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[introduction.]

p This chapter will discuss the third stage of the Middle Ages, when within the fabric of feudal production relations there appeared elements of a new, capitalist mode of production. This process stemmed from the advancement of production techniques and organisation.

p The growth of iron-mining was an extremely important factor in this process, since iron was the most important metal for both agriculture and industry. The first blast furnaces came into use in which pig iron was obtained and then made into steel and iron. More precious metals, copper, tin and lead were mined and there were important innovations in mining techniques. People learnt to use deep shafts and invented devices for pumping water out and air in. Water-powered machines and water-wheels were invented.

Important advances were also made in transport. With the help of the compass long sea voyages far from land were now undertaken; new sails were introduced which made it possible to tack against the wind. All these new discoveries and inventions paved the way for the great geographical discoveries of the period from the end of the fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century.

Great Geographical Discoveries

p It was at this period that the Europeans discovered many new countries and opened up new, hitherto unknown routes to distant corners of the globe. In 1492 a Genoese mariner in the service of the Spanish crown, Christopher Columbus, discovered America, which was later named after another Genoese explorer, Amerigo 233 Vespucci, who was to chart the new continent. In 1497-1498 Vasco da Garna from Portugal reached India by way of the Cape of Good Hope.

In 1519 the Portuguese explorer Magellan completed his first journey round the world at the order of the Spanish King. Setting out westwards from Spain he eventually discovered the strait separating the South American mainland from Tierra del Fuego (the strait of Magellan), and sailed on across the Pacific Ocean to the Philippine Islands. Here he was killed in a skirmish with the natives but his companions continued the voyage under the command of del Cano and in September 1522 they reached Spain, having lost most of their crew (218 out of 234) as a result of hunger and disease. In the seventeenth century Australia was discovered by the Dutch.

The Emergence of the Capitalist Mode
of Production

p Various innovations in production techniques raised the level of labour productivity. However, the small-scale production typical of the Middle Ages was ill-adapted to promote the perfection of the implements of labour: the organised patterns of mediaeval industry were not arranged in such a way as to encourage inventions and improvements. The mediaeval guilds went out of their way to obstruct improvement in techniques or labour organisation, fearing that this might lead to some growing richer than their fellows. Meanwhile the need to expand production made itself felt more and more keenly. This was particularly true of industries such as the textile industry, which had long been organised to supply a large home and foreign market. This applied to silk and wool production in Florence and the cloth industry of Gent, Bruges and Ypres. It was here that the first features of the transition to capitalism were to appear.

p New features paving the way for major changes in the future gradually emerged in the guild system. Higher labour productivity and the considerable increase in the volume of production in various industries led to a division of the production process into a number of separate operations or processes, each carried out by a separate guild. Thus in the Florentine textile industry, weavers’, spinners’ and dyers’ guilds were set up—this being an example of what is known as the division of labour between separate guilds.

p Other changes were also taking place. Merchants disposing of sufficient means would often buy up wholesale produce from one or more guilds and then take it upon themselves to sell it and organise the necessary transportation to the place of sale and 234 consumption. They then gradually started to take into their own hands the supply of raw materials and later that of implements of labour, while the guild members became increasingly dependent on such merchants. Since the charters of the mediaeval guilds laid down definite limits for the progression of such dependence, the merchants would often concentrate their activities in the villages where the peasants had plied various trades since time immemorial and had engaged in various types of production (textile production in particular) to supply their own needs and those of their families. The merchants supplied such village craftsmen with raw materials and tools—spinning-wheels, looms, dyes, etc., while the latter soon became completely dependent on them. The merchants paid these craftsmen as little as possible for their work, demanded large interest on the raw materials, tools and other facilities with which they supplied them, and finally sold what they produced for as high a price as possible. The village craftsmen soon found themselves highly dependent on these merchants, especially when the latter started to supervise production on the spot.

p Merchants of this type loaned craftsmen raw materials and tools and demanded that the latter should sell what they produced to them and them alone, knowing full well that they would receive much more in the long run than they had originally paid for the materials loaned. Sooner or later they would receive not only the cost of the objects supplied to the craftsmen and exact interest, but would also glean additional profit through sale of the finished product. For the finished product was worth more than the raw materials out of which it was made, not simply because the price of the finished product includes the price of the raw materials and part of the cost of the tools of production employed, but first and foremost because its production required a specific amount of human labour.

