MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

NORTHERN CYPRUS CAMPUS

A REVIEW OF THE DEBATES ON THE TRANSITION FROM

FEUDALISM TO CAPITALISM

FURKAN TEMÜR

A REVIEW OF THE DEBATES ON THE TRANSITION FROM FEUDALISM TO

CAPITALISM
 FURKAN TEMUR

The debate between feudalism and capitalism is common examinations of the modern
world. Especially, Maurice Dobb and Paul Sweezy are the most leading persons of this issue.
Discussion of the transition is complex because the competition between Dobb’s thinks to
criticize that capitalism began in contradictions, on the other hand Sweezy has more position that
capitalism emerged separately without feudalism.

First of all, “feudalism” is also known as “feudal system”. It emerged as a form of society
that has remarkable properties which may be considered without problem. It can be said as;
developments caused to push society to work and obey with military power that is conquering the
higher states in the society. Actually it is a new regime of political and military power that
controls the society. It based on agricultural production and taxation. The agricultural production
that is after the hunting and gathering stages was known basically by the middle ages. Some
historians supported the continuous use of the construct of feudalism whether used in its narrow
and clear mean. For instance; Marx Weber, the founder of ideal states, exactly discussed
feudalism as one of them; however it is not a very convincing one. An ideal state which is Marx’s
social ideas is most useful when contrasting between feudalism and capitalism. According to
Marx, it is outlined feudalism was that the force of the decision class (ruling class) rested on their
control of processable land, leading to a class social order based on the abuse of the workers who
ranch the aforementioned grounds, i.e. under serfdom. Marx subsequently outlined feudalism
basically by its budgetary attributes. Numerous later Marxist theorists have summed up this
characterization to incorporate non-European public orders, bunching feudalism as a single unit
with Imperial Chinese and pre-Columbian Incan (member of a group of South American Indians
that ruled Peru before the coming of Spanish in the sixteenth century) social orders as “tributary”
that is ruler state pays tribute. Briefly; feudalism is an economic system that people have a land
and protection by people of high class, work and struggle for them in exchange. It emerged at
17th century that is used to describe legal, economic, political, social and economic relationships
in the European Middle Ages. It was derived from the Latin word “feudum” (feudality) however
unknown to people of Middle Ages and “feudalism” has been used mostly to refer to medieval
society as a whole so that, it was understood as a socio economic system that is called
“monorialism” which is system of lords and manors in the Medieval Europe. It has been used in a

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narrow sense to describe relations between lords and vassals that include the exchange of lands
for military service. Feudalism in this context is considered to have emerged in a time of political
inequality in the 11th century meaning to restore order that led to establishments of strong
monarchies. It is also applied to non-Western societies where institutions are thought to have
existed and feudalism caused come scholars to reject it as a useful concept for understanding
medieval society. Block (1961) thought that “feudal structure not only the warrior aristocracy
bound by vassalage, but also the peasantry bound by monorialism and the estates of the church.
Thus the entire society from top to bottom is bound by feudalism.”

Pre-capitalist system that was feudalism, main element of the economy was agriculture. Crone
(2003) states that, “Given the absence of modern industry, agriculture was by far the most
important source of wealth, sometimes the only one.”(p.13). There was a subsistence economy. It
indicates that not transforming creation which is more than necessities. Moreover, main monetary
action and preparation relied on creature and man power. He has claimed that “but most of them
depended on human or animal energy for their operation “. Technological improvements for
example in transportation and correspondence were limited.

