The Cradle of Capitalism: the Case of England

Alan Macfarlane

[From Jean Baechler, John A. Hall & Michael Mann, Europe and the Rise of Capitalism (Blackwell, 1988)]

p.185

For Marx, Weber and many others it has been evident that capitalism is a

peculiar social formation. Its birthplace was in western Europe. Within

this region there was a particular area which was precocious in its

development, where the new social formation emerged in its purest and

earliest form. Marx noted that in the early dissolution of the preceding

medieval' property system 'England [was] in this respect the model

country for the other continental countries' (Marx, 1973: 277). It was, as

Brenner puts it 'classically in England' that we have 'the rise of the three-

tiered relation of land lord/ capitalist tenant/ free wage labour, around

which Marx developed much of his theory of capitalist development in

Capital' (1977: 75). For Max Weber also, England was 'the home of

capitalism' (1961: 251); it was in England above all that the Puritan

outlook 'stood at the cradle of the modem economic man' (1970: 174).

Since England was the cradle and nursery of capitalism, it is not

surprising that later writers have concentrated on that country. For

instance, Polanyi takes England's history as the central example of the

'Great Transformation' (1944). It is not unreasonable to suppose that if

we could explain why capitalism emerged and developed in England, and

specifically what differentiated it from other parts of Europe and allowed

this growth, we would have moved some way towards understanding the

'European miracle'.

We may look at some of the more outstanding attempts to solve this

problem. Marx's treatment of the causes for the emergence of capitalism

is intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying. He skilfully shows how the

transition may have occurred, and a few of the preconditions. But he

totally avoids giving any solution to the questions of why then and why

there. He analyses the central features of the supposed transition; the

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creation of a 'free' labour force through the destruction of a dependent

peasantry is the central one. This was linked to the expansion of market

forces, money, production for exchange rather than for immediate

consumption. Thus growing trade and commerce is seen as one of the

major propelling forces: 'the circulation of commodities is the starting-

point of capital.... The modem history of capital dates from the creation

in the sixteenth century of a world-embracing commerce and a world-

embracing market' (1954: vol. 1, 145). But long-distance trade had been

present for centuries and had centred on the Mediterranean. Why

should trade suddenly have had this shattering effect, and why should its

prime target be north-western Europe? Unsatisfied with the analyses in

Capital with its mystic theories of internal contradictions which were

bound to lead to inevitable dissolution of the previous social formation,

we may look to his other writings.

In Grundrisse Marx outlines various combustible elements that would

explode into capitalism. There is money and more specifically 'mercantile

and usurious wealth'. But money, urban craft activity and towns had been

present in many civilizations. Why in western Europe did they alone lead

to the growth of capitalism? Marx does provide some further hints. One

central foundation for capitalism was the pre-existence of a rural social

structure which allowed the peasantry to be 'set free'. In other words

there was something particularly fragile in the pre-existing relations of

production. The substratum of feudalism, arising from its origins in the

'Germanic system' was particularly vulnerable to the new urban craft

development and accumulation of wealth. The crucial feature of the

Germanic system was its form of property. In the Ancient and Asiatic

civilizations, there was no individual, private, property. But in Germanic

society something new and odd emerged. In this period no land

remained in the possession of the community or group. People had

moved half-way, according to Marx, from communal property, to half-

individualized property based on the household. It would take another

thousand years for the second half of the movement to be made. In other

words, there is something within feudalism, some hidden spirit, which is

special. This is implied in other remarks, for example that 'the economic

structure of capitalist society has grown out of the economic structure of

feudal society. The dissolution of the latter set free the elements of the

former' (1954: vol. 1, 668). The metaphor of 'setting free' suggests that

Marx believed that the spirit of capitalism was already present before the

emergence of capitalism.

Weber considered a number of possible explanations for the

emergence of capitalism. He rejected the crudely technological and

materialistic ones: colonial trade, population growth, the inflow of

precious metals. He then isolated some of the necessary but not

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sufficient 'external conditions', the particular geography of Europe with

its cheap transportation by water, the favourable military requirements of

the small states, the large luxury demand from an unusually prosperous

population. Ultimately it was not these external factors, but something

more mysterious that was important. It was the ethic, the justification of

the pursuit of profit. He found the roots of this in a paradox. The new

attitudes were waiting to escape. The paradox is summarized by Weber

himself. 'The final result is the peculiar fact that the germs of modem

capitalism must be sought in a region where officially a theory was

dominant which was distinct from that of the east and of classical

antiquity and in principle strongly hostile to capitalism' (1970: 162). This

region was medieval Christendom.

