I’ve recently read"The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World" and want to hear what all of you think the answer is, because I feel like the book was missing something in its thesis and I am not very sure what that is.
Trade. Specifically, trade overseas (sea transport is much faster than land transport to the point of qualitative difference) allowed by long-distance ships. This seems to have had dramatic effects from very early on centred around the Mediterranean (e.g. Bronze age, Hellenic world, Rome, etc for more detail see Broodbank’s The Making of the Middle Sea). The secret to merchants’ capital and hence merchants’ power is found in ch5 of Kapital:
The form of circulation within which money is transformed into capital contradicts all the previously developed laws bearing on the nature of commodities, value, money and even circulation itself. What distinguishes this form from that of the simple circulation of commodities is the inverted order of succession of the two antithetical processes, sale and purchase. How can this purely formal distinction change the nature of these processes, as if by magic?
But that is not all. This inversion has no existence for two of the three persons who transact business together. As a capitalist, I buy commodities from A and sell them again to B… [A&B] step forth only as buyers or sellers of commodities. I myself confront them each time as a mere owner of either money or commodities, as a buyer or a seller, and what is more, in both sets of transactions I confront A only as a buyer and B only as a seller. I confront the one only as money, the other only as commodities, but neither of them as capital or a capitalist, or a representative of anything more than money or commodities, or of anything which might produce any effect beyond that produced by money or commodities.(258)
Even in the relatively even playing field of the Mediterranean, this creates the ability of one party, the capitalist, to hold an overwhelming advantage of knowledge of (closer to) the entire process of exchange, instead of one part. In addition, this creates impetus to find new sources of valuable materials (a source of relative surplus value) spurring expansion. These twin impulses help drive and enable early European expansion. The next key to super-imperialism lies in the medieval monasteries.
Moving quickly (for more detail; Landes The Invention of Time and parts of Crosby The Measure of Reality), medieval monks became very fixated on routine, schedule, fixed times unchanged by the movement of the sun, etc. This made them efficient workers, and it spread into the cities. This conception of time (time composed of homogenous, discrete units instead of heterogenous, continous movement) is a necessary precondition for the existence of the capitalist mode of production, but here we are interested in its relationship to the construction of the modern escapement clock (as opposed to e.g. water clocks, sun-dials, etc).
Modern clocks (basically the kind where time is measured by discrete intervals of sounds; the tick) arise from this conception of time, as a way to create clocks that are more consistent. At first, a main goal of such clocks was to regulate monastery life better; it spread to cities and burghers from there. At this point, we are at the pendulum clocks, and these serve well for use on land. However, the clock has applications for navigation.
In sea navigation you wanna know how far North/South you are (latitude) and how far East/West (longitude). Latitude is much easier to find to an accurate degree than longitude, so it was a major limiting factor in naval navigation. The pendulum clock allowed for much more accurate longitudinal readings, but pendulums do not work at sea. Even more complicated, smaller, mechanical clocks were needed, and they were created. This allowed Europe to reinforce its naval navigation advantage regarding trade.
From 1492 and even earlier, the ships developed through mass trade in the mediterranean saw Europe become a global middleman, buying (or stealing) goods in places where they were common and selling them in places where they were rarer. This was ultimately the source of European wealth and power, as they enjoyed a collective near monopoly on (direct) intercontinental trade, flow of information and military movement.
Europe’s dependence on those ships gave it impetus to develop more intricate clocks and ships, and the wealth flowing into Europe gave it the means. As Europe shifted more towards exporting manufactured goods, this created impetus for methods to rapidly produce tons of shit. As manufacture turned into industry (meaning; as the machine was invented and the human turned into a mere motive power and machine-minder), a more controllable motive power was needed, and coincidentally existed in large quantities in the centre of manufacture (Britain).
The information gap also makes resistance, or even intention to resist more difficult:
The circulation of commodities differs from the direct exchange of products not only in form, but in its essence. We have only to consider the course of events. The weaver has undoubtedly exchanged his linen for a Bible, his own commodity for someone else’s. But this phenomenon is only true for him. The Biblepusher, who prefers a warming drink to cold sheets, had no intention of exchanging linen for his Bible; the weaver did not know that wheat had been exchanged for his linen. B’s commodity replaces that of A, but A and B do not mutually exchange their commodities…We see here, on the one hand, how the exchange of commodities breaks through all the individual and local limitations of the direct exchange of products, and develops the metabolic process of human labour. On the other hand, there develops a whole network of social connections of natural origin, entirely beyond the control of the human agents. (208)
…
Since money does not reveal what has been transformed into it, everything, commodity or not, is convertible into money. Everything becomes saleable and purchaseable. Circulation becomes the great social retort into which everything is thrown, to come out again as the money crystal.(229)
Conditions of production (e.g. extraordinarily brutal slavery, unprecendented ecocide, etc) are similarly in “the hidden abode of production on whose threshold there hangs the notice ‘No admittance except on business’”(279-80), so for example while someone might reject trading furs for alcohol if they knew the alcohol was made with horrific slave labour, the conditions of international trade kept most knowledge in European hands. Without being aware of the conditions of oppression, without lines of communication, without immediate knowledge of the Europeans’ goals, etc, co-ordinated defence against Europe is difficult.
