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secF8.html
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>F.8 What role did the state take in the creation of capitalism?
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</title>
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</head>
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<h1>F.8 What role did the state take in the creation of capitalism?</h1>
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9
If the "anarcho"-capitalist is to claim with any plausibility that "real"
10
capitalism is non-statist or that it can exist without a state, it must
11
be shown that capitalism evolved naturally, in opposition to state
12
intervention. However, in reality, the opposite is the case. Capitalism
13
was born from state intervention and, in the words of Kropotkin, <i>"the State
14
. . . and capitalism . . . developed side by side, mutually supporting and
15
re-enforcing each other."</i> [<b>Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets</b>, p. 181]
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<p>
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Numerous writers have made this point. For example, in Karl Polanyi's
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flawed masterpiece <b>The Great Transformation</b> we read that <i>"the road to
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the free market was opened and kept open by an enormous increase in
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continuous, centrally organised and controlled interventionism"</i> by the
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state [p. 140]. This intervention took many forms -- for example, state
22
support during "mercantilism," which allowed the "manufactures" (i.e.
23
industry) to survive and develop, enclosures of common land, and so forth.
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In addition, the slave trade, the invasion and brutal conquest of the
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Americas and other "primitive" nations, and the looting of gold, slaves,
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and raw materials from abroad also enriched the European economy, giving
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the development of capitalism an added boost. Thus Kropotkin:
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<p><blockquote>
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<i>"The history of the genesis of capital has already been told by socialists
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many times. They have described how it was born of war and pillage, of
31
slavery and serfdom, of modern fraud and exploitation. They have shown
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how it is nourished by the blood of the worker, and how little by little
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it has conquered the whole world."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>,p. 207]
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</blockquote><p>
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Or, if Kropotkin seems too committed to be fair, we have John Stuart Mill's
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statement that:
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<p><blockquote>
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<i>"The social arrangements of modern Europe commenced from a distribution
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of property which was the result, not of just partition, or acquisition
40
by industry, but of conquest and violence. . . "</i> [<b>Principles of Political
41
Economy</b>, p. 15]
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</blockquote><p>
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Therefore, when supporters of "libertarian" capitalism say they are
44
against the "initiation of force," they mean only <b>new</b> initiations
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of force; for the system they support was born from numerous initiations
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of force in the past. And, as can be seen from the history of the last
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100 years, it also requires state intervention to keep it going (section
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D.1, <a href="secD1.html">"Why does state intervention occur?,"</a> addresses this point in some
49
detail). Indeed, many thinkers have argued that it was precisely this
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state support and coercion (particularly the separation of people from
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the land) that played the <b>key</b> role in allowing capitalism to develop
52
rather than the theory that <i>"previous savings"</i> did so. As the noted
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German thinker Franz Oppenheimer argued, <i>"the concept of a 'primitive
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accumulation,' or an original store of wealth, in land and in movable
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property, brought about by means of purely economic forces"</i> while
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<i>"seem[ing] quite plausible"</i> is in fact <i>"utterly mistaken; it is a
57
'fairly tale,' or it is a class theory used to justify the privileges
58
of the upper classes."</i> [<b>The State</b>, pp. 5-6]
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<p>
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This thesis will be discussed in the following sections. It is, of course,
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ironic to hear right-wing libertarians sing the praises of a capitalism
62
that never existed and urge its adoption by all nations, in spite of the
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historical evidence suggesting that only state intervention made
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capitalist economies viable -- even in that Mecca of "free enterprise,"
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the United States. As Noam Chomsky argues, <i>"who but a lunatic could have
66
opposed the development of a textile industry in New England in the early
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nineteenth century, when British textile production was so much more
68
efficient that half the New England industrial sector would have gone
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bankrupt without very high protective tariffs, thus terminating industrial
70
development in the United States? Or the high tariffs that radically
71
undermined economic efficiency to allow the United States to develop steel
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and other manufacturing capacities? Or the gross distortions of the
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market that created modern electronics?"</i> [<b>World Orders, Old and New</b>,
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p. 168]. To claim, therefore, that "mercantilism" is not capitalism
75
makes little sense. Without mercantilism, "proper" capitalism would never
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have developed, and any attempt to divorce a social system from its roots
77
is ahistoric and makes a mockery of critical thought.
78
<p>
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Similarly, it is somewhat ironic when "anarcho"-capitalists and right
80
libertarians claim that they support the freedom of individuals to
81
choose how to live. After all, the working class was not given <b>that</b>
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particular choice when capitalism was developing. Indeed, their right
83
to choose their own way of life was constantly violated and denied. So
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to claim that <b>now</b> (after capitalism has been created) we get the
85
chance to try and live as we like is insulting in the extreme. The
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available options we have are not independent of the society we live
87
in and are decisively shaped by the past. To claim we are "free" to
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live as we like (within the laws of capitalism) is basically to argue
89
that we are able to "buy" the freedom that every individual is due from
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those who have stolen it from us in the first place!
91
<p>
92
Needless to say, some right-libertarians recognise that the state played
93
a massive role in encouraging industrialisation (more correct to say
94
"proletarianisation" as it created a working class which did not own
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the tools they used, although we stress that this process started on
96
the land and not in industry). So they contrast "bad" business people
97
(who took state aid) and "good" ones. Thus Rothbard's comment that
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Marxists have <i>"made no particular distinction between 'bourgeoisie'
99
who made use of the state, and bourgeoisie who acted on the free
100
market."</i> [<b>The Ethics of Liberty</b>, p. 72]
101
<p>
102
But such an argument is nonsense as it ignores the fact that the "free
103
market" is a network (and defined by the state by the property rights
104
it enforces). For example, the owners of the American steel and other
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companies who grew rich and their companies big behind protectionist
106
walls are obviously "bad" bourgeoisie. But are the bourgeoisie who supplied
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the steel companies with coal, machinery, food, "defence" and so on not also
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benefiting from state action? And the suppliers of the luxury goods to the
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wealthy steel company owners, did they not benefit from state action? Or the
110
suppliers of commodities to the workers that laboured in the steel factories
111
that the tariffs made possible, did they not benefit? And the suppliers to
112
these suppliers? And the suppliers to these suppliers? Did not the users of
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technology first introduced into industry by companies protected by state
114
orders also not benefit? Did not the capitalists who had a large and landless
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working class to select from benefit from the "land monopoly" even though
116
they may not have, unlike other capitalists, directly advocated it? It
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increased the pool of wage labour for <b>all</b> capitalists and increased their
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bargaining position/power in the labour market at the expense of the working
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class. In other words, such a policy helped maintain capitalist market power,
120
irrespective of whether individual capitalists encouraged politicians to
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vote to create/maintain it. And, similarly, <b>all</b> capitalists benefited
122
from the changes in common law to recognise and protect capitalist private
123
property and rights that the state enforced during the 19th century (see
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section <a href="secB2.html#secb25">B.2.5</a>).
125
<p>
126
It appears that, for Rothbard, the collusion between state and business
127
is the fault, not of capitalism, but of particular capitalists. The system
128
is pure; only individuals are corrupt. But, for anarchists, the origins
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of the modern state-capitalist system lies not in the individual qualities
130
of capitalists as such but in the dynamic and evolution of capitalism itself
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against the destructive actions of the market, individual qualities and
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so forth. In other words, Rothbard's claims are flawed -- they fail to
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understand capitalism as a <b>system</b> and its dynamic nature.
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<p>
135
Indeed, if we look at the role of the state in creating capitalism we
136
could be tempted to rename "anarcho"-capitalism "marxian-capitalism".
137
This is because, given the historical evidence, a political theory
138
can be developed by which the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" is
139
created and that this capitalist state "withers away" into anarchy.
