From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Tue Sep 28 2004 - 12:48:39 EDT
Hi Paul C. > Jerry I have never claimed that the law of value became progressively > stronger in a monotonic way throughout history. > The collapse of the slave mode of production certainly introduced > a shrinkage both of monetary economy, commodity production and > labour mobility. As such feudalism was far less influenced by > the law of value than was slavery. > The retrogression in general economic development associated > with the collapse of slavery affected all sorts of areas: > the effect of the law of value, the possibility of efficient > bureaucracy due the collapse of monetary circulation, general > levels of education, technical development, trade, division > of labour etc. One sees the same effects both in > Western Europe in the late 4th and 5th centuries as in > Haiti after the end of slavery at the start of the > 19th century. > I know that Lynn White, argued that some technologies - iron smelting > the stirrup and the uses of legumes in the agricultural > cycle, did advance in the immediate transition to feudalism, > but it is clear that the general division of labour, trade > and commodity production experienced a profound retrogression. > I do not hold that real history is one of monotonic progress. > There are retrogressions caused by the internal contradictions > of modes of production which are not necessarily superseded > right away by a more developed mode. Then, in what sense, could feudalism be said to be a more advanced mode of production than the slave mode of production? This raises a number of interesting questions .... In solidarity, Jerry
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