s ideas of wants can be more de nitely interpreted as encompassing

intangibles as the following sentence suggests.
“The nature of such wants, whether they arise, for instance, from the stomach
of from imagination makes no difference.”
Here, Marx acknowledges that wants can be those emerging from the mind
and not just those derived from physical needs such as hunger.
The logical conclusion is that use-value can be simultaneously objectively

and subjectively perceptible.
The dichotomy is more clearly explored as the Chapter1 proceeds.
Marx wrote:
“Die Nuetzlichkeit eines Dings macht es zum Gebrauchswert.”
This is accurately translated as:
“The usefulness of a thing makes it a value in use (use-value).”
Marx then wrote this:
“Durch die Eigenschaften des Warenkoerpers bedingt, existiert sie nach ohne
denselben.”
their use.sentence is conventionally translated as:
This
“Conditioned by the physical properties of the body of the commodity, it has
no existence
Close apart from the latter.”
and accept
But this seems to be wrong. A more accurate translation is: “Conditioned by
the quality/nature of the body of the commodity, it does not exist without the
same (the latter).”
This suggests Marx meant that what conditioned the commodity was
something that could be intuitively perceptible.
The intangible characteristic of a use-value is further implied in the following

sentence:
“A use-value or good only has value because labour is objecti ed or

materialised in it.”
But how can labour be chemically or physically incorporated into a thing?

There is no scienti c explanation.
Logically, this sentence can only mean that use value has an intangible
component and one that is only intuitively obvious, though it is objectively
perceptible.
The logic of this statement suggests that the labour power embedded in a
use value must be intangible.
Finally, the word “Nuetzlichkeit (usefulness)” implies intangibility because it

begs the question: useful to whom?
For example, a int sharpened so it can be used as a knife has no use value in
today’s world (though people might keep it as a curiosity).
But the same object more than 10,000 years ago would have been deemed to
be very useful.
It’s physically the same object but its use value has changed over time.
Use value therefore implies intangibility, a characteristic that can only be

subjectively perceived.
Conclusion: intangibles created by capitalist enterprises have both exchange

value and use value;
Services are commodities.

Workers
Privacy who make
& Cookies: them
This site usescreate value.
cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to
Service
their use. industry workers are exploited.
Close and accept

mandm
March 29, 2021 at 4:36 pm
You obviously have read your Marx. Like a lot of people read Marx for the law
rather than the spirit you miss the point: Capital is a critique of political
economy, not an apology for the capitalist mode of production. His analysis of
the commodity is just that: the analysis of the product of alienated human
labor (labor power) whichi s produced for the sole purpose of pro t for owner
of the means of production. A commoditiy’s use value is incidental. From the
capitalist point of view a loaf of bread during famine has no value if there is
no effective demand for it. On the other hand, the service provided by a
private police force protecting privately owned wheat silos add value to the
grain inside. Capitalists usually have the means to wait out the human
catastrophes they create.
mandm
March 29, 2021 at 5:50 pm
Notwithstanding the obvious fact that in late capitalism many commodities

are actually destructive of natural beings, including humans, your three nal
points in proof of the value of service work, tangible and intangible, are
notionally correct.
vk
March 28, 2021 at 5:00 pm
But your home of ce job only makes sense in the wider context of a global
industrial behemoth, larger than ever. White collar jobs are just a small and
relatively unimportant tip of the entire iceberg.
What you describe is more akin to alienation of labor due to the immense
specialization process on a global scale, where the First World countries keep
the home of ce/services jobs (related to consumption) while the Third World
countries keep the productive jobs (manufacturing and much of agriculture).
Reply
their use.
Eddie O'Sullivan
March 28, 2021 at 8:06 pm
Close and accept
85% of those employed in the UK work in service industries. That’s 25+m
people in the UK alone (not far short of the total who voted in the 2019 GE).
At least 150m people work in service industries in the EU. The scale of service
employment globally is enormous.
It’s suggested service workers cannot be the source of value.
But how can someone who doesn’t create value be exploited?
Why would a capitalist employ someone who doesn’t create value? e
ucanbpolitical
March 29, 2021 at 12:30 pm
But that is only possible because industrial workers are so productive. Service
workers eat, dress, drive and live in similar homes to industrial workers.
stevenjohnson
March 28, 2021 at 2:10 pm
Reading Ellen Meiksins Wood currently (and recently re-read Perry Anderson.)
With that in uence, two things pop out.
First, the idea that capitalism is a marvel of production that breaks the Malthusian
shackles with a shrug, revolutionizes daily life more or less daily, has created a
whole new world of technology etc. seems to me to lead people to overlook the
long, long transitional period. Capitalism, especially when it wasn’t
overwhelmingly present but unevenly distributed in the late medieval social
formation, simply was not the cornucopia. It isn’t just Objectivists I think who tend
to think there was no capitalism rising before 1800 because, if it’s not rich, it’s not
capitalism. (Sort of the same logic that leads them to think the USA or EU is
capitalism but Haiti or Congo or Bolivia or Indonesia aren’t, so socialist
performance in the socialist countries is only compared to the imperial
metropoles.)
And this is political too. It seems to me that the absolutist ideology was a
compromise between feudal survivals in land tenure. Perry Anderson emphasized
Privacy
the & Cookies: of
subordination This site uses cookies. Bybourgeois
capitalism/nascent continuingsociety.
to use this
Butwebsite,
by the you agree
same to
token
ittheir use. an acceptance and attempted incorporation of the elements of
marked
capitalism. The tangled relationship between absolutism, early nationalism and
mercantilism results in the easy pretense that the necessary ideology of
Close and
capitalism accept
is “democracy,” (despite the current counter-example of fascism and
related political movements.) Or that “mercantilism” was not a part of capitalist
development at all. Capitalism wasn’t wonderful to start with, the transitional
epoch was agonizing. Standards for the transition from capitalism to socialism are
of course much, much more stringent.
Second, a key aspect of economic change is the expropriation of church lands,