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That this means rejecting the economic and social ideas of Marxism
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and their replacement by their direct opposite should not mean that
142
we should reject the idea (after all, that is what "anarcho"-capitalism
143
has done to Individualist Anarchism!). But we doubt that many
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"anarcho"-capitalists will accept such a name change (even though
145
this would reflect their politics far better; after all they do not
146
object to past initiations of force, just current ones and many do
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seem to think that the modern state <b>will</b> wither away due to market
148
forces).
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<p>
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But this is beside the point. The fact remains that state action was
151
required to create and maintain capitalism. Without state support it
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is doubtful that capitalism would have developed at all.
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<p>
154
So, when the right suggests that "we" be "left alone," what they mean by
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"we" comes into clear focus when we consider how capitalism developed.
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Artisans and peasants were only "left alone" to starve, and the working
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classes of industrial capitalism were only "left alone" outside work and
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for only as long as they respected the rules of their "betters." As for
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the other side of the class divide, they desire to be "left alone" to
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exercise their power over others, as we will see. That modern "capitalism"
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is, in effect, a kind of "corporate mercantilism," with states providing
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the conditions that allow corporations to flourish (e.g. tax breaks,
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subsidies, bailouts, anti-labour laws, etc.) says more about the statist
164
roots of capitalism than the ideologically correct definition of capitalism
165
used by its supporters.
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167
<a name="secf81"><h2>F.8.1 What social forces lay behind the rise of capitalism?</h2>
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169
Capitalist society is a relatively recent development. As Murray Bookchin
170
points out, for a <i>"long era, perhaps spanning more than five centuries,"</i>
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capitalism <i>"coexisted with feudal and simple commodity relationships"</i>
172
in Europe. He argues that this period <i>"simply cannot be treated as
173
'transitional' without reading back the present into the past."</i> [<b>From
174
Urbanisation to Cities</b>, p. 179] In other words, capitalism was not
175
a inevitable outcome of "history" or social evolution.
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<p>
177
He goes on to note that capitalism existed <i>"with growing significance
178
in the mixed economy of the West from the fourteenth century up to the
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seventeenth"</i> but that it <i>"literally exploded into being in Europe,
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particularly England, during the eighteenth and especially nineteenth
181
centuries."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 181] The question arises, what lay behind
182
this <i>"growing significance"</i>? Did capitalism <i>"explode"</i> due to its
183
inherently more efficient nature or where there other, non-economic,
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forces at work? As we will show, it was most definitely the later one --
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capitalism was born not from economic forces but from the political
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actions of the social elites which its usury enriched. Unlike artisan
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(simple commodity) production, wage labour generates inequalities
188
and wealth for the few and so will be selected, protected and encouraged
189
by those who control the state in their own economic and social interests.
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<p>
191
The development of capitalism in Europe was favoured by two social elites,
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the rising capitalist class within the degenerating medieval cities and
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the absolutist state. The medieval city was <i>"thoroughly changed by the
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gradual increase in the power of commercial capital, due primarily to
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foreign trade. . . By this the inner unity of the commune was loosened,
196
giving place to a growing caste system and leading necessarily to a
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progressive inequality of social interests. The privileged minorities
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pressed ever more definitely towards a centralisation of the political
199
forces of the community. . . Mercantilism in the perishing city republics
200
led logically to a demand for larger economic units [i.e. to nationalise
201
the market]; and by this the desire for stronger political forms was
202
greatly strengthened. . . . Thus the city gradually became a small
203
state, paving the way for the coming national state."</i> [Rudolf Rocker,
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<b>Nationalism and Culture</b>, p. 94]
205
<p>
206
The rising economic power of the proto-capitalists conflicted with that of
207
the feudal lords, which meant that the former required help to consolidate
208
their position. That aid came in the form of the monarchical state. With
209
the force of absolutism behind it, capital could start the process of
210
increasing its power and influence by expanding the "market" through
211
state action.
212
<p>
213
As far as the absolutist state was concerned, it <i>"was dependent upon the
214
help of these new economic forces, and vice versa. . . ." "The absolutist
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state,"</i> Rocker argues, <i>"whose coffers the expansion of commerce filled
216
. . ., at first furthered the plans of commercial capital. Its armies and fleets
217
. . . contributed to the expansion of industrial production because they
218
demanded a number of things for whose large-scale production the shops
219
of small tradesmen were no longer adapted. Thus gradually arose the
220
so-called manufactures, the forerunners of the later large industries."</i>
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[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 117-8]
222
<p>
223
Some of the most important state actions from the standpoint of early
224
industry were the so-called Enclosure Acts, by which the "commons" -- the
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free farmland shared communally by the peasants in most rural villages --
226
was "enclosed" or incorporated into the estates of various landlords as
227
private property (see section <a href="secF8.html#secf83">F.8.3</a>). This ensured a pool of landless
228
workers who had no option but to sell their labour to capitalists. Indeed,
229
the widespread independence caused by the possession of the majority of
230
households of land caused the rising class of merchants to complain
231
<i>"that men who should work as wage-labourers cling to the soil, and in
232
the naughtiness of their hearts prefer independence as squatters to
233
employment by a master."</i> [R.H Tawney, cited by Allan Elgar in <b>The
234
Apostles of Greed</b>, p. 12]
235
<p>
236
In addition, other forms of state aid ensured that capitalist firms got
237
a head start, so ensuring their dominance over other forms of work (such
238
as co-operatives). A major way of creating a pool of resources that could
239
be used for investment was the use of mercantilist policies which
240
used protectionist measures to enrich capitalists and landlords at the
241
expense of consumers and their workers. For example, one of most common
242
complaints of early capitalists was that workers could not turn up to
243
work regularly. Once they had worked a few days, they disappeared as
244
they had earned enough money to live on. With higher prices for food,
245
caused by protectionist measures, workers had to work longer and harder
246
and so became accustomed to factory labour. In addition, mercantilism
247
allowed native industry to develop by barring foreign competition and
248
so allowed industrialists to reap excess profits which they could then
249
use to increase their investments. In the words of Marian-socialist
250
economic historian Maurice Dobbs:
251
<p><blockquote>
252
<i>"In short, the Mercantile System was a system of State-regulated exploitation
253
through trade which played a highly important rule in the adolescence of
254
capitalist industry: it was essentially the economic policy of an age of
255
primitive accumulation."</i> [<b>Studies in Capitalism Development</b>, p. 209]
256
</blockquote><p>
257
As Rocker summarises, <i>"when abolutism had victoriously overcome all
258
opposition to national unification, but its furthering of mercantilism
259
and economic monopoly it gave the whole social evolution a direction
260
which could only lead to capitalism."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 116-7]
261
</p>
262
This process of state aid in capitalist development was also seen in the
263
United States of America. As Edward Herman points out, the <i>"level of
264
government involvement in business in the United States from the late
265
eighteenth century to the present has followed a U-shaped pattern: There
266
was extensive government intervention in the pre-Civil War period (major
267
subsidies, joint ventures with active government participation and direct
268
government production), then a quasi-laissez faire period between the
269
Civil War and the end of the nineteenth century [a period marked by
270
"the aggressive use of tariff protection" and state supported railway
271
construction, a key factor in capitalist expansion in the USA], followed
272
by a gradual upswing of government intervention in the twentieth century,
273
which accelerated after 1930."</i> [<b>Corporate Control, Corporate Power</b>,
274
p. 162]
275
<p>
276
Such intervention ensured that income was transferred from workers to
277
capitalists. Under state protection, America industrialised by forcing
278
the consumer to enrich the capitalists and increase their capital stock.