Secondly; Capitalism is an economic concept of civilization which is depended upon the

private ownership of the method of creation such an institutional state allows and unavoidably
supports the division of labor; capital accumulation which is the accumulation of capital refers to
the gathering or collecting of objects of value and the increase in wealth. It also led to
development of technology and voluntary social coordination of a business sector economy in
which large part of manufacture is intended for the expenditure of the dominant masses.
Capitalism is also converse of statism (policy of state control) that based on government
ownership of the means of production. Capitalism is pervasive in discussions of the modern
human beings or argumentation on the appropriate definition of footing like feudal system. Even
though a free market system is unnatural, it tries not to mandatorily take after that it is
exceptional or terrible. Free enterprise has its virtues and its vices, even though it might one day
be' “played out”. In addition to that Marx had a third standpoint. According to him, the issue of
whether an entrepreneurial orientation was "natural" or not was metaphysical mystification. For
man's economic behavior versus other men was a reflection of a particular set of what he called
"relations of production" and these relations evolved historically. So that, man’s "nature" as

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deduced from his economic behavior and changed over time. Economic competition was
essentially the cash economy. The transition was made some place in ancient times.

The Marxian evaluate of the common economists and liberals and large revolved around the
contention that their "universals" if political economy, monetary, the reflections of the point of
view of the socially overwhelming aggregation, the bourgeoisie. Consequently, economic
competition accompanied feudalism, both being "typical" and that is indicated that they happened
and some way or another fit into a recorded succession. The "transition" was too instinctive, in
the sense that it was the peak of the disagreements characteristic in one mode of generation that
headed at a certain focus to the qualitative conversion of the social request.

Briefly; Capitalism is a financial system that planned to give benefit maximization. In this
framework, private enterprise is empowered by state. Instead of administration, individuals have
endeavor. It is a certainty that free enterprise did not rise suddenly. When economic competition,
there was a system that dependent upon agriculture. Capitalism existed after some historical
events. This conversion is huge regarding economic, political and social ways .Moreover; it is
significant due to its effectiveness on entire world.

To begin with, Manning (1994) the first important debate of transition from feudalism to
capitalism started with publication of Maurice Dobb’s “Studies in the Development of
Capitalism” in 1946 and Paul Sweezy’s “Critique of Dobb in the Transition from Feudalism to
Capitalism” in 1976 and second article was about “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic
Development in Pre-Industrial Europe' in Past And Present” (1976). In this argument main
competition between Dobb’s tries to prove that Capitalism occurred from disagreements inward
to feudalism itself on the other hand; Sweezy more takes the position that Capitalism improved
without feudalism and overwhelmed it as an outer force due to its dynamism as opposed to
feudalism’s stagnancy which is a state of inactivity. In addition to this, they discussed over that
precisely characterizes feudalism. Dobb states that feudalism is basically described by the being
of serfdom. Sweezy declares that this definition is insufficient and it may have an association
with Western European feudalism however it should not be generalized furthermore as he blames
Dobb for doing. Moreover, Sweezy argued that serfdom was finished in England in the 1500s
however; feudalism did not end until 1650s. They contradict that how to describe the time of the
1500’s and 1600’s in Western Europe throughout the transition from feudalism to Capitalism.

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Sweezy calls this period as a “pre-capitalist commodity production”. Dobb characterizes it as

feudalism in a progressed state of disintegration.

Initially, Dobb's claim was devised basically to illustrate the move to economic competition that
is to explain why the feudal type of manufacturing was failed in a crisis, uncertainly dated
between the 14th and the 17th century. Dobb claimed that this failure was resulted in by systemic
discourages to capital gathering, improvement and famer exploitation however; he did not have a
persuasive statement for why the feudal system tend to be capable of development. The absence
of a positive claim of improvement which is a main thought of the Marxist idea of history and
proposed by some sort of insufficient based transactions. During in these times, he consequently
reviewed and he considered in sufficient the part of costs and economic encouragement in social
economies, and his perspective of the feudal economy was directly similar. That predisposition
and the subordination of positive motivating forces and businesses in Dobb's plan were
strengthened by his resulting open deliberation with the American Marxist economist Paul
Sweezy, an argument that made misleading thoughts around Marxists ideas between long
distance exchange as an “exogenous”, autonomous explanation for adaptation, or “prime mover”.
Moreover, another bad idea of Dobb’s system was its dominant center on English history. There
were good purposes behind this, incorporating informative nature of England in Marx’s story of
the transition to capitalist system. However, the limitation of the transition debate to history
encouraged to cover the troubles that a limited class based analysis challenged the Marxian
problematic thoughts that is “uneven development”. To explain this; firstly why did the
transition from feudalism to capitalism emerged in Western Europe and why English economy
between 14th and 17th centuries was first able to catch up with it. Unclearly; Dobb’s examinations
presented a persuasive prove that is class based solution was not able to support a clear
information for why the European feudal system of production was supreme to its opponents and
why it did not improved evenly in the same way.