aka, the Reformation. The slow growth of agricultural capitalism that laid the
foundation for the takeoff (so to speak, not to sound too Rostow,) were laid
decades before.
A fascinating post.
The relationship between “free will” and determinism, in regards to building

socialism, is that we can only consciously make our collective futures by using a
historical materialist understanding of necessity. This may sound like a burden to
some, maybe. But it’s roughly like, to make technological advances you need to
use the laws of physics and chemistry.
Reply
vk
March 28, 2021 at 4:50 pm
“The authors comment: “our evidence helps distinguish between theories of why
growth began. In particular, our ndings support the idea that broad-based
economic change preceded the bourgeois institutional reforms of 17th century
England and may have contributed to causing them.” In other words, it was the
change in the mode of production and the social classes that came rst; the
political changes came later.”
That’s the problem diagnosed by Preobrazhensky in the 1920s in the USSR (“New
Economy”): he stated that the greatest problem the Soviet Union had was that,
contrary to the previous economic systems, socialism arose rst through its
political revolution, only to then work out on its economic revolution.
He then suggested the “socialist primitive accumulation” as the only way out for
Soviet socialism. In one way or the other, that’s precisely what happened in the
USSR during 1917-1945.
their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy Reply
Close and accept

stevenjohnson
March 28, 2021 at 5:18 pm
A later thought about the “Whig interpretation of history.” It is not clear who
precisely the Whig interpreters of history are supposed to be. The primary
opponent of the Whig interpretation of history was one Herbert Butter eld.
Butter eld if I understand it correctly was a committed Christian. Whether that
in uenced him to imagine some perverse secular mental aw of arrogance and
ideology, i don’t know. But E.H. Carr pointed out in What Is History? that
Butter eld neglected to actually name the members of the school or critique with
details any of these Whiggish works. E.H. Carr is a pretty good bourgeois historian
of the USSR, and therefore entirely out of fashion, where revivals of Conquest like
Applebaum and Snyder are the current luminaries in the public sky.
Reply
Chris Harries
March 28, 2021 at 6:16 pm
“(Marx) argued that after the disappearance of serfdom in the 14th century,
English peasants were expelled from their land through the enclosure movement.
That spoliation inaugurated a new mode of production: one where workers did
not own the means of production, and could only subsist on wage labour. This
proletariat was ripe for exploitation by a new class of capitalist farmers and
industrialists. .”
There is much truth in this analysis but to put the matter in perspective not only
did enclosures continue into the late C19th, having reached their greatest
intensity after 1750- the gures ion acreages enclosed are clear on that. But, and
this is often forgotten, the nature of enclosing changed as the emphasis shifted
from enclosing arable and pastures to enclosing common lands-wastes. At the
same time successive changes to the law on poaching, gleaning, gathering fuel
etc underlined the expropriations of enclosure.
And then there were successive changes in the Poor Laws undercutting the
principle that labour had a claim on the harvest.
Malthus was simply jumping on an ideological bandwagon.
As to ‘wage growth’, the living standards of the rural population were based on a
wide swathe
Privacy of bene
& Cookies: Thistssite
of uses
which wages
cookies. Bywere often to
continuing a small part-
use this suchyou
website, bene tsto
agree
included
their use.access to land and seed, use or ownership of livestock and a wide variety
ofToother things
find out more,including
includingharvest feasts and
how to control bonuses
cookies, andCookie
see here: other customary
Policy
considerations taken of right. It was while these bene ts were being whittled
awayClose
that the
and ideologists,
accept including Parson Malthus, sang of the inevitability of
poverty.
Reply
Charles A.
March 28, 2021 at 11:06 pm
“The unstoppable end to the historical era of agrarian exploitation occurs when
three conditions prevail.
One, the level of productiveness must develop to the point that a good number of
working people are not needed in farming.
Two, some peasants must be able to keep more of their crops and other products
than the subsistence minimum.
Three, social limits on inequality among the peasants must break down so that on
one hand rich peasants appear and acquire more land than their family can work,
and on the other hand some peasants become so short of land and even landless
that they must hire themselves out at least part of the time.”
No Rich, No Poor, p. 46-7.
Of course, it is a bit more involved than this, as the rest of the chapter from which
this quote comes discusses.
Reply
Martin P Gottlieb
March 29, 2021 at 12:52 am
Michael and friends: anyone interested in productivity should have a look at this –
the rst fully modern metal lathe.
The 1751 Machine that Made Everything
their use.
Close and accept