279
<i>"According to one study, of the tariff had been removed in the 1830s
280
'about half the industrial sector of New England would have been
281
bankrupted' . . . the tariff became a near-permanent political
282
institution representing government assistance to manufacturing. It
283
kept price levels from being driven down by foreign competition and
284
thereby shifted the distribution of income in favour of owners of
285
industrial property to the disadvantage of workers and customers."</i>
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[Richard B. Du Boff, <b>Accumulation and Power</b>, p. 56]
287
<p>
288
This protection was essential, for as Du Boff notes, the <i>"end of the
289
European wars in 1814 . . . reopened the United States to a flood of
290
British imports that drove many American competitors out of business.
291
Large portions of the newly expanded manufacturing base were wiped out,
292
bringing a decade of near-stagnation."</i> Unsurprisingly, the <i>"era of
293
protectionism began in 1816, with northern agitation for higher
294
tariffs. . . "</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 14, p. 55]
295
<p>
296
Combined with ready repression of the labour movement and government
297
"homesteading" acts (see section <a href="secF8.html#secf85">F.8.5</a>), tariffs were the American
298
equivalent of mercantilism (which, after all, was above all else a
299
policy of protectionism, i.e. the use of government to stimulate
300
the growth of native industry). Only once America was at the top
301
of the economic pile did it renounce state intervention (just as
302
Britain did, we must note).
303
<p>
304
This is <b>not</b> to suggest that government aid was limited to tariffs.
305
The state played a key role in the development of industry and
306
manufacturing. As John Zerzan notes, the <i>"role of the State is
307
tellingly reflected by the fact that the 'armoury system' now rivals
308
the older 'American system of manufactures' term as the more
309
accurate to describe the new system of production methods"</i> developed
310
in the early 1800s. [<b>Elements of Refusal</b>, p. 100] Moreover, the
311
<i>"lead in technological innovation [during the US Industrial
312
Revolution] came in armaments where assured government orders
313
justified high fixed-cost investments in special-pursue machinery
314
and managerial personnel. Indeed, some of the pioneering effects
315
occurred in government-owned armouries."</i> [William Lazonick, <b>Competitive
316
Advantage on the Shop Floor</b>, p. 218] The government also <i>"actively
317
furthered this process [of "commercial revolution"] with public
318
works in transportation and communication."</i> [Richard B. Du Boff,
319
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 15]
320
<p>
321
In addition to this "physical" aid, <i>"state government provided critical
322
help, with devices like the chartered corporation"</i> [<b>Ibid.</b>] and,
323
as we noted in section <a href="secB2.html#secb25">B.2.5</a>, changes in the legal system which
324
favoured capitalist interests over the rest of society.
325
<p>
326
Interestingly, there was increasing inequality between 1840 and 1860 in
327
the USA This coincided with the victory of wage labour and industrial
328
capitalism -- the 1820s <i>"constituted a watershed in U.S. life. By
329
the end of that decade . . .industrialism assured its decisive American
330
victory, by the end of the 1830s all of its cardinal features were
331
definitely present."</i> [John Zerzan, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 99] This is unsurprising,
332
for as we have argued many times, the capitalist market tends to
333
increase, not reduce, inequalities between individuals and classes.
334
Little wonder the Individualist Anarchists at the time denounced the
335
way that property had been transformed into <i>"a power [with which] to
336
accumulate an income"</i> (to use the words of J.K. Ingalls).
337
<p>
338
Over all, as Paul Ormerod puts it, the <i>"advice to follow pure free-market
339
polices seems . . . to be contrary to the lessons of virtually the whole
340
of economic history since the Industrial Revolution . . . every country
341
which has moved into . . . strong sustained growth . . . has done so
342
in outright violation of pure, free-market principles." "The model of
343
entrepreneurial activity in the product market, with judicious state
344
support plus repression in the labour market, seems to be a good model
345
of economic development."</i> [<b>The Death of Economics</b>, p. 63]
346
<p>
347
Thus the social forces at work creating capitalism was a combination of
348
capitalist activity and state action. But without the support of the
349
state, it is doubtful that capitalist activity would have been enough
350
to generate the initial accumulation required to start the economic
351
ball rolling. Hence the necessity of Mercantilism in Europe and its
352
modified cousin of state aid, tariffs and "homestead acts" in America.
353
354
<a name="secf82"><h2>F.8.2 What was the social context of the statement "laissez-faire?"</h2>
355
356
The honeymoon of interests between the early capitalists and autocratic
357
kings did not last long. <i>"This selfsame monarchy, which for weighty
358
reasons sought to further the aims of commercial capital and was. . .
359
itself aided in its development by capital, grew at last into a
360
crippling obstacle to any further development of European industry."</i>
361
[Rudolf Rocker, <b>Nationalism and Culture</b>, p. 117]
362
<p>
363
This is the social context of the expression <i>"laissez-faire"</i> -- a
364
system which has outgrown the supports that protected it in its
365
early stages of growth. Just as children eventually rebel against
366
the protection and rules of their parents, so the capitalists rebelled
367
against the over-bearing support of the absolutist state. Mercantilist
368
policies favoured some industries and harmed the growth of industrial
369
capitalism in others. The rules and regulations imposed upon those
370
it did favour reduced the flexibility of capitalists to changing
371
environments. As Rocker argues, <i>"no matter how the abolutist state
372
strove, in its own interest, to meety the demands of commerce, it
373
still put on industry countless fetters which became gradually
374
more and more oppressive . . . [it] became an unbearable burden . . .
375
which paralysed all economic and social life."</i> [<i>Op. Cit.</i>,
376
p. 119] All in all, mercantilism became more of a hindrance than a
377
help and so had to be replaced. With the growth of economic and
378
social power by
379
the capitalist class, this replacement was made easier.
380
<p>
381
Errico Malatesta notes, <i>"[t]he development of production, the vast expansion
382
of commerce, the immeasurable power assumed by money . . . have guaranteed
383
this supremacy [of economic power over the political power] to the
384
capitalist class which, no longer content with enjoying the support of
385
the government, demanded that government arise from its own ranks. A
386
government which owed its origin to the right of conquest . . . though
387
subject by existing circumstances to the capitalist class, went on
388
maintaining a proud and contemptuous attitude towards its now wealthy
389
former slaves, and had pretensions to independence of domination. That
390
government was indeed the defender, the property owners' gendarme, but
391
the kind of gendarmes who think they are somebody, and behave in an
392
arrogant manner towards the people they have to escort and defend, when
393
they don't rob or kill them at the next street corner; and the capitalist
394
class got rid of it . . . [and replaced it] by a government [and state] . . .
