Ellen Meiksins Wood’s Key Processes That Led to Transition to Capitalist Nation-State
Meiksins Wood was one of the leading political theorists as well as an influential worldwide historian. Wood’s original extensive and original work covered topics beginning from the examination of the Athenian democracy up to the contemporary United States imperialism is believed to be the inaugurator of “political Marxist” view or approach to history. The present paper discusses essential processes that led to the capitalist nation-state, according to Ellen Meiksins Wood.
Ellen wood writes on the history of capitalism relying on Political Marxisms perspective. Her Marxist approach is believed to be derived from the Critique of Karl Marx on the political economy. Marx describes a capitalist form of state as having human labor for sale in markets just like any other commodity. He asserts that goods and services, together with the essential commodities required for human life, usually are produced majorly for profitable exchange. Marx makes it markedly clear that all actors operating in a capitalist state or society are propelled by profit maximization as well as competition. However, Marx’s study shows the capitalists’ works appropriation surplus without coercion by utilizing the market to set rates of compensation for appropriation and wages as a historically and most distinctive important capitalist feature. Therefore, the Marxist political economy tends to argue that capitalism’s origin tends to lie basically in social property instead of commerce and trade (Wood, 2002).
Ellen Wood argues that past historians only perceived capitalism as something natural and an inevitable human behavior or character, which finally came into existence when the trade and commerce barriers were eliminated: importantly, in their understating, various individuals were waiting for the chance to become capitalists. She further claims that capitalism practice did not come into existence up to when a unique set of historical circumstances forced people to do so.
To better understand these key processes, it would be necessary if we dwell first on Wood’s explanation of histories behind transition to capitalist nation-state before discussing the key processes.
Histories behind transition to capitalism
Ellen Woods surveys numerous past works of other scholars to find the history behind capitalism transition clearly. Wood sketches how the works of scholars and economist, such as Max Weber, Henri Pirenne, Adam Smith, and Fernand Braudel only assumed capitalism as a practice that came naturally from trade, urbanization, and commerce once the city occupants had accumulated sufficient primitive capital to enable them to reinvest this capital in production. However, Wood finds out that commentators who were crucial for capitalism transition tend to assert that capitalism transition involved farmers seizing new chances or opportunities to shift from subsistence to product production as feudalism constraints were beginning to be loosened. Several examples that Wood provides include Karl Polanyi, Karl Marx, and Perry Anderson’s accounts. This shows that capitalism is usually an inevitable and natural behavior, which waits for the opportunity or chance, instead of the perceived historically unusual and specific. Wood completes her research on this matter by arguing that people require a history form that provides the specificity, as mentioned above, to sharp relief.
Key processes that led to the transition to capitalism state
In her work, Wood argues that the capitalist nation-state resulted during the unique or unusual conditions of the early agrarian society modern English and the late medieval periods. She based her assertions firmly on Robert Brenner’s accounts on Economic Development and Class Structure during the Pre-Industrial Europe. Wood makes claims that commerce is not equal to capitalism and that it does not in any chance form it since the trade’s dominance in any place was not based on a surplus-value obtained from production, but normally on profit on alienation, as well as purchasing cheap and selling dear, meaning that despite the fact that trade entails seeking more profit or gains, it does not in its owns capacity to influence how commodities or goods are produced.
Wood continues to argue that polities that came out of trade like the medieval Florence together with Dutch Republic’s early-modern experience that did not form or turn into capitalism, are not regarded as failed transition examples, but rather examples based on urbanization and trade flourished extensively in the world’s history without the development of capitalism. Moreover, she argues that several past societies like early modern France contained peasantries that had ample chances to emerge in commercial production, but instead did not utilize the golden opportunity. Therefore, Ellen Wood concludes that there are higher chances that capitalist nation-states may have arisen from the transforming imperatives involved in the fundamental production relations.
She observes the unusual or unique circumstances that arose during early modern England and the late medieval ages as major processes that resulted in changing to Capitalism nation-state. She expounds this by stating that during the Norman Conquest awakening, England was uniquely centralized. As a result, the aristocrats received relatively controlled powers to poach or extract wealth from the feudal underlings directly through applying political mechanisms that, to some extent, were smeared with violent threats. The centralization of England also meant that a unique number of farmers were now not peasants but had shifted to tenants, meaning renting out their lands. The above circumstances led to a market that was in leases. Due to the lack of ways of wealth extraction, landlords later became incentivized to rent out their lands to tenants who could make out the highest pay.
In contrast, the tenants who lacked tenure security were later incentivized to more productively to enable them to win the leases in the now more competitive market. This practice resulted in a cascade impact whereby tenant farmers who were successful turned to agrarian capitalists, while the unsuccessful ones turned to wage-laborers, and were needed to sell their labor so as to earn a living. The landlords, on the other hand, promoted the renting out and privatization of the common land through the use of enclosures (Wood, 1988).
Wood claims that manufacturers and merchants did not take part in propelling the capitalist transition. She ends her arguments on this account by stating that the social property transformation was deeply rooted in the rural areas or the countryside and that England’s transformation in industry and trade was apparent than the cause of transition of England to capitalism.
The other key process that led to the transition to a capitalist nation-state was the agrarian, industrial development. In her account, Wood sketches how industrial capitalism later developed from its origin of the agrarian English. Wood makes claims that the completion of subsistence farming resulted in a large population which now required both purchase their basic necessities and sell their labor to effectively fulfill these wants (Wood, 1988). This action led to a mass consumer market that was quite distinctive from the markets characterized by luxury goods that depicted non-capitalist commerce. The newly developed mass-market underpinned mass production development.