The entrepreneurs paid the craftsmen for only a part of the labour they expended on production, keeping the rest for themselves. The labour which is appropriated in this way by the entrepreneur is called surplus labour and the finished product produced by surplus labour and later sold on the market brings the entrepreneur surplus value or profit, for the sake of which the entrepreneur asserts his authority over the working men in his hire. At this stage of social development he did not play a direct role in the supervision of production and let it continue in the form in which it had hitherto existed, but he was already paying workers who were producing more value than the cost of their labour power. These entrepreneurs exploited their hired workers in order to receive surplus value. The price for which the entrepreneur gains control over the labour power of a working man is the latter’s wages. The sum the entrepreneur invests in the work of 235 craftsmen and village artisans is known as capital—the sum bringing surplus value—and he is called a capitalist. Surplus value is an essential feature of the capitalist mode of production; it is the end towards which the activity of the capitalist is directed and in which he sees the meaning of his activity.

The Manufactory

Now let us turn to the way in which the early capitalists tried to increase their profits. First they used to buy the finished product of individual producers, later they started to supply artisans with raw materials and tools and finally they started to take a direct part in the supervision of production. This supervision took a variety of forms. For example, the entrepreneur would oblige the artisans to carry out some of the more costly or complex operations, such as the dying of cloth, on his own premises, under his direct supervision. Then he might later concentrate all the operations involved in a specific type of production in special premises under his direct supervision. The latter form led to the appearance of the manufactory, an early institution of capitalist production which became widespread in Europe at the end of the fifteenth century and which was to predominate until the eighteenth century: as a result this period has come to be known as the " manufactory period”. This name is derived from the Latin expression manu facio (I make by hand), since all the essential operations in these manufactories were carried out by hand—by the workman aided by the small instruments or tools which he held in his hand. If the capitalist saw to it that all the work, i.e., all the operations required for the preparation of a given product, was carried on in premises under his supervision the manufactory was described as centralised; if on the other hand the capitalist hired individual men who worked in their own workshops, this type of manufactory was known as a scattered one. Finally there existed a third type in which some of the production operations were carried out in the workshops of individual artisans and the rest in premises belonging to the entrepreneur under his supervision and management.

The Emergence of a Class of Hired Workers

p The three types of manufactory outlined above were all capitalist enterprises since those who worked in them were hired workers, selling their labour power to the capitalist, who by exploiting this labour power obtained for himself surplus value, the main part of his profit. The thirst for profit was the driving force behind all the capitalist’s undertakings and he always strove to increase it, by 236 trying to pay the worker as little as possible and forcing him to produce as much as possible. As far as the first aim was concerned, the capitalist had a vested interest in ensuring that there were as many poor people in society as possible, deprived of means of production and means of subsistence, who were therefore compelled to sell their labour power, the one thing which was left to them. The more such people there were the less the capitalist would have to pay them in wages. So as to raise the labour productivity of his hired workers the manufactory owner would introduce detailed division of labour: each worker would carry out a single operation which would mean that he would get used to one and the same movements to be executed with the same tools.

p These detail workers would soon execute their part of the production process more quickly and thus be able to carry out a greater number of operations in a set period of time than the mediaeval craftsman who carried out all the production processes alone which involved several operations all requiring different movements.

p Another factor which played an important role in the raising of labour productivity was the improvement of tools used in production. The better the tools used by the manufactory workers, the more suitable for the single operation they were obliged to carry out, the less time they would have to spend on it and the more they would be able to produce. Naturally, it was in the manufactory owners’ interests to acquire improved tools and thus make increased profits.

