As John Milios has noted, II Rubin seems to have understood what Marx meant by the revolutionary path to capitalism as the merchant capitalist bringing craftsmen under one roof and becoming a direct organizer of production, rather than dominating them simply through buying up and putting out (see History of Economic Thought, p.156). That is, Marx did not understand the revolutionary path as one in which by abstinence the petty proprietor raises himself "at a snail's pace" from the ranks to become an industrialist and merchant. This was not the path Marx was calling revolutionary in contrast to the putting out or buying up system. In fact this story of "up from the ranks" seems to me--as it did to Sweezy fifty years ago--to come close to the very apologetics which Marx mocked as nursery rhyme. Maxine Berg's and Peter Kriedte's respective works seem to be among the most important studies of proto industrialization. rb
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