Where “feudalism” refers to a specific form of society and not just “that time period”
Uuh. I mean it doesn’t, really? That viewpoint is incredibly reductive and eurocentric. It probably made sense in 1860 but it’s nonsense now. A bunch of totally unpredictable shit like the invasion of the Americas and the invention of the heavy plough and the enclosure of the commons and dozens of other things happened and they all, eventually, over the course of several hundred years, ended up at what we call capitalism. But there was a thousand years of “Feudalism” and “Feudalism” isn’t even a particularly useful description for that period because it meant different things in different places and times. And it only really applies to Europe, because China had a wildly different economic history and didn’t ever really arrive at capitalism until Europe started meddling. Same thing with India. There were “Feudal” economic arrangements in India and they never really developed in to capitalism indigenously. Same thing with Japan. Japan was sorta kind Feudal, if we use feudal as a big tent term, and they didn’t really develop in to a capitalist society until the end of the Tokugawa era/early Meiji period and even then it’s complicated.
EDIT: and that’s not even getting in to the ancient world, which had it’s own bevy of weird economic systems.
“feudalism laid the groundwork for capitalism” is just something I’ve heard a few times here and elsewhere, I wanted to know what people meant by it.
the vague impression I always got was more along the lines of “capitalism started because there were just too many non-nobles with money and guns”
or maybe that was my take on early democracy.
In addition to industrialization, one important prerequisite of capitalism is the global market. Mass industrialization requires mass resource gathering through global trade networks. This is done through colonialism, slavery, and exploiting existing strained feudal relationship conflicts in other regions, on a global scale. With the creation of the Gutenberg press and the ‘Age of Exploration’, global trade networks and mass communication was possible, which allowed for the creation of the global market. It’s only when all these material conditions are in place, along with a bourgeoisie revolution (where the merchant class revolts against the aristocracy), that the primary mode of production can change from feudalism to capitalism.
WRT Japan, remember that having capitalism as the mode of production in a society only means that it’s the primary way to produce in that society. The classes of merchants and specialized craftspeople existed under feudalism, but they weren’t yet the main class conflict until the previous rule of aristocracy was overthrown.
On top of the other recommendations, I highly recommend Caliban and the Witch. It’s about gender roles and how they were shaped by feudalism and capitalism. It also does a really solid job explaining how the slaving economies of Rome / Carthage collapse and turn into an early feudal system of Lords and Serfs. It offers very material explanations of the actions and reactions in a 1,000-year struggle between the peasantry and the royalty.
It also talks about how much of our language has been shaped by the ruling class under feudalism.
But it’s mostly about women, and how the ruling class controlled/controls them.
The author opens by saying she’s trying to fill Marx’s blind spot of women’s roles in the class struggle.
thanks for the book rec
For the second question, idk, but if anyone has reading recommendations please let me know.
/u/commiecapybara’s comment touches on some factors, and recommends Marx’s The German Ideology for further reading.
but yeah i’m also interested in more reading recommendations for this topic
I should note that Marx’s writing in The German Ideology forms the basis of what would later come to be known as historical materialism, but Capital expands on it a lot, so if you’ve already read Capital you might find The German Ideology to just be a repeat of the same (and it’s not nearly as detailed in its analysis). I generally recommend it before reading Capital as I personally found it a lot easier to understand the concepts beforehand, rather than trying to tackle Capital first.
the adoption of currency was necessary for the continued power of feudal hegemons. This currency was forced on feudal subjects who were then forced into participating in markets Feudal lords controlled.
Currency is like six thousand years old. We’ve been using coins to pay for stuff almost as long as we’ve been building cities.
check out debt the first 5000 years (linked elsewhere in this thread) - its really really good, and it goes into some depth about the various origins of monetary-type systems and currency money, but also how currency systems arose and then fell out of usage many times. in much of medieval europe, actual currency money was in very limited use except among the mercantile classes, with peasants largely taxed in kind or by corvee and having little or no interaction with formal money (this is of course a gross oversimplification). demanding taxes be paid in the currency of the realm has generally been used as a way of forcing people into interacting with markets (either by selling their produce or selling their labour) in order to obtain the currency they need to pay to their lords