Wood asserts that during this process, England’s productivity was rising very slowly, a factor that compelled the competing economies to indulge in capitalist ways of production. She states that even though capitalism development was an opportunistic event, it resulted in a movement or motion that would later turn to worldwide or global. Wood makes claims that capitalism in England did not lead to its imperialism, highlighting that immediate non-capitalist economies, such as France and Spain had also had a well-established international or overseas empires. However, she offers an explanation that capitalism in England created the distinctive type of power like force or movement, that made England to the social property models relations to other countries that in colonized, offering a mighty economic imperative for individuals so that they may adopt capitalism (Wood, 1988).
England imperialism may also be attributed to or based on the capitalist ideologies of scholars or thinkers like John Locke, William Petty, and Thomas More to justify the taking of land to individuals who were perceived to be making enough utilization or maximum use of the land.
Woods ends his views on this capitalist transition process by sketching the reliance on political structures capitalism of the nation-state, majorly its protection of the private properties, by laying emphasis that the universalities ideologies enlightenment set enlightenment ideas that are quite contrary to the capitalist ideologies. Additionally, she emphasizes that capitalism is the only way that states or humans can organize themselves.
The third critical process cited by Wood to have led to a transition to a capitalist state is the rise of people regarded as the merchant class. Wood says that the relatively stagnant statics feudal means or ways of life that had endured for quite a long time started to break at the start of the sixteenth century. As a result, people began shifting from feudalism through the highly rising global trade. The new merchants the later amassed great fortunes through buying foreign commodities cheaply and vending or selling them at higher prices resulting in the higher gains or profits experienced in Europe’s aristocracy. She states that more importantly, the century transition process from feudalism to primitive capitalism possessed strong state support turning it to the well-known capitalist nation-state as per Wood’s assertions. The European regionally established feudal economies, together with the aristocracy power, ran contrary to the interests of an alliance that existed between the centralized European states and capitalism (Wood, 1988).
Wood says that the European states enjoyed much wealth that it silently required to maintain their expanding bureaucracy and their standing army by tapping into the capitalist economy through the garnered taxes, state loans, and customs, and duties. As a result, these nations conquered their colonies, fought hard for global markets, and took relevant measures against the foreign or overseas competition through their aristocracy power. These measures, as cited by Wood included a restriction on the exportation of raw materials, setting bans on the importation of manufactured products, and setting tax concessions on the exportation of raw materials that are destined to countries or people perceived to be enemies (Tverdek, 2002).
Ellen tells us that the booms garnered from the trades made many countries in Europe richly grow from the taxes accrued, and, in turn, the countries attempted to boost their trade shares by establishing colonial empires. She says that once a given nation had established a colony, it would later impose what was referred to as a trading monopoly. This action was performed by banning all other foreign ships and merchants. For instance, the riches of the Spanish colonies in the United States could only be transported or exported back to Spain. These goods could now be traded on or exchanged with other European nations at various tremendous markups, benefitting, or enriching the Spanish state and the Spanish merchants (Tverdek, 2002).
Also, on this account, Wood claims that the merchants who were regarded as the upper purchaser or buyers served as a link between the producers and the consumers. However, she states that gradually, the merchants started dominating the producers, placing buying orders and making payments in advance, and paying a salary for laborers for their work in goods production. This concept of a salaried worker, according to Wood, signaled an essential stage in capitalist society development. Wood claims that the salaried worker’s introduction in the production process marked the transition from the merchant economy to a capitalist nation-state or economy. She further adds that this transition process portrayed an entirely new class, like the primitive capitalist, exerting much power over the other new class, which were the waged or salaried workers.
Another key process that Wood cites to have effectuated transition to a capitalist nation-state was the new production methods. Ellen states that the earliest or the first industry in Europe was the cottage industry. The introduction of this industry turned numerous individuals or homesteads to turn into mini or small factories, with their production mostly directly directed by capitalists. After some duration, this industry model was widely spread in the whole woolen textile industry and later turned to be a mass production method that was adopted by many people during this era (Wood, 2002).
The last process that is Wood claims to have resulted in the transition to the capitalist nation-state is keeping all the production or mass manufacturing under one roof. Wood says that this action symbolized that there were higher chances or possibilities that the capitalist process was now speeding up through breaking the production processes down to various planned stages or steps. Wood attributes this to workers or employees specializing in a specific production component process. She says that the workers’ duties were lowered to repeating a similar monotonous task over and over again within this process. This action resulted into gains that led to capitalism based on the greater production speed process. She argues that labor division into various obligations significantly shifted the economy to a more capital oriented one. The practice deskilled the craftsmen who had earlier undergone the training of goods production through engaging in the production process throughout (Wood, 1988). These transformations not only transitioned the states to capitalism, but they also resulted in another fundamental transformation in social relations.
In conclusion, it is essential to note that the alliance that took place between various states and capitalism across Europe, as cited by Wood’s thoughts, took place in different forms. For instance, in states like Germany, Wood claims that capitalism was less developed, thus, weaker and that more powerful nations were much more able to exercise or practice much more control over other nations. In Britain, for example, capitalism was more developed; therefore, it was in a position to exercise much more influence or power, resulting in the more free market that expanded capitalism in such states.
References
Tverdek, E. (2002). Review: Ellen Meiksins Wood on the Transition to Capitalism. Science and Society, 78(4), 1936-2014.
Wood, E. M. (1988). Capitalism and human emancipation.
Wood, E. M. (2002). The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View. Verso, 2002.
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