p The new mode of production promised all those who invested their capital in it large profits, and the number of manufactories quickly increased. Each manufactory owner was likely to have a neighbour competing with him, trying to produce better products more cheaply, since that was the only way to feel secure despite competitors. The capitalist mode of production therefore brought about major improvements in tools of production and a revolution in production techniques. The introduction of new, improved techniques by the early capitalists in the interests of obtaining maximum profits was a major progressive feature of this mode of production. The urge to streamline production processes led those concerned to think of replacing human hands by machines which would carry out similar operations but with much more speed and precision. This led to the appearance of the machine, the replacement of the manufactory by the factory, and resulted in the enormous technical progress typical of the modern era. The early manufacturers intensified the labour of their hired workers by improving the organisation at their enterprises, giving better training to their workers, as a result of which many of them became 237 expert at their trade, and finally by introducing better instruments cf labour.

The emergence of the new, capitalist mode of production had historic consequences, and ushered in a new era in the history of mankind. These consequences first made themselves felt in the catastrophe which befell all small producers in both the towns and the villages. The working masses in town and country soon became impoverished proletarians, i.e., people who, being bereft of the means and tools of production and the means of subsistence, were obliged to live by selling their labour power.

Primary Accumulation of Capital

p For exploitation of the hired workers to become possible it was necessary that the great mass of peasants and artisans should be deprived of the tools and means of production and the means of subsistence and thus be obliged to live by selling their labour power. Indeed, this phenomenon preceded the emergence of the capitalist mode of production throughout the world. Through expropriations driving the peasants from the land, through the ruin and impoverishment of craftsmen, all means of production—land, instruments of production, and hence the working people’s means of subsistence—came to be concentrated in the hands of a minority of capitalists, who were able to dispose as they pleased, not only of all that they had appropriated from the working masses, but also of the working people who had been compelled to sell them their labour power.

The evolution of this primary accumulation of capital is most easily traced in England, a country which presents a classical model of capitalist development. Because of its abundant rainfall England was rich in lush meadowland. For centuries the English had prospered by breeding sheep and selling wool to Flanders, where it was made into cloth. As the demand for such textiles grew, wool became more expensive, and by the end of the fifteenth century English merchants started to organise their own manufactories for the production of woollen cloth. The demand for wool grew and the representatives of the English ruling class, in order to expand their profitable wool production started to drive their peasants off their land, enclose the land thus seized so that no one could use it, and put out large herds of sheep to graze there. Sometimes whole villages were destroyed in this way, and the peasants who were ruined after losing their land made their way to the towns where they would seek work at the manufactories.

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Expropriation of the Peasants

p The outstanding English scholar of the sixteenth century, Thomas Moor, wrote that in England "sheep are eating people”. By the mid-eighteenth century the peasantry as a class had disappeared in England. The land was in the hands of the lords, powerful landowners, who rented it out to farmers to be worked by them with the help of hired labourers. This was how the capitalist mode of production came to predominate in English agriculture.

Economic progress was achieved at the cost of ruining the smallscale producers and since the manufactories were unable, particularly in the early stages, to absorb the whole mass of peasants driven from their land, an enormous number of them were obliged to wander about the country searching for casual labour, and if they could not find any, then to resort to begging, thieving and pillage. The government responded by introducing harsh laws against vagrancy. Hanging was the penalty for stealing anything of the same value as a piglet. According to a law introduced by Edward VI in 1547 all those who avoided work were to be made slaves of those who reported them for vagrancy. Such reprobates could be flogged and put in chains and thus obliged to work. If a worker was absent without leave for two weeks, he was sentenced to slavery for life and the letter S was branded on his forehead or cheek; if he ran away a third time he was hanged as a criminal.

The Ruin of the Craftsmen

Although the lot of the peasants driven from their lands was a cruel one, the lot of the craftsmen was no lighter. The growing number of manufactories in many spheres of industry inevitably led to the ruin of craftsmen, who were unable to compete with the manufactories which were able to produce goods that were cheaper and of a higher quality. Craftsmen were obliged to close down their workshops and, if they were lucky, hire themselves out to work in manufactories and otherwise join the ranks of the vagrants and paupers.

