WSNers--I guess the bottom line for me now is that what is gained by the
concept "capitalism" as a change that starts in Europe and spreads to the
rest of the world, is now more than made up for by what is lost. Its
probably just wrong, factually, plus the prejudice/eurocentricism of
it all has become intollerable. I just can't think anymore that only one
small peninsula did their economic things rationally, only for
accumulation's sake, or exploited labor like no one else did, or had
relations of production that no one else did, or used their state forms to
help the accumulators like no one else did. It just too much to accept
anymore. Particulay in the face of evidence that others engaged in the
same sort of activity, and that the changes that did occur to Europe were
because of Europe's place in the AFroeurasian world economy, not anything
unique to the peninsula's class relations (Marx) or values (Weber).
If the European peninsula was the center of the system, then, yes,
maybe. But at the edge, comprised of people who had been trying for eons
to get in on the productiive advangage of Asia, and in whose dealings with
purportedly non-capitalist/non-industrial Asia did nothing but import
Asian products from what was no doubt superior production arrangements
and had to exchange for Asian production virtually nothing of produced
value up to 1800 or so. No, that cannot be the basis of social theory.
That there is no scheme to replace received theory, I agree. That it
would be nice to go from paradigm to paradigm without have an inbetween
time of critiques of the past schemes, I agree. But to stick to a
world view that for which there is no evidence and which unfairly
priveledges one peninsula's experiences over that of the larger world of
which it is a part, I disagree.
Albert Bergesen
Department of Sociology
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona 85721
Phone: 520-621-3303
Fax: 520-621-9875
email: albert@u.arizona.edu