Manufacture and The Transition From Feudalism To Capitalism

Guilford Press
Manufacture and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism

Author(s): JØRGEN SANDEMOSE
Source: Science & Society, Vol. 76, No. 4 (OCTOBER 2012), pp. 463-494
Published by: Guilford Press
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Science & Society, Vol. 76, No. 4, October 2012, 463-494
Manufacture and the Transition

from Feudalism to Capitalism
JORGEN SANDEMOSE*
ABSTRACT : Robert Brenner's theory of the passage from feudalism
to capitalism in England in the early modern era contends that
an "agrarian capitalism" makes up the core of the transition. This
thesis is weak, measured against fundamental insights presented
by Karl Marx in different parts of Capital, I. On the other hand, in
the exposition of English developments subsequent to the Tudor
enclosures, in the last part of that work, "So-Called Primitive Accu-
mulation," Marx conspicuously ignores relevant insights developed
in earlier chapters, on the nature of manufacture and of large-
scale industry. There, manufacture had appeared as a condition
of large-scale industry, while advanced capitalism was seen as a
result of overcoming deficiencies in the structure of manufacture.
Marx's text on primitive accumulation would have benefited from
being presented more in coherence with this earlier analysis. The
"agrarian capitalism" thesis loses credibility when confronted with
empirical data on English manufacture and a Marxian synthesis.
Introduction
tive accumulation makes clear that, while the author pays due
AN attention tive ATTENTIVE
attention to accumulation to theof English
the expropriation READINGpeasants
expropriation
from the makes clear OF MARX'S that, of English while CHAPTERS the peasants author on from pays primi- due the
soil, the structure of English industry - regardless of its forms - is
simply not an issue. After reflecting on this fact in section 1 below,
I will go on to scrutinize the actual forms of industrial endeavor in
England. Through a summary of the situation in the traditional textile
* Thanks to Kirsten Grimm and Kjell Bj0rgeengen for their help in making this article readable.
463
464 SCIENCE & SOCIETY
sector, in section 2, it will be co

the handicrafts centering on wo
block for true capitalist develop
that several industries were pote
relations. The argument is indeb
tory of British coal production
today defended and reconsidere
section 4, 1 proceed to the quest
turing in the industries in questio
of Marxian concepts against the
17th centuries. The most import
that the structure of 16th-centu
creates a capitalist mass market
criticism of the "agrarian capital
will be put on the explanatory p
This is a Mertonian "latent function" where it is vital that historical
change is produced by actions that are structurally uniform, but have
unintended results of structural significance. Whereas this is truly a
welcome principle, I find that it does not apply to the dynamic of
agrarian capitalism, but on the contrary precisely to the introduction
of extensive coal mining. In the structure of early British coal-based
industry, which centuries later was to become the true basis even of
the most advanced form of British industrialism, lies the core of the
transition from feudalism to capitalism.
1 . The Chapter on Primitive Accumulation
The theses in Marx's "Foreword" to his Critique from 1859, of the

relations between the feudal and capitalist modes of production, and
a fortiori feudal and capitalist social formations, committed the author
to the view that there exists a distinct, identifiable historical transition
from the former to the latter (cf. Marx, 1972, 8-9).
The transition in question is investigated in the first volume of
Capital - primarily in Part Eight, on primitive accumulation, and
secondarily in the chapters on manufacture and large-scale industry
in Part Four.
Part Eight is divided into eight chapters (26-33) . Roughly, the first
three (26-28) consist of an overview of how masses of English country
population were expropriated from the soil from about 1470. Soon
MANUFACTURE AND TRANSITION 465
the scene evolves to show how the roles of cap

modern landowner - key characters in the c
- are created. Let us look at what happens
In chapter 29, called "The Genesis of the Cap
points out that expropriation and the enclos
duced masses of "bird-free proletarians," a
capitalists originally spring from? For the o
by the expropriation of the agricultural popul
landed proprietors" (Marx, 1976, 905).
The most important point in the chapte
"agricultural revolution," starting about 14
1580. On this Marx says that it "enriched [the
as it forced the rural population into povert
It is not generally accepted that there was a "
in the technological meaning of the word at th
to the contrary, usually finds such a revolution
period after 1580. Still, Marx clearly had suppo
that he primarily had in mind the change th
tions of production, included the expropria
is brief, and mentions little more than "th
mon lands," which "allowed the farmer to a
of cattle, almost without cost, while the ca
richer supply of manure for the cultivation o
plex we should certainly add an intensificat
In addition, Marx points to the price revo
tury. This led to a downturn in the value of
corresponding upturn in the price of agric
ing in marked improvements for farmers, as
rents. Marx thus rounds off the chapter wi
that it was only natural that England, even
of 'capital farmers' [ Kapitalpächter ] who wer
the circumstances of the time."
Thus far, Marx's exposition is in accord with the one given by Rob-
ert Brenner, which in its turn was developed from the latter's article
on the class structure in European agriculture prior to industrialism.
The article appeared in Past and Present 35 years ago, and took its
point of departure in an evaluation of Maurice Dobb's critique of Paul
1 On Marx's notion of an "agricultural revolution," cf. Cooper, 1987, 146.
466 SCIENCE ò5 SOCIETY
Sweezy's viewpoints, another 30 y

1976) . Vital to Brenner's viewpoint
played the decisive role in the bre
Let us return to the summary
on the capitalist tenant, there fo
of the Agricultural Revolution on
Market for Industrial Capital" (M
out that Marx takes for granted
populated by "day laborers [ Tagelöh
added). But to describe the chang
presupposes that in a given area
linen goes on side by side with the
handicrafts, which originated in
means of existence. Marx continues:
At the same time, large establishments for flax-spinning and weaving arise,
and in these the men who have been "set free" now work for wages. The flax
looks exactly as it did before. Not a fibre of it is changed, but a new social
soul has entered its body. It now forms a part of the constant capital of the
master manufacturer.
In short, the emergence of the "new social soul" implies that
spindles, looms and raw material are now transformed from means for the
independent existence of spinners and weavers into means for commanding
them and extracting unpaid labour from them.
Marx now calls these establishments große Manufakturen, while

