Having been off-line for four months and having meanwhile temporarily moved
to Australia, I have to catch-in on the ever continuing discussion on this
list. I would like, however, to make two remarks on Don D. Marshall's
stimulating comments, although, surely, these will only reveal my depth of
ignorance about the discussion of the last months.
1.)Regarding economic cycles predating European hegemony. Yes, indeed, it is
often assumed in economic literature that economic A- and B-cycles are
typical for capitalism alone and that European hegemony indeed predated
Kuznets, juglars and so forth. However, among historians this proposition
has never been seriously held. In fact, much of the discussion on the
Kondratiefs originally caught on because of research in the history of
prices and wages in medieval Europe - partly initiated by no lesser a person
than Sir William Beveridge the progenitor of the British welfare state - in
the twenties, in which clear cyclical patterns can be found from the 12 th
century (and, no doubt, before if there only were sufficient figures). More
scarse material on prices in medieval Egypt tends to confirm that such
cycles existed in the Middle East too and overlap with the European
Kondratiefs. Ideally we should like to reconstruct price- and wage - series
for antiquity but the extreme scarsity of material does not allow for this
(although it might be possible for Egypt in late antiquity in the distant
future).
2.)On the relationship between `B-phases' and anti-systemic movements: I do
not know what Andre Gunder Frank's original question is - but as Frank is of
course well aware there is a vast literature on the `B-phase' in Europe in
the late middle ages and its relationship with the disturbances in late
medieval Europe. Check out especially the writings of Guy Bois on this
topic: `Malthus or Marx in the Late Medieval Norman Countryside ?' Well -
that's some discussion for this list. Again, although I don't know much
about this debate there is a vast literature - stretching all the way back
to Gibbon - on the economic crisis in the Roman world in the third century
and its relation to the barbarian invasions. So, this is a well-studied
topic for periods far before any European hegemony.
As he is thinking over the question let me be so impolite as to admonish Don
Marshall a propos. The literature on the relation between `A' and `B' phases
and revolutions in the modern and early modern period in Europe and Asia is
as vast as it is unsatisfactory - so many other factors are involved that
it's very hard to establish a clear relationship. However, one area which
would merit closer research regarding the relationship between economic
shifts and revolt is precisely the West Indies - any world-economic crisis
tends to hit the inhabitants of the West Indies the first and often the
hardest. Slave-revolts and peasant-uprisings in the nineteenth century in
the West Indies can, I think, be profitably connected to economic cycles
which would be much harder for Europe, let alone Asia.
That is, I would argue, because - at least previous to ca. 1860 - there was
in the West Indies no large, mainly self-sufficient, peasant population
which tended to stimy the direct impact of economic crises in Europe, West
Africa or Asia. Peasants working on self-sufficient family-farms would
simply retreat to the farm from plantation or manufactures and since most of
the income of the farmer is from direct agricultural consumption they can
strictly work without wages, although this tends to make the wages quite
rigid and may worsen the long-term impact of a recession. (It is
interesting to note that this still applied to the Bombay textile industry
in the strikes of 1983 when the workers simply `dispersed' to the farms of
their family). Such a `safety-valve' did not exist in the West Indies.
Furthermore whatever one may now think about Barrington Moore's work: the
importance of the peasant-issue in uprisings and revolutions and thus to the
formation of democracy and dictatorship throughout Eurasia can not be
denied. Now, the West Indies are one of the few regions where pre 1860 there
was no separate `peasant class' mostly isolated from the market. Uprising
there were more closely related to shifts in the global economy, rather than
to separate demands from the peasantry which normally tended to revolve
around extremely local issues which might be linked to the wider economy or,
again, might not. (This is, obviously, not to deny that the peasantry could
have become self-sufficient as a result of shifts in the world-system as is
obviously the case in the West Indies after 1860 when there does arise a
peasant question).
Peace, love and unity
to remain in style
(although that's probably too Rastafarian for a well-bred Barbadian)
Dr. R.J. Barendse
IIAS - Leiden / Australian National University Canberra
barendse@coombs.anu.edu.au