We may note the use of 'officially' here with its implication of the

submerged, unofficial, practice. Judaism was an important background

feature in giving to Christianity 'the character of a religion essentially

free from magic' (Weber, 1961: 265). But what was most important was

the presence of Protestantism. Protestantism A-as not the cause of

capitalism, but it gave older and deeper tendencies a necessary

protection. It was the enabling force. This view of Protestantism as a kind

of wind-break which allowed the young plant to grow is well shown in

numerous places by Weber. For instance , when writing that the Puritan

outlook 'stood at the cradle of the modem economic man' (1970: 174),

the image is not of a mother giving birth, but of a friend, perhaps a

godparent, who gives support and blessing to the new infant. More

specifically, Weber wrote that 'We have no intentions whatever of

maintaining such a foolish and doctrinaire thesis as that the spirit of

capitalism ... could only have arisen as the result of certain effects of the

Reformation, or even that capitalism as an economic system is the

creation of the Reformation' (1970: 9 1). Many aspects of capitalism were

much older. As Bendix summarizes Weber's position, 'this world

historical transformation, then, was not the product of Puritanism;

rather, Puritanism was a late development that reinforced tendencies that

had distinguished European society for a long time past' (1961: 71-2).

Weber provides some suggestive clues as to why England should be

the cradle of capitalism. There was the peculiar position of the peasantry.

In England the peasants were particularly weak and vulnerable because,

being an island, they were not needed by the king and nobility as a

necessary fighting force; 'hence the policy of peasant protection was

unknown in England and it became the classical land of peasant eviction'

(1961: 129). In England, Weber noted, no legal emancipation of the

peasants ever took place.

The medieval system is still formally in force, except that under Charles II

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serfdom was abolished.... In England, the mere fact of the development

of a market, as such and alone, destroyed the manorial system from within.

In accordance with the principle fitting the situation, the peasants were

expropriated in favour of the proprietors. The peasants became free but

without land.

In France, however, 'the course of events is exactly the opposite. . . .

France, in contrast with England, became a land of small and medium

sized farms' (1961: 85-6). Not only was this a reflection of the different

power of the peasants, the pressures of wealth in England were greater.

Because of the rapid development of a particular means of production,

the English woollen industry with its division of labour and commerce,

the large-scale stock raising, Weber argued, made the tenant weak and

redundant. The massive growth of the English cloth industry from the

fourteenth century onwards meant that a new capitalist class emerged.

This was combined with the growth of the 'bourgeoisie', the free

dwellers in the peculiar towns and cities of northern Europe.

Having subtly interwoven some of the religious, economic and social

factors, Weber does not omit the political and legal dimension. He

argues that 'the State, in the sense of the rational state has existed only in

the western world' (1961: 250). He contrasts this western state with the

charismatic, patrimonial and other traditional systems of government in

China, India and Islam. The state is essential to capitalism; 'very

different is the rational state in which alone modern capitalism can

flourish'. The basis of the rational state is rational law. Here Weber

recognizes another paradox. The most 'rational', that is the most

carefully worked out and logically coherent of legal systems, was that of

Roman Law. Yet, ironically, capitalism flourished most in the one area of

Europe without Roman Law, namely England. Weber resolves the

contradiction subtly. He distinguishes between the formal side, in

modem terms 'procedural' or 'adjectival' law, and its content or

'substantive law'. Thus the 'rational law of the modern occidental state

... arose on its formal side, though not as to its content, out of Roman

law'. Yet, since 'England, the home of capitalism, never accepted the

Roman law' (1961: 251), it is clear that 'in fact all the characteristic

institutions of modem capitalism have other origins than Roman law'.

Weber gives a list of these devices.

