The Origin of Capitalism

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Wood, Ellen Meiksins. 2002. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View. London: Verso.

Ellen Meiksins Wood critiques accounts about the origin of capitalism—across the political spectrum, including Marxist’s—for overlooking the begging questions about what really drove the emergence of capitalism. She says accounts often present circular arguments in which capitalist dynamics were sort of always-already present and that particular historical conjunctures merely “unfettered” or quantitatively multiplied these extant tendencies and activities. Such accounts, she argues, naturalize capitalism and make it seem like system that is both inevitable and unshakeable. Her account emphasizes not the “opportunities” afforded by markets in the consolidation of markets, which she derides as the commercialization model, but rather the “imperatives” that market dependencies create and extend throughout the capillaries of social life and relations. Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Historical Materialism, Karl Marx, Land, Law, Marxism, Political Economy, Power, Spatiality | Comments Off on The Origin of Capitalism

Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Bernstein, Henry. 2010. Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change. Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press

Drawing from the Journal of Agrarian Change, Henry Bernstein defines agrarian political economy as investigating “the social relations and dynamics of production and reproduction, property and power in agrarian formations and their processes of change, both historical and contemporary” (1). Bernstein is interested specifically in the class dynamics of these changes and processes, so he delves immediately into class differentiation in the countryside—mainly, among the rural poor. The book gives an excellent and sweeping overview of these class dynamics over a broad historical period. Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Gender, Historical Materialism, Karl Marx, Land, Political Economy, Primitive Accumulation | 1 Comment

Theory of Peasant Cooperatives

Posted on June 11, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Chayanov, Alexander. 1991. The Theory of Peasant Cooperatives. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. [Intro and pp. 1-52.]

In these chapters, Alexander Chayanov revisits some of the same ground as Lenin and Kautsky, but he does so with a much more spatial sensibility. He still retains the ultimate faith in large-scale agriculture and the same technophilia as his comrade predecessors, but what drew my attention was his consideration of space and scale in the development of small and large-scale agriculture. His view of cooperatives is definitely an attempt to reconcile these two scales of agriculture in a way that preserves the cooperative as both an economic and a social project. This project, however, it should be pointed out, is a transitional one that will help pave the way for truly socialist agriculture (on an extensive scale). Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Historical Materialism, Land, Marxism, Political Economy | 2 Comments

The Agrarian Question

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Kautsky, Karl. 1988. The Agrarian Question, Vol I. London: Zwan Publications.

Karl Kautsky’s classic The Agrarian Question explores the impact of capitalism on agrarian society, role of agriculture in the course of capitalist development, and the political role (or lack thereof, in Kautsky’s view) of the peasantry in radical social change. Though the book follows along a pretty much standard, orthodox, teleological conception of capitalist development, Kautsky does upset some of the standard narratives and analyses that the classical Marxism of his day professed about agriculture and the peasantry. Throughout the book, as the introducers of the volume note, Kautsky comes to terms, somewhat uncomfortably, with his empirical findings. Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Historical Materialism, Karl Marx, Land, Marxism, Political Economy | 10 Comments

The Development of Capitalism in Russia

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Lenin, V.I. 1977. The Development of Capitalism in Russia. Moscow: Progress Publishers. [Ch. 1-4]

The progression of these four chapters is as follows: first, Lenin reviews some theoretical issues of political economy around the development of a home market in Russia and the realization of surplus value; second, he shows the differentiation of the peasantry and its implications; third, the transition from landlord economy and corvée labor to capitalist agriculture; the fourth chapter examines the growing development of commercial and capitalist agriculture. The book is also an extended argument against Narodnik economists who argued that capitalism was an “artificial” deviation for Russia’s rural economy. They also idealized peasant and “community” economies to the point where corvée or service labor were romanticized as stumbling blocks of resistance against capitalist agriculture, which they did not see as necessarily “progressive,” as did Lenin. The basis of their analysis, according to Lenin, importantly stemmed from analytic, statistical averages that obscured stark differentiation among rural producers. Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Historical Materialism, Karl Marx, Land, Marxism, Nation/Nationalism, Political Economy | 3 Comments

The Trinity Formula

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Marx, Karl. 1967. Capital, Vol. III. New York: International Publishers. [Ch. 48]