Colonial Plunder

p Having already brought about the impoverishment of their own peasantry, the English ruling classes (in particular those sections of them which were directly concerned with capitalist production, i.e., the landowners who had become capitalists and the manufactory owners, only too happy to be admitted into the ranks of the 239 nobility), spurred on by an insatiable thirst for wealth, turned their attention to colonies. It was at this time that the colonial policies of the European powers, colonialism with all its horrors—the enslavement of foreign peoples, shameless plunder and expropriation of their riches—took shape. First the Spaniards and the Portuguese, and then the English, turned their hungry gaze to the newly discovered lands. The cruel and ruthless Spanish and Portuguese hidalgos literally laid waste Central America, the English wiped out large numbers of the native population of North America and the Dutch penetrated South-East Asia.

p The Dutch who had at first lagged behind their English and Spanish rivals, soon made up for lost time. The history of Dutch colonialism in the seventeenth century provides a classical example of an early colonial power with its record of treachery, bribery, murder and base cruelty. The Dutch colonialists even sank as low as kidnapping men on the island of Celebes to add to the slave population of Java, special kidnapping detachments being formed for the purpose. Thieves, merchants and interpreters were the main instigators of this trade in their fellow humans, while the native chiefs were the main traders.

The colonial system made possible an accelerated growth of trade and shipping. "Monopoly trading companies" provided powerful levers for the concentration of capital. The colonies provided the rapidly growing number of manufactories with reliable commodity markets and the monopoly of these markets led to intensified accumulation. Fortunes acquired outside Europe by means of outright plunder, the enslavement of the native populations and murder, flowed into these trading companies’ coffers, providing new capital, which served to intensify the exploitation of the working people in the mother-countries who were gradually being reduced to poverty in the course of the process of primary accumulation. The colonial system which persisted until recently subjected the enslaved peoples to merciless exploitation: to ensure the successful and uninterrupted organisation of this exploitation the colonialists made sure that the population of the new possessions lived in poverty and ignorance, convinced that the worse the living conditions of the colonial peoples, the smaller the wages they would need pay for their labour. Thus the colonialists held back the industrial development of the colonies, forcing the native peoples to produce raw materials for European industry and then to buy the manufactured goods produced in the mother-country. Such exploitation continued for centuries and the colonial exploiters of the past from Spain, England, Holland and France have in many instances been replaced by US monopolies.

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The Formation of the Bourgeoisie
and the Proletariat

The advent of capitalism brought about fundamental changes in the structure of society. Two new classes emerged, the industrial bourgeoisie, owners of the means of production, and the proletariat who did not possess them and who were thus obliged to sell their labour power.

Absolutism

p Meanwhile in the sphere of politics limited monarchies gave way to absolute monarchies—arbiters between the former ruling class of noble landowners and the bourgeoisie, and defenders of both classes from the revolutionary movements of the popular masses, exposed to the exploitation of both groups. The bourgeoisie was gaining more and more economic power but was as yet still not strong enough to contend with the former ruling class for power. Power remained in the hands of the nobles but the centralised monarchy, seeking to raise its revenue, supported the capitalists and bourgeoisie as they consolidated their power, while the latter turned to the absolute monarchy for support, since it assured them the prerequisites for successful competition on foreign markets and provided subsidies to the manufactories, promoting their expansion.

In a number of European states, both large and small, a monarchy of this type was to appear. Even in England under the Tudors (1485-1603) the monarchs enjoyed a rare degree of power, despite the existence of parliament. Yet the growth of the bourgeoisie and its wealth spelt the end of the age of the nobility. Turning the discontent of the popular masses to their own ends, the bourgeoisie started to aspire to power. The era of bourgeois revolutions was not far away.

The Beginning of the Reformation in Germany

The first, although unsuccessful bourgeois revolution took place in Germany. Initially it took the form of a revolt against the Catholic Church—the ideological mask of the nobility’s interests—which, making the most out of the political chaos in an empire broken up into numerous petty states in which there was no strong central government to stand in its way, could look on Germany as the main source of its revenue. For this reason, when capitalist development was at its very earliest stage, the German burghers 241 began to protest against the endless material demands made on the population by both the local clergy, in particular the powerful bishops, and the main bastion of the Church, the Papacy.