The annuity bond ... came from medieval law, in which Germanic legal

ideas played their part. Similarly the stock certificate arose out of medieval

and modem law ... likewise the bill of exchange ... the commercial

company is also a medieval product, so also the mortgage, with the security

of registration, and the deed of trust. (1961: 252)

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1 have dwelt on Marx and Weber at some length because they

anticipate almost all the theories that have come later. Though they

failed to solve the problem, it is doubtful whether any subsequent writer

has reached as close to a solution. A few recent attempts, concentrating

specifically on the question of why the miracle occurred in north-western

Europe can be considered. Braudel in his majestic surveys of capitalism

and material life has in general accepted the inevitability of the transition,

falling back on those material and technological factors which Weber

dismissed (1973). The seeds were assumed to be present and we just

watch them growing. The sense of marvel and uniqueness which Marx

and Weber possessed has gone. A recent voluminous attempt by

Anderson to solve these problems does not reach further than the great

theorists. The treatment of the central case of England, for instance, is

not satisfactory. Anderson admits that the 'feudal monarchy of England

was generally far more powerful than that of France', and yet 'the

strongest medieval monarchy in the IN-est eventually produced the

weakest and shortest Absolutism' (1974: 113). That England should go

through an 'Absolutist' phase, seems to be essential for Anderson; it is a

precondition of capitalism. I-et he signally fails to show that such a phase

occurs. As he admits, most of the more extreme measures of the Tudors

were not put into practice and they lacked a standing army. Despite what

he believes was an 'Inherent tendency of the Tudor monarchy towards

'absolutism' on the continental model, the Crown was surrounded by a

peculiar landowning class which was 'unusually civilian in background,

commercial in occupation and commoner in rank'. The result was that

this was a state which 'had a small bureaucracy, a limited fiscality, and no

permanent army' (1974: 127). Yet a large bureaucracy, heavy taxation

and a standing army are the three central criteria of absolutism as defined

by Anderson. An England where 'the coercive and bureaucratic

machinery of the monarchy remained very slim' (1974: 129) hardly

seems suited to the Absolutist mantle. (These criticisms, I recently

discovered, have also been made by Runciman, 1980.)

The failure to show that England had either of the two essential

prerequisites of the capitalist revolution according to his general model,

namely Absolutism and Roman Law, forces Anderson to fall back on a

rehashed version of Marx's theory about the expropriation of the

peasants, combined with a certain amount of 'natural tendency' thrown

in. Trade and manufactures grew, the peasantry were socially differen-

tiated and weak and were destroyed, both from without and within. We

are no further forward.

One of the most interesting developments in the discussion has been

in two articles by Brenner. In the first he showed the inadequacy of

demographic explanations of the rise of capitalism, particularly in the

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work of Ladurie and Postan. By cross -comparative analysis Brenner

showed that the same major demographic pressures led to entirely

different results in western and eastern Europe. Nor can the explanation

lie in trade and commercialization in themselves. The solution lies, as

Marx thought, in the relations of production: 'it is the structure of class

relations, of class power, which will determine the manner and degree to

which particular demographic and commercial changes will affect long-

run trends in the distribution of income and economic growth - and not

vice versa' (1976: 3 1). What, then, is his theory? It is that the different

trajectories of western and eastern Europe arose out of the fact that in

western Europe the peasantry were already strong and could not be re-

feudalized, as they were in the East. But this general approach leads him

into problems with the test case of England.

It has normally been held, as we saw with Weber, that it was the

weakness of the English peasantry which led to its destruction. Brenner's

thesis leads him into a contradiction. In England the peasantry were both

weak and strong. Their strength led them to eliminate themselves. They

vanished and conquered at the same time. 'In England, as throughout

most of Western Europe, the peasantry was able by the mid-fifteenth

century, through flight and resistance, to break definitively feudal

controls over its mobility and to win full freedom' (1976: 61). Yet,

strangely, in England, they did not win economic security, as they were to

do in France. They did not manage to attach themselves to the land and

become a strong landholding peasantry: 'it was the emergence of the

classical landlord -capitalist tenant-wage labour structure which made

possible the transformation of agricultural production in England, and

this, in turn, was the key to England's uniquely successful overall

economic development' (1976: 63). Brenner is here trying to get the best

of both arguments. The peasants were strong and resisted the landlord

and did not become serfs again, on the other hand they were weak and

were eliminated. 'The contrasting failure in France of agrarian

transformations seems to have followed directly from the continuing

strength of peasant landholding into the early modern period while it was

disintegrating in England' (1976: 68). As well as the inconsistency of this

explanation, it is unsatisfying because it does not begin to tackle the

reasons for the peculiar nature of the English relations of production.