Fowkes' translation has "large factories." At this point, the wish to
uphold a normal English word usage collides with conceptual distinc-
tions promoted by Marx, for it is important to note that the work in
these establishments has little to do with that of large-scale industry.
Besides, Marx seems to make a point here of describing the new social
division of labor as a correlation between " Großpächtern ," Le ., the "big
farmers," and große Manufakturen: "These raw materials and means of
subsistence have now become commodities; the large-scale farmer [ der
Großpächter] sells them, and he finds his market in the manufactures."
In this correlation - evidently inspired by the physiocrat Mirabeau,
whom he cites at length here - Marx finds the genesis of the capital-
ist inner market.
The whole argument underlines the distinction

introduced between "manufacture" and "large-sca
last-mentioned form is present in advanced and fu
talism, as it appeared in western Europe. The firs
prior to large-scale industry. "Manufacture," or "m
specific word for this relation of production in En
is a form which is dependent on handicraft; it app
fortune are able to invest in labor power and in pr
but while capitalism is still not developed enough
pendent machinery and subsume the worker unde
quently, maintains that when the worker is subjugate
manufacture, the subsumption is only "formal." S
machine-driven processes steering tool mechanism
"real." As our discussion evolves, I will show that
would have gained in strength had he operated wit
concept of formal subsumption than the one to which
in this model-genesis of the English home market.
It seems, then, that in Capital Marx has the sam
the section in the Grundrisse called "Forms Which
Production," where he writes that capital in its nat
circulation, and concludes:
The formation of capital thus does not emerge from la

at most from the tenant [ Pächter ] in so far as he is a dea
products; or from the guild . . .); but rather from mer
wealth. But the latter encounter the conditions where free
chased only when this labour has been released from its
of existence through the process of history. Only then do
the possibility of buying these conditions themselves. (Mar
If one goes back to Marx's passages on the "capital far

no contention that the tenant is the proto-capitali
point (primarily) backward in the text, not forward
ment of the history of the tenant class. He explicitly
the capitalists' genesis to expropriation and the creati
The forcible creation of a class of free and rightless prolet

discipline that turned them into wage-labourers, the disgr
2 The word " Pächtef is the one translated (mostly) as "farmer" by Fo
of the state which employed police

of capital by increasing the degree o
These are facts that Marx had ta

section (28), entitled "Bloody Leg
since the End of the Fifteenth C
by Act of Parliament" (1976, 896-
then turn to get a glimpse of the
to depict. To our purpose, which
extent Marx's theory is consisten
that we have to make out whether
can be thought of as led by an "a
In Chapter 28, Marx underline
possibly be absorbed by the nasc
thrown upon the world." Next, h
to force down wages.
We cannot go into those laws in
that Marx treats them as seconda
theme of the growing manufactur
mention wage labor in agricultur
period in question as "the period
(which he sets to 1550-1780), and
in manufacture that form his star
Now, we may pass over to a terra
lowing upon the text on the capi
above), without turning rural pro
makes some remarks concerning
prior to the emergence of an int
"day laborers" and of production
quently, certain agricultural prod
does not describe their social context.
The form of the exposition may be due to its hypothetical nature.
The description of the "inner market" is not tied to any investigation
of the English economy. What Marx does is to put forward examples
of an economic model, and to the extent that he is relying on "empiri-
cal" examples these are taken from continental Europe and from
remarks by Mirabeau.
This means that Marx does not employ his theory on the "manu-
factory," developed earlier in the same volume of Capital, to provide
any empirical substantiation of the construction

England. With this in mind, we may now go on to
(31), called "The Genesis of the Industrial Capita
Here, Marx presents the new industrial mast
the structure of the text must come as a surprise
a climax in Marx's empirical exposition of Engli
what follows now actually revolves around the worl
organized, violent aspects) . Clearly, English econ
The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirp

entombment in mines of the indigenous population . . .
conquest and plunder of India, and the conversion of
for the commercial hunting of blackskins, are all th
the dawn of the era of capitalist production. These
the chief moments of primitive accumulation.
The theme of "Genesis of the Industrial Capitalis

commerce, violent extortion of labor time from
in the south and east, and a colonial system.
All in all, it is not surprising that the exposition
been interpreted in different ways by Marx-ins
historians. Also, it is easy to explain why Marx has
who find it fair to emphasize the role of agricu
it comes to explaining capitalism starting from
tion in England. For Marx definitely does not s
developments in any form of (English) industry .
2. Industry in the Form of Domestic Handicrafts
In English historiography, there has been a t

the development of capitalism with wool produc
example is Eleanora Carus-Wilson. For her, "th
'great industry' in England at the close of the M
tably capitalist," all because of the involvement
"the clothiers . . . lived by the merchants" (Carus-W
But evidently this does not localize any capitalis
process proper, and no investigation of the sources
industrial capital can take its point of departure
of the clothiers.
470 SCIENCE 6 f SOCIETY
Corresponding views among histori

perhaps on dubious interpretations
at why Marx found it acceptable to f
to the "genesis of the industrial cap
and by were invested in the process
a context of export trade. Also, it
relations are limited to mercantile
tion was not developed organically
One should note that the domesti
tion of wool production was essent
position of the English smallholde
Power, 1965, 37-38). The enclosure
cut the ties between the domestic s
the class of smaller peasants was on
tence hampered the opportunities o
have reduced a possible expansion o
labor. The "Brenner Debate" seems at least to show a consciousness
of this by all parties.
Finally, the issue is important for any transition theory based on
Marxian notions of feudalism and capitalism. As Marx underlined,
the transition between these western systems coincided with a "nega
tion of the negation" of an originally individual property, restoring
a new form of collectivity (cf. Marx, 1976, 929). Without the origi-
nal existence in England of a large class of free individual peasants
with access to domestic textile production, history would have taken
another direction. They produced an all-pervading system of judicial
presuppositions, of coinage, mutual confidence and puritanism, that
helped capitalism pass from possibility to actuality. But from where
did this actuality emerge?
3. Pre-Machine "Manufactory" Production, 1540-1640
It was not until some publications by Nef, starting in 1934, that one
was confronted with systematic material that could be used to apply
Marx's general theory of the stages of capitalism to the English case
Nef maintained that the technological upheavals after 1780 took
place in an industrial environment which had been formed through a
remarkable rise in productivity, technical efficiency and organizational
levels in the time-span 1540 to 1640. This led to a "multiplication of
private ventures in many industries during th