Martin Luther

The German bourgeoisie through its spokesman Martin Luther (1483-1546) protested against the exorbitant material demands, and against the Papacy, calling for the subordination of that Church to the secular government. A broad movement spread through Germany and later came to enjoy the support of the popular masses as well. However, the common people demanded not only modifications in Church affairs but also wide social reforms, undermining the very basis of feudal society. In some instances still more radical ideas took on, concerning the reorganisation of society in keeping with "god’s justice”, ideas which reflected the as yet ill-defined notions of the popular masses—in particular the immediate predecessors of the German proletariat —with regard to the possibility of social equality.

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The Great Peasant War

A widespread uprising of the peasant masses—the Great Peasant War—broke out in 1524 and its scale and extreme radicalism was soon to alarm the bourgeoisie to such an extent that they dissociated themselves from the movement, allied with the nobility, and proceeded to participate in the cruel repression which put an end to the movement the following year. As a result the only changes that were introduced were those concerning the Church: alongside the Catholic Church a new Lutheran Church grew up with much simpler modes of worship, less ritual and sacraments and more emphasis on the Bible, which Luther translated into German from Latin thus making it much more accessible to the laity. These Church reforms not only failed to do away with feudal society, but on the contrary served to consolidate it. Church lands and property were confiscated by the princes, who were to profit most of all from the Reformation, growing richer at the Church’s expense., Germany continued to surfer from political disunity as much as ever, while the emperor’s power had become even more ephemeral.

The Revolution in the Netherlands

p The first successful bourgeois revolution was the revolt in the Netherlands against Spain. This country with an advanced economy had been under Spanish rule since the fifteenth century.

p By the beginning of the sixteenth century production in the manufactories was already of a high standard: in the south, in Flanders and Brabant and in the north, in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland, etc., stockbreeding, fishing (particularly herrings) and ship-building were well developed. Antwerp was a major centre of international trade.

p The Netherlands were divided up into seventeen provinces, all of which were represented in the States-General. Yet the country was ruled over by the Hapsburgs, German emperors and Spanish kings, represented on the spot by a Spanish regent.

p The dissonance between the advanced economic development of this country where capitalism was already taking shape and reactionary feudal Spain, in particular during the reign of the religious fanatic Philip II, was to lead to extremely dire consequences. The bourgeoisie of the Low Countries adopted Protestantism and went out of its way to preserve its liberties and privileges, including those of self-government. Meanwhile Philip tortured and burnt heretics and made ready to reassert Spanish power. He led his troops to the Netherlands intending to put an end to all aspirations to self-government.

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p This gave rise to a new and much stronger wave of discontent which was to embrace not only the bourgeoisie and the people but the nobility as well, who feared that their role in the state administration and the exploitation of the people would be taken over by the Spanish nobility, and that the country as a whole would suffer the same fate as Spain’s American colonies.

p This opposition soon developed into an open revolt which was to last from 1566 to 1609, when the northern provinces, led by Holland, freed themselves from Spanish rule and set up the independent Republic of the United Provinces, or simply the Republic of Holland. Only the southern provinces remained in Spanish hands and dragged out a rather wretched existence, while Holland, the first country to set up a colonial system, had reached the apogee of its economic power by 1648, and indeed constituted the model capitalist state of the seventeenth century. The popular masses at this time were subjected to extremely hard working conditions and social oppression, but indeed such a fate was in store for the peoples of all states developing on capitalist lines everywhere.

Thus, we have seen that the initial stage of capitalist development within the framework of the feudal order led to epoch-making changes in society and the state structure: two new classes emerged—the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; the class struggle took on a more complex form which in turn led to the appearance of absolute monarchies. The changes which took place in the domain of religion, science and culture, in other words in society’s ideological superstructure, were no less far-reaching.