In addition to these, feudal agriculture was more primitive and more uniform in element than it is
today. The main purpose behind in advanced times is the improvement of manufacturing for the
market and the quest in an investor social norms for the most gainful sort of agriculture
production has developed the vitality of physical differences. In feudal agriculture, however the
market did not figure out the element of production. Although the city demands was

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unspecialized and consequently there was similarly small specialization in production. A lot of
people needed to process the same sort of grain harvest and then the same sort of trained animals
for meat and pulling power (Hilton, 2007).

Secondly; According to Marx, private enterprise is example of a class system recognized by the
particular investment structure. The accumulation of social wealth as capital along these lines
assumes the earlier foundation of capitalist class relationships. Marx investigated that the origin
of entrepreneur generation provides an examination of feudal class relations that is giving
opportunity to the private entrepreneur class enjoying in private proprietorship. Marx's
clarification of the move from feudalism to economic competition outlines an interceding period
and not feudal or investor. In England he composes, “serfdom had practically disappeared in the
last part of the 14th century. The immense majority of the population consisted then, and to a still
larger extent, in the fifteenth century, of free peasant proprietors, whatever was the feudal title
under which their right of property was hidden.” The liberation of the English working class
discharged the material base of the feudal type of production and the village economy from the
privileges of lordship and permitting it to improve as per its claim inside tendencies. The
preconditions of entrepreneur accumulation, Marx contends that were created by this economy of
moderately decisive commodity manufacturing. Marx claimed some decisive events which
related to origin of capitalism. The first one is about various types of private dependence that is
serfdom. If people sells their labor power as a commodity, Marx illustrates that “he should have it
at his transfer, must be the untrammelled possessor of his limit for labor, i.e., of his individual.”
Since the main manufacturers took control over their method of processing. Nonetheless,
satisfaction of this condition apart from everyone else guaranteed that they were needed to trade
just the results of their work and not their work power itself. Subsequently, another crucial
essential of capitalist production which is “that the laborer, instead of being in the position to sell
commodities in which his labor is incorporated, must be obliged to offer for sale as a commodity
that very labor-power, which exists only in his living self.” (Katz, 1993)

A great deal of confusions still exists in the literature which is called transition problem.
However, much of this mess originates from historians uncritical affirmation of the traditional
recognizable proof of private enterprise with a clear economy.

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Lastly; In this debate a primary purpose of conflict is between Dobb's endeavor to show that
capitalism rose from inconsistencies inward to feudalism itself while Sweezy more takes the
position that a capitalist market system improved autonomously of feudalism and overwhelmed it
as an outer force on account of its dynamism as opposed to feudalism's stagnancy. He said that
market is a part of bourgeoisie that is “compromised with feudal society' and were 'essentially
parasites on the old economic order” and huge merchants appear in Europe and they are
monopoly that is dominant in Mediterranean and the East. They also open deliberation over what
precisely describes feudalism. Dobb states that feudalism is basically characterized by the being
of serfdom. Sweezy declares this definition is deficient and that it may connect with Western
European feudalism however shouldn't be summed up past that as he blames Dobb for doing. The
major debate was between Maurice Dobb and Paul Sweezy. Dobb basically argued that
capitalism emerged because of “internal” struggles and conflicts within the feudal societies
whereas Paul Sweezy placed more importance on the external influences of world trade and
growing merchant class. In the 1970s Robert Brenner stated more debate on this subject in an
article which is “world systems”. Brenner argued that capitalism emerged in rural palaces due to
the unique property of social relations that occurred there. He also criticizes Wallerstein and he
determines the debate between Paul Sweezy and Maurice Dobb over the transition from
feudalism to Capitalism. Sweezy argues that the condition of luxury goods and war weapons
through trade supports and increase feudal lord’s income. On the other hand, Dobb takes more
position on workers alienation from the “means of production”, productivity and improvements
about the economy. Brenner agrees with Sweezy much more than Dobb. He claims that the idea
of urban areas that provides serfs to flee from their lands to cities.