expansion of mining and manufacturing that b
1940, 106).
The turning-point came with the English cr
monastic riches. We shall now have a brief look at some of Nef s results.
1 ) Appearance of new industries. The changes in the relations of

production that followed upon the reformation led to the introduc-
tion of a series of "new" industries in England. "Alum and copperas
[ferrous sulphate] factories, the first sugar refineries, and the first
considerable saltpeter works were all introduced into the country
from abroad" (Nef, 1934, 5-6).
Of such enterprises, Nef writes:
The important thing about the "new" Elizabethan industries was that in all
of them plant was set up involving investments far beyond the sums which
groups of master-craftsmen could muster, even if these artisans were men
of some small substance.
He mentions examples like that of John Browne, who in 1613 had 200
hands employed in his cannon foundry in Kent; 50 years earlier, John
Spilman's paper mill in the same area employed scores of hands, while
in gunpowder factories, also in Kent, "the machinery was perhaps no
less costly than at the paper mills" (Nef, 1934, 7).
As to the industrial infrastructure which emerged, Nef thinks it
important that work on copperas, sugar and saltpeter could be done
at smaller localities of production, but still needed large additional
investments in special devices; to this extent, such types of produc-
tion could in some ways be compared to mining, as will be seen in a
moment.
2) Expansion of " old " industries. The possibilities for in

which were consequences of the reformation - where m
the crown were channeled to entrepreneurs - led to even
investments and a rising number of workers in several olde
(specifically, Nef, 1958, 47) . Mining of coal and iron ore ar
important cases (see also Woodward, 1963, 162).
Progress in these branches had to do with the great
demand for coal. Production increased about 800% in
we are considering, something that in itself can be take
cator of the capitalist character of the new production
472 SCIENCE àf SOCIETY
10). This led to extensive technical

were able to multiply their produc
during the period. Analogous res
copper, lead, tin and silver. Blast f
only after 1540. Steel manufacture
into Elizabeth's reign.
3) Discovery and application of new
ments, vital to possibilities of accu
by the necessity to employ coal in g
The substitution of coal for wood frequ

considerable magnitude in processes ot
other than metallurgy. By successful solu
early in the 17th century, the British we
tion to industrial technology. (Nef, 193
For instance, about 1610, "glass-m

discovery of the method of closing t
leading also to the "important inve
for steel manufacture." Coke was d
speed of inventions leading to the
to avoid the damaging effects of co
materials with which it came in co
This conclusion of Nef s does no
It was probably not, as has been suppo

early nineteenth centuries that the c
in England and in continental countrie
centuries preceding the "Industrial Re
Let us now examine Nef s results som

them to the role of manufacture pr
First, consider an example of the
kind of industry. For instance, the ca
acter of alum production was color
1619. One George Lowe called this
a distracted worke in severall places an

performed by anie one man nor by a f
sort, of whom the most part are idle, car
Such a lament could be said to reproduce som

the production of the period of manufactures
in Capital : We are talking about owners or forem
force of "reliable" workers. Without this, pro
get started. In many branches, skilled workers w
Continent, where arts were more developed t
1934, 12, passim ). These were privileged emp
the hierarchy, workers often were recruited
unskilled, who had had to leave their villag
enclosures (Nef, 1934, 22). We also recognize a
all kinds of "manufactory," namely, a marked lac
"The complaint that the workers lack discipli
whole of the period of manufacture," Marx w
Lowe's outburst also reveals the fear and aw
opinion of the synergetic effects of workers
at in comparison with modes of production in th
something new to experience how the results o
swelled up simply through letting people work
basic principle in manufacture: Starting out fr
tion, it joined a number of workers under the
space and time in economical ways, so that the
duction became significantly more voluminou
collected from an equal number of scattered a
Let us now take a closer look at Marx's view of the relation between
manufacture (conceived as a mode of production) and the large-scale
industry that emerged later, after 1780. Rounding off his chapter on
division of labor and manufacture, he says:
One of its [manufacture's] most finished products was the workshop for
the production of the instruments of labour themselves, and particularly
the complicated pieces of mechanical apparatus already being employed.
"A machine-factory," says Ure, "displayed the division of labour in manifold
gradations - the file, the drill, the lathe, having each its different workmen
in the order of skill." This workshop, the product of the division of labour in
manufacture, produced in its turn - machines. It is machines that abolish
the role of the handicraftsman as the regulating principle of social produc-
tion. (Marx, 1976, 490ff.)3
3 The quote is from Ure's book, The Philosophy of Manufactures (London, 1835).
At the beginning of the chapter

try," Marx writes:
In manufacture, the transformation o

power as its starting-point. In large
instruments of labour are the starti
He then presents the following r
All fully developed machinery consis

the motor mechanism, the transmit
working machine. The motor mecha
mechanism as a whole. It either gen
steam engine, the electro-magnetic
from some already existing natural fo
scent of water down an incline . . . (
He goes on to explain that the in

the working machine , makes it
process that tends to steadily re
human hands in production (and,
discipline).
From this it can be seen that Marx, if ever so indirectly, counts
on a dynamic historical transition from manufacture to large-scale
industry. The condition for such a transition is that both forms are
connected to markets, and that both of them - as Marx implies at the
beginning of the chapter on large-scale industry, five chapters before
the treatment of primitive accumulation - aim at "cheapen [ing]
commodities and, by shortening the part of the working day in which
the worker works for himself, to lengthen the other part, the part he
gives to the capitalist for nothing" (Marx, 1976, 492).
In its turn, this means that the connection between these forms
and their market is based on the existence of wage labor, that is, pro-
duction of surplus value. The competition that we associate with the
existence of a capitalist market is therefore in its origin a competition
among industrial capitalists.
If the industrial revolution, and thus large-scale industry as we
know it today, originates through construction of working machines,
it is fair to suppose that manufacture , insofar as it is engined by market
imperatives based on capitalist competition, must be based on the
development of other parts of the machinery, pr