Humanism and the Renaissance

p The new bourgeois class—the organisers of capitalist production both in the towns and in the country—needed to raise the level of labour productivity in their enterprises and to produce more, better and cheaper goods in order to compete successfully with their rivals. To this end it was important to know more about the qualities of the raw materials used; in short, a more precise knowledge of nature and its laws became necessary.

p The beginning of the capitalist era was marked by the development of a new intellectual and cultural climate known as the Renaissance. The Renaissance, the Age of Humanism, was bound up with the emergence of the new, capitalist mode of production and the bourgeois class. Economic progress and expansion dealt a death blow to the old mediaeval philosophy supported in Western Europe by the Catholic Church, which attempted to transfer hopes of a just social order to the next life, teaching that man during 244 his sojourn on earth should place all his hopes in the Lord. Now the bourgeois entrepreneurs had started to pin their hopes on their own energy, initiative and ingenuity, and it was man not God that the new humanist philosophy was to centre round. The name Renaissance given to the period when humanist philosophy spread throughout Europe reflects the extent to which it represented a “rebirth” of classical culture. The humanists rediscovered the great scientific, and especially artistic achievements of the Greeks and the Romans and went out of their way to imitate them and, particularly in the field of science, continue where they had left off.

p The first seeds of humanist culture appeared in Italy and soon bourgeois culture started to make rapid advances in other European countries. An important factor contributing to the spread of this new learning was the discovery of printing in the middle of the fifteenth century by Johann Gutenberg in Germany.

p An outstanding figure appearing at the watershed between the religious culture of the Middle Ages and the new humanist culture was the Florentine poet, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). His celebrated Divine Comedy was written in Italian and this fact in itself was of vital significance. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a national consciousness took shape in many countries and humanist writers, despite their impeccable command of classical languages and the fact that they wrote their scientific treatises in Latin, turned to their native languages when it came to works of literature.

p The works of the humanist writers were to contain many reflections on life around them; for their subjects they turned to secular rather than religious themes, and to the common people rather than idealised knights for their characters. Among the brilliant pleiad of poets, writers, and dramatists of this period to receive universal acclaim were Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccacio in Italy, Francois Rabelais in France, Ulrich von Hutten in Germany, Erasmus of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Miguel Cervantes in Spain and William Shakespeare in England.

p The Renaissance period also saw a great flowering of art. Painters and sculptors adhering to realist principles faithfully reflected the world in which they lived extolling the beauty of the human body and the nobility of the human spirit (Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Velasquez, Rembrandt and so on).

p It was also an age of great scientific discoveries. The humanists’ approach to the world was empirical, and it was the scientists of this era who laid the foundations of the modern natural sciences (Cardano and Galileo), mechanics (Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo), astronomy (Copernicus and Galileo), anatomy and physiology 245 (Vesalius and Harvey) and the materialist interpretation of nature (Francis Bacon and Giordano Bruno).

In politics the humanists supported centralised state power, which assured the maintenance of law and order. They attacked the Catholic Church which taught that the feudal order, just as the world as a whole, was created by God and hence every protest against the existing order was sinful.

The Reformation

p Many countries which had started to develop along capitalist lines introduced Church reforms. They broke away from the Roman Catholic Church, refused to acknowledge the Pope as the head of the Church, making it subordinate to temporal rulers, kings, princes or city governments, and bringing its teaching more into line with the interest of the bourgeoisie. A leading teacher of the Reformation was Jean Calvin, who preached that merchants and entrepreneurs who prospered were assured of salvation in the next life, while workers should work conscientiously for their masters, since only by so doing could they, in their turn, become such prosperous property-owners. Calvin justified slavery and colonialism and all the evils arising during the process of primary accumulation.

p All the countries with progressive economies adopted the Protestant religion. Throughout the larger part of Europe the new religion was adopted either in the form of Luther’s teaching in the new Lutheran Church in Germany which supported the rule of the princes, or in the form of the teaching of the Swiss reformer Zwingli, who adapted his teaching to suit the interests of urban trade and the industrial bourgeoisie.

All attempts of the Catholic Church to regain its former power failed. The Jesuit Order, founded in 1540, despite casuistry, mental agility and cunning insinuation, were only successful in a few countries (Germany, Poland, Lithuania) in bringing a number of lost sheep back to the fold after lapses of heresy (as the Catholics called Protestantism).