395
at all times under its control and specifically organised to defend that
396
class against any possible demands by the disinherited."</i> [<b>Anarchy</b>,
397
pp. 19-20]
398
<p>
399
Malatesta here indicates the true meaning of <i>"leave us alone,"</i> or
400
<i>"laissez-faire."</i> The <b>absolutist</b> state (not "the state" per se) began
401
to interfere with capitalists' profit-making activities and authority,
402
so they determined that it had to go -- as happened, for example, in the
403
English, French and American revolutions. However, in other ways, state
404
intervention in society was encouraged and applauded by capitalists. <i>"It
405
is ironic that the main protagonists of the State, in its political and
406
administrative authority, were the middle-class Utilitarians, on the other
407
side of whose Statist banner were inscribed the doctrines of economic
408
Laissez Faire"</i> [E.P. Thompson, <b>The Making of the English Working Class</b>,
409
p. 90]. Capitalists simply wanted <b>capitalist</b> states to replace
410
monarchical states, so that heads of government would follow state
411
economic policies regarded by capitalists as beneficial to their
412
class as a whole. And as development economist Lance Taylor argues:
413
<p><blockquote>
414
<i>"In the long run, there are no laissez-faire transitions to modern
415
economic growth. The state has always intervened to create a capitalist
416
class, and then it has to regulate the capitalist class, and then the
417
state has to worry about being taken over by the capitalist class,
418
but the state has always been there."</i> [quoted by Noam Chomsky, <b>Year
419
501</b>, p. 104]
420
</blockquote><p>
421
In order to attack mercantilism, the early capitalists had to ignore
422
the successful impact of its policies in developing industry and
423
a "store of wealth" for future economic activity. As William Lazonick
424
points out, <i>"the political purpose of [Adam Smith's] the <b>Wealth of
425
Nations</b> was to attack the mercantilist institutions that the British
426
economy had built up over the previous two hundred years. . . In
427
his attack on these institutions, Smith might have asked why the
428
extent of the world market available to Britain in the late eighteenth
429
century was <b>so uniquely under British control.</b> If Smith had
430
asked this 'big question,' he might have been forced to grant credit
431
for [it] . . . to the very mercantilist institutions he was
432
attacking . . ."</i> Moreover, he <i>"might have recognised the integral
433
relation between economic and political power in the rise of Britain
434
to international dominance."</i> Overall, <i>"[w]hat the British advocates
435
of laissez-faire neglected to talk about was the role that a system
436
of national power had played in creating conditions for Britain to
437
embark on its dynamic development path . . . They did not bother to
438
ask how Britain had attained th[e] position [of 'workshop of the
439
world'], while they conveniently ignored the on going system of
440
national power - the British Empire -- that . . . continued to
441
support Britain's position."</i> [<b>Business Organisation and the Myth
442
of the Market Economy</b>, p. 2, p. 3, p.5]
443
<p>
444
Similar comments are applicable to American supporters of laissez
445
faire who fail to notice that the "traditional" American support for
446
world-wide free trade is quite a recent phenomenon. It started only
447
at the end of the Second World War (although, of course, <b>within</b>
448
America military Keynesian policies were utilised). While American
449
industry was developing, the country had no time for laissez-faire.
450
After it had grown strong, the United States began preaching laissez-faire
451
to the rest of the world -- and began to kid itself about its own
452
history, believing its slogans about laissez-faire as the secret of
453
its success. In addition to the tariff, nineteenth-century America
454
went in heavily for industrial planning--occasionally under that name
455
but more often in the name of national defence. The military was the
456
excuse for what is today termed rebuilding infrastructure, picking
457
winners, promoting research, and co-ordinating industrial growth (as
458
it still is, we should add).
459
<p>
460
As Richard B. Du Boff points out, the "anti-state" backlash of the
461
1840s onwards in America was highly selective, as the general
462
opinion was that <i>"[h]enceforth, if governments wished to subsidise
463
private business operations, there would be no objection. But if
464
public power were to be used to control business actions or if
465
the public sector were to undertake economic initiatives on its
466
own, it would run up against the determined opposition of private
467
capital."</i> [<b>Accumulation and Power</b>, p. 26] In other words, the
468
state could aid capitalists indirectly (via tariffs, land policy,
469
repression of the labour movement, infrastructure subsidy and so
470
on) and it would "leave them alone" to oppress and exploit workers,
471
exploit consumers, build their industrial empires and so forth.
472
<p>
473
So, the expression "laissez-faire" dates from the period when
474
capitalists were objecting to the restrictions that helped create
475
them in the first place. It has little to do with freedom as such and
476
far more to do with the needs of capitalist power and profits (as Murray
477
Bookchin argues, it is an error to depict this <i>"revolutionary era and its
478
democratic aspirations as 'bourgeois,' an imagery that makes capitalism
479
a system more committed to freedom, or even ordinary civil liberties,
480
than it was historically"</i> [<b>From Urbanisation to Cities</b>, p. 180f]).
481
Takis Fotopoules, in his essay <i>"The Nation-state and the Market"</i>,
482
indicates that the social forces at work in "freeing" the market
483
did not represent a "natural" evolution towards freedom:
484
<p><blockquote>
485
<i>"Contrary to what liberals and Marxists assert, marketisation of the
486
economy was not just an evolutionary process, following the expansion of
487
trade under mercantilism . . . modern [i.e. capitalist] markets did not
488
evolve out of local markets and/or markets for foreign goods . . . the
489
nation-state, which was just emerging at the end of the Middle Ages,
490
played a crucial role creating the conditions for the 'nationalisation'
491
of the market . . . and . . . by freeing the market [i.e. the rich and
492
proto-capitalists] from effective social control."</i> [<b>Society and Nature</b>,
493
Vol. 3, pp. 44-45]
494
</blockquote><p>
495
The "freeing" of the market thus means freeing those who "own" most of
496
the market (i.e. the wealthy elite) from <i>"effective social control,"</i> but
497
the rest of society was not as lucky. Peter Kropotkin makes a similar point
498
in <b>Modern Science and Anarchism</b>, <i>"[w]hile giving the capitalist any
499
degree of free scope to amass his wealth at the expense of the helpless
500
labourers, the government has <b>nowhere</b> and <b>never</b>. . .afforded the
501
labourers the opportunity 'to do as they pleased'."</i> [<b>Kropotkin's
502
Revolutionary Pamphlets</b>, p. 182]
503
<p>
504
The one essential form of support the "Libertarian" right wants the state
505
(or "defence" firms) to provide capitalism is the enforcement of property
506
rights -- the right of property owners to "do as they like" on their own
507
property, which can have obvious and extensive social impacts. What
508
"libertarian" capitalists object to is attempts by others -- workers,
509
society as a whole, the state, etc. -- to interfere with the authority
510
of bosses. That this is just the defence of privilege and power (and
511
<b>not</b> freedom) has been discussed in <a href="secBcon.html">section B</a> and elsewhere in <a href="secFcon.html">
512
section F</a>, so we will not repeat ourselves here.
513
<p>
514
Samuel Johnson once observed that <i>"we hear the loudest <b>yelps</b> for
515
liberty among the drivers of Negroes."</i> Our modern "libertarian"
516
capitalist drivers of wage-slaves are yelping for exactly the
517
same kind of "liberty." [Johnson quoted in Noam Chomsky,
518
<b>Year 501</b>, p. 141]
519
520
<a name="secf83"><h2>F.8.3 What other forms did state intervention in creating capitalism take?</h2>
521
522
Beyond being a paymaster for new forms of production and social relations
523
and defending the owners' power, the state intervened economically in
524
other ways as well. As we noted in section <a href="secB2.html#secb25">B.2.5</a>, the state played a key
525
role in transforming the law codes of society in a capitalistic fashion,
526
ignoring custom and common law to do so. Similarly, the use of tariffs
527
and the granting of monopolies to companies played an important role
528
in accumulating capital at the expense of working people, as did the
529
breaking of unions and strikes by force.
530
<p>
531
However, one of the most blatant of these acts was the enclosure of
532
common land. In Britain, by means of the Enclosure Acts, land that
533
had been freely used by poor peasants for farming their small family
534
plots was claimed by large landlords as private property. As E.P. Thompson
535
notes, <i>"Parliament and law imposed capitalist definitions to exclusive
536
property in land"</i> [<b>Customs in Common</b>, p. 163]. Property rights, which
537
exclusively favoured the rich, replaced the use rights and free agreement
538
that had governed peasant's use of the commons. Unlike use rights, which
539
rest in the individual, property rights require state intervention to
540
create and maintain.