mechanism. It was this that marked the indu
England between 1540 and 1780.
It was no coincidence that Nef came to act
analysis of this tendency: He wrote the classical wo
ish Coal Industry . There, he estimated that ab
expanding volume of excavated coal went t
towards the end of the 17th century. This ju
time the object of extensive criticism, but is now
1996, 95) . In addition, Nef put much weight o
in the development of transmission, based on
by horses and water.
The very possibility of using coal as a subst
fuel which became more and more scarce as a
relatively limited forest areas in England, op
great changes in metallurgy and mining, espe
tions, use of machinery and big furnaces. Nef
for labor admittedly rose not quite as fast as
was because the mines became more and more difficult to utilize,
because of inflowing water (Nef, 1934, 16). This in turn led to the
introduction of coal-fuelled devices powered by vapor to pump water
out of the mineshafts - which made the excavation more costly,
but whose efficiency led to the construction of scores of pumping
stations at mines.
This is a dynamic that points towards a capitalist economy driven

by "manufactory," an economy containing both a broad inner market
and a proletarian population, taking part in this market. One side of
the equation is that production, not least in coal excavation itself, now
necessitates a more costly technical apparatus, meaning rising costs of
real basic investment. It was no longer probable that individual, petty
investors were able to act as industrial entrepreneurs. Nef s investiga-
tions into the size of basic investments in the period following the
confiscation of monasteries tell us indirectly how important it is to
conceive capitalist enterprise as a relation with its origin in circula-
tion. Capital always starts as money fortune, and it aims to valorize
itself through productive exploitation of labor. The result of capitalist
activity proper is consequently a sum of money: Its movement in its
totality is, in a shortened form, M-Mf, as Marx notes in his model of
reproduction - a passage from a given sum of money to a larger one.
476 SCIENCE &> SOCIETY
The other side of the equation has

costly total investments in the per
ened products not only through the
through mass production of comm
contributed to a reduction in produc
much more impure than that of ch
rise in the volume of production per
to limit distribution to the luxury
on a mass market, and this went e
and brickworks:
Quite apart from the direct influence of the substitution of coal for wood in
encouraging large-scale manufacture, it is clear that the inventions making
this substitution possible enabled several capitalistic industries, which would
otherwise have withered, to flourish as they could not in foreign countries
lacking cheap and easily accessible coal supplies. The progress during the
seventeenth century of brick-making and commercial glass-making, both of
which had been of little importance before Elizabeth's reign, would have been
impossible but for the technical changes in the processes. (Nef, 1934, 18.)
4. Empirical Notes on Marx's "Manufacture"
Maxine Berg is one of the few who have tried to analyze Marx's
model of manufacture in connection with an empirical investigation
of the rise of British industry. She stresses, rightly, how the crucial
passages in Capital are in want of illustrations from contemporary
England:
The best historical example Marx could find to fit the criteria of his model of
manufacture was the engineering workshop of the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. In spite of the allusions to rural industry and central-
ized production, then, Marx's model of "manufactures" seems to have been
a large workshop in the hands of a capitalist and organized on the basis of
wage labour. (Berg, 1998, 63ff.)
In general, we may say that this objection to Marx reflects the fact
that he chose to treat manufacture from the technical side, and
consequently was not motivated to concentrate on the essential dif-
ferences between the Continental European and English industrial
environments.
Berg continues, with descriptions of English

the last part of the 18th century, calling Marx's
facture "retrospective" (Berg, 64ff) . But in fact it
order to consider manufacture in a "retrospectiv
be expected that one will find the presumptively
last part of the period. Nobody, Marx least of al
to find advanced examples as early as the 1550
in the middle of the 16th century we should e
distinct starting points, but hardly more than t
start with what Marx takes to be the essentials
look for such criteria.
Such essential features obviously are: Capitalist organization, i.e.,

wage labor, based on tool labor. The manufactures developed this
work in the form of handicraft, but this "handicraft," even in advanced
manufactures, could be reduced to single operations, performed by
masses of unskilled laborers. Therefore, we should be allowed to stress
the manual character of tool labor rather than its level of virtuosity,
even if the latter was always present among strata of skilled workers
in manufacture.
As to branches in mining , it may be problematic to consider them

as manufacture in the sense we are using the word here. On the
other hand, it is not unreasonable to take them to depend on man-
ual labor performed by simple tools, by cooperating people, mostly
unskilled, under one roof. All of these characteristics are present in
regular manufacture. A "transmission machinery" (in a figurative
sense) , namely pumping devices, was joined to the mining operations.
Besides, mining was always accompanied by employment of skilled
foremen. Furthermore, mining most certainly took part in the social
division of labor which in one form or another was reflected in the
construction of all manufactures proper. As I have already implied, it is
possible to count coal mining as a condition for most of the capitalist
manufacture in England. The most important thing is, perhaps, that
like all manufactures, it was based on wage labor, cooperation and
on formal subsumption of labor under capital.
This description of what really took place in Britain (centered on
coal production) fits very well with Marx's general view that a mode
of production is something that emerges spontaneously. But as long
as he, in critically important passages, limits his exposition of formal
subsumption to classical manufacture, the description does not seem
478 SCIENCE 6s SOCIETY
very adequate compared to his co

manufacture "towered up as an art
a "narrow technical basis," and t
a new social force (cf. Marx, 197
depicted those workshops, mines
a revolution in machine tools de
method and his openness to emp
more sophisticated view: In his firs
volume of Capital , he gives a def
with manufacture. Here we read
can set it in motion in any "exist
archaic modes of production" (M
A problematic point is that the "
in this period did not manage to
of woollens. Their production w
centralized prior to the industrial r
period of manufacture did not sh
However, it is just as undeniabl
Britain in the wake of the indus
change from textile-based producti
and iron. If we look at economic
it should be easy to accept the ne
branches in the way they were dev
Furthermore, there are many
based textile industry was intert
Berg presents some examples:
Eighteenth-century manufacture was p

tings; it was organized along many diff
or legitimate in its own environment.
san and co-operative forms of product
interacted with some type of manufac
Similarly, she comments on cond

in the 16th century:
4 It should be noted that Marx's work on th

Immediate Process of Production," went on
last decided to skip it, he may have had too l
version that was to take its place.
It had a rural textile industry organized on a putting-

ployed peasant labour, but it also had an important
in centralized units around water-power blast furn
Kurt Àgren estimates that John Winchcombe