You should write a book. I’m not kidding. You packed like an entire semester of knowledge into that comment and made it easy to read. That’s a talent.
Thank for the in-depth response that made things click into place.
Mediterranean to start with. It’s huge and relatively calm to sail on, so lotsa trade, meaning lots of practice (and profit) in improving those trading ships. Rome took this to new (horrific) heights; mass (slave) produced, standardised pottery from North Africa can be found across the entire empire, from Jerusalem to London. Rome’s power (and wealth) was built on this slave labour (both in factories and in villas and in boats).
Rome’s collapse slowed the marketization and decreased the scale, but on the whole by this point, such methods of transport and trade had reached the northern coast of Europe, which has a similarly large, but less calm sea. Traders here needed more navigatory techniques, and of course traders going all the way around Iberia, the sea route connecting these two seas, requires naval expertise.
Europe’s polities are tiny and constantly fighting, in need of cash to pay armies (increasingly, mercenary armies). Merchants are hence supported, sponsered, etc. From here, see my points about the clock and navigatory technology above.
that all makes sense, but why did this “warring states funded by seafaring mercantilism and finance” dynamic not develop to the same degree in north africa or the levant, which were also in rome’s footprint?
was it a lack of good trees for building long-distance ships? was it that europe just has more coastline? was it the mountains of europe making it easier for there to be multiple states that never conquer each other?
i’ve never heard that roman pottery production was a slave enterprise. i mean it’s roman so there’s bound to be some but i hadn’t read it like as a defining characteristic, like quarries, galleys, or latifundia. what’s the source?
This is not the reason but a key reason: Baltic rough sea ship building tech met Mediterranean large scale ship building tech via the vikings. Outcome is caravel hulls. Strap cannons on and now your ship is the naval equivalent of a nomadic horse archer army. You can hit anything with cannons and just retreat to blue waters before anyone could hit back.
Mediterranean ship building was built for scale but mostly joined large blocks of light wood together using mortoise and tenons. This meant ships could be large but were also brittle. Rough seas would snap the boat. But there were still large enough that people could put cannons on them as soon as small cannons were a thing.
In the Baltic, the seas are always rough. So shipbuilders used thin overlapping strips of heavy wood, which were nailed together, called “Clinker built”. These thin strips of wood could twist and flex in rough seas so your ship wouldn’t break. But you could only build ships so big in this style. Viking long ships could never fit a cannon.
Were viking traders first met Mediterranean shipping would’ve been around the Iberian peninsula. So its little wonder that the Spanish and Portuguese were the first intercontinental European empires. The Portuguese were considered the “first” though. And were far more Naval based than the Spanish. Once they got into the Indian ocean they became sea Mongols because they could strike anyone with impunity, claiming dominion over the entire indian ocean. Check out Afonso De Albuquerque for Portuguese exploits in the Indian ocean.
so until the 1800s the Europeans were not actually militarily advantaged over asia/the middle east. 1500s-1700s it was always a pretty close run affair, and the imperial outposts relatively small. european naval vessels were relatively well-armed and nice, but other nations weren’t unable to field reasonable equivalents. this early period of colonial conquests were fueled mostly by the looting of america, small-on-the-map european countries could outspend you, even if their soldiers weren’t much better armed. i’m not counting america because it’s really difficult to win wars against smallpox
but once the europeans have the steamship its joever. motherfuckers moving against the wind, faster than any boats before slipping troops places and bombarding shit nobody thought possible with blinding speed. from a european perspective, seeing the steady progression and failings it’s a bit less dramatic, but for an asian nation one day the barbarians showed up with these things in a world that only knows wind and oar power. and the engineering to make your own relies on a bunch of ground-based shit you don’t have yet either
as to why europeans got the steamship, that’s from the development of capitalism and the looting of america
A large part of the British conquest of India was accomplished prior to the launch of the first sea-going steamships, by frequently heavily outnumbered armies (even accounting for local auxiliaries).
Divide and conquer played a large part, but also the social & financial institutions built in the West to outfit and keep a unified presence in India that was not vulnerable to its own tactics.
Thank you for that perspective, I didn’t realize steampower was that dramatic, but you framed it well.
even in the first opium war a british and qing infantryman were relatively the same technologically, both just dudes with muskets (the Qing military was really declining at the time and their best troops were on the borders, which is why they sucked in the actual engagements), but the steamers ran roughshod over the navy & supported the infantry, which didn’t operate very far away from shore.
That’s fascinating, is there a book you read in particular that covered this well?