541
<p>
542
This stealing of the land should not be under estimated. Without land,
543
you cannot live and have to sell your liberty to others. This places
544
those with capital at an advantage, which will tend to increase,
545
rather than decrease, the inequalities in society (and so place the
546
landless workers at an increasing disadvantage over time). This
547
process can be seen from early stages of capitalism. With the
548
enclosure of the land, an agricultural workforce was created which
549
had to travel where the work was. This influx of landless ex-peasants
550
into the towns ensured that the traditional guild system crumbled
551
and was transformed into capitalistic industry with bosses and wage
552
slaves rather than master craftsmen and their journeymen. Hence the
553
enclosure of land played a key role, for <i>"it is clear that economic
554
inequalities are unlikely to create a division of society into an
555
employing master class and a subject wage-earning class, unless
556
access to the mans of production, including land, is by some means
557
or another barred to a substantial section of the community."</i>
558
[Maurice Dobbs, <b>Studies in Capitalist Development</b>, p. 253]
559
<p>
560
The importance of access to land is summarised by this limerick
561
by the followers of Henry George (a 19th century writer who argued
562
for a <i>"single tax"</i> and the nationalisation of land). The Georgites
563
got their basic argument on the importance of land down these few,
564
excellent lines:
565
<p><center><i>
566
A college economist planned<br>
567
To live without access to land<br>
568
He would have succeeded<br>
569
But found that he needed<br>
570
Food, shelter and somewhere to stand.<br>
571
<p></center></i>
572
Thus the Individualist (and other) anarchists' concern over the
573
<i>"land monopoly"</i> of which the Enclosure Acts were but one part.
574
The land monopoly, to use Tucker's words, <i>"consists in the
575
enforcement by government of land titles which do not rest upon
576
personal occupancy and cultivation."</i> [<b>The Anarchist Reader</b>,
577
p. 150] It is important to remember that wage labour first
578
developed on the land and it was the protection of land titles
579
of landlords and nobility, combined with enclosure, that meant
580
people could not just work their own land.
581
<p>
582
In other words, the circumstances so created by enclosing the land
583
and enforcing property rights to large estates ensured that capitalists
584
did not have to point a gun at workers head to get them to work long hours
585
in authoritarian, dehumanising conditions. In such circumstances,
586
when the majority are dispossessed and face the threat of starvation,
587
poverty, homelessness and so on, "initiation of force" is <b>not required.</b>
588
But guns <b>were</b> required to enforce the system of private property that
589
created the labour market in the first place, to enforce the enclosure
590
of common land and protect the estates of the nobility and wealthy.
591
<p>
592
In addition to increasing the availability of land on the market, the
593
enclosures also had the effect of destroying working-class independence.
594
Through these Acts, innumerable peasants were excluded from access to
595
their former means of livelihood, forcing them to migrate to the cities
596
to seek work in the newly emerging factories of the budding capitalist
597
class, who were thus provided with a ready source of cheap labour. The
598
capitalists, of course, did not describe the results this way, but
599
attempted to obfuscate the issue with their usual rhetoric about
600
civilisation and progress. Thus John Bellers, a 17th-century supporter
601
of enclosures, claimed that commons were <i>"a hindrance to Industry, and .
602
. . Nurseries of Idleness and Insolence."</i> The <i>"forests and great Commons
603
make the Poor that are upon them too much like the <b>indians.</b>"</i> [quoted by
604
Thompson, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 163] Elsewhere Thompson argues that the commons
605
<i>"were now seen as a dangerous centre of indiscipline . . . Ideology was
606
added to self-interest. It became a matter of public-spirited policy
607
for gentlemen to remove cottagers from the commons, reduce his labourers
608
to dependence . . ."</i> [<b>The Making of the English Working Class</b>,
609
pp. 242-3]
610
<p>
611
The commons gave working-class people a degree of independence which
612
allowed them to be "insolent" to their betters. This had to be stopped,
613
as it undermined to the very roots of authority relationships within
614
society. The commons <b>increased</b> freedom for ordinary people and made
615
them less willing to follow orders and accept wage labour. The reference
616
to "Indians" is important, as the independence and freedom of Native
617
Americans is well documented. The common feature of both cultures was
618
communal ownership of the means of production and free access to it
619
(usufruct). This is discussed further in section I.7 (<a href="secI7.html">Won't Libertarian
620
Socialism destroy individuality?</a>)
621
<p>
622
As the early American economist Edward Wakefield noted in 1833, <i>"where
623
land is cheap and all are free, where every one who so pleases can easily
624
obtain a piece of land for himself, not only is labour dear, as respects
625
the labourer's share of the product, but the difficulty is to obtain
626
combined labour at any price."</i> [<b>England and America</b>, quoted by Jeremy
627
Brecher and Tim Costello, <b>Commonsense for Hard Times</b>, p. 24]
628
<p>
629
The enclosure of the commons (in whatever form it took -- see section
630
<a href="secF8.html#secf85">F.8.5</a> for the US equivalent) solved both problems -- the high cost of
631
labour, and the freedom and dignity of the worker. The enclosures
632
perfectly illustrate the principle that capitalism requires a state to
633
ensure that the majority of people do not have free access to any means
634
of livelihood and so must sell themselves to capitalists in order to
635
survive. There is no doubt that if the state had "left alone" the European
636
peasantry, allowing them to continue their collective farming practices
637
("collective farming" because, as Kropotkin shows in <b>Mutual Aid</b>, the
638
peasants not only shared the land but much of the farm labour as well),
639
capitalism could not have taken hold (see <b>Mutual Aid</b>, pp. 184-189,
640
for more on the European enclosures). As Kropotkin notes, <i>"[i]nstances
641
of commoners themselves dividing their lands were rare, everywhere the
642
State coerced them to enforce the division, or simply favoured the
643
private appropriation of their lands"</i> by the nobles and wealthy.
644
[<b>Mutual Aid</b>, p. 188]
645
<p>
646
Thus Kropotkin's statement that <i>"to speak of the natural death of the
647
village community [or the commons] in virtue of economical law is as
648
grim a joke as to speak of the natural death of soldiers slaughtered
649
on a battlefield."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 189]
650
<p>
651
Like the more recent case of fascist Chile, "free market" capitalism was
652
imposed on the majority of society by an elite using the authoritarian
653
state. This was recognised by Adam Smith when he opposed state
654
intervention in <b>The Wealth of Nations</b>. In Smith's day, the government
655
was openly and unashamedly an instrument of wealth owners. Less than
656
10 per cent of British men (and no women) had the right to vote. When
657
Smith opposed state interference, he was opposing the imposition of
658
wealth owners' interests on everybody else (and, of course, how "liberal",
659
nevermind "libertarian", is a political system in which the many follow
660
the rules and laws set-down in the so-called interests of all by the
661
few? As history shows, any minority given, or who take, such power <b>will</b>
662
abuse it in their own interests). Today, the situation is reversed, with
663
neo-liberals and right libertarians opposing state interference in the
664
economy (e.g. regulation of Big Business) so as to prevent the public
665
from having even a minor impact on the power or interests of the elite.
666
<p>
667
The fact that "free market" capitalism always requires introduction by an
668
authoritarian state should make all honest "Libertarians" ask: How "free"
669
is the "free market"? And why, when it is introduced, do the rich get
670
richer and the poor poorer? This was the case in Chile (see
671
<a href="secC11.html">Section C.11</a>). For the poverty associated with the rise of capitalism in England
672
200 years ago, E.P. Thompson's <b>The Making of the English Working Class</b>
673
provides a detailed discussion. Howard Zinn's <b>A People's History of the
674
United States</b> describes the poverty associated with 19th-century US
675
capitalism.