manufacture in Newbury, employed 1140 per
were women and children (Âgren, 60).
D. C. Coleman shows how the 17th-century E
often took the form of
[an] integrated plant, with furnace, forge, water-course, and water wheel,
[which] could demand investment on a scale open only to landowners, mer-
chants, and others with ready access to finance. The Earl of Rutland, for
example, was adding to his landed revenues, between 1600 and the 1630s,
net annual profits of around £1000-£1500 from his iron furnace and forge
in Yorkshire . . . (Coleman, 1977, 88.)
Apparently, many local economies centered precisely around man-

ufactures. In Berg, we also find instances of handicraft workers in
textiles organizing manufactures to take care of specific functions -
for instance, mills that took over some of the preparatory work with
clothes (Berg, 71). As noted by Schorsch, "within the interstices of
the putting-out network producer-manufacturers developed" (1980-
1981,421).
All in all, it seems fair to consider a certain "manufactures system"
as the actual backbone of English industry during Marx's "manufac-
ture period."
Not only could the manufacture-based structure appear as a cen-
ter of local economies; in fact it played a similar role in the British
national economy as a whole. We have seen how practically all the
types of machinery present prior to the revolutionizing of machine
tools from 1780 on were developed to a relative perfection in this
period. In its turn, this technology was a crucial factor in the devel-
opment of a new kind of mass production during the course of the
industrial revolution proper. The development of industrial capital
was as dependent on motor mechanics and transmission mechan-
ics as on machine tools. In this sense, which is not a secondary one,
manufacture is to be understood as a first period of the development
of industrialism, taken as a linear structure.
5. Critique of the Brenner Thesis
Now, do the reflections above real

and Wood? As the latter writes, t
show that there existed an "immanent" transition from feudal relations
to capitalist ones. He had no special intent to describe the capitalist
industrial awakening in the process.
Just as Dobb and Hilton, Brenner was looking for a dynamics internal to
feudalism. But the crucial difference between his approach and theirs, was
that he expressis verbis was on the outlook for an internal dynamics that did
not presuppose an already existing capitalist logic.
Class struggle figures prominently in his argument, as it did in Dobb's
and Hilton's, but in Brenner it is not a question of liberating an impulse
toward capitalism. Instead, it is a matter of lords and peasants, in certain
specific conditions peculiar to England, involuntarily setting in train a capi-
talist dynamic while acting, in class conflict with each other, to reproduce
themselves as they were. The unintended consequence was a situation in which
producers were subjected to market imperatives. So Brenner really did depart
from the old model and its tendency to assume the very thing that needs to
be explained. (Wood, 2002, 52.)
Methodologically, this is crucial. Brenner is forced to use a

model which implies that the result which appeared is to be reached
involuntarily - an unintended consequence. As such, it can be treated
as an effect of what Robert Merton calls a latent or non-manifest func-
tion (cf. Merton, 1949, 1 14-136) . It is, then, to be taken as a historical
result that acts in a coercive way on those who experience it.
The imperative in question appears, according to Wood, in the
fact that English political relations forced the lords to build a market
for leasing contracts, so that farmers in their turn were forced to
compete for them - a competition that led to a rise in agricultural
productivity (Wood, 2002, 53).
The lords consequently ended up functioning inside a purely
economic regime, and the farmers developed in the same direc-
tion. For Wood, this is also the historical background for the specific
relation between politics and economy in western societies, with an
economy functioning without a basic need for non-economic violence
or coercion.
However, there are problems connected

instance, one might ask why the lords shou
pete among themselves to extract riches fr
we accept Wood's and Brenner's thesis that
have followed from relations internal to feu
cannot be described as "capitalist") , a still grea
the concept of a "market" that we meet in the
Wood describes the historical context as follows:
The conditions of tenure were such that growing numbers of tenants were sub-
jected to market imperatives - not the opportunity to produce for the market
and to grow from petty producers into capitalists but the need to specialize
for the market and to produce competitively - simply in order to guarantee
access to the means of subsistence, and to the land itself. (Wood, ibid.)
If we are to take this literally, "the market" is here to be understood

as an institution whose character is given , and to which one may have
a different relation , and on which one may also have different degrees
of dependence.
Accordingly, Brenner writes of the situation in England toward
the dissolution of feudalism, occurring as a consequence of Tudor
enclosures:
Because in this system the organizers of production and the direct pro-
ducers were separated from direct, non-market access to their means of
reproduction or subsistence (especially from possession of the land), they
had no choice, in order to maintain themselves, but to buy and sell on th
market. This meant that they were compelled to produce competitively
by way of cost-cutting, and therefore, that they had as a rule to attempt
to specialize, accumulate and innovate to the greatest extent possible
(Brenner, 1987b, 214ff.)
Neither Brenner nor Wood make any attempt to define the "mar-
ket." Let us affirm that the "market" cannot be taken simply as a
given institution: It is an interpersonal category, paralleling a real
ity constructed by men. Since the market is not material in any way
(albeit always related precisely to material products), it is shaped by
specific inclinations and mentalities, which are identical among those
participating in it.
482 SCIENCE &> SOCIETY
What Brenner and Wood are sayin

ducers" confronted a "market" in 1
became dependent on it in a new f
have had its origin from feudal societ
of the feudal mode of production (w
combined relation of faith-and-coercion between lords and bondsmen
related to material production) already had by its side still another

element, a "market."
The relation between lords and bondsmen was tied to agriculture.
The contract between them did not include the bondsman's activities
in the domestic sphere. Here, spinning and weaving could take place
independently of feudal relations. Some of these products could be
sold or bartered.
The unity of these three elements in fact gives us the feudal social
formation , which is the feudal mode of production, with such a "market"
added to it. This market is a mutual understanding between medieval
men on the exchanging of surplus products. (This is what Wood calls
"the opportunity" to produce for a market.) At an early stage of its
development, it involved the use of coin, which by and by developed
into money.
Brenner and Wood might very well say that this market is a histori-
cal forerunner of the market that was connected with "direct produc-
ers" and landlords in the 15th and 16th centuries. However, if they
mean that the same market is in the picture, an additional argument
is needed. For these authors now overtly speak of a market that is
constructed through the understanding that any product, not only
surplus produce, is able to be sold and is expected to be. This means
that we have to deal with radically changed ways of thinking, and
consequently with relations of production that are quite different
from feudal ones. Nefs "mass market" is the adequate term. But in
that case, it is in industry and manufacture, and not in agriculture,
that capitalist imperatives have their origin.
Therefore, it seems that Brenner and Wood "assume the very
thing that needs to be explained." In this special case, they abstain
from pointing out an earlier development that has transformed men's
spiritual and practical horizon from the prevailing conditions of the
feudal epoch.
As for Wood, she vacillates on this point. On the property relations
in English agriculture, she presents the following, comprehensive view:
The famous triad of landlord, capitalist tenant, a