To sum up; Capitalism economic system supports that private ownership and businesses maintain
production and trade of goods and services. Even though it has its first origin in old ages, the
development of capitalist system is a European phenomenon that improved in varied parts to be
recognized in the second half of the 19th century. Especially, the Capitalist system expanded from
Europe to the whole world. On the other hand; Feudalism was dominant in terms of economic
and political structure of the middle ages. It was the old system that dominant in Western Europe
of the middle ages characterized by the self-governing of political and military power by relying
on the people who are on the top of society (ruler class) e.g. kings, dukes, earls, barons, knights
etc. In feudal system, everybody has a specific place and role under the control of local lords

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instead of a central government. It also depends on special knowledge and skills. However, in the
end feudalism system was downfallen because it was not well organized. There are many reasons
for it but most important one is the decline of feudal system and declination of church’s power
over people. The lords lost their power after the wars. Briefly; by the beginning of the late
middle ages, Western Europe had been divided into various feudal lands. Kings was on the top of
societies that manage them individually. By the end of late Middle Ages, there was strong central
authorities controlled England, Spain, Portugal and France. Political power in those areas had
been invaded from the local feudal lords. While the king and Parliament were pushing down on
the power of lords, force was also increasing from the bottom of the feudal hierarchy. Many
factors caused to freeing serfs from their agreements with the lords. They had most important
jobs which were generally military service that preparing soldiers for the lord’s army and
providing input for the lord. On the other hand, Hilton (2007) claims that Capitalism was
dominant in terms of property rights to the land, capital and labor. Producers also earn wages and
they have not authority on “means of production”. Capitalism also determines well organized
technology and its development which is about competitive market. Moreover, the transition led
to shift in agricultural production from independent variable to depended variable and it also
determined property rights over people. Other elements of capitalism are capital accumulation
and competitive markets. Actually; it can be considered depending on time, geography, culture
and politics and it was also dominant in the Western Europe after the feudalism age. Some
economists and historians have different perspectives on analysis of capitalism. For example;
Adam smith (1776) he wrote a book that is called “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of Nations” which explains a general critique of state owned economy and its
development because it restricts “economic liberalism” and prevents people’s economic rights
and it also causes to collecting resources in a wrong way. “Wherever there is great property there
is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the
affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the
indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his
possessions.” His view of capitalism was different according to present day’s Capitalist system.
He considered wealth of nation as a product of labor and he established a theory which is “Labor
Theory of Value”.

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Reference List:

Block, M. (1967). Feudal Society. London: The University of Chicago

Crone, S. (2003). Artificial Neural Networks for Time Series Prediction. Institute of
Information Systems, Hamburg

Hilton, R. (2007). Marxism and the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Retrieved
December 24, 2012 from
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/3523/1/Rodney_Hilton__marxism_and_the_transition_from_feuda
lism_to_capitalism%28LSERO%29.pdf

Katz, C. (1993). Karl Marx on the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Theory and
Society. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands

Manning, B. (1994). The English Revolution and the transition from feudalism to
capitalism. Retrieved December 24, 2012 from
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/manning/1994/xx/engrev.htm

Miskimin, H. (2003). The Economy of Early Renaissance Europe, 1300-1460. London:

Cambridge University Press

Smith, A. (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. New
York, NY: Random House

Wallerstein, I. (1976). From Feudalism to Capitalism: Transition or Transitions.

Retrieved December 23, 2012 from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-
7732%28197612%2955%3A2%3C273%3AFFTCTO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2