676
677
<a name="secf84"><h2>F.8.4 Aren't the enclosures a socialist myth?</h2>
678
679
The short answer is no, they are not. While a lot of historical analysis
680
has been spent in trying to deny the extent and impact of the enclosures,
681
the simple fact is (in the words of noted historian E.P. Thompson)
682
enclosure <i>"was a plain enough case of class robbery, played according
683
to the fair rules of property and law laid down by a parliament of
684
property-owners and lawyers."</i> [<b>The Making of the English Working Class</b>,
685
pp. 237-8]
686
<p>
687
The enclosures were one of the ways that the <i>"land monopoly"</i> was created.
688
The land monopoly was used to refer to capitalist property rights and
689
ownership of land by (among others) the Individualist Anarchists. Instead
690
of an <i>"occupancy and use"</i> regime advocated by anarchists, the land monopoly
691
allowed a few to bar the many from the land -- so creating a class of
692
people with nothing to sell but their labour. While this monopoly is less
693
important these days in developed nations (few people know how to farm)
694
it was essential as a means of consolidating capitalism. Given the choice,
695
most people preferred to become independent farmers rather than wage workers
696
(see <a href="secF8.html#secf85">next section</a>).
697
<p>
698
However, the importance of the enclosure movement is downplayed by
699
supporters of capitalism. Little wonder, for it is something of an
700
embarrassment for them to acknowledge that the creation of capitalism
701
was somewhat less than "immaculate" -- after all, capitalism is portrayed
702
as an almost ideal society of freedom. To find out that an idol has
703
feet of clay and that we are still living with the impact of its
704
origins is something pro-capitalists must deny. So <b>is</b> the enclosures
705
a socialist myth? Most claims that it is flow from the work of the
706
historian J.D. Chambers' famous essay <i>"Enclosures and the Labour Supply
707
in the Industrial Revolution."</i> [<b>Economic History Review</b>, 2nd series,
708
no. 5, August 1953] In this essay, Chambers attempts to refute Karl
709
Marx's account of the enclosures and the role it played in what Marx
710
called <i>"primitive accumulation."</i>
711
<p>
712
We cannot be expected to provide an extensive account of the debate
713
that has raged over this issue. All we can do is provide a summary
714
of the work of William Lazonick who presented an excellent reply to
715
those who claim that the enclosures were an unimportant historical
716
event. We are drawing upon his summary of his excellent essay <i>"Karl
717
Marx and Enclosures in England"</i> [<b>Review of Radical Political Economy</b>,
718
no. 6, Summer, 1974] which can be found in his books <b>Competitive
719
Advantage on the Shop Floor</b> and <b>Business Organisation and the Myth
720
of the Market Economy</b>. There are three main claims against the socialist
721
account of the enclosures. We will cover each in turn.
722
<p>
723
Firstly, it is often claimed that the enclosures drove the uprooted
724
cottager and small peasant into industry. However, this was never
725
claimed. It is correct that the agricultural revolution associated
726
with the enclosures <b>increased</b> the demand for farm labour as claimed
727
by Chambers and others. And this is the whole point - enclosures
728
created a pool of dispossessed labourers who had to sell their
729
time/liberty to survive. The <i>"critical transformation was not the
730
level of agricultural employment before and after enclosure but
731
the changes in employment relations caused by the reorganisation
732
of landholdings and the reallocation of access to land."</i> [<b>Competitive
733
Advantage on the Shop Floor</b>, p. 30] Thus the key feature of the
734
enclosures was that it created a supply for farm labour, a supply
735
that had no choice but to work for another. This would drive down
736
wages and increase demand. Moreover, freed from the land, these
737
workers could later move to the towns in search for better work.
738
<p>
739
Secondly, it is argued that the number of small farm owners increased,
740
or at least did not greatly decline, and so the enclosure movement was
741
unimportant. Again, this misses the point. Small farm owners can still
742
employ wage workers (i.e. become capitalist farmers as opposed to
743
"yeomen" -- independent peasant proprietor). As Lazonick notes, <i>"[i]t
744
is true that after 1750 some petty proprietors continued to occupy
745
and work their own land. But in a world of capitalist agriculture,
746
the yeomanry no longer played an important role in determining the
747
course of capitalist agriculture. As a social class that could
748
influence the evolution of British economy society, the yeomanry
749
had disappeared."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 32]
750
<p>
751
Thirdly, it is often claimed that it was population growth, rather than
752
enclosures, that caused the supply of wage workers. So was population
753
growth more important that enclosures? Maurice Dobbs argues that <i>"the
754
centuries in which a proletariat was most rapidly recruited were apt to
755
be those of slow rather than of rapid natural increase of population,
756
and the paucity or plenitude of a labour reserve in different countries
757
was not correlated with comparable difference in their rates of
758
population-growth."</i> [<b>Studies in Capitalist Development</b>,
759
p. 223] Moreover, the population argument ignores the question of
760
whether the changes in society caused by enclosures and the rise
761
of capitalism have an impact on the observed trends towards
762
earlier marriage and larger families after 1750. Lazonick argues
763
that <i>"[t]here is reason to believe that they did."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 33]
764
Also, of course, the use of child labour in the factories created
765
an economic incentive to have more children, an incentive created
766
by the developing capitalist system. Overall, Lazonick notes that
767
<i>"[t]o argue that population growth created the industrial labour
768
supply is to ignore these momentous social transformations"</i> associated
769
with the rise of capitalism [<b>Business Organisation and the Myth
770
of the Market Economy</b>, p. 273].
771
<p>
772
In other words, there is good reason to think that the enclosures, far
773
from being some kind of socialist myth, in fact played a key role in
774
the development of capitalism. As Lazonick himself notes, <i>"Chambers
775
misunderstood" "the argument concerning the 'institutional creation'
776
of a proletarianised (i.e. landless) workforce. Indeed, Chamber's
777
own evidence and logic tend to support the Marxian [and anarchist!]
778
argument, when it is properly understood."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 273]
779
780
<a name="secf85"><h2>F.8.5 What about the lack of enclosures in the Americas?</h2>
781
782
The enclosure movement was but one way of creating the <i>"land monopoly"</i>
783
which ensured the creation of a working class. The circumstances facing
784
the ruling class in the Americas were distinctly different than in
785
the Old World and so the "land monopoly" took a different form there.
786
In the Americas, enclosures were unimportant as customary land rights
787
did not really exist. Here the problem was that (after the original
788
users of the land were eliminated, of course) there were vast tracts
789
of land available for people to use.
790
<p>
791
Unsurprisingly, there was a movement towards independent farming and
792
this pushed up the price of labour, by reducing the supply. Capitalists
793
found it difficult to find workers willing to work for them at wages
794
low enough to provide them with sufficient profits. It was due the
795
difficulty in finding cheap enough labour that capitalists in America
796
turned to slavery. All things being equal, wage labour <b>is</b> more
797
productive than slavery. But in early America all things were <b>not</b>
798
equal. Having access to cheap (indeed, free) land meant that working
799
people had a choice, and few desired to become wage slaves. Because
800
of this, capitalists turned to slavery in the South and the "land
801
monopoly" in the North and West.
802
<p>
803
This was because, in the words of Maurice Dobbs, it <i>"became clear to
804
those who wished to reproduce capitalist relations of production in
805
the new country that the foundation-stone of their endeavour must be
806
the restriction of land-ownership to a minority and the exclusion of
807
the majority from any share in [productive] property."</i> [<b>Studies in
808
Capitalist Development</b>, pp. 221-2] As one radical historian puts
809
it, <i>"[w]hen land is 'free' or 'cheap'. as it was in different regions
810
of the United States before the 1830s, there was no compulsion for
811
farmers to introduce labour-saving technology. As a result,
812
'independent household production' . . . hindered the development
813
of capitalism . . . [by] allowing large portions of the population
814
to escape wage labour."</i> [Charlie Post, <i>"The 'Agricultural Revolution'
815
in the United States"</i>, pp. 216-228, <b>Science and Society</b>, vol. 61,
816
no. 2, p. 221]
817
<p>
818
It was precisely this option (i.e. of independent production) that
819
had to be destroyed in order for capitalist industry to develop.