result, and with the growth of wage labour the pres
productivity also increased. The same process created
riculture capable of sustaining a large population not
production, but also an increasing propertyless ma
large wage-labour force and a domestic market fo
- a type of market with no historical precedent. T
the formation of English industrial capitalism. (W
This text lacks clarity. A decisive point is tha

distinction in time between the expropriation
emergence of a capitalist agriculture. (In fact, sh
mean that capitalist agriculture precedes expr
tion has to be made, for we must assume that
ration between masses and means of product
subject and the social object, which creates that
kind of mutual understanding, which makes it p
have reached a situation "without precedence"
In the text, Wood makes clear what she mean
ers." The concept includes not only farmers
this welcome clarification shows precisely how f
contends that it is specific for the workers in ag
part in an "imperative" of the market.
But originally it was the landlords, and th
farmers, who were portrayed as subjugated
wage workers in agriculture are real direct "
They enter the terrain of the imperative only b
priated from the soil, turned into bird-free p
respect they do not differ at all from any ot
priated through "primitive accumulation."
As for Brenner, he argues that the "triad" an
ture of agriculture" was the constellation beh
the English industrial development of the
[namely] its continuous character," so that "
ment . . . direcdy and indirectly [provided] the
which was necessary for "industrial growth"
Empirically, this view coincides with Nefs
in fact no hiatus in the development of the B
time span between the reformation and Arkwri
Brenner is saying is that this conti

"agricultural improvement." That
Now, if one compares this to M
find a crucial difference in the f
that the "home market" in quest
formation of the free-set workers' "former means of nourishment"
into "material elements of variable capital . . . [of] the industrial
capitalist" (Marx, 1976, 908ff). That is, the market in question, with
its specific capitalist character, is there only because an industrial
proletariat is also present.
On the one hand, this furnishes us with a welcome concreti-
zation of the problematic of the theme Brenner is investigating,
namely the de facto structure of the market which is capable of giv-
ing (and absorbing) "imperatives." But on the other hand, we are
precisely at the point where we have found that Marx's argument
suffers from a lack of empirical force. Instead of giving examples
from contemporary English industry, he turns to a model-building
inspired by Mirabeau.
Towards the end of Brenner's "The Agrarian Roots" we get some
shadowy anticipations of a more realistic approach to the question
of the character of the market. Brenner here describes the "impera-
tive" situation by writing that the peasants, under the newly emergent
social-property relations, "had no choice [italics in original] but to
respond to the rising market " (Brenner, 1987b, 301). But clearly, this
places the provenance of the new kind of market (if a new kind it
was) outside the immediate circle of "agricultural" economics. As far
as I can see, that is precisely an implied point in Brenner's way of
concluding these passages:
It was not . . . the rise of the market in itself which made for the rapid dif-
ferentiation of the peasantry . . . but rather the social-property relationships
which made the English agricultural producers fully dependent upon com-
petitive production. (Brenner, ibid.)
However, such a dependence, so long as it is "full" and developed,

can scarcely exist without being a mental phenomenon pervading all
classes and individuals in society. It is not far-fetched to compare this
to Hobbes' brilliant anticipation of human "fear" and other mental
states with a provenance from the unstable sit

times of transition. It is precisely a descri
its oncoming capitalist form. The capitalist
separated from capitalist relations of produ
that such a separation is made by Brenner
the fact that he overtly uses the concept of
of production and investments in pre-indus
quently terms the corresponding surplus as "p
time rent is labeled "feudal"!) and even oper
"factor prices" for such pre-capitalist relati
31,33; 1987b, 213).
When Brenner finally takes steps to co
"social-property relations" with capitalism a
industry at large, he finds that "most signi
capitalist property relations to enforce, by wa
tematic drive towards specialization and im
process in the economy as a whole ' (Brenner,
comes to "exemplifying" the technologies
that follow, he concentrates strongly on ag
then switches over to pointing out that the
labor opened the way for the rise of new indu
vicinities, among them leather goods (conne
in the area), lace, hosiery and cloth-making
areas, industries actually declined as a conse
of grain-growing, and adds a short remark on
be industry (and "non-food commercial agr
would be supported by grain.
The picture thus made is very well aligned w
lish industrialization in its actual historical dev
dependent on "capitalist agriculture," even
products manufactured. However, this way of
unacceptable, for empirical reasons.
Here, it should suffice to point to the w
his new adherents in recent years. Nef show
English industrialization was connected with
5 Somewhat later in his text, quoting Thirsk (161ff), Bren

views, even when they seem to imply a broader basis for in
concentrated on products with n

ones, and that this was the case ev
up the mass market.6
If this is the case, there is no reas
in an explanation of the emergenc
came to be the country where a n
"market" emerged, i.e., where a c
nothing but a consequence of the
times. With a stroke, the immedi
situation. They found themselves
it imperative to sell their own pow
immediacy, they had become pote
such an event which is a prerequis
Such a development had still an
extensive circulation of coin, deve
lation of money. If such a condit
impossible for the masses to perce
since it would exclude the concep
the commodity labor power.
This is one of the reasons why
crafts, outside of feudal jurisdicti
mation, are so important in an h
For no matter how extensive trad
were in the European orbit, or ho
6 This is the place to give a summary of Nefs p