Steam power is insane outside of boating. Before all the work in your society must come from potential energy stored in food. After steam you could get free work out of rocks.
i hate to be a pedant but wind and water were also good power sources prior to steam
Europe had a host of material conditions that led it to this position. It is relatively resource poor, and was constantly strapped for hard currency because the trade routes with the rest of the known world were mostly one way: Chinese people didn’t want a wool shirt from England, but English lords wanted silk and spices and porcelain.
This led to robust and relatively stable networks of credit that allowed nobles to engage in increasingly sophisticated and expensive versions of war and exploitation because they had to in order to keep up with their neighbor, who was trying to do the same thing. Because they were always in debt they had to keep doing more expensive things to secure more resources to pay back creditors, and build institutions to manage their money and regulate finance to keep everything from collapsing.
Eventually some landlords on an island found themselves in a new social relation to their tenants, where it was in their best interest to let them make their own living somewhere else instead of farming, and charging rent instead of feudal dues. This put everyone else on the same track or they risked being priced out of their lands and titles by a new class using a new form of socialized labor.
Essentially Europeans had to compensate for their economic disadvantages in ways that drove them to invent systems that created more productive capacity extremely quickly. I got most of this from The Origin of Capitalism, Graeber’s book on Debt, The Verge and Hell on Earth. But that’s my elevator pitch when I talk to people about this.
Edit: Since you read the Verge I’ll just add, I think it’s missing class analysis, it is looking at a set of economic structures and observing that they tend in a direction without tying it to social relations of production. I heartily recommend Wood’s The Origin of Capitalism on that point specifically.
I mean compared to some places, sure. But agricultural products aren’t gonna buy you a fancy ivory cane from a merchant who sailed here from Istanbul with exotic wares. They want something they can get valuable goods with, not grain. The Arab traders in Istanbul can get grain from the next village. You need something they want, or precious metals if you don’t have anything else.
Which isn’t to say you can’t build a good population off of good land, it’s just that “a nice place to live” isn’t necessarily “a rich place in international trade”.
true, but wouldn’t good agricultural land mean more people can live in urban centers?
Thanks for the bibliography, I’ll check out the rest of the stuff in there.
A theme that keeps seeming to come up is luxury goods. Do you think it would be fair to say Europe is rich in useful goods (iron, wood) and poor in everything else? If Europe was truly that poor it wouldn’t be able to actually conquer anyone. Unless I’m mistaken on how poor is meant.
Is debt a good first Graeber? I really should read him soon. He keeps coming up.
A theme that keeps seeming to come up is luxury goods. Do you think it would be fair to say Europe is rich in useful goods (iron, wood) and poor in everything else? If Europe was truly that poor it wouldn’t be able to actually conquer anyone. Unless I’m mistaken on how poor is meant.
Well in the context of international trade it was poor. Iron is all over the place, trees are pretty common. Europe had nothing other places couldn’t get for themselves, and a strong incentive to develop a method for getting things it wanted by a means other than exchanging precious metals for them.
I think Debt is the first of his books I read, I think it’s a good one, approachable and also concrete. Would recommend.
So the shipbuilding was purely an incentive structure thing?
As for iron, it varies so much in what a particular deposit is good for… I should have specified that it’s actually good iron that doesn’t need the katana treatment to make a solid sword. Unless that’s a myth and I’m dumb. The point of this post was to learn lol.
I recommend How europe underdeveloped africa by Walter Rodney if you want to learn more on the topic. In short the answer is that the power came from the development of capitalism in europe.
World Systems Theorists have some interesting takes on this. In particular, Giovanni Arrighi’s The Long Twentieth Centrury lays out an interesting theory about how the nexus of hegemonic power shifts geographically and temporally through the rise of capitalism to an epochal “signal crisis” and through its financial sublimation leading to a “terminal crisis”. It takes an absurdly long durée view, tracing the development of capitalism from the Italian city states of Florance, Venice, and Genoa, through the Dutch, England, and finally to the US, examining this cycle of accumulation and crisis in each case as the mechanism which drives these tectonic shifts in hegemony.
World Systems Theorists aren’t strictly Marxist, but they aren’t allergic either and do cite a lot of Marxist sources.
Terrance Ray and Sean K.B. gave a pretty good summary of the book in a dusty old podcast episode: https://soundcloud.com/user-972848621-463073718/year-zero-the-thousand-year-stare-w-special-guest-sean-kb
Thank you, that book sounds really interesting.
I like how the “shifting of capitals…capital” sort of uses material anaylysis to deflate the story the west tells itself about “Greeks, Roman’s, anglos/french, Americans” (depending on who does the telling)
I also highly recommend Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris, as it goes into great detail about the history of the settlement of California in the 1800s and the roll it played in accelerating indigenous genocide and capitalist accumulation, and continues to do so to this day in the form of Silicon Valley.