820
The state had to violate the holy laws of "supply and demand"
821
by controlling the access to land in order to ensure the normal
822
workings of "supply and demand" in the labour market (i.e. that
823
the bargaining position on the labour market favoured employer
824
over employee). Once this situation became the typical one (i.e.
825
when the option of self-employment was effectively eliminated)
826
a (protectionist based) "laissez-faire" approach could be adopted
827
and state action used only to protect private property from the
828
actions of the dispossessed.
829
<p>
830
So how was this transformation of land ownership achieved?
831
<p>
832
Instead of allowing settlers to appropriate their own farms as was
833
the case before the 1830s, the state stepped in once the army had
834
cleared out the original users. Its first major role was to enforce
835
legal rights of property on unused land. Land stolen from the Native
836
Americans was sold at auction to the highest bidders, namely speculators,
837
who then sold it on to farmers. This process started right <i>"after
838
the revolution, [when] huge sections of land were bought up by rich
839
speculators"</i> and their claims supported by the law [Howard Zinn, <b>A
840
People's History of the United States</b>, p. 125] Thus land which should
841
have been free was sold to land-hungry farmers and the few enriched
842
themselves at the expense of the many. Not only did this increase
843
inequality within society, it also encouraged the development of wage
844
labour -- having to pay for land would have ensured that many immigrants
845
remained on the East Coast until they had enough money. Thus a pool of
846
people with little option but to sell their labour was increased due to
847
state protection of unoccupied land. That the land usually ended up in
848
the hands of farmers did not (could not) countermand the shift in class
849
forces that this policy created.
850
<p>
851
This was also the essential role of the various "Homesteading Acts" and,
852
in general, the <i>"Federal land law in the 19th century provided for the
853
sale of most of the public domain at public auction to the higher bidder
854
. . . Actual settlers were forced to buy land from speculators, at
855
prices considerably above the federal minimal price"</i> (which few people
856
could afford anyway) [Charlie Post, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 222]. Little wonder
857
the Individualist Anarchists supported an <i>"occupancy and use"</i> system
858
of land ownership as a key way of stopping capitalist and landlord
859
usury as well as the development of capitalism itself.
860
<p>
861
This change in the appropriation of land had significant effects on
862
agriculture and the desirability of taking up farming for immigrants.
863
As Post notes, <i>"[w]hen the social conditions for obtaining and maintaining
864
possession of land change, as they did in the midwest between 1830 and
865
1840, pursuing the goal of preserving [family ownership and control] . . .
866
produced very different results. In order to pay growing mortgages,
867
debts and taxes, family farmers were compelled to specialise production
868
toward cash crops and to market more and more of their output."</i>
869
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 221-2]
870
<p>
871
So, in order to pay for land which was formerly free, farmers got
872
themselves into debt and increasingly turned to the market to pay it
873
off. Thus, the <i>"Federal land system, by transforming land into a commodity
874
and stimulating land speculation, made the midwestern farmers dependent
875
upon markets for the continual possession of their farms."</i> [Charlie
876
Post, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 223] Once on the market, farmers had to invest in
877
new machinery and this also got them into debt. In the face of a bad
878
harvest or market glut, they could not repay their loans and their
879
farms had to be sold to so do so. By 1880, 25% of all farms were
880
rented by tenants, and the numbers kept rising.
881
<p>
882
This means that Murray Rothbard's comment that <i>"once the land was
883
purchased by the settler, the injustice disappeared"</i> is nonsense -- the
884
injustice was transmitted to other parts of society and this, along
885
with the legacy of the original injustice, lived on and helped transform
886
society towards capitalism. In
887
addition, his comments about <i>"the establishment in North America
888
of a truly libertarian land system"</i> would be one the Individualist
889
Anarchists would have seriously disagreed with! [<b>The Ethics of Liberty</b>, p. 73]
890
<p>
891
Thus state action, in restricting free access to the land, ensured that
892
workers were dependent on wage labour. In addition, the <i>"transformation
893
of social property relations in northern agriculture set the stage for
894
the 'agricultural revolution' of the 1840s and 1850s . . . [R]ising
895
debts and taxes forced midwestern family farmers to compete as
896
commodity producers in order to maintain their land-holding . . .
897
The transformation . . . was the central precondition for the
898
development of industrial capitalism in the United States."</i>
899
[Charlie Post, <b>Ibid.</b>, p. 226]
900
<p>
901
In addition to seizing the land and distributing it in such a way
902
as to benefit capitalist industry, the <i>"government played its part
903
in helping the bankers and hurting the farmers; it kept the amount
904
of money - based in the gold supply - steady while the population
905
rose, so there was less and less money in circulation. The farmer
906
had to pay off his debts in dollars that were harder to get. The
907
bankers, getting loans back, were getting dollars worth more than
908
when they loaned them out - a kind of interest on top of interest.
909
That was why . . . farmers' movements [like the Individualist
910
Anarchists, we must add] . . . [talked about] putting more money
911
in circulation."</i> [Howard Zinn, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 278]
912
<p>
913
Overall, therefore, state action ensured the transformation of
914
America from a society of independent workers to a capitalist one.
915
By creating and enforcing the "land monopoly" (of which state
916
ownership of unoccupied land and its enforcement of landlord
917
rights were the most important) the state ensured that the
918
balance of class forces tipped in favour of the capitalist
919
class. By removing the option of farming your own land, the
920
US government created its own form of enclosure and the creation
921
of a landless workforce with little option but to sell its
922
liberty on the "free market". This, combined with protectionism,
923
ensured the transformation of American society from a pre-capitalist
924
one into a capitalist one. They was nothing "natural" about it.
925
<p>
926
Little wonder the Individualist Anarchist J.K. Ingalls attacked
927
the "land monopoly" in the following words:
928
<p><blockquote>
929
<i>"The earth, with its vast resources of mineral wealth, its spontaneous
930
productions and its fertile soil, the free gift of God and the common
931
patrimony of mankind, has for long centuries been held in the grasp of
932
one set of oppressors by right of conquest or right of discovery; and
933
it is now held by another, through the right of purchase from them.
934
All of man's natural possessions . . . have been claimed as property;
935
nor has man himself escaped the insatiate jaws of greed. The invasion
936
of his rights and possessions has resulted . . . in clothing property
937
with a power to accumulate an income."</i> [quoted by James Martin, <b>Men
938
Against the State</b>, p. 142]
939
</blockquote>
940
941
<a name="secf86"><h2>F.8.6 How did working people view the rise of capitalism?</h2>
942
943
The best example of how hated capitalism was can be seen by the rise
944
and spread of the socialist movement, in all its many forms, across the
945
world. It is no coincidence that the development of capitalism also saw
946
the rise of socialist theories. However, in order to fully understand how
947
different capitalism was from previous economic systems, we will consider
948
early capitalism in the US, which for many "Libertarians" is <b>the</b> example
949
of the "capitalism-equals-freedom" argument.
950
<p>
951
Early America was pervaded by artisan production -- individual ownership
952
of the means of production. Unlike capitalism, this system is <b>not</b>
953
marked by the separation of the worker from the means of life. Most
954
people did not have to work for another, and so did not. As Jeremy
955
Brecher notes, in 1831 the <i>"great majority of Americans were farmers
956
working their own land, primarily for their own needs. Most of the rest
957
were self-employed artisans, merchants, traders, and professionals.