Problems of space forces me to a brevity which
of his work.
As for the "rehabilitation" indicated by Berg, it is due above all to Hatcher's comprehensive
work on the coal industry (1993, esp., in general terms, 8-9). Cf. also Harris (1998, esp.
555), and Farnie's extensive comments on the latter (Farnie, 2000).
Several extant, influential comments on Nefs theses rest simply on misapprehensions.
A critical one is presented in Pomeranz, 2000 (16) who overlooks the role of the early in-
dustrial coal market, and the creation of the original mass market. Furthermore, cf. Inikori
(2002, 39), who writes against Nef that "new industries encouraged by the government,
which Thirsk noted, were not successfully developed"; but Nef s point is precisely that Brit-
ish entrepreneurship after 1540 did not have this character. Also, Inikori (esp. 39), Musson
(1978, 43) and Coleman (1977, 88, 69-70) make polemics against Nefs view of England's
foreign market, while it is the home market that is obviously the main point of the discus-
sion. Still, Inikori at least notes that Brenner disagrees with the above-mentioned writers,
and that he thinks that from about 1600, "a growing English home market was absorbing
record imports of commodities" (Brenner, 1993, 42). The existence of such a market is
probably to be reconciled with the structure Nef has in mind. Brenner writes explicitly of
a "growing purchasing power of middle- and lower-class English people in the early Stuart
period" (italics added).
intercontinental commodity exchange grew, it al

market that had such domestic work as its basis. Th
in the feudal social formation at an early stage w
the form in which town handicrafts expanded. T
the hierarchy of feudalism (guild-structured hierar
to apprentice to day laborer) and had a conservat
tion of "usury," rules for the curtailment of pro
of holidays, and so on).
Consequently, it should be clear that the model f
between the Middle Ages and the new age which is i
is at least as "immanent" as that proposed by Bre
regards the relation of all this to the position taken
be stressed that when he is writing about transition
cal level to another, he is not talking simply of a
modes of production, but primarily between soci
this methodological point of view, what is immanen
feudal social formation is not fully described th
between "peasant" and "landlord" - which Brenn
ally seem to imply. It is another matter that the
has to include "the process of transformation of
production into the capitalist mode," as Marx say
In this way, it is all the more easy to avoid possib
ings of Marx's concept of "primitive accumulati
that is not restricted to expropriation from the soi
The different moments of primitive accumulation ca

ticular to Spain, Portugal, Holland, France and Engla
chronological order. These different moments are sys
together at the end of the seventeenth century in Engla
embraces the colonies, the national debt, the tax syste
protection. (Marx, 1976, 915.)
As regards Holland and France, it certainly was not

colonialism, but also the important manufactures, m
the English, which manifested themselves as such "m
Iberian countries are mentioned, the most likely reaso
laid the foundation for all the subsequent Europe
overseas piracy, primarily through imports of great
metals, some of which entered the circulation spher
488 SCIENCE à? SOCIETY
Europe's material economy. In Eng

that made it possible for these volu
triggered by the price revolution
stimulate commodity production an
into a mass of "points of circulation
This "moment" in primitive accu
ment of circulation - is part of wha
that capitalism emerged from tra
since circulation need not be red
of departure from circulation is,
from money to the extent that it t
as it buys labor power, that is, take
dently of the volumes of "Iberian
nally stream into a pre-capitalist
through the domestic handicrafts
the expropriation of the masses d
of capitalism, and then their fun
as the competition among English
In fact, any theory to the effect
in the expropriation of the masse
both with a "commercial" model and with Brenner's and Wood's.
Nefs works give us an impressive reminder. In concluding his arti

from 1934 he wrote:
It is no longer possible to find a full explanation of "the great inventions" and

the new factories of the late eighteenth century in a preceding commercial
revolution which increased the size of markets. (Nef, 1934, 22ff).
Now, one can compare this with another conclusion, namely by Wood,
who sums up a paragraph on "agrarian capitalism" by saying that
it was not merchants or manufacturers who drove the process that propelled
the early development of capitalism. The transformation of social property
relations was firmly rooted in the countryside, and the transformation of
English trade and industry was the result more than the cause of England's
transition to capitalism. (Wood, 2002, 129.)
It may seem hard to believe, but the fact is that Wood puts forward
this argument without having presented any overview of either the
movement of merchant capital, or of English manufactures.
Still worse, Wood presents her main argume

ian capitalism" without seeing the need to just
she is saying, through an argument one only d
but which then takes on distinct contours towards the end of a book
like The Origin of Capitalism , is that
the specific dynamics we associate with capitalism were already in place in

English agriculture before the proletarianization of the workforce. In fact,
those dynamics were a major factor in bringing about the proletarianization
of labour in England. The critical factor was the market dependence of
producers, as well as appropriators, and the new social imperatives created
by that market dependence. (Wood, 2002, 131.)
This looks like a perception of a capitalism without any characteris-

tics of capitalism. Without taking notice of the documented results
of proletarianization inside mass production in manufactures, Wood
starts out from the situation in the 17th century, 50 to 150 years after
the confiscation of monasterial lands:
It is important to keep in mind that competitive pressures, and the new "laws
of motion" that went with them, depended in the first instance not on the exis-
tence of a mass proletariat, but on the existence of market-dependent tenant-
producers. Wage labourers, and especially those that depended entirely on
wages for their livelihood and not just for seasonal supplements . . . remained
very much a minority in seventeenth-century England. (Wood, 2002, 130.)
The problem appears distinctly in Brenner's polemic against his critics

in his essay on the "agrarian roots"of European capitalism:
My point is simply that the different social-productive conditions which had

come to prevail in England and France by the later seventeenth century made
for different strategies to best protect and improve landlord incomes. In Eng-
land, especially in the grain-growing regions, capitalist farmers controlled a
highly capital-intensive husbandry, and the number of landholding peasants
had declined drastically. In this situation landlord incomes depended on the
tenants' ability to farm effectively on the basis of capital investment. Capitalist
profits were, in short, a condition for landlord rent. (Brenner, 1987b, 315.)
Nor was it unusual to convert arable land to pasture. Consequently,

smaller farmers were thrown out, and instead a few bigger ones appeared.
The build-up of productive units, the in

innovation were what was required in b
took place provides convincing evidence
relations on English agriculture in th
these relations. (Brenner, 1987b, 316
This may well be a correct empir

capitalist relations in England in t
problem is that he supposes that the
the genesis of capitalism. Here, he
verbal arguments.
In a discussion of the situation pr
movement, it is forbiddingly incorr
in the above sense. In that case, w
of input of fortunes, because capi
amounts of money) which does no
anization. Seen in this perspective,
of production" first emerged in a
Before the enclosures set in, we h
nomena in the market cannot be
toward a new society.
6. Methodology of the Study of Tra
The problem for Brenner and Woo