The chapter is simply titled, “The Trinity Formula.” I was interested in this chapter from Volume III of Capital for two reasons. The first reason is its importance for Lefebvre, which is where I was initially turned onto it. Lefebvre deploys the trinity formula as the conceptual bedrock of some key insights toward the end of the Production of Space. Secondly, Marx in this chapter gives an overview of the capitalist mode production as a whole and brings land into relation with capital and labor. The chapter is also one of the most concise versions or overviews of Marx’s life-long work. Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Critique, Everyday Life, Henri Lefebvre, Karl Marx, Land, Marxism, Political Economy, Spatiality | 1 Comment

Smith & Ricardo: Political Economy and Rent

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Smith, Adam. 1987. The Wealth of Nations. New York: Penguin Classics. [Book I]
Ricardo, David. 1971. “On Rent.” in Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Foley, Duncan K. 2006. Adam’s Fallacy: A Guide to Economic Theology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Intro, Ch. 1-2]

Taking up these texts of classical political economy, I found it very helpful to read them alongside Foley’s Adam’s Fallacy. Foley’s central contention is that Smith inaugurated a separation of economics and politics: This separation of an economic sphere, with its presumed specific principles of organization, from the much messier, less determinate, and morally more problematic issues of politics, social conflict, and values, is the foundation of political economy and economics as an intellectual discipline” (xiii). I know Emma Rothschild has an interesting take on the wedge between politics and economy in Smith’s thought that slightly complicates the way this separation was accomplished in political economic thought, but Folely nonetheless presents a compelling intellectual history of this problematic division. Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Political Economy | 2 Comments

Turning a Page

Posted on June 5, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

It’s been a busy week or two here at Territorial Masquerades. First, we got a nice shout-out from Stuart Elden over at Progressive Geographies. Second, Jester has been busy consorting with a group of quintessential trickster “geographers.” The only report back from this amazing set of encounters is this: Rest assured that trickster geographies and geographers are alive and well in the present conjuncture.

Finally, after a few more days of vacation, the upcoming notes will take a different turn over the next couple weeks. I’ll be looking at some texts specifically dealing with political economy and agriculture. (See the “Now Reading” thumbnails at the blog’s footer below.) This is a slightly boring subject for my sensibilities, important as it is, but it will help lead me to much more interesting discussions—in my opinion—about actually existing primitive accumulation, political ecology and violent environments, and (lastly) frontiers.

These latter topics and what will come after them are much more representative of the blog’s interests.

Posted in Everyday Life, Political Economy | 1 Comment

A Scale Debate

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Marston, Sallie. 2000. “The Social Construction of Scale.” Progress in Human Geography 25: 219-42.

Brenner, Neil. 2001. “The Limits to Scale? Methodological Reflections on Scalar Structuration.” Progress in Human Geography 25(4): 591–614.

Marston, Sallie and Neil Smith. 2001. “States, Scales and Households: Limits to Scale Thinking? A response to Brenner.” Progress in Human Geography 25(4): 615-619.

Marston, Sallie A., Jones, John Paul and Woodward, Keith. 2005. “Human Geography Without Scale.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30: 416-32. Continue reading →

Posted in Gender, Henri Lefebvre, Nation/Nationalism, Networks, Place, Power, Scale, Spatiality, Territory, The Body, The State | 3 Comments

The Great Arch

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Corrigan, Philip, and Derek Sayer. 1985. The Great Arch: English State Formation as a Cultural Revolution. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

I had high hopes for this book. First, because I’m a big fan of Derek Sayer’s other work and, secondly, because of the way it was put to such generative use in Everyday Forms of State Formation. The authors admit at the outset that theirs is not a history from below of English state formation. Still, some tacking between “above” and “below” would have made this a much better and more interesting book. It seems such movement would be necessary to see through the argument that state formation in England was also cultural revolution. This problem also seeps into the empirical field in terms of what “counts” as culture, which for the authors seems to be defined as “superstructure” (though not undialectically or as pure idealism), which makes sense since their analysis is of “the state.” Nonetheless, the book has a great many strengths and insights. Continue reading →

Posted in Critique, Gender, Historical Materialism, Karl Marx, Law, Max Weber, Nation/Nationalism, Political Economy, Power, The State | Comments Off on The Great Arch