958
Other classes - employees and industrialists in the North, slaves and
959
planters in the South - were relatively small. The great majority of
960
Americans were independent and free from anybody's command."</i> [<b>Strike!</b>,
961
p. xxi] These conditions created the high cost of combined (wage)
962
labour which ensured the practice of slavery existed.
963
<p>
964
However, toward the middle of the 19th century the economy began to
965
change. Capitalism began to be imported into American society as the
966
infrastructure was improved, which allowed markets for manufactured
967
goods to grow. Soon, due to (state-supported) capitalist competition,
968
artisan production was replaced by wage labour. Thus "evolved" modern
969
capitalism. Many workers understood, resented, and opposed their
970
increasing subjugation to their employers (<i>"the masters"</i>, to use Adam
971
Smith's expression), which could not be reconciled with the principles
972
of freedom and economic independence that had marked American life and
973
sunk deeply into mass consciousness during the days of the early economy.
974
In 1854, for example, a group of skilled piano makers wrote that <i>"the day
975
is far distant when they [wage earners] will so far forget what is due to
976
manhood as to glory in a system forced upon them by their necessity and in
977
opposition to their feelings of independence and self-respect. May the
978
piano trade be spared such exhibitions of the degrading power of the day
979
[wage] system."</i> [quoted by Brecher and Costello, <b>Common Sense for Hard
980
Times</b>, p. 26]
981
<p>
982
Clearly the working class did not consider working for a daily wage, in
983
contrast to working for themselves and selling their own product, to be
984
a step forward for liberty or individual dignity. The difference between
985
selling the product of one's labour and selling one's labour (i.e.
986
oneself) was seen and condemned (<i>"[w]hen the producer . . . sold his
987
product, he retained himself. But when he came to sell his labour, he
988
sold himself . . . the extension [of wage labour] to the skilled
989
worker was regarded by him as a symbol of a deeper change"</i> [Norman
990
Ware, <b>The Industrial Worker, 1840-1860</b>, p. xiv]). Indeed, one group
991
of workers argued that they were <i>"slaves in the strictest sense of
992
the word"</i> as they had <i>"to toil from the rising of the sun to the going
993
down of the same for our masters - aye, masters, and for our daily
994
bread"</i> [Quoted by Ware, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 42] and another argued that <i>"the
995
factory system contains in itself the elements of slavery, we think
996
no sound reasoning can deny, and everyday continues to add power to
997
its incorporate sovereignty, while the sovereignty of the working
998
people decreases in the same degree."</i> [quoted by Brecher and Costello,
999
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 29]
1000
<p>
1001
Almost as soon as there were wage workers, there were strikes, machine
1002
breaking, riots, unions and many other forms of resistance. John Zerzan's
1003
argument that there was a <i>"relentless assault on the worker's historical
1004
rights to free time, self-education, craftsmanship, and play was at
1005
the heart of the rise of the factory system"</i> is extremely accurate
1006
[<b>Elements of Refusal</b>, p. 105]. And it was an assault that workers
1007
resisted with all their might. In response to being subjected to the
1008
"law of value," workers rebelled and tried to organise themselves to
1009
fight the powers that be and to replace the system with a co-operative
1010
one. As the printer's union argued, <i>"[we] regard such an organisation
1011
[a union] not only as an agent of immediate relief, but also as an
1012
essential to the ultimate destruction of those unnatural relations at
1013
present subsisting between the interests of the employing and the
1014
employed classes. . . .[W]hen labour determines to sell itself no
1015
longer to speculators, but to become its own employer, to own and
1016
enjoy itself and the fruit thereof, the necessity for scales of prices
1017
will have passed away and labour will be forever rescued from the
1018
control of the capitalist."</i> [quoted by Brecher and Costello, <b>Op. Cit.</b>,
1019
pp. 27-28]
1020
<p>
1021
Little wonder, then, why wage labourers considered capitalism as a form
1022
of <i>"slavery"</i> and why the term <i>"wage slavery"</i> became so popular
1023
in the anarchist movement. It was just reflecting the feelings of those
1024
who experienced the wages system at first hand and joined the socialist
1025
and anarchist movements. As labour historian Norman Ware notes, the
1026
<i>"term 'wage slave' had a much better standing in the forties [of the
1027
19th century] than it has today. It was not then regarded as an empty
1028
shibboleth of the soap-box orator. This would suggest that it has
1029
suffered only the normal degradation of language, has become a <b>cliche</b>,
1030
not that it is a grossly misleading characterisation."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. xvf]
1031
<p>
1032
These responses of workers to the experience of wage labour is important
1033
to show that capitalism is by no means "natural." The fact is the first
1034
generation of workers tried to avoid wage labour is at all possible as
1035
they hated the restrictions of freedom it imposed upon them. They were
1036
perfectly aware that wage labour was wage slavery -- that they were
1037
decidedly <b>unfree</b> during working hours and subjected to the will of
1038
another. While many working people now are accustomed to wage labour
1039
(while often hating their job) the actual process of resistance to
1040
the development of capitalism indicates well its inherently authoritarian
1041
nature. Only once other options were closed off and capitalists given
1042
an edge in the "free" market by state action did people accept and
1043
become accustomed to wage labour.
1044
<p>
1045
Opposition to wage labour and factory fascism was/is widespread and seems
1046
to occur wherever it is encountered. <i>"Research has shown"</i>, summarises
1047
William Lazonick, <i>"that the 'free-born Englishman' of the eighteenth
1048
century - even those who, by force of circumstance, had to submit to
1049
agricultural wage labour - tenaciously resisted entry into the
1050
capitalist workshop."</i> [<b>Business Organisation and the Myth of the
1051
Market Economy</b>, p. 37] British workers shared the dislike of wage
1052
labour of their American cousins. A <i>"Member of the Builders' Union"</i>
1053
in the 1830s argued that the trade unions <i>"will not only strike
1054
for less work, and more wages, but will ultimately <b>abolish wages</b>,
1055
become their own masters and work for each other; labour and capital
1056
will no longer be separate but will be indissolubly joined together
1057
in the hands of workmen and work-women."</i> [quoted by Geoffrey Ostergaard,
1058
<B>The Tradition of Workers' Control</b>, p. 133] This is unsurprising,
1059
for as Ostergaard notes, <i>"the workers then, who had not been swallowed
1060
up whole by the industrial revolution, could make critical comparisons
1061
between the factory system and what preceded it."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 134]
1062
While wage slavery may seem "natural" today, the first generation of
1063
wage labourers saw the transformation of the social relationships they
1064
experienced in work, from a situation in which they controlled their
1065
own work (and so themselves) to one in which <b>others</b> controlled them,
1066
and they did not like it. However, while many modern workers instinctively
1067
hate wage labour and having bosses, without the awareness of some other
1068
method of working, many put up with it as "inevitable." The first
1069
generation of wage labourers had the awareness of something else
1070
(although, of course, a flawed something else) and this gave then
1071
a deep insight into the nature of capitalism and produced a deeply
1072
radical response to it and its authoritarian structures.
1073
<p>
1074
Far from being a "natural" development, then, capitalism was imposed on
1075
a society of free and independent people by state action. Those workers
1076
alive at the time viewed it as <i>"unnatural relations"</i> and organised to
1077
overcome it. These feelings and hopes still exist, and will continue to
1078
exist until such time as we organise and <i>"abolish the wage system"</i> (to
1079
quote the IWW preamble) and the state that supports it.
1080
1081
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1082
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