how to explain the genesis of capi
what should be proven? They criti
posing a capitalist mentality - a w
barriers, prior to capitalism itself
through latent functions, whose a
those who made the first moves in
which they operate cannot produc
However, the problem evaporat
that the latent function can be fo
which (only) formally or potentially
actually take part in a network of s
We need not go far to locate such
cal option, and also an actual empir
tended that the development of im
branches in England at the beginning of the

have been impossible without the substitution
Furthermore, he pointed out that this had to
coal was harder to obtain in England than in othe
Consequently, investments in mining had to be r
sive in England, stimulating the transformation
capital. This generated a growing demand for i
industries. Among these, in turn, there existed e
specialize in finishing and improvements of c
The result was a steady progression in product
was employed - virtually the whole of the Eng
This is the crucial point: coal proved a nece
handicraft-based economy when the reservoirs of
was a less adequate product, since charcoal burns
ion. Thus, this innovation was to some extent a n
- making a virtue of necessity. Nef presented the
Wherever coal was substituted for wood in manufactu

to increase the costs of the installation, but also to
the product and reduce the prestige attaching to m
ing the quality of the product it widened the market
increased the advantages of large-scale production.
If the masses who had been proletarianized th

movement were to be transformed into modern p
to exist an inner market for industry's own prod
what emerges through coal-based industry. To
in its existing form, industrial producers were f
transformed the market into a mass market. In
letarians took part simply because they were
who could get in contact with means of consu
existing money. Simultaneously, their demand
still more. The original and decisive "latent fun
in a specific relation to "the market" (as Brenn
but in a transformation of this very market.
The original abundance of charcoal for i
tended in itself to uphold industries dependen
of this auxiliary material. In an economy of t
this implied an entrepreneurial conservatism,
492 SCIENCE ,àf SOCIETY
dependence on the high-quality luxury m

was consistent with feudal relations, wi
the nobility, and a mentality that, as W
the opportunity to produce for a market,
technical deterioration that followed up
coal, however, compelled the entreprene
of use-values in order to cover his expense
with product prices. With one stroke, h
structurally identical to the one we today
industrial capitalist The fundamental dri
was introduced - in the beginning most
the blossoming of new enterprises base
entrepreneur had been forced to become
to survive in the given conditions. As M
drive to survival had become a drive to
Simultaneously, the process of ideolog
artisan aristocracy got fully started, an
foresaw in the methodological introduction
ceive labor as a simple category, since i
average labor. The advent of the price re
completed the picture. It meant produc
prices, but a tendential reduction of rea
forced to live by purchasing products. T
relatively more costly basket of means o
the reduction in the price of labor pow
product quality, created an exclusive opp
use large sums of money in investments
a capitalist command structure vis-à-vis
function cheapened labor power and ma
relatively high number of workers.
This was a "latent function" inside th
factory" proper, indicating that this form
transitional stage between feudal and cap
University of Oslo
IFIKK (Department of Philosophy , Classics ,
History of Arts and Ideas)
PO Box 1020 Blindem
N-0315 Oslo , Norway

Jorgen. sandemose@ifikk. uio. no
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and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
Berg, Maxine. 1996. The Age of Manufactures 1700-1820. London: Routledge.
Brenner, Robert. 1987a. "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in
Pre-Industrial Europe." Pp. 10-63 in Aston and Philpin.
and Philpin.
Overseas Traders , 1550-1653. Princeton, New Jersey: Princet

Carus-Wilson, Eleanora. 1987. "The Triumph of the English I
in Postan and Mathias.
Coleman, D. C. 1977. The Economy of England 1450-1750. Oxford, England: Oxford

University Press.
Cooper, John P. 1987. "In Search of Agrarian Capitalism." Pp. 138-191 in Aston an
Philpin.
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Eighteenth Century. Aldershot, England: Ashgate.
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land: Clarendon Press.
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Volume II: Trade and Industry in the M
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Manufacture and The Transition From Feudalism To Capitalism

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Guilford Press

Manufacture and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism

Manufacture and the Transition

sector, in section 2, it will be co

1 . The Chapter on Primitive Accumulation

The theses in Marx's "Foreword" to his Critique from 1859, of the

the scene evolves to show how the roles of cap

1 On Marx's notion of an "agricultural revolution," cf. Cooper, 1987, 146.

Sweezy's viewpoints, another 30 y

In short, the emergence of the "new social soul" implies that

Marx now calls these establishments große Manufakturen, while

The whole argument underlines the distinction

The formation of capital thus does not emerge from la

If one goes back to Marx's passages on the "capital far

The forcible creation of a class of free and rightless prolet

2 The word " Pächtef is the one translated (mostly) as "farmer" by Fo

of the state which employed police

These are facts that Marx had ta

any empirical substantiation of the construction

The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirp

The theme of "Genesis of the Industrial Capitalis

2. Industry in the Form of Domestic Handicrafts

In English historiography, there has been a t

Corresponding views among histori

3. Pre-Machine "Manufactory" Production, 1540-1640

private ventures in many industries during th

1 ) Appearance of new industries. The changes in the relations of

2) Expansion of " old " industries. The possibilities for in

10). This led to extensive technical

The substitution of coal for wood frequ

For instance, about 1610, "glass-m

It was probably not, as has been suppo

Let us now examine Nef s results som

a distracted worke in severall places an

Such a lament could be said to reproduce som

At the beginning of the chapter

In manufacture, the transformation o

He then presents the following r

All fully developed machinery consis

He goes on to explain that the in

development of other parts of the machinery, pr

This is a dynamic that points towards a capitalist economy driven

The other side of the equation has

4. Empirical Notes on Marx's "Manufacture"

Berg continues, with descriptions of English

Such essential features obviously are: Capitalist organization, i.e.,

As to branches in mining , it may be problematic to consider them

very adequate compared to his co

Eighteenth-century manufacture was p

Similarly, she comments on cond

4 It should be noted that Marx's work on th

It had a rural textile industry organized on a putting-

Kurt Àgren estimates that John Winchcombe

Apparently, many local economies centered precisely around man-

5. Critique of the Brenner Thesis

Now, do the reflections above real

Methodologically, this is crucial. Brenner is forced to use a

However, there are problems connected

If we are to take this literally, "the market" is here to be understood

What Brenner and Wood are sayin

related to material production) already had by its side still another

The famous triad of landlord, capitalist tenant, a

This text lacks clarity. A decisive point is tha