tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061009.post6126389609709864138..comments2023-08-19T14:12:52.220+02:00Comments on Reflection & Inquiries: Potosí and usGeoffrey Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041450398780043453noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061009.post-34740791067041201522010-06-30T11:46:23.041+02:002010-06-30T11:46:23.041+02:00Wood's definition is of course contested by ot...Wood's definition is of course contested by other, especially conservative, historians. I appreciate her narrow specificity, her argument that "capitalism" as we know it is qualitatively different from more ancient, almost universal market exchanges & credit arrangements. The exaltation of profit above all other considerations and valuing human efforts mainly as commodities (the essence of her definition) are NOT universal practices, and can be and are regularly opposed. Thus Wood's argument points to where and how to struggle (without having to combat every market or credit system, even the benign ones).Geoffrey Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04041450398780043453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061009.post-40668908398523014562010-06-30T06:16:21.021+02:002010-06-30T06:16:21.021+02:00That certainly sounds like a fascinating and instr...That certainly sounds like a fascinating and instructive exhibition. I wish I could see it. <br />Wood has a more narrow definition of capitalism than I do. While I think her point about events the 15th century is important (and I recall that Marx somewhere writes about usury laws promulgated by Henry VIII) it seems to me only a step in a long process. My understating is that banking as we know it (in Western Europe - goodness knows what was going on in China and India) began in Florence with the Medicis. Loaning at interest was well known in Classical Rome, and there are what are in effect banking regulations in the code of Hammurabi, about 1700 BC. I’m sure the developments Wood describes were important and made things worse, but it seems to me that once we set our feet on the path of earning money with money we had set our feet on the path of commoditizing labor.Dirk van Nouhuyshttp://www.wandd.comnoreply@blogger.com