I believe that throughout this fun exchange there has been a
persistent confusion between subject, object, and the taxonomies
mediating the perception by the one of the other. History
happened. That is the object. We are trying to apprehend and
maybe comprehend it. We are the subjects. In between are mental
constructs we use to simplify & organize information--mediating
taxonomies. Basic epistemology that we're scrambling together
here.
My favored taxonomies tend to be drawn from evolutionary
theory and neo-Marxist theory, but I try not to confuse the maps
I make in my head with the "reality" (however mediated and
distorted) I perceive and try to learn from. Others use
different maps. That's ok with me if I can translate across
them.
Capitalism happened. We live within it, it is real, and it
started earlier. When, where, and how its constituent elements
synergetically combined to build an unstoppable momentum that ate
the whole world is an interesting and important question. But
the competing answers to that question reveal as much about our
internalized maps as they do about historical reality, and the
debate is really more about the former than the latter. We need
to remember that.
For what it's worth, I think it no more "centric" to
perceive the "beginning" (whatever that "REALLY" means) of the
MWS in Europe than it is to place human origins in Africa, or the
origins of life in some puddles in the Pre-Cambrian seas.
Everything starts somewhere in the flowing stream of time, and
all dates and definitions must have an arbitrary component.
--Peter Grimes