How had this situation emerged and in what, precisely, did the

peculiarities lie?

Reactions to this first stimulating essay have pointed out the

weaknesses, but failed to go further. Thus in a thoughtful response

Croot and Parker agree that Brenner has pinpointed the significant

variable, the differences in social structures, but believe that 'the

explanation offered for the emergence or non-emergence of such

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relations is unconvincing' (1978: 45-6). Unfortunately, these authors,

besides laying stress on one or two factors such as the importance of the

small farmer (yeoman) in England, are unable to offer a better solution.

Likewise Bois agrees that 'the decisive part in the transition from

feudalism to capitalism is played out in the countryside' (1978: 62n.), but

provides no more plausible explanation than Brenner. He points to the

divergences between English and French 'feudalism', which differed

from at least the thirteenth century according to Bois (1978: 65), but this

important insight is not followed up.

In a second important article Brenner then demolished another group

of theorists, namely the 'Neo-Smithian Marxists': Frank, Sweezy and

Wallerstein. He shows that the basic premise of all these accounts is the

view that capitalism was already there before it emerged. The profit

motive was already present. For instance, we are told that 'Sweezy's

mistake was obviously to assume the operation of norms of capitalist

rationality, in a situation where capitalist social relations of production

did not exist, simply because market exchange was widespread'

(Brenner, 1977: 45). Likewise 'the Smithian theory embedded in

Sweezy's analysis ... is made entirely explicitly, and carried to its logical

conclusion in Wallerstein's Modern World System (1977: 53). Brenner

has much innocent fun showing that these Marxists are at heart followers

of Adam Smith. What he fails to point out is that they are also Marxists.

As we saw earlier, Marx himself needed to believe that the capitalist

profit motive existed, that the germ was present, before the existence of

capitalism. Brenner has again cleared the decks, but provided no

alternative. His later reply to his critics elaborates the earlier position but

takes us no further towards a solution (1982).

Two further more recent theories are worth noting. The first is that

the development of the West was made possible by the political

fragmentation of Europe. Whereas the unified empires of India and

China crushed all economic progress, 'the constant expansion of the

market ... was the result of an absence of political order extending over

the whole of western Europe' (Baechler, 1975: 73). Thus Baechler's

main conclusions are that the 'first condition for the maximization of

economic efficiency is the liberation of civil society with respect to the

State. This condition is fulfilled when a single cultural area is divided

into several sovereign political units', as in Europe (1975: 113). This

thesis has been forcefully restated by Hall. He adds to it the important

role played by Christianity which 'kept Europe together . . . the

market was possible because people felt themselves part of a single

community' (1985: 115, 123). Again these are necessary, if not sufficient,

explanations.

We are thus in a position where we have a clearer idea of the problems.

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These are: why did capitalism emerge and triumph in a part of western

Europe in the early modern period? Why this area, and particularly why

in England? We also know what not to pursue: towns, population growth,

overseas trade, colonialism, the growth of trade and the market,

technology were necessary but not sufficient causes. We know that a

particular strand of religion, an integrated and rational state and new

kind of law, were all important. The common culture of Christianity

holding together several small sovereign political units was also

important. Above all, we know that it was not in a single one of these

features, but in the way in which economy, politics, law and religion were

linked together that the solutions are likely to lie. Furthermore we have

hints that there were some crucial differences here within Europe, and

especially as between England and other continental countries. We may

now turn to a possible solution to some of these problems.

There is a another widely held belief that the emergence of capitalism was

linked to a pre-existing social formation known as 'feudalism'. Two of

the most influential proponents of this view were Maine and Marx. For

Maine, feudal ties formed the basis for the most momentous of all

changes, from relations based on status (kinship) to those based on

contract. In feudalism, he wrote, 'the notion of common kinship has been

entirely lost. The link between Lord and Vassal produced by Commen-