The 1751 Machine that Made Everything
Reply
Carlos
March 29, 2021 at 11:58 am
nice video. except it abstracts from capital. it makes it external to the social
relation and ascribes this to creativity of one guy
Reply
Johanna Fernandez
March 29, 2021 at 1:18 am
Privacy
Hey & Cookies:
there, This you
Any chance site uses
can cookies.
speak onBythe
continuing
state oftothe
useworld
this website,
economy?you agree
This to
their use.
Tuesday, March 30th at 7:15am EDT?
On WBAI in NYC.
Close and accept
I’m the host of the morning show.
Thank you,
Johanna Fernandez
__ Johanna Fernández, PhD Associate Professor Department of History Baruch

College, CUNY Host, A New Day, 7-8am, M-Th WBAI 99.5 FM in NY, online @
WBAI.org Order Here.
Sent from my iPhone
>
Reply
michael roberts
March 29, 2021 at 7:03 am
Hi Johanna. I might be available but I have a zoominar around that time can you
give me
Reply
michael roberts
March 29, 2021 at 7:03 am
Hi Johanna I might be available. I shall email you
Reply
Carlos
March 29, 2021 at 9:07 am
Precisely
Privacy &because
Cookies: the
Thissocial relation
site uses is By
cookies. notcontinuing
perceivedtoconsciously, people
use this website, see the
you agree to
immediate
their use. form of appearance (wages, taxes, pro ts, and so on). Value and
To find value
surplus out more,
have including how to controlSocookies,
to be investigated. seeofhere:
the role Cookie Policy
consciousness is limited from
the start. Too much emphasis on the role of conscious efforts needs to be
tempered
Close with its limitations. Otherwise, the failures of voluntarism and moralism
and accept
in effecting change.
Reply
louisproyect
March 29, 2021 at 1:08 pm
I have to wonder if Michael is familiar with the debates between Paul Sweezy and
Maurice Dobbs, and then the one that came later between Robert Brenner and
Immanuel Wallerstein. I only ask since this article is written as if they never took
place. In fact, among historians–as opposed to econometrician–there is very little
new research trying to vindicate Brenner’s diffusionist and Eurocentric mythology.
Reply
Leave a Reply
Enter your comment here...
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is
processed.
Michael Roberts Blog, Blog at WordPress.com.
their use.
Close and accept

The Rise of Capitalism and The Productivity of Labour - Michael Roberts Blog

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Rise of Capitalism and The Productivity of Labour - Michael Roberts Blog

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Rise of Capitalism and The Productivity of Labour - Michael Roberts Blog

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The rise of capitalism and the

They attempt to measure when productivity growth (output per worker or

Close and accept

As the authors go on to say, “an important debate regarding the onset of

This confirms the view of Engels when he

Close and accept

Engels’ pause and the condition of the working class

Michael Roberts Blog 10

Close and accept

6 bloggers like this.

Returning to Heinrich Engels on nature and Marx’s law of value: a debate

michael roberts March 28, 2021 marxism

Close and accept

Another alternative, which is already happening, is a decline in the global

Yes that’s right, Marx’s formulation of historical materialism is better than

But what an inheritance. Currently global renewable energy investment runs

vkClose and accept

EddieClose and accept

This “historical transformation is the neoliberal one at the centers of the

correction of typo’s in the penultimate sentence of the penultimate paragaph:

Another interpretation is that the object could also be something which is

Marx’s ideas of wants can be more de nitely interpreted as encompassing

The logical conclusion is that use-value can be simultaneously objectively

The dichotomy is more clearly explored as the Chapter1 proceeds.

“Die Nuetzlichkeit eines Dings macht es zum Gebrauchswert.”

This is accurately translated as:

“The usefulness of a thing makes it a value in use (use-value).”

Marx then wrote this:

The intangible characteristic of a use-value is further implied in the following

“A use-value or good only has value because labour is objecti ed or

But how can labour be chemically or physically incorporated into a thing?

Finally, the word “Nuetzlichkeit (usefulness)” implies intangibility because it

Use value therefore implies intangibility, a characteristic that can only be

Conclusion: intangibles created by capitalist enterprises have both exchange

Services are commodities.

Close and accept

Notwithstanding the obvious fact that in late capitalism many commodities

Second, a key aspect of economic change is the expropriation of church lands,

The relationship between “free will” and determinism, in regards to building

Close and accept

The 1751 Machine that Made Everything

Close and accept

__ Johanna Fernández, PhD Associate Professor Department of History Baruch

Sent from my iPhone

Hi Johanna I might be available. I shall email you

Michael Roberts Blog, Blog at WordPress.com.

Close and accept

You might also like